Tag: Cabinet Office

• Commercial buying system, Atamis, has supported NHS teams to identify millions in potential savings in its first year
• 69% of all NHS organisations across the UK are benefiting from the digital system, with many more scheduled to onboard
• Identified savings could help money be reinvested into patient care

A Crown Commercial Service-funded digital platform used by the NHS has identified millions of pounds of potential savings in its first year, the government has announced.

Many NHS-affiliated organisations previously used different platforms to buy goods and services. These weren’t possible to integrate, meaning it has historically been difficult for buying teams in the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS to share insights and data between organisations in order to make effective commercial decisions.

The Atamis system, which brings together each element of the commercial process in one location, has removed burdensome manual processes and saved millions of pounds in administration costs. This has also freed up capacity in NHS teams while helping health services run more efficiently.

The platform currently holds a pipeline of £24bn and active contracts with a value of £108bn.

NHS services in North West London were able to identify £34 million of savings by grouping 9 organisations on the same e-commerce system. This has helped them to identify £34 million of potential savings in the past 12 months.

Cabinet Office Parliamentary Secretary Alex Burghart said:

To meet the Prime Minister’s goal of reducing national debt, we’re making efficiencies for the taxpayer.

This platform, funded by the Crown Commercial Service in the Cabinet Office, is a major force for good, helping public bodies like NHS Trusts identify significant savings across the country as we continue working to deliver on the Prime Minister’s commitment to cut waiting lists in the health service.

The roll out of the Atamis e-commerce system, which was enabled by £12.8 million in funding from Crown Commercial Service (spread over 3 financial years), has already seen 258 NHS organisations (69% of total) sign up with a further target of 90% by 2025.

In addition to supporting NHS organisations to identify savings, Atamis provides procurement teams with a unified view of the data, which can be segmented according to the need of the organisation, ensuring it’s easier for procurement and commercial teams to make informed decisions that ensure the best value for money for the taxpayer.

The Department of Health and Social Care said that CCS funding has proved ‘invaluable’ in enabling widespread adoption of the system – one of the 2 key technology platforms that provide the foundations for most of the Central Commercial Functions workstreams – by organisations. The target is to achieve a 90% onboard rate by March 2025.

Health Minister Lord Markham said:

I’m pleased to see the success so far of this digital platform, which is already helping NHS organisations across England identify savings opportunities.

We are committed to using the latest technology and new ways of working to increase efficiencies, save staff time, and deliver value for money.

Sarah Jewell, Deputy Director for partnerships at Crown Commercial Service says:

We’re delighted with the success of the rollout of the Atamis e-commerce system. This is a great step forward in bringing the commercial activities of the health service together in one place to increase the effectiveness and resilience of NHS procurement.

Jacqui Rock, NHS England Chief Commercial Officer

The NHS is one of the most efficient health services in the world, and finding further efficiencies to be reinvested into patient care remains a key priority. Atamis is an incredibly important tool to support procurement teams to do this, and it’s encouraging to see the progress we have made in just a year to help deliver significant savings and value for the taxpayer.

As guardians of taxpayer money, having a unified view of the commercial data landscape is essential, so I expect the remaining NHS organisations who haven’t yet onboarded to do so as a matter of priority.

Lee Jackson, Managing Director North West London Procurement Services

Atamis has been key to the development of ICS based procurement across North West London. We now have a robust 3rd party intelligence suite of which Atamis is the cornerstone. In the past twelve months we have integrated all data from all nine NHS trusts into the system and also the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. This has helped us identify and track savings opportunities worth £34.8m across our ICS.

Melinda Johnson, Commercial Director for the Department of Health and Social Care says:

CCS funding has been invaluable to DHSC, its Arm’s Length Bodies, NHS Providers, newly formed Integrated Care Systems, Integrated Care Boards and Commissioning Support Units.

• New Digital Secondment Programme to bring experts from top tech businesses into government
• AI to be harnessed to boost productivity
• Minister for the Cabinet Office Jeremy Quin gives speech on digitally-focussed reform priorities

DIGITAL gurus from the private sector will be parachuted into government departments as part of radical plans to turbocharge the technological skills of civil servants, Cabinet Office Minister Jeremy Quin revealed today.

Delivering a speech at respected think tank Policy Exchange, Minister Quin set out a number of measures which will drive forward the government’s plans to harness innovation and technology to make Whitehall run more efficiently.

The Minister demonstrated his clear intent to overhaul the way digital and data is utilised in government departments. This will start with a series of secondment programmes which are set to kick off in Autumn, beginning with the Digital and Data secondment scheme. Government will work with the major tech players, with plans to target FTSE100 companies in order to second digital experts into departments as well as giving civil servants the chance to spend time working within industry-leading businesses. This will then be expanded to other sectors such as science and engineering.

Minister Quin set out his ambition for the government to use AI confidently and responsibly, where it matters most, to improve public services and boost productivity. One example is the unit responsible for exploring Automation and Innovation in government, known as i.AI, who will become a permanent civil service team following a successful trial.

Another initiative is the creation of a Data Marketplace which will break down barriers to sharing data inside government. As we believe there is potential for government data to drive value and innovation in the economy, the government intends to make the marketplace available to third parties outside government, such as businesses and researchers by 2025.

In his speech, Minister Jeremy Quin said:

There are brilliant people in our Civil Service but I know there are many, as can be the case in any organisation, that feel frustrated and stifled by bureaucracy.

Alongside the Cabinet Secretary, I shared with Civil Service colleagues at Civil Service Live in Cardiff last week that we need every colleague to be calling out waste and inefficiency, determined to end the frustrations I know many share.

They can do so by more specialisation, more access to outside voices and fresh ideas, staying longer in post, delivering certainty on what we are seeking to achieve and benefitting from crisp evaluation on whether we have, while embracing the digital future which will transform all our working lives.

It comes as the latest efficiency drive, led by the Minister for the Cabinet Office, has published savings of £4.4 billion in the last financial year. The savings were made through central government teams, including more than £1.3 billion saved through  fraud prevention and detection, much of which came from advanced data analytics,  and more than £370 million of efficiencies found through modernising legacy IT systems.

The latest figures published by the Crown Commercial Service, an agency of the Cabinet Office who help procurement teams from different parts of government buy collectively, show a huge £3.8 billion in savings and commercial benefits achieved in the last financial year.

Minister Quin highlighted the need to address the skills deficit in the Civil Service, confirming his intention to oversee a streamlined recruitment process including a new digital platform for moving civil servants between departments seamlessly. This will allow the Civil Service to be more agile as different areas need more resourcing and is expected to save approximately £100m over the next 5 years.

There were also further commitments to increase transparency related to how the government evaluates its spending through the establishment of a publicly-available Evaluation Registry. This will be active across government from September 2023 and will be publicly available from March 2024.

Previous reforms have already shown positive results, with the Cabinet Office now on track to exceed its ambition for 50% of Fast Stream recruits to have a STEM subject background.

The Veterans’ Gateway, which has already supported over a million veterans, will be run by the Office for Veterans’ Affairs (OVA), at the heart of government, next year.

The OVA will identify and carry out improvements to the service. The Gateway will benefit from being at the centre of government, utilising the OVA’s skills and data to streamline access to support and make more efficient referrals.

During the course of the next year veterans will be able to feed into the improvement project, including testing the service to make it as effective as possible for the ex-forces community.

It enables veterans and their dependents to access state and charity support services in areas including physical and mental health, financial support, assistance with independent living, housing, and employment.

Since it began, there have been more than a million visits to the Veterans’ Gateway’s online guides, which offer advice on everything from financial help to housing and there have been around 100,000 contacts for support on issues such as living independently or getting back into employment.

The service has also referred around 16,000 people for additional specialist help from organisations such as the Royal British Legion since it began. The current Veterans’ Gateway will continue to run as normal during the transition period.

If you are in need of support, visit www.veteransgateway.org.uk, call 0808 802 1212 or text 81212.

• Building on the lessons from the pandemic, a new system, known as GOV.UK One Login will allow people to access government services more quickly and simply.
• New system will mean that people need just one account, one username, one password and one identity check to use Government services such as signing your mortgage deed or requesting a DBS check.
• Over 1.5 million users have successfully proved who they are through GOV.UK One Login to access services. The programme will help save over £700 million over the next three years.

A new universal login is making public services easier to access online for more than 1.5 million people, it has been revealed today (Saturday 24 June).

The system, which builds on the lessons of the pandemic, allows users to have just one account, one username, one password and one identity check to use Government services such as signing your mortgage deed or requesting a DBS check, without having to repeatedly provide their information.

There are currently around 191 different ways for people to set up accounts and 44 different sign-in methods, wasting people’s time and costing the taxpayer money as departments have to pay to maintain duplicate login and identity services. Slimming this down into a single platform for logging in and accessing GOV.UK services will save over £700 million as well as people’s time and effort.

Over 100 public services will be using GOV.UK One Login by 2025, covering the vast bulk of all central government services.

Users can choose to use the GOV.UK One Login app, which has been developed and is available for download, to prove their identity when accessing services. The app allows a user to quickly, easily and securely verify their identity, using their smartphone.

GOV.UK One Login has already successfully been used by over 1.5 million users to prove who they are, while the app has now been downloaded two million times.

Cabinet Office Minister Alex Burghart said:

For millions of people, GOV.UK and online public services are their main daily interaction with the government.

The public rightly expect government services to be fast, simple and easy to use.

That’s why I am pleased that the GOV.UK One Login programme will deliver on that promise, cutting down duplication and providing a single way for people to access public services.

This saves taxpayer time and money, while helping us reduce fraud and provide more efficient and effective services.

The service is being rolled out to all departments, with eight services currently operational:

• Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS): Request a basic DBS check
• Department for Business and Trade: Licensing for International Trade and Enterprise (LITE)
• Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA): Apply for your vehicle operator licence
• Social Work England: Register to be a social worker
• HM Land Registry: Sign your mortgage deed
• Ofqual: Apply to be an advisor
• Modern Slavery Unit: Modern slavery statement registry
• HMRC Government Gateway, which has adopted the identity checking app early and is offering it to customers setting up Government Gateway credentials, as an alternative way to prove their identity to HMRC’s existing identity verification service.

To add further convenience for users, the GOV.UK One Login will allow users to prove their identity, beyond just using a passport or a driving licence, such as by using a biometric residence permit.

While the new system will make it quicker and easier for those wishing to access government services, traditional face-to-face services will continue, for those who wish to use them. There will also be help for those with low digital skills, through assisted digital and face to face options, giving more people the confidence to use GOV.UK One Login and access services.

GOV.UK One Login is being developed with data security at its heart, with protections in place to ensure user data is secure. It will help to reduce fraud against public services, operating a more secure system, and help to protect users from identity-enabled crime.

Further information on GOV.UK One Login can be found in this blogpost from Natalie Jones.

• New Biothreats Radar will scan biological threats to protect the public
• Biological Security Strategy will defend the UK from infectious disease outbreaks, antimicrobial resistance, and biological incidents and attacks
• Plan strengthens the UK’s thriving life sciences sector
• Backed by unprecedented investment of more than £1.5 billion per year

A new Biothreats Radar capable of scanning biological risks that pose a threat to the public will be key to the UK’s fight and preparation for future pandemics, the Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden has announced today (Monday 12 June).

The Radar will be led by the Government’s National Situation Centre and will bring together data from across government, existing independent advisory committees and wider expert groups who analyse biological risks and trends. It will centralise the data and actively monitor this information to provide decision makers with a comprehensive picture of known and developing biological threats.

This forms part of a new Biological Security Strategy published by the Government today to strengthen the UK’s defences against infectious diseases, biological attacks and antibiotic resistance.

The major new Strategy sets out clear actions on biosecurity, building upon the framework set out by the Government in 2018, and has been updated to reflect lessons learned during the Covid-19 pandemic. It outlines how the Government will tackle a wide range of threats head on –  from bioterrorism to animal and plant diseases – by 2030.

The Government is investing heavily in biological security, with spending now more than £1.5 billion each year. This funding underpins critical initiatives within the Strategy, including  identifying new diseases, incentivising responsible innovation in the biosciences, and progressing the pledge made by G7 leaders in Carbis Bay in 2021, known as the “100 Days Mission”, to accelerate new vaccine development.

Four pillars will underpin how the Strategy tackles biological threats:

Understanding the biological risks we face today and could face in the future;

Preventing biological risks from emerging or from threatening the UK’s interests;

Detecting and reporting biological risks early when they do emerge;

Responding to biological risks that have reached the UK to lessen their impact.

Alongside the Biothreats Radar, the Strategy sets out a number of commitments, including:

• Developing a National Biosurveillance Network to detect and monitor emerging biological threats to the UK
• Establishing a new UK Biosecurity Leadership Council, bringing together academic and industry leaders to help establish the UK as a world leader in responsible innovation
• Developing new UK-based microbial forensics tools and capabilities to support efforts to attribute biological incidents and deter the proliferation and use of biological weapons
• Working with industry to further UK efforts to achieve the 100 Days Mission – reducing the impact of future pandemics by making vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics available within 100 days of a future outbreak
• Formalising the leadership structures that oversee our biological security – including a lead minister who will report annually to Parliament
• Establishing a Biological Security Task Force in the Cabinet Office to coordinate UK-wide efforts on biological security, including exercising our response to future threats

The UK is already Europe’s leading biotechnology hub and these commitments will further bolster the UK’s strength in this area.

As set out in the recent Atlantic Declaration, the UK is also strengthening our bilateral collaboration with the United States on biological health and security, including through closer cooperation to tackle drug-resistant infections.

Deputy Prime Minister, Rt Hon Oliver Dowden MP, said:

Covid was the biggest peacetime challenge in a century, and we must be diligent in preparing for future threats on this scale.

This plan and our £1.5 billion investment per year puts us in a strong position to defeat the biological threats of tomorrow – from diseases to bioweapons and antimicrobial resistance. It’s a strong and ambitious approach: one that harnesses the sheer ingenuity of the UK’s researchers and scientists, and deploys our world-class crisis management capabilities to protect the people of the UK.

Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Dame Angela McLean, said:

The COVID-19 pandemic showed just how critical it is to have a coherent plan to both protect the UK from the increasingly complex range of biological risks and build on the UK’s strengths in vaccine research and development and life sciences. The new Biological Security Strategy will make an important contribution to our preparedness.

Head of Biosecurity Policy at the Centre for Long-Term Resilience, Cassidy Nelson, commented:

This much-needed strategy underscores the UK’s role as a global leader in enhancing resilience against biological risks. We welcome the goal to achieve resilience to the full spectrum of biological threats by 2030, and commend the use of built-in accountability measures to drive the implementation of the strategy. We now need sustained resourcing and prioritisation to achieve tangible improvements to the UK’s biosecurity capabilities on such an ambitious timeline.

Chief Executive of the UK Health Security Agency, Dame Jenny Harries, commented:

The Biological Security Strategy and its commitment to developing a biosecure future means that we are in a strong position to respond to the threats of the future. Hand-in-hand with our partners in industry and academia, UKHSA will work across government to ensure that, through our commitment to achieving the 100 Days Mission, working with DEFRA to develop the National Biosurveillance Network and improving the UK’s pandemic preparedness, we keep the public safe.

The Strategy shows the Government’s continued progress in strengthening the country’s resilience and builds upon the UK Resilience Framework which officially made resilience a national endeavour for the very first time.

The Biological Security Strategy also follows the recent launch of the life-saving UK wide Emergency Alerts system which has transformed the country’s warning and informing capability; enabling Government and the emergency services to send an alert directly to mobile phones when people are in immediate danger.