Government Unstuck

Executive summary

Democratic governments around the world have continued to make progress to ensure the prosperity and security of their citizens. However, the context in which they operate is changing faster than the institutions and processes through which they govern, and citizens are noticing the gap. The OECD Trust Survey shows a persistent low level of trust on average, driven in large part by two interconnected factors – people's perceptions that they lack influence in government decision making and their low confidence in their government’s ability to address long-term and complex policy challenges.

Governments are not standing still, but too often they remain constrained in their ability to engage, adapt, and deliver at the pace and scale required. This contributes to a sense that governments are "stuck". Yet, the present moment offers a rare opportunity, with advances in new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and large-scale retirement across OECD public services converging in ways that can catalyse the reengineering of how government works. To seize this opportunity, governments will need to transform how they function and embrace deep and structural changes that go much beyond the long-standing and incremental good governance and institutional development reforms that have delivered in the past.

Based on cutting edge practices from OECD countries and beyond, this report sets out an initial direction of change towards a Government Unstuck, which will need to continue to evolve over time. This direction of change is built around four mutually reinforcing objectives:

1. A renewed relationship between governments and citizens, where citizens visibly influence policymaking beyond the ballot box and governments better understand people, navigate difficult trade-offs and make policy decisions supported by society.

2. Significantly simplified government and regulations, where governments become more legible, coherent and responsive so that citizens, businesses and public servants can achieve better outcomes.

3. Restored room for manoeuvre in public finances, where government can invest in emerging priorities and make active choices about where public money goes.

4. A prepared and proactive government where governments harness data, digital technologies and foresight to anticipate challenges, manage uncertainty and deliver services.

Cutting-edge practices to transform government

This direction of change is already visible across the following four areas, where defining practices show how a broader transformation is beginning to take shape. While progress often remains uneven and piecemeal, these practices provide the building blocks for more systemic change.

Trusted and connected digital technologies and data: Technology and data are a core feature of the Government Unstuck agenda, and the report identifies defining practices for strengthening the data and digital foundations of a simpler, more proactive and joined-up government. These include:

• Joining up data across organisational boundaries and improving shared digital infrastructure, such as digital identity, payments and service gateways.

• Embedding artificial intelligence into the everyday work of government while maintaining public trust.

• Developing the in-house skills and capabilities to direct and supervise AI, scale successful pilots, and establish clear accountability and oversight for AI systems, including agentic AI.

Skilled and empowered public servants. Delivering the Government Unstuck agenda will require public servants to work very differently than in the past, and the report identifies defining practices for creating the leadership, accountability, culture and workforce needed for transformation. These include:

• Creating collective accountability for transformation around cross-government priorities and strengthening accountability to citizens by making responsibility and progress more visible.

• Supporting experimentation, so public servants can test and scale new approaches while managing risk proportionately.

• Building a public service with the capabilities needed for the future by identifying and investing in increasingly important professions, such as AI, data, digital, commercial expertise and service design.

Simplified and agile government operating systems. The operating systems of government determine whether political commitments become real outcomes and the report identifies defining practices for making these systems simpler, more strategic and more responsive. These include:

• Simplifying government and regulations by better identifying areas that need simplification, calibrating regulation to risk, redesigning services around what people need, and making beige tape visible so that unnecessary internal processes and controls can be reduced continuously.

• Helping governments spend strategically with fiscal choices that can be owned by society and shifting public procurement from a compliance-driven function towards a strategic one that supports national priorities and public value.

• Putting citizens at the centre of how government operates, including by organising services around life events and using performance information to drive service improvement.

Meaningful and strategic citizen engagement. Rebuilding trust is at the heart of the Government Unstuck agenda, and the report identifies defining practices for embedding citizen voice more deeply throughout government activity. These include:

• Making citizen participation more meaningful by giving citizens a greater role in setting the policy agenda, designing participation around the policy challenge, and strengthening accountability through visible feedback on how citizen contributions influence decisions.

• Institutionalising further new participation methods and tools, such as citizens’ assemblies and national dialogues.

• Strengthening societal listening and public communication to better understand citizens’ experiences, concerns and priorities, and communicate through relatable content that reflect how people consume information today.

Measuring the transformation to a Government Unstuck

For the transformation to take place, governments need to know whether their efforts are translating into the change they intend to produce, where they are falling short, and why. This requires evidence that goes beyond what is currently available: evidence not only on whether reforms are being implemented, but on whether they are having the desired effect on outcomes such as trust and productivity, and how that change is experienced by citizens, businesses and public servants. The report therefore proposes a measurement agenda in the form of a phased programme of work to build a set of intermediate outcome indicators that help governments monitor not only whether they are reforming, but whether their reforms are bringing them closer to a “Government Unstuck”.