How government can make digital services accessible to all on government’s future frontiers

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Digital tools and new technologies could have a massive impact on how government services are accessed and delivered—if governments can harness them in a way that benefits all citizens. That depends on more than just timely tech investments. Governments around the globe are rethinking how they communicate with citizens, how they handle data, and how they can make services more comprehensible across the board.

In this episode, we speak with Michele Causey and Jean Barroca about the promise and challenges of digital service delivery. Causey served in the US Department of Treasury for several years before joining Deloitte Consulting LP, where she leads the digital government transformation practice. Barroca worked on smart cities, mobility, and open data projects in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa for the World Bank, where he was part of the Innovation Lab team. He now serves as the global public sector digital modernization leader for Deloitte Technology SA.

Barroca notes that thinking of digital service delivery as simply a tech issue could miss the point: “One of the things that is critical is for governments to stop doing digital and start being digital. And the way for that to happen is that the whole organization revolves around how to create the best experience taking advantage of technology.”

We look at governments that are making strides in providing digital services, from a state that transformed applying for a business license into a one-stop process, to a nation that brought its citizens together to plan for a postpandemic future. We consider how a life-event approach to service delivery could transform interactions with government, and we talk to someone looking at how to achieve that on a national scale. Finally, we consider the challenges associated with widespread adoption of digital government, and consider how to ensure that digital service delivery does not itself become an obstacle to obtaining needed benefits.

Tanya Ott: Think about some of the government services that millions of people rely on: Unemployment benefits. Small business loans. Disaster aid. Social security. Health care. The list goes on.

Now think about how you’d go about getting those services. Do you imagine long lines, numerous forms often asking for the same information over and over again, or waiting on the phone listening to hold music as you wait for someone to pick up the phone?

That’s tends to be the vision of government presented by pop culture. But that doesn’t need to be the reality.

Amira Boland: Too often people have to navigate a tangled web of government websites, offices, and phone numbers to access the services they depend on. Government needs to better meet people where they are and be responsive to how they navigate these moments.

Ott: That’s Amira Boland. She leads the Office of Management and Budget’s push to manage the US Federal government’s customer experiences and improve service delivery. And she understands people’s frustration with obtaining government services.

Boland: A new mom should not have to figure out whether her program is ultimately run by HHS, DOL, USDA, SSA, or HUD, or some other alphabet soup. A disaster survivor should not have to go through the damage to their home or business with the government more than once. A retiree should not have to fear important choices like what age they claim retirement benefits and whether their Part D plan covers their prescriptions.

Ott: But figuring out how to make that happen takes a lot of thought.

Boland: We ran an effort in early 2022 to have leaders at the highest level of government designate five specific priority moments: approaching retirement, facing a financial shock, recovering from a disaster, having a child in early childhood, and navigating transition to civilian life from the military. These five life events are shared by millions of Americans every year, and they represent a cross-section of the kind of services our government provides. They also represent a cross-section of life itself.

Our team spent months speaking to and learning from more than 500 people across 34 states, tribes and territories to understand the things that worked and didn't work, were confusing, even scary, or the things that really made the difference when interacting with the government during one of these moments. Importantly, while discovery sprints should usually take about two weeks, we spent longer.

It would have been easy to outsource that wholly to a UX team or an experienced design team. But we wanted agencies and civil servants to have skin in the game. We had representatives from each agency involved in the work. We built multidisciplinary teams of folks with expertise from state government, federal government policy, digital product development, engineering and valuation. We built in design equity checks to understand whose voice hadn’t been captured yet.

Ott: That work is ongoing–and will be going on for some time.

Boland: Importantly, the charters also explicitly called out that this would be long haul work, that solutions may not be in the interest of a single agency, but collective action would be in the interest of the American public. This is not shipping a few products. This is systems change work. It’s not just going to be fancy new apps. It’s going to be rethinking forms, guidance to states, how whole processes are designed.

Ott: Hello and welcome to Government’s Future Frontiers from Deloitte Insights. I’m your host, Tanya Ott. Today we’re talking about digital government: How technology is connecting government and its citizens to deliver services, how government uses data to target services … and how to avoid a situation where some citizens may be left behind.

I’m joined today by two people who have spent their careers considering questions like these.

Michele Causey is a managing director at Deloitte Consulting LLP, where she leads digital government transformation practice. She served in the US Department of Treasury for several years before joining Deloitte.

Jean Barroca is the global public sector digital modernization leader for Deloitte Technology SA. He’s part of the Deloitte Central Europe firm, and he’s based in Lisbon.

Much of our conversation today is informed by Deloitte’s Digital Citizen survey: 5,800 people in 13 different countries sharing their perceptions of government, public services, digital tools for accessing those services, and more.

I asked if the survey revealed any areas where there may be gaps in the system.

Jean Barroca: I would say there are two main categories that we should emphasize of gaps. One is connected to accessibility and inclusion, and the other one could be connected to privacy and security. And if we drill down on accessibility, inclusion, we realize that only a quarter of respondents actually said they use digital channels or public services in a regular way. This means that people are not using often enough the digital channels that governments are putting at their service.

Ott: One of the reasons for that may be demographics.

Michele Causey: In our Citizen survey, we noted that [in] having access, having knowledge of technical solutions, there are clear gaps. Over 13% of the people that we surveyed said that they don’t have enough knowledge of the Internet in order to access digital government services. And more explicitly, 12% of the people we surveyed said they had either limited or no access to the Internet in order to access services.

Barroca: Younger people tend to use more digital services than older people. There is even a racial and ethnic divide, with minorities using [fewer] digital services in a lot of the people we surveyed. Higher income people tend to use more digital services than low-income people. [It] becomes at a certain moment a question of are these digital services creating a more accessible government towards everyone, or are we actually creating a new barrier by becoming digital?

Causey: As infrastructure changes, as access to education, digital education, digital tech fluency changes and evolves over time, just given the pace with which innovations are evolving, we anticipate the behaviors of the various demographics to change. We also recognize that having accessibility or access to digital services are going to vary based on remote or rural respondents and rural constituents versus those who may come from low-income areas or high-income areas.

I can speak personally, having had experiences living in a very rural community, having access to broadband is a challenge. But as we increase infrastructure to provide 5G services and as most respondents access digital services through mobile devices and mobile devices become more accessible to constituents and residents and citizens, we anticipate that shift to increase over time.

Barroca: It is fair to assume that in a few years more and more people will actually know how to use the Internet and digital technologies. But there needs to be also convergence of that with an intent for design of services that are going to be accessible by everyone. For instance, we should do it on the vocabulary we're using on the way we design the digital tools that are being created, even on how collaboration between different public sector services silos also brings to life event services that really address the specific needs of someone in a specific moment.

All those are critical aspects so that the services we’re designing become both accessible and equitable so that everyone can use them and everyone can benefit from them. Let’s say the digital service provision dilemma, that we would be creating new services just to empower the ones that already have access to it or the ones that need it, the less. And that’s one of the discussion elements that we're seeing more and more that our clients are concerned and our teams are also concerned on how to design services that more and more people can benefit from.

Causey: You are spot on, Jean. I think being able to design for those demographics in mind, recognizing it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach and recognizing the needs of each demographic are going to change and evolve.

Ott: This digital divide is a real problem that governments are trying to address. But one thing to keep in mind:

Mark Raymond: When we say this is an all-digital government, it does not mean an only digital government.

Ott: That’s Mark Raymond.

Raymond: I am both the chief information officer for the state of Connecticut and a deputy commissioner within our Department of Administrative Services. I am responsible for our executive branch technology: how we operate it, the people who do so, and the value that we provide from there.

Ott: I asked Mark to explain.

Raymond: Right. So our online work helps us to free up resources for people that may not have the ability to work with us electronically, and allows us to provide a better balance of the services that people want in the way that they want them. That makes us more efficient and helps our residents be more satisfied with what we’re doing.

If we don’t have everyone having to walk in for a service and 80% of the population can do their work when it's convenient to them, we have more resources to spend and make that process easier for those who just need that that personalized attention.

Ott: We’ll come back to Mark and what Connecticut has achieved with its digital services later. First, I wanted to dig that second gap Jean mentioned, revolving around privacy and security. Those are matters of trust. How might governments engender trust in digital services?

Barroca: I would say trust first starts with having clear physical and digital governance processes that everyone understands, and also having clear messages about the benefit of the usage of data and the digital solutions to a certain extent. This is one of the aspects.

The other one is that we should not forget that digital services also [may] imply having a stressful environment.

Ott: For example, petitioning for aid after a disaster or trying to access unemployment benefits.

Barroca: And, in places where there is not trust in public sector, it becomes harder to have a digital service that actually works.

Ott: The Digital Citizen survey shows that the level of trust can vary wildly depending on the country.

Barroca: One of the things we also asked people was if there could be some differences between the perception of the quality of services they have from the private and the public sector. There was actually a big gap. For instance, in South Africa, there’s 80% of satisfaction on private sector services, but there's only 45% of satisfaction in public sector services.

A different thing is happening in Singapore, where 81% of respondents were satisfied with private sector and 73% of respondents were satisfied with public sector.

At the same time, we asked people whether they would be willing to share their data with [the] public sector. In countries where the satisfaction of public services was better, the willingness of people to share data was better.

Causey: I would add that in our citizen survey, we noted specifically the fact governments organizations in general typically lag in digital services behind the private sector by nearly 20%. In order to minimize that gap, you have to have collaboration between private industry and government organizations, [including] not-for-profits and academia. We provide better services when we can look to the private sector in general for those innovations and being able to leverage those innovations in the delivery of services.

The one country where the gap between private industry expectations and government was small was in Singapore. And that gap was noted [as] 8%. Singapore is delivering their services through a life-event approach and they are able to really leverage the innovations in private industry in order to bring services to their constituencies through their application called Life ASG, which provides more than 70 services through the application.

Ott: The life-event approach is what Amira Boland was talking about at the start of the show:

Boland: A new mom should not have to figure out whether her program is ultimately run by HHS, DOL, USDA, SSA, or HUD, or some other alphabet soup.

Ott: Using the standard approach, that new mom would have to figure out what services were obtained where, and she’d likely have to provide the same information to multiple agencies. The life-event approach is designed to flip the script: The new mom could enter her information once, and it would be shared with all relevant agencies. She would automatically be registered for all of the benefits she was eligible for. The same thing could happen if you were reaching retirement or applying for a small-business loan or entering the country as a refugee.

About that last example:

Barroca: I’m based in Portugal, [so] I'm always allowed to give a Portuguese example. During the Ukrainian refugee crisis, one of the things that worked quite well was that the national identity platform, plus the Social Security platform, plus the tax agency, all collaborated in a way that once you entered the country as a refugee, you got a single digital identity and immediately [could] access all the services because of all the social benefits. This kind of collaboration for an immediate response towards what's basically an extreme human need is, to my perspective, one of the great examples of how digital innovation and digital modernization of digital transformation can really advance the lives of people and making them better in really defining moments of someone's life.

Ott: That sort of information-sharing can make getting services much easier–but it only works if citizens believe their data won’t be misused.

Barroca: One of the interesting things we’re looking at also these days is how [the] public sector is looking at data overall. How can they share the data? Governments realize that they’ve been asking for the same information and the information [is something] we already have.

So you’ve got the data inventories and you realize that what you've got in there is an asset that you need to take care of. This is a complex environment, but an extremely interesting one where public servants are looking towards their data and thinking, okay, there is value in here, we should be using these to improve public services.

Causey: Protecting data is a challenge that all government organizations face. But I would have to say that government organizations are being extremely successful in this space.

We have security protocols in place to make sure that the data we are receiving is protected and that we are actually going above and beyond to protect the privacy of the users. And so really having the infrastructure in place, not just from a technology point of view, but also from a policy point of view, really helps us to understand and better shape the incentives for not only managing that data, but for creating the opportunity to prevent any potential cyberattacks and or inadvertent dissemination of data and information that may compromise the information of an individual.

Ott: Agencies sharing data amongst themselves is one hurdle. Another is persuading citizens that they should share their data in the first place. But Michele says that even those who may be wary about security may see the benefit.

Causey: What we have [found] in the citizens survey is that 70% of the respondents who had challenges in sharing their information were willing to share their data if it demonstrated how services would be improved and if it would actually help them resolve whatever issue they're trying to resolve with the government.

We are able to really improve that customer interaction by realigning and thinking about how we integrate services and resources and present those in a very streamlined, meaningful way. Eliminating silos and thinking differently about how we present services is a way for us to change the perception and the gaps in delivery of service.

Ott: Michele has years of experience working for the US Department of Treasury, so I asked her about some of the silos she’d encountered.

Causey: I think to give some examples [of the] top two that come to mind that I’ve experienced in my own federal career. One being data-sharing. Right now, it’s increasingly difficult for government organizations to share data in the US from the federal, state, and local levels, as well as with international organizations and government entities. And so through the leverage and use of technology and being able to drive innovation, if we could simplify data-sharing and [improve] how we can capitalize on sharing data across these silos today, we can ultimately deliver better services to improve the lives of our residents, of our citizens, and of the public at large.

Another example that comes top of mind [is] funding silos. Historically government organizations and programs are not funded in a way that promotes collaboration across the various government entities.

And so what we’re seeing, for example, in Australia, New South Wales, they are embarking on a new funding strategy that allows them to share a funding pool for resources and for collaboration with their commitment to create programs where the public can actually capitalize on what's called their digital restart fund. They originally started with an investment of over US$1.6 billion in June of 2021 and [then] with an additional US$500 million to extend it to 2024. It’s really promoting that whole-of-government digital strategy for funding projects and digital assets.

Ott: Remember Mark Raymond from Connecticut? I told you we’d be coming back to him. His state is trying something similar.

Raymond: We arranged for central funding to empower the change, and we put contracts in place in only four months, which is really fast for us to be able to ensure future delivery and flexibility. While the concepts of digital government have been discussed for over 20 years, the conditions were now in place for us to be successful, meaning the public was comfortable with using technology that was aided by the pandemic. We had rapidly changing business needs for our residents and businesses also driven by the pandemic, and we had already developed the vision and how we could provide better services if we work together than working individually as agencies.

Our efforts are around the simplicity of the user experience. One of the early success points that we had was around our Business One Stop [site]. We had a small business owner that told us our processes and all of the agencies involved in this were so complex they had to hire a lawyer and pay them for hours of work just to register a business. After the changes, he claimed his 11-year-old daughter could do this without any other assistance.

Then we moved to our paid family leave program, which dealt with the same businesses. Then we moved next to the Department of Motor Vehicles and now we’re getting to our Health and Human Services business. It’s that iterative move across these domains [that] allowed us to bring value to the individual. No additional passwords for additional systems [or] different requirements. Our residents begin to see that simplicity. And that common account is what allows us to personalize their services.

Behind the scenes, there’s a lot of sewing together technologies, integrating things, working on that experience layer, and eventually even replacing some of those older systems. But how it looks to the public]and to our businesses is just [that] we’re incredibly easy to work with and simple.

Ott: That drive to simplicity was prompted, in part, by citizen feedback. They identified the cumbersome, multi-agency process involved in registering a business as a significant problem.

That feedback is a key part of making the transition to digital government—and even government itself—work. And that is supported by something Jean identifies as mass participation.

Barroca: Mass participation is basically the usage of digital technologies, trying to enhance the participation of people.

For that to happen, and for that to have a real impact on how a city or region is governed, there are a few key ingredients. One is the process needs to have clear governance and to be transparent and accountable for everyone to understand what happens. Then, it needs to be inclusive and accessible enough for people to actually take part [in]. This element [goes] towards minorities as well: Hearing their voices is one of the critical aspects. How can you include people that normally would not be so keen to participate and involve them in decision-making?

Ott: Singapore launched an audacious experiment in mass participation called ‘Emerging Stronger Conversations,’ or ESC, at a particularly fraught time. We spoke with Dawn Yip, coordinating director of the Singapore partnerships office in the ministry of culture, community, and youth, about the program.

Dawn Yip: We launched the Emerging Stronger Conversations in June 2020. Every part of what we thought was normal life was affected. A sense was that people would really appreciate an opportunity to come together to share the experience of the pandemic and also their ideas, the aspirations of how Singapore might be able to get out of this pandemic, a stronger nation and society.

Now, at the time, we were still in the grips of COVID, so the conversations had to be held digitally. But we tried to use new tools, like digital breakout rooms [and] digital pin boards, just to make the experience a little bit more interactive and more engaging. And we also had facilitators present for these conversations so that people could participate as safely and as inclusively as possible.

If a society is to emerge stronger from a crisis, it’s going to take every part of that society to play a part. And so, we wanted to open up space for all citizens who wanted to have a part in this conversation, get over 4000 people signed up to be part of these conversations. We had over 80 sessions to engage them, and another 12,000 of our citizens took part in online surveys to give their point of view.                  

I was surprised that people could get quite personal, even though we were virtual. I remember occasions when people were near tears because a young man talked about how he used to visit his grandmother every week and he couldn’t now and how much he missed her. Another person about how they talked about how they lost their jobs. So it really surprised me that we could, despite being digital, still get quite personal, quite authentic, quite real.

Having heard from citizens, we wanted to be able to share back what the government had heard from citizens as they shared their points of view. And so we put out a report that crystallized all of the ideas into 15 broad themes. And these themes covered areas like social support, jobs and economy, digitalization and technology, to name a few. The other thing we did was to put this report out in the form of a website, just to make it very easy for citizens to be able to access.

One of the things that came out of the conversation that we were very pleased about is the alliances for action. These are action-oriented, cross-sector collaborations, whether you’re the people, the private or the public sector, we bring people together to address the big issues of the pandemic and think about ideas and actions they can take together to resolve them.

Ott: Throughout this episode, we’ve talked about the importance of technology in delivering services. But how can governments make change and ensure that the changes remain in place?

Causey: I have lots of thoughts on this question.

Ott: Michele Causey.

Causey: I think it comes down to having a very tech-fluent and skills-based talent model within the workforce. I also think we need to have leaders in government who are open to change and are willing to not only upskill, but recognize that the knowledge needed, the ability to innovate and the ability to think differently consistently in a very iterative, agile way, is extremely important to ensure that change continues.

The pace of innovation is moving so quickly that if we want change to continue, we have to be willing to evolve with it.

Barroca: I would say that one of the things that is critical is for governments to stop doing digital and start being digital. And the way for that to happen is that the whole organization revolves around how to create the best experience taking advantage of technology.

Causey: I think government organizations in general always tend to look for that fully baked solution. And we have to develop iteratively. We have to take in those feedback loops and recognize that it’s okay to experiment and that it’s okay to fail safely and fail fast so that we’re delivering solutions that the public can actually leverage and use. That’s how you increase adoption, that's how you build trust, and it's how you move the needle on being digital, not just doing digital.

Ott: That was Michele Causey, leader of the digital government transformation practice at Deloitte Consulting LLP, and Jean Barroca, global public sector digital modernization leader for Deloitte Technology SA. We also heard from Amira Boland, lead of federal customer experience for the US Office of Management and Budget; Celia Parnes, former head of the Secretariat for Social Development for the state of Sao Paola; Mark Raymond, chief information officer for the state of Connecticut; and Dawn Yip, coordinating director at the ministry of culture, community and youth for Singapore.

Thank you for listening to Government’s Future Frontiers. Remember to follow and subscribe, so that you don’t miss an episode.

Next time, we’ll be confronting one of the stickiest problems confronting society worldwide: homelessness. Is it an economic problem? A jobs problem? A mental health problem? A drug problem? A family problem? A criminal justice problem? A problem for government? Municipalities? Not-for-profits? Private companies? Short answer: yes to all of the above. We’ll be talking to some of the people confronting the issue head-on.

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