How to achieve the UK government’s vision to transform public sector data sharing
Better use of data is essential to the UK government’s digital transformation ambitions. But as government leaders at a roundtable supported by Snowflake and held at Global Government Forum’s Innovation 2026 conference emphasised, cross-organisational principles, guidance and legislation are needed to make data-sharing happen at scale
Effective data-sharing between government departments and across the public sector has the potential to drive huge efficiencies and a marked improvement in services for citizens. And yet, getting the basics right can sometimes be a struggle.
At a roundtable supported by knowledge partner Snowflake, the AI data cloud company, and held at Global Government Forum’s Innovation 2026 conference, civil servants came together to discuss what’s broken – and how to fix it.
In 2025, the UK government launched its Blueprint for Modern Digital Government, which sets out a six-point plan for reform and the role of the new digital centre of government. The problem with the blueprint, according to one participant, is “that the Government Digital Service [GDS] can’t force it”.
“I think we need to have departments step up and take ownership of a plan that they agree amongst themselves, and a roadmap that says: this department is best placed to manage this data, but they’ll do it on behalf of government, not just for their own department,” they said.
Another attendee agreed, but said there needed to be “a high-level policy point of view as well”.
“Over the past few years, we have been building things that purposefully build data silos, and we need to start tearing those down,” they added.
Read more: UK reforms data rules to improve public sector sharing
Permission to ‘fail fast’
One attendee asked whether it was simply fear stopping governments “opening up the door” to sharing data, not helped by poorly-managed data classification.
In each departmental structure there is a senior data owner who typically wants “every check and balance checked before they agree to share a single thing. That is something we need to change,” they said.
They added that senior figures in the civil service had called for government to take more risks and, if needed, fail fast. The participant said: “Well, give people the right to fail fast in data sharing”, as long as the appropriate guardrails are in place.
“We are still in a state of fear, which is why we haven’t moved on,” they said. “This is not a new thing – it’s been going on 15 years now.”
What the technology allows departments to do versus what organisational structures allow teams to do, was a consistent theme of the conversation.
One attendee said that it is fundamentally fear, rather than technological barriers, that holds back data sharing. For them, the abiding principle within government should be ensuring they always know who is responsible for the data, who is the controller, and that management of the data is kept as clear and “as close to the surface as possible”.
Read more: UK prime minister reveals plan for AI to ‘turbocharge every single element’ of government
The fundamental link between data foundations and AI
With UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s ambitions for AI clearly set out in the government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan, there was a “tremendous opportunity for everyone in the data community” to marry its contents with that of the Blueprint for Modern Digital Government.
“You could have a politician say to a senior civil servant: ‘I want you to take on the unenviable task of fixing the data foundations of our government, because this is vital for AI’.” The public servants who would do this would “be doing heroic work”, they concluded.
“We know from previous waves of digital transformation [that] you’ve got to start with leadership that allows the space for people to be bold and brave and to fail. If we [in government] continue not to see the connection between data foundations and AI, then permanent secretaries should be banned from talking about AI.”
The ‘How to achieve the government’s vision to transform public sector data sharing’ roundtable, supported by knowledge partner Snowflake, was held at Global Government Forum’s Innovation 2026 conference on 24 March.
About Jack Aldane
Jack is a British journalist, cartoonist and podcaster. He graduated from Heythrop College London in 2009 with a BA in philosophy, before living and working in China for three years as a freelance reporter. After training in financial journalism at City University from 2013 to 2014, Jack worked at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters before moving into editing magazines on global trade and development finance. Shortly after editing opinion writing for UnHerd, he joined the independent think tank ResPublica, where he led a media campaign to change the health and safety requirements around asbestos in UK public buildings. As host and producer of The Booking Club podcast – a conversation series featuring prominent authors and commentators at their favourite restaurants – Jack continues to engage today’s most distinguished thinkers on the biggest problems pertaining to ideology and power in the 21st century. He joined Global Government Forum as its Senior Staff Writer and Community Co-ordinator in 2021.
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