I read the Budget announcement about the new EV mileage charge and immediately started counting systems.
Not because of the policy itself, but because of what it means for digital delivery. Someone has to build a service that works for a complex mix of users who may need need to track and report automatically. It could need consumer-facing interfaces and B2B integration points, details which are often left out of big budget announcements, leaving questions about whether implementation has been considered as part of the policy design.
Who runs it? The DVLA will run it through their Vehicle Excise Duty system, but they already spend over 75% of its ICT budget just keeping legacy systems running, and probably even more than that share of their ‘attention’ budget.
This is the pattern that matters in this 2025 Budget.
Where Money Actually Goes
When budget announcements create new service requirements, the money flows to what ministers see and worry about. The front-end interface for concerned EV owners gets funded.
Service operations, incident management, supplier onboarding, the data infrastructure that makes everything work? That comes later. If at all, and all of it consumes leadership and delivery team attention.
I've watched this play out repeatedly. The shiny stuff gets resourced. The operational reality that determines whether a service actually works gets treated as an afterthought.
The first conversation digital leaders need to have isn't about the citizen-facing interface. It's with operational staff and IT teams who will actually catch and run the service day-to-day.
Think about internal public servants who have to administer the service through whatever interfaces you create. They're users too.
The Outcome-Based Funding Gap
This Budget reinforces the government's commitment to "fund for outcomes" as outlined in the Blueprint for Modern Digital Government.
But here's what outcome-based funding looks like in practice: small, discrete, over-defined milestones. The pathway to success gets prescribed in advance. Suppliers can't pivot without triggering cumbersome commercial processes.
Only one in five respondents feel the current funding model actually enables effective digital investment.
Outcomes should be bigger and bolder, with real freedom to achieve them. Or we should admit that most suppliers are just delivering to a pre-defined plan in small steps, which can work if genuine pivots are actually allowed.
What Gets Sacrificed First
When budget pressure hits, design disappears first. Not upfront design, but design throughout delivery.
Tech feels tangible. You see code developing. You see licenses purchased. Design looks like overhead until you realize it mitigates future risk and can radically transform what you're actually building.
The other failure mode is worse: top-slicing everything by 10% and assuming you can deliver the same scope cheaper.
This is a false economy. It costs real money to do quality work. When you just "pay less," something gets sacrificed. Usually quality. And when quality suffers, the whole project risk increases because users don't adopt it or it fails to address the actual policy intent.
Making a Strong Case
Civil service administration budgets face cuts of 11% in real terms, with roughly 10,000 job reductions coming.
This creates an opening. Digital leaders who can demonstrate cashable, in-year benefits around civil service productivity will get attention and funding.
The winning move isn't accepting constraints. It's competing for budget by showing you can deliver more value than others.
Build on what's already working. If you have a learning module that's proven effective, funding two more modules is low-risk and evidence-backed. You're accelerating outcomes you're already confident in.
What To Actually Do
Here's what most people won't think to do after reading this Budget: pause.
This isn't a budget that demands radical pivots in digital strategy. It's about fiscal stability and policy incentives, not funding waves of new services.
Go back to the Blueprint for Digital Government. Make sure you're thinking in three-year planning windows that map to both political cycles and realistic delivery timeframes.
Protect design throughout your delivery process. Protect quality even when pressure mounts to do everything cheaper.
Talk to your operational staff before you talk to anyone else about new service requirements.
And if you're building a business case right now, lead with civil service productivity and in-year benefits. That's where the attention is.
The Budget's real message for digital leaders is about staying the course and doing the fundamentals well, not chasing new shiny things that look good in ministerial briefings but fall apart in operations.
