There's been a fair bit of discussion in the usual places about the impact of the software market on local government's attempts at digital transformation. Councils are a lot more dependent on off the shelf systems than other parts of government, and the quality of that software is often held up as a barrier to improvement.
Increasingly, I'm finding that once one starts to dig a bit into the issues, it becomes a bit less simple than 'suppliers are awful'. I'm increasingly of the mind that poor software is a symptom, not a cause of the issues with local government digital.
In other words, I think the software market probably operates as it should for councils - the market provides the systems that local authorities appear to want to buy. This is as a result of poorly executed procurements, often based on requirements that are steeped in the existing solution - so it's no surprise that the same old stuff gets bought time after time, and nothing seems to improve.
This doesn't get the suppliers off the hook of course. But equal to their need to be better vendors is the need for councils to be better buyers.
What does this look like? If you really want to move to using better software, accept the hard work it is going to involve. You won't be able to copy and paste your procurement docs from last time. You'll have to work with the relevant service areas to redesign processes and customer journeys. Data will need migrating. It's hard work, and you don't have to do it - but that would means accepting your lot with the software you're currently using.
