Distributed Ledger Technologies in Public Services

8. Appendix: Public Sector Interview Methodology

The research for this report followed a four-stage process:

1

At the suggestion of the consultants, the Director of the Scottish Government Digital Directorate wrote to a number of public sector bodies saying:

"….We have recently commissioned research to look at how DLT is being applied in other jurisdictions and to assess whether and/or how it might be applied in Scotland. This will, amongst other things, seek to identify any viable business cases for investing in the technology across the public sector and will, in particular, look at the opportunities it offers for improving services (Process) in particular geographic locations (Place) and improving life for individuals, families and communities (People)….."

2

Interviews and workshops were conducted with CXO level staff across Scotland's public sector. These sessions tended to fall into two halves. During the first a short slide deck was used to explain to interviewees the types of business issues that DLT was best suited to resolve. During the second we focused on their business issues in that context.

Interviewees were provided with the following three questions in advance to stimulate discussion in the second part of the meeting:

Q1 Are there any data-related aspects to your business that cause you a concern and that might result in a serious degradation to your service? This is sometimes known in the commercial sector as an 'extinction level' event.

Q2 Looking forward, over the next 3-5 years do you envision digital enabling better performance, outcomes and inclusion for your agency/department? What are the 3 or 4 blockers holding you back from achieving that vision?

Q3 Thinking about your interaction with, and dependency on, external organisations and people—with you as both a recipient and a provider of data, are there situations where there are delays, efficiencies, inaccuracies and additional costs? E.g. elapsed times, reverting to paper or e-mail, a requirement for 'wet' signatures, re-entry of existing data etc.

3

Sixteen interviews were conducted between October 2017 and March 2018. The interviews, and in some cases workshops, lasted between one and three hours.

4

Desk based research into trends and comparative use cases of DLT within the public sector from across the globe, and an in-depth review of the Scottish DLT ecosystems were conducted. This involved meeting with Universities, SMEs, larger companies such as IBM, Sopra Steria, Exception and the Scottish blockchain meet-up community.

The figure below shows the project shape focused around the themes of People, Place and Process.

Figure 8-1 Scott Government DLT Research Methodology

The full findings around the opportunities outlined by the interviewed organisations are currently being reviewed by the Digital Directorate. These will be published shortly in an updated version of this report.