The UKs Metropolitan mayors all want digital transformation decisions to be made locally, but theres a lack of understanding in areas such as the time and money required to turn ideas into reality.These regions face a similar challenge in replacing legacy systems to that faced by banks over the past decade, but lack the same skills and financial resources.According to research of the 12 mayoral manifestos by IT services firm CGI, the regional leaders, who represent about half the UK population, are all in full agreement that digital transformation decisions need to be made locally.Tara McGeehan, UK and Australia president at CGI, which is heavily involved in the UK public sector, said: These regions are a long way from Whitehall, and therefore from a priority point of view, in the general understanding of whats going on out in the regions, having mayors who have more vertical interest is a lot more sensible than having all decisions out of London.CGI researched the manifestos of metropolitan leaders in Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, East Midlands, Greater London, North East, South Yorkshire, Tees Valley, West of England, West Midlands, York and North Yorkshire, and West Yorkshire.Weve got lots of interesting mayors now, and I think what theyve all got in common is an opportunity to listen harder to their local people and perhaps make a difference technology forms a major part, she said. To different extents, they have all worked that out.But McGeehan questioned whether theres an equivalent understanding of the skills needed, the investment required and the time it takes to do the work.The challenge of understanding the costs and time it will take to transform local services digitally is deepened by the elephant in the room, which, according to McGeehan, is that much of the IT used in local government is very, very old.The current legacy IT environment doesnt lend itself to digitisation, she said, adding that there are examples of local government introducing digital services, which are in fact little more than putting a digital wrapper around an existing service.In my experience, it takes a long time to get new IT, and therefore you hang onto it and sweat the assets for a long time, said McGeehan. A lot of the systems that exist dont lend themselves very well to a bright, new digital future. And maybe councils want to put a skin over it and call it digital, but actually its not all.Read more about digitisation in metropolitan regionsFor many years, banks had a similar approach to overcoming the roadblock to digitisation created by their legacy systems. Fintech and a huge amount of investment overcame this, but local government lacks the skills and resources of big banks.She added that the legacy systems mean regions cannot apply any principles of artificial intelligence or any kind of digital transformation, because they are stuck with methods of transporting data between many different systems.The CGI research also revealed a lack of understanding of data protection, with just half of Metropolitan region manifestos addressing data sovereigntyIts a hard topic to get your head around and really think about, said McGeehan. Its about where your data lives and not letting your data go off the shores, because it could potentially be misused elsewhere. Its around cyber security and protecting your estate, and that is abstract.Like banks digitising their services, local government faces challenges bringing their customers, the citizens, with them. McGeehan said there is the twin challenge of ensuring mayors have the skills required to implement digital projects and at the same time ensuring the community have the skills to use the new digital services.For example, in my local car park at the railway station, you can only park there if you have the app and youre able to book a ticket, she said. That actually excludes a lot of older people who dont really understand that kind of technology.Banks faced the challenge of bringing older people onto their online banking and mobile platforms. It wasnt until the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced people online, that take-up of mobile banking among older generations really took off.