As a part of our sequence of interviews with a few of authorities’s foremost leaders – printed in partnership with CDDO – HM Treasury’s Cat Little discusses management, AI, and the upcoming spending evaluation
Despite such distractions, the public spending chief found “lots of positives” in conducting the process virtually. The experiences of 2020 and 2021 – which brought a full, three-year comprehensive spending review – “turbo-charged” the Treasury’s use of digital tools, according to Little.
She took on the role of acting permanent secretary in September 2022 and the following month was appointed to the post of second permanent secretary. In this role, she now oversees public spending, international and national security policy. She combines this with her positions as head of the Government Finance Function and Chair of the Finance Leadership Group for Government.
HM Treasury will next year publish a long-term Future of Finance strategy and, according to the second perm sec, will continue seek “innovative ways to deliver more and better outcomes through tech, data, AI and better use of our talented people’s time and energy”.
PublicTechnology is delighted to be working with the Cabinet Office’s Central Digital and Data Office on our ongoing Digital Leaders’ Download sequence of interviews with a few of authorities’s most high-profile figureheads – each within the fields of digital, knowledge and know-how and past.
Having beforehand printed interviews with the digital unit’s just lately departed chief government Megan Lee Devlin, former HM Prison and Probation Service chief Jo Farrar, and nationwide statistician Sir Ian Diamond, this piece encompasses a recent dialogue between the previous CDDO head and Little.
Megan Lee Devlin: Cat, when you are an accountant, senior civil servant and board member, you’re additionally a really energetic supporter of the digital agenda. What does being a digital chief imply to you?
Cat Little: We are all digital leaders in authorities and we now have quite a lot of obligations, most significantly round tradition and behaviours. Digital is a elementary a part of the way in which we do business in our day-to-day jobs. It’s our accountability to take care of coverage, money, operational supply, and digital is a part of that. We don’t all should be specialists in digital however we do want to know the experience concerned and know sufficient to function mannequin placing digital on the coronary heart of how we do our jobs.
I’m notably in the intervening time in how we analyse massive quantities of advanced knowledge for constant resolution making, together with generative AI, advanced knowledge evaluation fashions and enormous language fashions. These assist us to provide the fitting instruments to resolution makers, case staff and operational supply groups on the bottom.
Cat Little, HM Treasury
MLD: Absolutely – digital has grow to be everybody’s business, no matter perform or career. I’m usually requested how leaders can, in follow, function mannequin digital management. How do you concentrate on that? For occasion, how do you hear and find out about new developments in know-how?
CL: One of the nice privileges of my job is that I become involved in each single little bit of the economic system and the general public sector. I get to speak to organisations which might be delivering innovation on daily basis – that may be personal firms, public sector our bodies, worldwide authorities – and I get to speak to leaders who actually perceive our issues.
I additionally learn rather a lot on this area, there are nice blogs and articles printed on a regular basis – exercising that ordinary civil service curiosity, and utilizing our community and relationships to assume in a different way in regards to the challenges we face. So many individuals are utilizing digital in numerous methods.
MLD: And we actually face among the most intractable challenges right here in authorities. What excites you most in regards to the function of digital and knowledge in addressing a few of these?
CL: We within the Treasury are grappling with huge macroeconomic challenges for the economic system as an entire and considered one of my passions is how can we go about delivering higher companies for the general public sector total. How can we be extra productive? How can we be more practical? Digital pondering is usually a win-win for everybody.
As we take into consideration coverage reform within the medium time period for the following spending evaluation, considered one of our core questions is: how can we higher use knowledge and digital for higher service outcomes, what are the outputs we have to produce and might we try this with much less useful resource? There are a lot of methods for digital, knowledge and know-how to drive higher outcomes for much less useful resource enter, that must be a elementary a part of what we’re doing.
The factor that I’m most keen about is the truth that we will radically shift the service outcomes we’re in search of to realize by utilizing coverage alongside digital and knowledge transformation – to be extra productive and environment friendly by default. The public sector is so big. If you are taking an important innovation in, say, one hospital within the NHS, how do you scale that successfully to all 250 hospitals throughout England and Wales? We want to have the ability to scale alternatives as one of the best concepts occur domestically.
MLD: The world may be very enthusiastic about AI in the intervening time, and we all know there are numerous different thrilling developments on the horizon, equivalent to quantum computing. What’s your favorite rising know-how?
CL: I’m notably in the intervening time in how we analyse massive quantities of advanced knowledge for constant resolution making, together with generative AI, advanced knowledge evaluation fashions and enormous language fashions. These assist us to provide the fitting instruments to resolution makers, case staff and operational supply groups on the bottom.
MLD: Absolutely, and I do know that Treasury has been pondering rather a lot about how AI can assist its personal productiveness and public sector productiveness. What has your division achieved via digital and knowledge that you’re particularly pleased with?
CL: The Treasury is admittedly pleased with the progress we’ve made thus far, notably as we’re not an enormous operational staff – we’re extra policy-driven – and it has taken a bit longer to speed up on this space. One factor we did just lately was run our first knowledge hackathon, the place ten departments got here collectively to take a look at generative AI to assist our work on correspondence administration. We at the moment are taking a look at how we apply the options additional throughout authorities collaboration – correspondence is a big problem for us and we’re going to preserve operating these hackathons.
MLD: If we had been to quick ahead to 2025, what do you stay up for seeing within the digital and knowledge area?
CL: There is a lot occurring in the intervening time to stay up for: enhancing our prime 75 authorities companies, enhancing the standard of information to make higher choices, in addition to our guarantees on One Login and cross-cutting system reform. This is along with a robust civil service that has a robust digital and knowledge ability set.
As I’ve already talked about, it might even be nice to see additional integration of digital and knowledge into coverage making – all this stuff are underway as a part of the Digital Transformation Roadmap.
Look out for extra interviews within the Digital Leaders’ Download sequence within the coming weeks.
Catch up right here on our interview with Lee Devlin – together with insights into eliminating departments’ greatest legacy dangers, unlocking £8bn of know-how funding, and the rollout thus far of presidency’s three-year digital technique. Or right here you possibly can learn her dialogue with former HM Prison and Probation Service head Jo Farrar, together with her ideas on the potential of digital actuality and AI, and why it’s time for civil servants to cease accepting outdated IT. Lee Devlin’s dialogue with nationwide statistician professor Sir Ian Diamond may be learn right here, together with insights from the ONS chief on how knowledge can ship “answers we could only have dreamed about 20 years ago”.
