There is a familiar pressure running through government delivery at the moment to move services faster, respond more quickly to changing needs and feel more connected across departments. But at the same time, the environments those services sit within are becoming more complex, with more dependencies, more stakeholders and less room for error.
Global Government Forum Innovation gave people room to talk more openly about what delivery looks like under that kind of pressure. Across the two days, many of the conversations were grounded in experience, with ideas discussed in the context of pace, complexity and the realities of delivery.
What ran through the event
Across the event, a number of the discussions touched on similar delivery pressures, with a recurring focus on what it means to keep services moving in environments that are increasingly connected and complex, where making progress in one area can have consequences elsewhere, such as:
- The pressure to deliver at pace without losing confidence in what is going live
- Growing complexity across services, systems and teams
- Identity is playing a more visible role in how people experience a service
- Technology is being used to support delivery in practical, specific ways
- Shared challenges surfacing across organisations and sectors
Hippo’s three sessions sat naturally within that wider conversation. Together, they looked at what that pressure means for trust in digital identity, how AI may help teams build confidence earlier and what it takes to keep delivery moving in complex environments.
Building trust through digital identity: Why do we care about digital identity in government?
Jim Small, Identity Director at Hippo, and Rheanna O’Donoghue, Delivery Director for Education at Hippo, led the session Why do we care about digital identity in government?, drawing on their experience delivering national scale identity services across government, including work on One Login, NHS Login and services within the Department for Education.
At its simplest, identity is about managing risk. Making sure the right person can access the right service, at the right time, while preventing misuse. Over time, that has led to a set of established approaches, from authentication and access controls through to more recent developments in wallets, biometrics and zero trust models.
Those building blocks allow services to verify users and manage access in complex environments. But they only explain part of how identity works in practice.
Government services do not exist in isolation, and neither do the people using them. Accessing a service is often tied to something more immediate, whether that is support, entitlement or a moment of difficulty. In that context, identity decisions begin to shape what someone is able to do next.
They are often framed in terms of risk. What happens if this is not the right person? Who is accountable? What is the impact if something goes wrong?.
As soon as those decisions stretch across departments, the situation becomes harder to manage. Risk and responsibility do not sit neatly in one place, and services can become more difficult to navigate as checks are repeated, steps are added or people are moved between teams.
At that point, the balance shifts. It becomes less about managing risk in isolation and more about understanding what happens to the person trying to access the service when that process breaks down.
Helping delivery teams move earlier with AI: How AI is helping NHS teams deliver better digital services
In ‘How AI is helping NHS teams deliver better digital services’, Ed Hiley, Technology Director at Hippo, joined Stephen Koch, Executive Director of Systems Engineering at NHS England, to explore how teams can move earlier without increasing risk.
The conversation reflected a common experience across delivery teams. The challenge is rarely a lack of ideas, but about knowing when to commit to one, when to test it and when to step back before too much time or cost has been absorbed.
AI is starting to support teams in reaching something tangible sooner, allowing decisions to be made with more context rather than assumptions and that change is already visible in how delivery work is evolving:
- Designers are moving into working prototypes earlier in discovery, so ideas can be explored rather than described
- Engineers focus more of their time on resilience and maintainability, rather than repeating routine implementation work
- Product and delivery teams reaching evidence earlier in the process, before complexity and cost begin to compound
This is less about introducing something new and more about adjusting when and how teams gain confidence in the decisions they make.
What it takes to accelerate delivery in practice: Accelerating government delivery with technology
Darren Hutton, Chief Digital Officer at Hippo, joined the panel Accelerating government delivery with technology: Lessons from the frontline
The discussion focused on what actually shapes delivery day to day, particularly when services need to work across organisational boundaries rather than within a single department. As services connect and responsibilities overlap, people are often required to move between teams, systems or parts of government in order to complete what should feel like a single task.
“If we want services to work in a truly user centred way, we have to work across departmental boundaries, because people do not experience government one service at a time, and those who most need support are often the ones most affected when those boundaries get in the way.” – Darren Hutton, Chief Digital Officer at Hippo
Cross departmental working is not just about coordination, it often determines whether a service feels joined up or fragmented. Examples such as collaboration between GDS and DWP, and the Shielding service, showed what becomes possible when teams work with a clearer, shared view of the user.
It also brought attention to who is most affected when that does not happen. People in more vulnerable situations are more likely to feel the impact when services do not connect well, whether that shows up as delays, repeated steps or confusion at the point they need support, with some familiar delivery pressures surfacing:
- Progress slowing not because of technical limitations, but because of how and when decisions are made
- Coordination becoming more difficult as services expand and responsibilities overlap
- Maintaining trust and quality requiring deliberate effort as pace increases
There was a clear sense of shared experience across the panel. Different organisations and contexts, but very similar constraints shaping how delivery unfolds in practice.
Where this leaves delivery
Taken together, the sessions pointed to how closely these questions now sit alongside one another. Trust in identity, confidence in decision making and the practical realities of delivery are no longer separate concerns that can be worked through in isolation. They shape each other, and they are often felt at the same point in the life of a service.
It created room for more honest discussion about where services get stuck, what teams are learning as they work through that and how progress is often made through small adjustments rather than dramatic change.
Delivery rarely moves forward because of one big shift, more often, it moves through steady learning, better judgment, and a continued focus on what people need a service to do.
