Fed-up Brits demand better digital services from government

Fed up with the time spent on trying to access government public services, two-thirds of Brits (66 percent) want to see the government deliver a fully digital suite of online public services.

A survey from Nortal reports that consumers spent on average a total of 12 hours engaging with government public services in the last year – this equates to 75,000-years’ worth of time lost annually for the UKs working population.

Most (85 percent) Brits want the shift to digital to occur within the next two years. Moreover, they expect the usability of digital public services to match up to that of the services offered by large private sector companies – like Uber, Netflix or Amazon.

This trend illustrates an evolution in user expectations. Brits identified the top features they found most beneficial for app-based private sector services was time-saving (38 percent), and simplicity and ease of use (33 percent).

In contrast, according to the survey, the most common criticism of current government service provision was time wasted, making it the main reason for dissatisfaction and mistrust in digital public services. Twenty-nine percent of UK respondents surveyed who are dissatisfied with the quality of public services offered by the government feel issues take too long to resolve and 28 percent find the process of interacting with government services too time-consuming.

Standard of digital public services needs to improve

Nortal was a driving force behind e-Estonia, widely considered to be the one of most advanced digital governments in the world. The company’s UK public sector lead, John Cheal, said the message from the UK is loud and clear.

“The standard of digital public services needs to improve. People today expect their digital experiences with the government to mirror the slick, seamless and simple interactions they get from private sector services,” he said.

However, while Brits expect the government to offer services in the same way that they receive products and services from some of the world’s most popular brands, there is a notable level of mistrust that it can – and will – deliver. Thirty-one percent of Brits are not confident in the government’s ability to deliver digital public services in the near future. Similarly, nearly half of Brits (47 percent) agree that government agencies would not be able to achieve the same level of digitalisation as companies in the private sector. A challenge that is compounded further by the fact that three in ten Brits would be more likely to share their data with a private company – for the benefit of getting a personalised service as a result – than they would be with the government, a number that rises to 40 percent amongst Gen Z and 42 percent in Millennials. 

Elsewhere, ongoing concerns around ‘security and privacy’ remain the biggest concern for 42 percent of Brits for getting all public digital services online. 

“We’re still seeing too much time wasted by people when it comes to dealing with the government and waiting for issues to be resolved – time that can be better spent elsewhere,” said Cheal. “In an election year, improving the productivity of UK plc. will be a focus for the main parties and, it’s clear from our research that a simple way to do this – and give the country back 75,000 years’ worth of annual wasted hours – is to move faster in getting to a future with high-quality digital services at the core. But this must and can be done in a way that doesn’t leave segments of society behind.”