What will 2014 hold for Public Sector?

2013 for the local government was particularly tough with the spending review revealing further cuts taking £2billion out of local authority budgets in 2015-16. But despite austerity cuts over the past couple years, the vast majority of councils performed well against tight budgets. So now the pressure on local government is not only to sustain the savings’ levels but to deliver even more efficiency and productivity in 2014. How authorities are going to meet these steep demands and what will New Year bring for public sector?

Digital by default agenda is certainly the way forward to unlock further savings and transform services to benefit citizens and service itself. In 2013 many case studies emerged showing how local councils turned around their services by use of the latest technology. Zipporah itself was involved in deployment of many projects, which resulted in a great deal of savings for all of our clients. Some of these were replacements of existing IT applications, or installations to replace manual systems . As some of the frontline services are leading this change, others are yet to be “digitalised” as such the transformation is likely to accelerate over the coming year, resulting in more services becoming available online directly to public.

The last quarter of 2013 saw also the launch of G-Cloud iv, the latest iteration of the Government’s procurement framework which aims to simplify the way in which public sector procures digital services. This was a highly anticipated milestone for many SMEs including Zipporah, and with CloudStore infrastructure in place we hope to make our solutions more accessible and cost-effective to the local authorities in the UK. For the local authorities an ability to reduce procurement cost coupled with the growing desire to work with SMEs which are seen as agile and flexible means the G-Cloud iv success stories are likely to emerge this year. 

2014 is also likely to bring a breakthrough in the use of mobile and BYOD policies in the local government. Mobile first strategy has been already taken seriously in public sector with the growing number of responsive websites and the increased demand for mobile-friendly applications throughout 2013. BYOD in particularly, has gained many enthusiasts over the past year, but only few authorities have ratified policies validating use of BYOD. This is likely to change in 2014 as the Local Government Association and the Cabinet Office are in continuous dialogue on how BYOD could be utilised to generate savings and boost productivity.

Although the new year will certainly be tougher, with the local elections on the horizon and more budgetary challenges to overcome, 2014 will certainly be an exciting one to watch. Follow our blog closely to stay up to date with the latest news from the world of local government and Zipporah.

Anna Mazur

Marketing Executive