Darren Jones launches “Move fast, fix things” reforms, setting out case for a new digital state

Darren Jones, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, and sherpa of the digital ambitions at the heart of government, used a speech yesterday to set out a reform agenda aimed at speeding up delivery in Whitehall and rebuilding public services around digital foundations, rather than incremental change to existing systems.

The speech “Move fast, fix things: modernising Whitehall to deliver for Britain” was delivered at the London offices of UK-based what3words, and the Chief Secretary to the PM argued that dissatisfaction with public services is now shared by citizens, politicians and civil servants alike, and that the problem is structural rather than cultural.

“Everybody agrees the status quo in our public services is not working… that’s why the public, politicians, and civil servants are all frustrated by the pace of change.”

He said repeated diagnoses of the problem had failed to restore confidence, adding that the public no longer believes that minor reform will be enough.

“This is not a traditional speech of incremental change… nor is it the populist approach where all your challenges are blamed on the state. Instead, this is an organising call for a new consensus about what the state does and how it does it.”

From a “legacy state” to a “new digital state”

Jones framed the central challenge as a mismatch between how government is organised and how people now expect services to work. He described a “legacy state” characterised by fragmented departments, repeated data collection and manual processes that consume time and effort without improving outcomes.

“That is why we’ve ended up with a proliferation of call centres, endless paperwork, and having to tell your story multiple times to different parts of government.”

The response, he said, must be wholesale digital transformation, not piecemeal fixes.

“The answer is investment; investment in wholesale digital transformation of the state… building the foundations of a new digital state that delivers public services built around you.”

Jones argued that properly designed digital services would both improve citizen experience and reduce long-term running costs, while freeing civil servants from administrative burden.

“The state should use technology to strip out the tedious admin we spend so much time processing right now, and then free up civil servants to focus on human interactions where they matter most.”

Cutting bureaucracy to speed up delivery

A significant part of the speech focused on delivery speed and the cumulative drag created by multiple layers of approval. Jones described a system where “everyone has a say, but no one can act”, citing major infrastructure programmes as examples of decision-making slowed by overlapping assurance and sign-off requirements.

He pointed to Project Reset, launched during his time at the Treasury, as a practical response. In a pilot with HMRC, he said approval processes for a technology modernisation programme were reduced from around 40 to two.

“This new scheme cut the approvals down to two and saved around three months in delivery.”

Jones said similar approaches would be applied more broadly across government, including reforms to how senior civil servants are empowered to make decisions.

Rebalancing senior leadership towards delivery

Jones argued that Whitehall has too often conflated policy design with delivery, and that senior leaders are frequently assessed on written outputs rather than real-world results.

“The public does not care about policy papers. They want to see real change.”

He announced changes to performance management for the Senior Civil Service, including closer alignment with minister-set KPIs and stronger accountability for underperformance. He also said bonus arrangements would change, with “higher but fewer bonuses” targeted at exceptional delivery and innovation rather than being spread thinly.

Building capability: training and external expertise

The speech also included the announcement of a new National School of Government and Public Services, intended to bring learning and development in-house and reduce reliance on expensive outsourced training. Jones said the school would be funded from existing budgets and focus on skills such as technology, delivery and strategic thinking.

Alongside this, he announced an expansion of the No 10 Innovation Fellows programme, inspired by the US Presidential Innovation Fellows model. He described it as a highly competitive route that brings in specialist talent, particularly in data science and AI, for time-limited deployments to solve defined problems.

“This is not how government has traditionally worked, but it is now how government works.”

Applying the “vaccine taskforce” model beyond crises

Jones described the vaccine taskforce as evidence that government can move quickly when normal constraints are lifted. He said the government would now apply elements of that operating model in “peacetime”, focused on prime ministerial priorities.

“Today I’m announcing that we will apply the vaccine taskforce model in peacetime not just in crises.”

These teams, he said, would be given faster hiring routes, greater procurement flexibility, increased delegated authority and direct ministerial backing, with a higher tolerance for managed risk.

Why this time is different

Responding to scepticism about repeated attempts at Civil Service reform, Jones argued that the significance of the announcement lay in explicitly accepting that the current system is broken and committing to rebuild it, rather than patch it.

“All previous attempts assumed you could fix the current state. I’m saying I agree with the public: the state is broken. I’m not interested in patching it up. I’m interested in building the foundations of a new digital state.”

For DDaT leaders and teams, the speech signals an intent to prioritise delivery speed, delegated authority and digital capability with the practical impact depending on how consistently these commitments are implemented across departments in the months ahead.