Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the publication of the State of Digital Government Review on 21 January (CP 1251), what methodology they used to calculate the estimate that full potential digitisation could deliver over £45 billion in annual savings and productivity benefits; what the projected savings are by department and public body; what proportion of savings is expected to be cashable; and what level of investment is required to achieve these efficiencies.

The Government’s £45 billion estimate is based on a detailed, bottom‐up analysis employing three levers: automating routine tasks (£36 billion), migrating services online (£4 billion) and reducing fraud via digital compliance (£6 billion). This work scaled bespoke analysis conducted on the Civil Service to the wider public sector, with overlaying case studies. A sizable proportion of these benefits is expected to be cashable, although exact figures vary by domain and profession. Achieving these efficiencies will require substantial, bespoke investment, and we are working to ascertain that in the largest opportunity areas. A more detailed methodology will be published online in due course.