Align your Digital Technology Strategy with Government Priorities
UK Government Strategies in Digital Technology - Status and A Forward Look
In this Research Note we set ourselves the challenge of defining the current and evolving landscape of UK government strategies in the digital technology area.
Core strategies …. At its core, we found that the future of digital technology featured in government strategy documents on AI, chips, cyber, data, digital, quantum computing and wireless. Those documents comprised a range of strategies, plans and frameworks; all of which were accessible to businesses through the impressive GOV UK search tool.
Broader strategies…. set by government within business sectors or for specialist subjects also concerned the future of digital technology. We found important digital technology considerations within government strategy documents on clean power, electricity connections, energy security, environment, heat use in buildings, industrial development, infrastructure, planning, medtech, and resilience.
Businesses considering a strategy for data or digital technology ….. would do well in our opinion to examine alignment to both core and broader government strategies. Checking alignment would go some way to ensuring the fullest set of factors are considered before taking major strategic decisions. Bringing that to life, a data centre strategy would in part rely on reliable and renewable electricity supply. Consequently, government strategies on clean power, decarbonisation, electricity connections and energy security become relevant, and if not considered may leave a business strategy impractical, infeasible or missing opportunities. But its more than electricity supply, since chips, connectivity, environment and heat could be just as relevant to a business strategy. If the business lie within the industrial sector alignment to the government’s industrial strategy could become important. Alternatively, in healthcare the government’s medtech strategy becomes relevant, and so on.
Our listing of government strategies relevant to digital technology …. ran to 24 important UK government strategy documents. (See Table 1). Selecting these 24 documents gave some assurance we caught national priorities related to digital technology.
Strategies often need to change …. as step changes in technologies, like in AI, may otherwise leave a business strategy stranded. Arguably, the timeline for strategy revisions must shorten in an AI-driven world because the time between huge capability shifts seems ever shorter. Additional drivers for triggering a strategy re-evaluation are a change of government, and the environmental imperatives particularly over the next five years.
The importance of strategy to business outcomes and risk management, gives a premium to designing and operating a process to trigger reviews and revisions to a strategy. A stark example is the UK government’s currently 8-year-old industrial strategy. Having been published in 2017 its in a refresh process with a finalised refresh expected during 2025 (see Figure 2). Another example is the 5-year-old data strategy which was published in 2020. Government has planned a 2025 refresh of its 5-year-old infrastructure strategy published back in 2020.
Figure 2: Eight Years to Refresh the Industrial Strategy
New governments should confirm current strategies …. to mitigate a risk that old strategies stay in place due to being forgotten during the change of government. One example would be AI, where we have both a live strategy (2021) plus an AI Opportunities Action Plan (2025). Without a recorded validation, an outcome of multiple and possibly conflicting actions could start to emerge. Related to this is how strategy documents issued by a new government avoid overlaps with or complications to existing strategies. Electricity is one such area, with government strategies on clean power (2024), electricity connections (2023) and energy security (2022) all seemingly highly relevant to an organisation; issued under different governments.
Figure 3: Some Electricity Strategy Documents
Our set of 24 strategies came under the UK’s four most recent governments during the period 2020-2025. Within that timeframe, a distinct change from a Conservative to a Labour government came in July 2024. And we should omit the devastating impact of the COVID19 pandemic that hit during the period of our sample, and fundamentally impacted those strategies.
Some risk factors cut across multiple strategies .… such as the emerging skills gap within digital technology in the UK. Basic trade skills such as electrical, building and HVAC technicians are in ever shorter supply. Such shortages are keenly felt in the UK’s big home and infrastructure construction projects, and may also impact operations and maintenance as well as limiting talent flowing into management levels.
Skills shortage therefore becomes a key issue in multiple strategies. For example, the same electricians could be deployed in the government’s planned 1.5 million new houses programme, in major infrastructure like HS2 or data centres, or in delivering the government’s renewable electricity supply commitments.
Table 2: Cross Cutting Issues - Where Digital Technology Strategies Address Skills
So taking skills as one cross-cutting factor, we see it occur in most if not all the 24 government strategies we examined (see Table 2 extract of Elcern analysis on Skills within UK government Strategies).
Complexity may result .… as ultimately the risk from older strategies arises from any resulting overlaps in scope occur, in how many implementation actions result and whether implementation actions might contradict one another between strategies. Already we have touched on potential complexities from the multiple electricity supply strategy documents. Other areas, notably AI and cyber, are also complex with multiple strategy documents and continuing government development of new and deeper documentation.
A strategy roadmap is a key document …. as putting our list of government strategies in digital technology together was demanding in terms of searches on GOV.UK without a roadmap. Whilst GOV.UK is an impressive source, after extensive research we are yet to find a government roadmap pulling together the unique purpose of each strategy, interactions between related strategies and how to find related deeper guidance documents. Indeed, without a roadmap it’s hard to know why certain areas are chosen for strategy development, what is in development and why, and what is to come. That single objective would help government if not users identify old or redundant strategies that should be retired, and whether triggers needed to keep strategies relevant are working. A strategy roadmap could also help the full set of deeper guidance, implementation and monitoring documents relevant to each strategy such that users know how deep they need to go for the full appreciation of the government’s approaches. Finally, a strategy roadmap would help identify how consistent and actionable are cross-cutting issues and actions such as in skills gaps and development or supply chain management.
Local strategies play a key role …. when national strategies, plans and frameworks get translated down into regional and city artefacts by local governments. One of the most critical areas for translating national strategy locally is in planning. Planning sits at the heart of the current government’s economic growth agenda. The national planning strategy includes control over major economic infrastructure applications, and the provision of streamlined policies for decision making to guide planning decisions taken by local authorities under the overhauled National Planning Policy Framework. Local decision-making is taken with reference to Local Area Plans that set out components of the local economic growth strategy. Local digital technology strategies may therefore be seen through the Local Area Plans or in standalone local core and broader strategy documents.
Now a national strategy roadmap becomes ever more important to help direct and keep track of what applies where. Where necessary local government could adapt or integrate with the national strategy roadmap. Within local strategies, careful attention needs to be paid to avoiding conflicts or contradictions both between strategies at the local level, and with the national level. Careful tracking and reporting of action progress is also key to local strategies having real impact.
Local cross cutting factors … like skills improvement or supply chain management in local strategies can play a central role in levelling up employment, pay and benefits between different regions in the UK. So such issues probably deserve priority attention to how they are handled in each local strategy, including their actions, monitoring and reporting.
Strategy actions and monitoring …. need to be consciously designed in each strategy, and then implemented in a way that tracking and reporting their status is simple, accurate and consistent. Given the complexity of the strategy landscape from national through to regional and local level, it can be a daunting take even for government to keep track of actions, and possibly more importantly of whether their intended outcomes have been delivered.
Without actions be expressed in a clear, concise and accurate manner, with action owners and delivery dates it may be very difficult to track strategy actions. Elcern continues to examine the processes used in setting actions within strategies, particularly at government level, and has found wide variations. In one very recent digital technology strategy the approach was to have no action owners even by role declared publicly, some actions expressed through subjective language such as “DSIT will explore how” and some delivery dates expressed in forms like “Spring 2025”.
Developing your own strategy …. involves bringing many factors together to keep your strategy relevant, impactful and So, if your organisation is formulating or refreshing a strategy or considering a major investment, it could well be worth developing a deeper understanding. For example, if your strategy or investment relies on significant financial or stakeholder support from government entities, or where your own strategy might support national or local government achieve theirs.
Getting involved …. In addition to keeping an eye on national, regional and local digital technology strategies, plans and frameworks, we hope that our listings encourage our readers to consider a further step of responding to open government consultations to help future strategies support national interests. Such consultations are periodically announced through GOV UK. The government’s refresh of the Industrial Strategy (Table 1) is one such example.
Overall, it struck us that the digital technology strategy landscape is somewhat complicated, difficult and potentially confusing for businesses to research and align with. And without that check of alignment there is no doubt in our minds that a risk emerges of strategies produced by organisations lacking practicality, feasibility. In addition, organisations may miss opportunities such as access to government funding, or supporting the national, regional or local imperatives.
The complicated nature of these government frameworks provokes a key question. If your organisation is considering formulating or refreshing a strategy, or considering a major investment, is it immediately clear where you might interface with and potentially support a national agenda?
We can help …. At Elcern, we dedicate a significant amount of time to digital technology strategy, particularly on how organisations’ investments and strategies align to national and local government strategies. We review and examine a multitude of regional, local, and city plans around the UK to forge a deep understanding of how organisations can align to, support and benefit from government priorities. Our strategy listing above hopefully indicates our aim to make alignment checks easier, through our simplification of the current landscape, condensed into a single, easily accessible listing.
Do let us know your thoughts on this evolving and exciting area.
It is important to remember that our list does not attempt a comprehensive coverage of all pertinent strategies, frameworks or plans. Readers should always conduct their own research and draw their own conclusions from the original documents.