Upskill to empower: How the tech sector can help the government drive long-term value

When you deliver high-quality government services, quick fixes don’t make the cut. Citizens need dependable systems of engagement, and the reassurance that their government is using taxes to drive public services value efficiently and sustainably.

How can the tech sector help the government make this a reality? The way forward is a radical change: continuing to build technical solutions for government departments, whilst in parallel upskilling in-house teams to run their solutions independently of suppliers’ support.

I’ll explain how this works through Tecknuovo’s Zero Dependency Framework, and how we used it to help a major government department build a reusable, long-lasting testing framework that the teams are now running independently to secure a piece of nationally critical infrastructure.

What’s stopping the government from creating lasting value?

Technology is the key to improving services to the public. But, because these services are so critical, because the government often lacks technical in-house expertise, and because suppliers usually guard their IP closely, public sector organisations often become reliant on their technology suppliers.

This is bad news for creating lasting value in public services. When technology suppliers extend contracts through “land and expand” models, the work can ‘run away’ from the customer, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill. Complicated custom configurations make it difficult to switch suppliers, and if the customer does, it can lead to unaffordable downtime.

This relationship is so commonplace it’s now widely accepted — but there’s another way.

Eliminating supplier dependency to maximise long-term value for public services

The most straightforward way to solve the dependency dilemma is to train your teams to take control of the technology. Tecknuovo has an innovative methodology for doing just that: the Zero Dependency Framework. It upskills customers’ teams hand-in-hand with delivering their business-critical solutions, meaning that by the end of the engagement, they’re empowered to pick up, maintain, and improve their technology.

In short, it focuses on sustainable value by building capability in-house. We choose technologies and design architectures that are low maintenance and have reusable features to secure accessible, long-term value.

Putting Zero Dependency into play for the government

What does Zero Dependency for government look like in practice? I can share a great example from our work with a major government department to paint the picture. Our customer was building a greenfield system to handle an anticipated skyrocketing volume of data processing following a trade restructure. To run error-free and resiliently, the system needed a watertight testing system. That’s where our teams came in.

We built a comprehensive API-based testing framework to meet the requirement, and in the spirit of boosting our customer’s long-term value and agency, we designed it with reusability front-of-mind. That meant the cross-functional teams could pick up the framework, apply minimal changes, and use it across the department’s entire portfolio of work.

Short term, our work helped our customer process three million declarations in the first week post-launch and accelerate story point delivery by 25%. But the long-term results carry the real weight. From day one, we began upskilling our customer’s teams on using and replicating the system. That means they can now produce APIs 50% faster than before — fully independently of our support and saving a huge amount of time and taxpayers’ money.

A shining future of in-house technical capability in government

In a world where all government departments fully own the technology that helps them serve citizens, we would be miles ahead on the journey to maximising value in public services. A full transition to Zero Dependency won’t be an overnight switch, but an infinitely valuable one if government wants to ensure long-term value for its services through technology.

Andy Price, Chief Commercial Officer, Tecknuovo

Andy helps our customers solve complex challenges with his long track record of professional services expertise and a people-first approach. He’s dedicated to building lifelong relationships and enduring customer capability, and loves nothing more than creating extraordinary customer experiences.