PUBLIC SECTOR

Attempting to boost growth, efficiency, and sovereign tech proved too difficult. The next leader will face the same challenges... and temptations 

Long have we known that technology speeds up everything, and it's no different with British prime ministers. In the last ten years, the UK has gone through six prime ministers; it took 34 years to get through the previous six. Nonetheless, Sir Keir Starmer had hoped to make an impact on the UK tech industry and the government's use of technology during his tenure. Given the results, it may be a mixed blessing that, after nearly two years, he has achieved little.

The signs were not good from the start. Desperate to invest without raising taxes, his government claimed it could find £45 billion in efficiency savings by applying AI and automation in the public sector. It even gave the cutesy Humphrey moniker to one AI bot in a reference to the much-loved sitcom Yes Minister. No Chance Minister would have been more accurate, as experts poured scorn on the estimate and, just a few weeks ago, a committee of MPs warned that such hype hinders effective digitization of government services.

The botched announcement, which had little impact, set a precedent for how the Starmer government's technology policies would unfold: grand promises, too little thought, and contradictory priorities.

Take another high-profile announcement. In July last year, then-technology secretary Peter Kyle signed a pact with Google Cloud with the promise to "upskill" as many as 100,000 civil servants in the latest tech by 2030. The agreement, announced at the Google Cloud Summit London, promised to help meet the government's target of having one in ten public officials designated "tech experts" to implement civil service reform. Google DeepMind would also work with technical experts in government to support them in "deploying and diffusing" emerging technologies. But the government later clarified that its deal with the Chocolate Factory "doesn't comprise any specific commercial agreement" and there was no payment schedule from the government.

Google's apparent deal was just one tied to a $42 billion (£31 billion) trade pact announced to coincide with a visit from US President Trump.

Just a year later, the government now wants to focus £400 billion in public spending power on UK sovereignty and innovation, including investment in tech.

Nonetheless, the government has shown repeatedly that it is unable to hold its largest tech suppliers to account, as the supplier at the heart of the historic Horizon scandal – Fujitsu – has yet to contribute to compensation for victims of one of the nation's worst miscarriages of justice, one that, in fairness, predates Starmer's time in office by more than a decade.

Also demonstrating the government's tendency to promote conflicting priorities is its so-called pro-growth approach to regulation. Yet, in March this year, the chair of the Competition and Markets Authority's cloud inquiry quit, citing the slow pace of implementing recommendations outlined in a report it published in 2025.

As if to demonstrate its inability to resist the temptation to introduce more regulation when it gets a good headline, the government has set out plans to ban under-16s from social media platforms.

In 2024, the finance minister promised the NHS £3.4 billion in IT investment, claiming it would unlock £35 billion in efficiency savings by the end of the decade. But the investment is under scrutiny from His Majesty's Treasury and requires an act of Parliament to remove the role of NHS England in implementing health tech policy.

Starmer will perhaps be best known in tech circles for resurrecting the idea of digital ID cards, a classic in the solution-looking-for-a-problem genre. In September last year, the Starmer-backed policy promised that all legal residents would use digital identity to prove their right to work by the end of the current Parliament, which could run until August 2029. But by May this year, the plan, which leaves questions over its funding unanswered, was slammed by MPs as a poorly planned "fiasco."

In the next few weeks, or possibly days, the UK will get some clarity on the identity of the next prime minister. Front-runner Andy Burnham has already spoken out against digital ID cards, suggesting plans might be nixed if he wins power.

Nonetheless, UK citizens can look forward to another ride on the government tech hype cycle. The next prime minister will be caught in the trap between unwanted tax rises and much-needed public investment, just like the last. A politician in a tight spot seldom keeps their hands out of the cookie jar of tech promises for long. ®