eGovernment Benchmark Scotland 2020

Well designed and executed digital services should enable citizens and businesses to seamlessly interact with public services, on their terms.  Digital can overcome the organisational silos of Government Directorates, agencies and local authorities.  It can also enable public services to be more proactive, in wrapping support around individuals, families, communities and businesses that need help to overcome their problems.

The COVID-19 pandemic has indisputably underlined the critical importance of trusted, effective and scalable digital services in every aspect of public service: education, healthcare, social care, social security, business support and grants, etc.  The continued need for social-distancing, on-going localised ‘lock downs’ and quarantining individuals and groups, is highlighting the successes and limitations of today’s digital public service capability.

In the light of these developments and the revision of the Scottish Government’s Digital Strategy “Realising Scotland’s full potential in a Digital World”, Capgemini was asked to conduct a benchmarking study with a specific focus on the effectiveness of Scotland’s digital public services. The aim of this study is to provide an assessment, at this moment in time, of how Scotland is performing when compared to other nations across Europe.

We evaluated the ‘digital maturity’ of Scottish eGovernment services based on a methodology developed, used and revised for the European Commission over many years.  This enables Scotland to be benchmarked against European peers and frontrunners, highlighting its strengths as well as areas for improvement. The eGovernment Benchmark Scotland 2020 shows that the Scottish Government is proving itself in developing a holistic way of delivering online government services with the biggest challenge being less about anticipating what comes next, but ensuring a government that is able to deal with change.