Governments around the world are all faced with meeting skills gaps and talent challenges. Many services require digitally-savvy public servants to help deliver more citizen-focused services, while there is also a need for leadership and management skills to allow government to become more risk-smart and innovative. 

This Government Transformed podcast, supported by knowledge partner Skillsoft, looked at how governments can assess the skills they need; how they are working to quicken recruitment in key digital skills; and how artificial intelligence developments will change the skills that civil servants need.

Join host Richard Johnstone and representatives from the governments of Belgium, Canada, South Africa and knowledge partner Skillsoft as we also discuss how governments can benchmark skills and performance, and how they are working to do more with less.

This podcast is based on a Global Government Forum webinar, How to get the right skills mix for modern, digital government, held on 8 July and supported by knowledge partner Skillsoft.

Click here to find out more about Global Government Forum’s training and development programmes.

Read Global Government Forum’s Making Government Work report, which reveals five pillars of a modern civil service.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AI offers huge potential for cities to improve services for residents and make operations more efficient. Local governments also often have the agility to move faster than their national counterparts, offering early indicators of success and challenges.

In this podinar, local government officials from Copenhagen, Toronto, London and North Yorkshire set out how their organisations are using AI. Listen to this conversation to understand these developments, and discussions of key milestones in deploying AI in government – including how to design effective AI pilots and projects, how to deploy AI tools and measure success, and the importance of human-in-the-loop approaches.

This podinar is based on the How cities are using AI to tackle their most pressing problems webinar, hosted by Global Government Forum on 3 July. The participants were:

Marie Hvid Damborg, Head of Digitalisation, Technical and Environmental Administration, City of Copenhagen

Mark Peterson, Head of Data and Insight, North Yorkshire Council

Sonia Brar, Chief Technology Officer, City of Toronto

Eddie Copeland, Director, London Office of Technology and Innovation

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Civil servants in government make many decisions every day. From policy officials working to develop responsive services that meet users’ needs, to frontline officials who have to make choices on what tax cases to prioritise, the work of government requires the skills to make effective decisions.

This Global Government Forum webinar looked at how governments can build systems that help drive better decision-making – and how civil servants can develop the skills to make – and implement – confident decisions.

This webinar brought together public servants from around the world to discuss how governments are streamlining the way they work to become more nimble. It looked at how governments are building systems that will provide more effective data on public service delivery – boosting effective decision-making and facilitating action.

This session discussed:

• The data practices that are making a difference for decision-makers, and the value that can be unlocked from more timely and accurate data in government.
• The technology and operations that are improving decision-makers’ agility to react to changing and evolving conditions.
• The skills needed to make confident decisions in government.
• The role of AI and AI agents in better decision-making and action-taking.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The threat that public sector organisations face from fraud is growing. In an era when technological advancements are rapidly transforming the landscape, public sector organisations face unprecedented challenges in combating fraud.

According to a survey of public servants undertaken by SAS, all public sector agencies surveyed are currently experiencing some form of fraud and expect to see an increase in at least one type of fraud over the next 5 years.

Fraud is also having an impact on public finances. In the UK, chancellor Rachel Reeves has set out a crackdown on fraud in the welfare system, with a focus on saving £4.3bn by the end of the decade, while the International Public Sector Fraud Forum has published a revised framework that sets out key principles and processes for conducting fraud loss measurement exercises to better quantify the cost of fraud – and measure savings.

The importance of unlocking these savings is demonstrated by the SAS research, which identified that tackling fraud, waste and abuse could release savings equivalent to around 16% of their government’s budget.

This webinar session examined the scale and extent of the fraud challenge that governments around the world face – and how to tackle it.

The session brought together public servants to discuss:

• The trends in the type of fraud threats that governments face now – and will face in future.
• How governments are tackling the threats they face now – and preparing for the threats that are on the horizon.
• The role for AI and analytics in tackling the fraud challenges that government face – and how these technologies can be embedded in current working practices.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The race is on, both within and among governments, to develop and implement artificial intelligence (AI) tools for greater productivity better public services.

But the race cannot be run, let alone won, without systems changes and cultural reinvigoration among department workforces. Deploying AI technology at scale will mean changing delivery systems, long-term staff training and fluid yet secure and ethical data sharing within organisations. 

This webinar, supported by GGF’s knowledge partners SAS, discussed how to make AI work for government.

Speakers discussed ways to develop use cases, including business cases, for AI that demonstrate how it can be deployed in the most effective way. They also discussed the building blocks for making AI work, as well as recommendations on the AI tools and media that panellists themselves find useful.

The ‘How to deploy artificial intelligence in government: a step-by-step guide’ webinar was originally held on 13 March 2025.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the UK, the government is focused on harnessing the potential of digital and data to unlock better, more responsive and effective services.

In a recent conversation hosted by Global Government Forum, government data experts discussed the role, opportunities and challenges of using data and AI to deliver on its five missions. 

Those five missions include: kickstarting economic growth, making Britain a clean energy superpower, making streets safer, breaking down barriers to opportunity, and finally, building an NHS fit for the future.

In this podcast, you will hear from government data leaders on how data insights can be used to achieve these goals, as well as how to drive the changes that mission-led government requires.

The challenges that organisations faced were also discussed, including foundational data constraints, and the limitations of legacy systems, funding and digital skills.

Listen to find out from government leaders how data can help drive the government’s missions.

This podcast is based on a webinar Real time insight for missions: how to measure progress on the government’s priorities, held on 6 May. Find out more about the session and watch it in full here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Governments around the world are focused on how to make the most of artificial intelligence in the way they work – and the government of Canada, which in March launched the first AI strategy for the federal public service, is no different.

In this episode, three public servants from across the Canadian government spoke about the challenges that come with deploying AI to create more efficient public services and unlocking economic growth.

Specifically, they discussed the challenge of garnering trust – both of Canadian citizens and the public servants they work with – on AI projects.

This conversation looked at how organisations within the Canadian government are seeking to strengthen responsible AI management practices and unlock the potential of the technology to make better decisions.

The speakers discussed how the government can set AI assurance standards to apply to organisations across the public and private sector, and how individual public sector organisations can work to build confidence in the use of AI, as well as how international collaboration can be strengthened to tackle AI risks across borders.

This podcast is based on a webinar Building trust in AI to help government deploy it, held on 13 May. Find out more about the session and watch it in full here.

AccelerateGOV – Global Government Forum’s public service transformation event – co-hosted by the Government of Canada returns on December 9th 2025. Register your interest now for the conference, which will set oput how public servants can meet the new Governemnt of Canada’s priorities.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The UK government has set out a new National Procurement Policy Statement that will focus on ensuring that public procurement can support the government’s five national missions of boosting economic growth, building green energy, tackling crime, breaking down barriers to opportunity and build an NHS fit for the future.

The podcast, based on a Global Government Forum webinar held on 4 March, sets out what the new rules, in the policy statement and the Procurement Act 2023, will mean for what public authorities will want to buy, and how they will do it.

Listen to this podcast to discuss the key elements of the new UK procurement approach will mean across the public sector – and beyond.

Find out more about the webinar on its dedicated webpage, and download the slides from the session here.

Find out about Global Government Forum’s upcoming webinars.

Global Government Forum’s Innovation 2025 conference will bring together government innovators from around the world in London on 25-26 March 2025, including in public procurement. Find out more and register to attend.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Governments need to better join-up policy development with operational delivery to ensure they can meet the growing challenges they face – but such collaboration can be difficult to implement in practice.

In this podcast, experts from the UK, Estonia and Brazil share best practice on harnessing people-powered insight in policymaking, examining how governments are working to understand citizens’ lived experiences and to turn their ideas into public services that really work.

Co-creation isn’t always easy. It often requires the building of trust between a range of stakeholders with competing interests – even bitter contentions – but as we hear, with the right approach, government teams can identify areas of consensus amongst a diversity of perspectives.

Showcasing a paradigm shift from designing for citizens to with citizens, the experts give a range of examples of successful innovations: ones that helped iron out Brexit trade issues in a high-charged environment, led to inclusive budget design at local government level, and empowered children to help their families understand what state benefits they might be eligible for.

This human-centred approach to policy design and implementation takes much experimentation, testing and learning as well as upfront investment in time and money – but as we find out, the benefits can be huge.

This podcast is based on a webinar held on 11 February. Find out more about the speakers on the webinar page: Crowding in innovation: how to open up policy development to people-powered insight, and view GGF’s upcoming webinars to register to join future conversations.

Global Government Forum’s Innovation 2025 conference will bring together government innovators from around the world in London on 25-26 March 2025. Find out more and register to attend.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The 2013 launch of healthcare.gov – the US government website that helps American’s find health insurance – is most often viewed as a failure. The website crashed on its first day, leading to batch of negative headlines as the US government scrambled to get it back online. 

But this is only half the story. What is less remembered now is the recovery – how government changed how it worked to get the system working and then spread the lessons across the federal government.  

In this episode of Government Transformed, Siobhan Benita speaks to Aaron Snow, faculty fellow at Georgetown University in the Beck Center for Social Impact and innovation, about what it means for governments to achieve digital transformation with public good at its core – from his work helping turn round healthcare.gov and beyond. 

Aaron has been named one of the world's 20 most influential people in digital government. In this interview, he recounts to Siobhan his leadership journey through the digital public service landscape.  

Starting as a Presidential Innovation Fellow (PIF) in 2012, Aaron became one of the founding members of 18F an organisation set up as a digital expertise arm of the General Services Administration (GSA) to transform public services across America after the problems with healthcare.gov.    

In this candid conversation, Aaron shares his insight on what it is like to drive digital change across government from this organisation, as well as the day when an organisational restructure moved 18F from a discreet operation into a much larger outfit – and what this meant for its work. On a practical level Aaron details the daunting challenges he and his colleagues faced were dauting – like having to “design a plane while building it, while flying it”. 

He says the stress of leading in such a high-pressure environment seems “pretty natural in retrospect”.  “I didn't know what I was feeling [at the time] because I hadn't been through that before, not at that level,” he adds.  

In this exclusive podcast, Snow shares his reflections on working in government – from the startup culture of 18F to the bureaucratic obstacles – what he calls the symphony of incentives and requirements that push on people who are trying to improve government service experiences for the public. 

He emphasises the need for leaders to foster and protect a strong, innovative team culture. He highlights the importance of having regular conversations with people at every level of an organisation so that every competing need, incentive and requirement is fulfilled. 

He also reflects on his time leading the Canadian Digital Service, and his work now as a fellow at the Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation at Georgetown University, where he divides his time between the Digital Service Network and the Intergovernmental Software Collaborative.  

Listen to the episode in full here. 

FOLLOW US:

X: @globegov

Linkedin: Global Government Forum 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.