Government Digital Service (GDS)

Proposal

Carry out an 8-week discovery (estimated £80k cost, delivered as an outcome commissioned via the Digital Marketplace) to identify:

• broader users’ needs across the UK’s local government sector, for:
  • building digital commercial, procurement and contract / supplier relationship management capability
  • supporting successful collaborative delivery throughout the end-to-end lifecycle of digital, data and technology
• how much of this can be commodified, to provide patterns and approaches that scale
• potential scope and activities for a follow-up alpha

Background

The work of CCS, with support from GDS, to develop and grow a newly established digital buying community, directly supports two fundamental objectives and priorities set out as part of the Government Transformation Strategy:

• Grow the right people, skills and culture – embedding the shared principles of the Supplier Standard to support collaborative and constructive relationships across the public and commercial sectors, focussed on joint delivery.
• Build better tools, processes and governance for civil servants – leading a step-change in procurement to spread these approaches to create a marketplace for government buyers.

The Technology Code of Practice, Digital Marketplace and associated CCS commercial agreements, Digital (Government) Service Standard, and capability / capacity building efforts, are collectively central to this transformation, as well as the Local Digital Declaration.