SCC’s new public sector chief sets sights on trust, AI scale and government transformation

SCC’s newly appointed head of public sector, Alexandra Wilkinson, believes government organisations are entering a period of profound technological and organisational change – and says suppliers must respond with solutions tailored specifically to public sector realities rather than repackaged commercial offerings.

Speaking to Think Digital Partners just one week in the job, Wilkinson (pictured) said the IT provider’s long-standing public sector heritage and British ownership were key attractions for taking the role.

The company delivers more than £400 million of IT services annually through public sector frameworks and ranks among the UK’s top five valued-added resellers by public sector revenue across more than 30 frameworks.

Wilkinson, whose previous roles include senior positions at Microsoft and NTT, said SCC’s ability to bring together technologies from multiple vendors to solve complex public sector challenges was a major differentiator.

“That was one of the reasons I was really intrigued by SCC,” she said. “If you come up with a transformation programme, it could have 10 different vendors and technologies that we can help bring together.”

She added: “My vision is pretty straightforward. I want SCC to be the most trusted technology partner in the UK public sector. I’m not saying the biggest – I’m saying the most trusted.”

Four priorities for government technology

Wilkinson said she sees four major areas where SCC can have the biggest impact across government.

The first is local government, where councils are navigating severe financial pressures alongside large-scale reorganisation. Referring to the government’s local government reorganisation agenda, she described the scale of change underway as “huge”.

“Helping them modernise while they do that without adding complexity is going to be really important,” she said.

Central government productivity and digitisation is another focus. Wilkinson pointed to the persistence of paper-based processes across government as evidence that many departments still have significant modernisation work ahead.

“There are some real quick things there that I think we can do. It’s more about productivity and the efficiency agenda,” she said.

Her third priority is defence and national security, where she believes sovereignty and resilience are becoming increasingly important considerations amid geopolitical uncertainty.

“That trust and resilience – and us being British-owned – actually matters more than ever,” she said.

The final pillar is healthcare, where Wilkinson wants SCC to move beyond being viewed purely as an IT supplier and towards helping NHS organisations drive broader transformation. She said SCC’s regional structure could position the company well to support NHS trusts and integrated care systems more closely.

AI ambitions collide with public sector realities

Wilkinson said public sector organisations are now moving beyond AI experimentation and beginning to confront the far harder challenge of scaling deployments safely and effectively.

“Most organisations have run successful AI pilots. The technology does work. The problem is getting to scale,” she said.

She identified three key barriers: legacy infrastructure, governance concerns and skills shortages.

“The blockers are usually legacy data infrastructure that can’t support the modern AI pipelines people want,” she said. “Then data governance is obviously huge in public sector.”

Wilkinson argued that maintaining citizen trust will ultimately determine how quickly AI adoption can progress across government services.

“If government don’t have trust, that can be eroded very quickly. As soon as one thing goes wrong, the trust is going to be eroded,” she said.

She added that many organisations also lack the in-house expertise required to operationalise AI projects once pilots move into production.

“I see our role as helping them build the foundations that make AI viable at scale,” she said. “Cloud infrastructure, data architecture and workforce planning – you can’t do one pillar without all three.”

Sovereignty moves up the agenda

Wilkinson also expects sovereignty and supply chain resilience to become increasingly important themes across public sector procurement. While she said it was too early in her tenure to draw conclusions from customer conversations, she acknowledged the issue is becoming more prominent.

“It’s definitely a positive and a USP that SCC has,” she said of the company’s UK ownership.

She added that the changing geopolitical climate was creating new uncertainty for public sector organisations and suppliers alike.

“How can we, as someone with huge heritage and British sovereignty, add stability to public sector organisations and civil servants when there is that uncertainty?” she said.

Wilkinson also pointed to broader supply chain disruption, dynamic pricing and hardware shortages as ongoing challenges affecting the market. However, she argued SCC’s breadth of services, including device lifecycle management, recycling and secure configuration services, gives the business flexibility to adapt as conditions change.

Wilkinson added that she wants SCC to become known not just for technology delivery, but for helping public sector leaders solve difficult operational and organisational challenges.

“I want public sector leaders to call us and say: ‘We’ve got a hard, difficult, complex problem – can you help us?’” she said. “In those situations, the technology becomes secondary.”