The Emerging Digital Public Service: themes and subthemes

Guiding our knowledge synthesis project is an analytic framework which identifies three high-level thematic areas—the management of the public service, the delivery of citizen services, and the development of public policy—in which the public service is changing in the digital era, requiring a revised approach to competency and skill development:

• Managing digital workplaces—understanding and addressing the evolving landscape for public sector management, changing as a consequence of advancing technology. Possible sub-themes include: 

  • managing employee expectations and abilities in new organizational forms, and applying communications and other technologies to support new work arrangements like teleworking and flat, agile organizations; 

  • open organizational knowledge sharing using computer-supported collaboration technology and social media;

  • planning for workforce adjustment as developments such as automation, robotics, and AI replace some functions, allowing staff to focus on more cognitively complex tasks. 

• Delivering citizen services digitally—efficiently and effectively providing services to the public using digital methods and tools. Possible sub-themes include:

  • engaging citizens and stakeholders in open government processes via digital tools such as social media, open data, collaborative platforms, and VR/AR; 

  • using big data and analytics to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery; and 

  • deploying AI and algorithmic decision making to improve fairness and efficiency.

• Governing in the digital era—adapting to new regulatory and policy responsibilities, and heightened citizen and stakeholder expectations, emerging as a consequence of the advance of digital technology. Possible sub-themes include:

  • providing more timely regulatory decisions to keep up with changes being explored by industry across a range of emerging technologies (e.g., regulating private sector use of AI); 

  • developing governance and regulatory frameworks for new industries and new economic and social models, such as cryptocurrencies and the gig economy; and 

  • responding to changing circumstances in society as a consequence of digital innovations, such as the reemergence of the digital divide as a result of increased working-from-home and learning-from-home during the COVID-19 pandemic.