← INTERSECTION16 Conference Copenhagen, June 9-10, 2016

Louise Downe

Keynote

Redesigning Government for the 21st Century

Friday, June 10
16:15 – 17:00
Auditorium

Louise Downe
Head of Design, UK Government - Government Digital Service (GDS)


Public services account for approximately 1/5th of UK GDP. That’s about 80% of the cost of central government. Of that though, up to 60% is spent on the cost of service failure - calls and casework that could be avoided by better designed services.

Since the founding of GDS, we’ve created and built one consistent user experience for government, saving £1.7 billion pounds for the UK taxpayer, and beating the Olympic cauldron to the Designs of the Year award with a ‘black and white website’ that means users don’t need to know how government works to make it work for them.

But our work has only just started. The Autumn spending review announced £3.56 billion of spending on making digital services better (and cheaper to deliver) over the next 4 years. But how do we make sure that these changes meet the needs of users? and how do we scale user centred design in the UK’s largest single organisation?