Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what plans his Department has to (a) reduce duplication in digital services and (b) consolidate departmental platforms.

The Government is committed to delivering more joined up public services, reducing duplication, and developing modern digital public infrastructure that will make public organisations more integrated. Thousands of teams across the public sector are already using our world-leading digital components such as GOV.UK Notify, Pay and Design System.

The Government will establish a ‘once only’ rule, so that if people have provided information to one service, it can be reused by others with appropriate safeguards. It will start with central government services and commonly reused data, but be designed to scale over time to the broader public sector and more information.

The Government has also committed to introducing a Digital Backbone: the integration, orchestration and instrumentation technology needed to share capabilities and build true end-to-end journeys.