From Blueprint to Reality: Why GDS Local's Success Depends on Getting the Human Side Right

The launch of GDS Local marks a watershed moment for digital transformation in the UK. After years of watching central government modernise while local authorities struggled with legacy systems and fragmented approaches, the Government Digital Service's dedicated unit promises to bridge this divide. Minister Ian Murray's vision is ambitious: ending the postcode lottery for digital services and delivering world-class online experiences wherever citizens live. 

But here's what working at the sharp-end of digital transformation across government, healthcare and public services have taught us at Datnexa: the technology is the easy part.

The Real Challenge: People, Not Platforms

GDS Local's three core focus areas, making GOV.UK One Login available to councils, reforming technology procurement, and enabling data sharing through the Government Digital and Data Hub, are precisely the right strategic priorities. Breaking the "ball and chain" contracts that lock councils into expensive, outdated technology is long overdue. A unified authentication system could genuinely transform how citizens access services.

Yet research consistently shows that 70% of digital transformation failures stem from poor adoption and resistance to change, not technical inadequacy. Local government faces distinctive hurdles: 40% of councils struggle with limited digital literacy among staff, while 43% grapple with legacy system integration challenges. The Future Councils pilot identified working in silos, lack of data literacy, and absence of innovation frameworks as persistent barriers.

This is where GDS Local's success will be determined, not in the elegance of the architecture, but in whether people actually use it.

Learning from the Ground: What Actually Works

Our work developing Hey Geraldine with Peterborough City Council demonstrates what happens when you get the human side right. This AI assistant for social care professionals wasn't built by imposing a solution from above. It succeeded because Geraldine, the expert occupational therapist, worked directly with our development team, teaching the chatbot her conversational style and ensuring it genuinely augmented rather than replaced human expertise.

The results speak for themselves: 300+ hours saved during the trial, complete clearance of the referral backlog, and, most critically, genuine user adoption with staff expressing confidence in the tool. As Geraldine noted: "I want it to free up people's time to focus on the more complex queries which is where their knowledge and experience is better focused".

This isn't unique to Peterborough. It's the universal truth about digital transformation: start with the problem, not the technology.

Four Principles for GDS Local Success

Based on our experience implementing AI and digital solutions across local government, here's what will make or break GDS Local's ambitions:

Co-design from day one. The engagement with over 300 local government digital practitioners during GDS Local's formation is encouraging. But engagement cannot stop at the planning phase. Liverpool City Region's early partnership demonstrates the value of continuous collaboration. Councils must remain active co-creators, not passive recipients of central solutions.

Recognise the capacity gap. Discovery research for GOV.UK One Login revealed a stark reality: councils want to future-proof systems, but limited resources, capability, and competing priorities create formidable barriers. 57% of councils face financial restrictions. GDS Local cannot simply offer tools, it must provide genuine capacity support, training, and implementation assistance. Digital skills development isn't a nice-to-have; it's fundamental infrastructure.

Address the real data challenge. The Government Digital and Data Hub promises to break down barriers to data sharing. But technical interoperability is only one dimension. Research on data sharing barriers highlights risk aversion, cultural factors, and confusion around GDPR as primary obstacles. Local authorities feel particularly vulnerable to the reputational costs of mishandling data. GDS Local needs practical guidance, templates, and reassurance, not just technical gateways.

Build feedback loops. Weekly huddles and continuous iteration proved essential to Hey Geraldine's success. The same principle applies at scale. GDS Local must establish mechanisms for councils to share what's working, flag problems early, and collectively shape the evolution of shared platforms. The Local Government Association's recognition that councils need "tailored approaches instead of a one-size-fits-all solution" is crucial.

The Integration Imperative

One of the most significant challenges ahead is horizontal service integration. GOV.UK One Login was designed for central government's vertical service model, individual departments offering discrete services. Local authorities deliver hundreds of services across diverse domains. They need "My Account" models where residents onboard once to access everything from council tax to social care.

This isn't just a technical challenge. It requires fundamentally rethinking how identity verification, eligibility checking, and service delivery work across organisational boundaries. The exclusion of NHS and adult social care data from current data-sharing gateways illustrates the complexity. Councils delivering integrated health and social care face genuine barriers when systems cannot speak to each other.

Solving this demands the kind of problem-first thinking that drives meaningful innovation. What specific user needs are we meeting? What organisational pain points are we addressing? How do we measure success in terms that matter to frontline staff and citizens?

Procurement Reform: Beyond Breaking Contracts

Reforming how councils buy technology is critical. But the goal isn't simply ending long-term contracts, it's creating a healthier, more competitive market that genuinely serves local government needs. The Procurement Act 2023, which came into force in February 2025, provides new flexibility for considering social value, supporting local businesses, and opening opportunities for SMEs and social enterprises.

GDS Local can accelerate this transformation by promoting shared standards, components, and approaches that reduce duplication while preserving local flexibility. The key is helping councils distinguish between services that genuinely benefit from shared platforms (like authentication) and those requiring local customisation.

Measuring What Matters

The blueprint for a modern digital government promises £45 billion in annual productivity benefits across the public sector. Such figures are meaningless without grounding in measurable outcomes that frontline teams and citizens experience directly.

At Datnexa, we focus on values and value. The values: real user adoption, human connection, continuous improvement through feedback, focus on complex cases requiring human expertise. The value: time savings, productivity gains, user satisfaction, backlog clearance.

GDS Local should adopt similar discipline. Not just counting councils onboarded to GOV.UK One Login, but measuring whether citizens complete transactions faster, whether staff spend more time on high-value work, whether digital exclusion decreases, whether service quality improves for vulnerable residents.

So What? Not What If

The digital transformation conversation in government too often focuses on hypothetical possibilities rather than concrete problems. "What if we used AI?" instead of "So what problem are we solving?". 

GDS Local's launch provides the strategic framework, dedicated resources, and political backing that local government digital transformation has long needed. The partnership with MHCLG, the LGA, and the new Artificial Intelligence Directorate creates genuine opportunity for coordination.​

But frameworks don't transform services. People do.

Success requires recognising that the councils delivering our most essential services, housing, social care, education, public health, operate in dramatically different contexts from central government departments. They need partners who understand their constraints, speak their language, and work alongside them to solve real problems with appropriate technology.

Building a Better Tomorrow, Together

The Government Digital and Data Hub launching alongside GDS Local signals recognition that transformation succeeds through collaboration, learning, and shared capability building. This is the right instinct.

At Datnexa, we believe in big ideas, bold technology, and building a better tomorrow. We've seen how thoughtful implementation of AI and digital solutions can solve problems organisations "didn't know about with time they didn't have". We understand that good design is human-centred design, that technology should augment rather than replace expertise, and that successful adoption depends on involving end users from day one.​

As GDS Local moves from launch to delivery, the local government community should engage actively, voice needs clearly, and demand genuine partnership rather than top-down imposition. Central government should listen deeply, provide capacity support generously, and remain humble about the complexity of local service delivery.

The technology exists to transform how citizens interact with government services. The policy framework is in place. The resources are allocated.

Now comes the hard part: getting the human side right.

Because ultimately, digital transformation isn't about technology at all. It's about people, the staff delivering services, the citizens receiving them, and the communities we all serve. Get that right, and the rest follows.