The government is considering establishing a dedicated taskforce to accelerate the modernisation of legacy IT systems across the public sector, following calls from MPs for stronger central oversight of digital transformation.
In its response to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s Rewiring the state: Delivering digital government report, the government said the Government Digital Service (GDS) would explore setting up a taskforce to coordinate work on outdated technology.
It also committed to publishing an action plan before the end of 2026, setting out how public sector organisations should identify and modernise legacy systems.
However, ministers stopped short of adopting several recommendations for mandatory action, public reporting and stronger accountability.
New push to tackle legacy technology
The committee recommended that GDS establish a Legacy Systems Taskforce with the authority to require departments and public bodies to address outdated technology.
It also called for publication of the government’s legacy technology mapping exercise and a plan for removing outdated systems.
In its response, the government agreed that stronger central coordination was needed.
“GDS will explore establishing a dedicated taskforce including to accelerate and secure system modernisation across government,” it said.
GDS will also restart its collection of legacy technology data using an improved methodology, publishing the findings and a remediation plan as openly as security considerations allow.
However, the government didn’t commit to giving the proposed taskforce powers to mandate departmental action.
It also confirmed that modernisation budgets had been ringfenced during the Spending Review but declined to identify the programmes receiving funding, citing security concerns. Instead, ministers offered MPs a confidential briefing.
Government unable to publish annual digital spending figures
The committee recommended requiring departments to disclose their annual digital and data spending using a consistent methodology.
If you liked this content…
AI could help government tackle legacy IT faster, pilots find
Government launches Cloud Challenge Book to reshape public sector cloud strategy
Public trust in government AI must start with accountability, experts warn
The technology moved. The operating model didn’t.
One Login could cover every central government service within 18 months, says GDS
The government agreed with the principle but said existing financial systems couldn’t produce sufficiently consistent or comparable figures. Instead, it intends to strengthen oversight through the Digital Performance Framework and existing reporting arrangements.
Digital projects with whole-life costs exceeding £5 million must be reported through the cross-government Digital pipeline, which the government said captures approximately 90 percent of total digital spending.
Ministers also rejected a proposed target for increasing the proportion of digital spending classified as resource expenditure to 75 percent.
However, changes introduced at the 2026-27 Main Estimates will allow departments to reclassify up to £1.3 billion of relevant digital spending over the Spending Review period, helping meet the costs of long-term cloud software licences.
The government also declined to identify publicly departments and public bodies that had not adopted basic data protection practices, arguing that naming organisations would not necessarily be the safest or most effective approach.
New strategy to tackle vendor lock-in
Elsewhere, the government has agreed to develop a digital sourcing strategy aimed at reducing public sector dependence on individual technology suppliers.
Led by GDS through the Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence, the work will focus on internal commercial capabilities, open standards, interoperability, data portability and stronger supplier exit arrangements.
However, ministers rejected mandatory supplier-diversification targets and quarterly progress reporting.
The government argued that procurement rules require fair and non-discriminatory processes rather than predetermined supplier quotas.
It also confirmed that its National Cloud Infrastructure Programme would seek to aggregate public sector demand and strengthen competition in the cloud market, working with the Competition and Markets Authority.
The government pointed to existing oversight mechanisms, including Digital Business Reviews involving permanent secretaries, the Digital Performance Framework and quarterly reporting against its digital government roadmap.
From the 2026-27 performance cycle, permanent secretaries must also include objectives covering technology and AI transformation and productivity.
