When I first started work as a civil servant in 2017, people were quick to talk to me about issues with the way that we funded digital work. I subsequently had the opportunity of experiencing these challenges and reading countless blogs and opinions arguing that reform of funding was the single most important issue to unlock to truly deliver digital government.I disagree. While funding is important, its just one of a number of fundamentals that need to change that together represent something much deeper and more complex to shift than one particular policy or process.In the digital world, IT leaders spent years refining technology and ways of working to become more adaptive and responsive to change. We deploy updates multiple times a day, design modular architectures, leverage APIs, and build platforms that allow for and indeed thrive on constant iteration and improvement.In government, however, we layer these modern approaches onto a system of thinking and doing things designed in the 19th century one built for a more static, predictable world.Successive governments see technology as a silver bullet. Whether its process automation, blockchain or artificial intelligence (AI), they assume that implementing the technology, perhaps with a few tweaks to a process here or there, will be enough to overcome deeply embedded inefficiencies. It wont.In a policy-led environment, we have to start there. The way government creates policy and legislation hinders the ability to deliver modern digital services. The civil service is not set up for, incentivised to, or focused on creating digital solutions to problems. They bake in ambiguity or subjectivity that requires human intervention, which means its not possible to fully automate processes.The system builds in lots of conditionality and complexity which adds cost and time to delivery. Its difficult and slow to iterate and change policy in line with changing needs, even when change is constant. While there is an aspiration to break down silos and work in multidisciplinary teams, it isnt happening fast enough.Government needs to be bolder and compel a different approach to policymaking. There are many approaches they could take here. For example, they could set up a customer experience duty to compel consideration of implementation up front; make it mandatory to create wireframes or prototypes before finalising legislation; or direct 25% of all policymaking work to focus on solving problems through digital, technology and AI.One of the things that surprised me the most going into the civil service was the absence of data something I was used to seeing when working in the private sector.Having come from commercial organisations where the cost and performance of service lines were understood and constantly challenged, I was surprised to see that wasnt the case in government. For lots of reasons it is hard to define where public services start and finish, and difficult to gather and track cost and performance metrics for those services. But that needs to change.If we dont know what a service costs end-to-end or how its performing, how do we know where to invest or where to truly find efficiencies or improve user experiences? If we dont know what a service costs or how its performing, how do we know where to invest, where to find efficiencies or improve user experiences? Gina GillTo incentivise and drive improvement the government needs to get back to basics and understand spend based on the services delivered rather than the capabilities or organisational structures that exist.We need to understand the performance and user experience of those services. And we should tie both future funding and individual performance to the cost, performance and experience of the services that the public and businesses rely on.Its not all about funding, but funding is important. Current funding processes are designed for things like railways and submarines, not modern software development. They are too slow, too rigid, and too bureaucratic.This results in delaying delivery, not properly funding business-as-usual or risk reduction, and stifling innovation and experimentation with new technologies. A recent review of digital funding also found that departments implement the most stringent and onerous version of processes to ensure compliance, rather than taking advantage of measures that are built in to enable flexibility.Government needs a new and separate approach to fund digital work to allow it to deliver faster and pivot quickly, enabling improvements in real time rather than waiting years for a major transformation programme to be set up.As I left, some departments were setting up pilots to test models to enable this. These need to be tested, mandated and embedded quickly. But we can and should go further. Alongside funding, there is a need to focus on incentives and, given the economic climate, on incentives to save money.The biggest financial prizes need departments to be incentivised to work together to unlock them. For example, if the cost of recidivism is upwards of 18bn per year, we need to collectively task the relevant departments, agencies and local authorities to reduce that cost, rather than everyone shaving an arbitrary percentage off the cost of all services.I spent many years in the private sector and public bodies as a commercial leader. Much like with funding approaches, civil servants take the most stringent and onerous approaches to comply with procurement regulations.Rather than putting the outcome first and working out how to compliantly achieve that outcome, compliance is put first and people hope it delivers the right answer. The cost and time taken to procure along with a risk-averse approach to regulation, leads to long-term, rigid contracts limiting the ability to adapt, usually with a handful of large suppliers as only they can afford to take part in lengthy procurement competitions.The government needs a different approach to procurement of digital products and services, led by digital commercial specialists. It needs to mandate the use of the flexibility that exists in frameworks already to compete faster so that departments use that flexibility - using benchmarks and setting standards for what good looks like. Departments must contract in a more modular and flexible way, allowing for course correction, scaling and innovation from the outset.There is also an opportunity to contribute to growth by creating a GovTech ecosystem, such as Scotlands CivTech programme.Last but not least, there are many things written about the shortage of digital and data skills. What I want to talk about instead is digital understanding outside of the governments digital and data profession which, while improving, is still a long way from where it needs to be.The recent State of digital government report found that digital is not seen as a valued skillset at a time government is looking to technology to play a core part in making service delivery better and more efficient.We should expect senior leaders in the civil service to be able to run digital businesses - which is effectively what many of them now do - and equip them to do so well. We need to embed different expectations in job descriptions, recruitment processes, learning and development, and performance approaches for all senior leaders.Small interventions are not enough to develop leaders that have skills and confidence to lead government in a digital age. A more holistic approach is needed that immerses leaders in digital and enables them to qualify to lead the change government needs.These challenges arent easy to solve, but lots of the building blocks are in place, from understanding the issues to some parts of solutions in departments and agencies.To create a digital government, technology is not the only thing that needs to be responsive - the entire system of government needs to be designed for adaptability.The question is - are we ready to embed this thinking at the heart of how government operates? If we dont do it now, will we ever?Gina Gill was chief digital information officer at the Ministry of Justice from 2021 to 2024, and subsequently executive director of the Central Digital and Data Office, until leaving the civil service in February 2025.Read more about digital governmentLabour announces plans to overhaul digital government - The Government Digital Service will be expanded along with changes to the way technology is funded, built and delivered across the public sector, as Labour aims for improvements previous administrations struggled to achieve.Rewiring Whitehall: The next steps in digital government - Theres a new government in place with fresh impetus to accelerate the digital transformation of public services, but whats going to be different, better and more successful this time around?Digital transformation - the missing government mission? Not for the first time, an incoming government has an enormous opportunity to improve public services through digital transformation - but whoever wins the general election will need to learn the lessons of the past.