The European Commission recently published its 2023 State of the Digital Decade report. One of its key takeaways is that the Commission recommends Member States to step up innovation procurement investments in digital sector.
The Commission has identified that ‘While the roll-out of digital public services is progressing steadily, investment in public procurement of innovative digital solutions (e.g. based on AI or big data) is insufficient and would need to increase substantially from EUR 188 billon to EUR 295 billon in order to reach full speed adoption of innovative digital solutions in public services’ (para 4.2, original emphasis).
The Commission has thus recommended that ‘Member States should step up investment and regulatory measures to develop and make available secure, sovereign and interoperable digital solutions for online public and government services’; and that ‘Member States should develop action plans in support of innovation procurement and step up efforts to increase public procurement investments in developing, testing and deploying innovative digital solutions’.
Tucked away in a different part of the report (which, frankly, has a rather odd structure), the Commission also recommends that ‘Member States should foster the availability of legal and technical support to procure and implement trustworthy and sovereign AI solutions across sectors.’
To my mind, the priorities for investment of public money need to be further clarified. Without a significant investment in an ambitious plan to quickly expand the public sector’s digital skills and capabilities, there can be no hope that increased procurement expenditure in digital technologies will bring adequate public sector digitalisation or foster the public interest more broadly.
Without a sophisticated public buyer that can adequately cut through the process of technological innovation, there is no hope that ‘throwing money at the problem’ will bring meaningful change. In my view, the focus and priority should be on upskilling the public sector before anything else—including ahead of the also recommended mobilisation of ‘public policies, including innovative procurement to foster the scaling up of start-ups, to facilitate the creation of spinoffs from universities and research centres, and to monitor progress in this area’ (para 3.2.3). Perhaps a substantial fraction of the 100+ billion EUR the Commission expects Member States to put into public sector digitalisation could go to building up the required capability… too much to ask?