zlacker

In terms of motivation, online services do save the government money on administration costs like manual data entry, costs of returning forms that have been filled out wrong, etc. And every government likes efficiency savings much more than increasing taxes or reducing government services.

In terms of implementation, the government employs a small number of competent people directly - the "Government Digital Service" - who accomplish some projects.

Other IT projects are done by organisations like Accenture, CSC, Atos Origin, Fujitsu and BT. They are generally paid more if the project is late or buggy, with predictable results. But they'll often produce something eventually, if enough money is thrown at them.

The "VIP lanes for routing work to your mates" are more for things like buying overpriced PPE during the pandemic.