With an $80 billion IT budget, the U.S. government is not short of funds to acquire the latest tech. Yet as noted by Box CEO Aaron Levie, information sharing in the public sector often takes “archaic” forms, such as exchanging physical hard drives, mailing CDs and using outdated systems and software.

Lawmakers including Sen. Thomas R. Carper have decried the “hundreds of millions of dollars wasted by the federal government on poorly planned and poorly managed IT projects and through unnecessarily duplicative IT investments.”

The problem isn’t limited to Washington, however.

In Britain, the government still posts paper reminders with 16-digit reference numbers for drivers to use paying car tax. The television licensing agency demands that Brits print out web forms and post them, should they change address and seek refunds.

“Citizens may use apps to book minicabs and compose shopping lists, and then feel they are transported back to the dark ages when interacting with the government,” notes Charles Orton-Jones.

And in supposedly high-tech Japan, forget about setting up a company or bank account without personally stamping the paper-based application form with your official company stamp (hanko).

Closing the gap

Ironically, government has served as the source of some of the world’s biggest IT innovations. ARPANET, part of the technical foundations of the Internet, was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, while companies such as IBM and Oracle got a kick-start from government orders.

While IT vendors are keen to help government close the digital divide, procurement processes tailored toward large businesses rather than start-ups remain a key challenge.

CaseLines founder Paul Sachs points to government procurement requests based on only a “25 percent understanding of the real requirement” by the supplier.

“The result is that the delivered system only realizes 12.5 percent of the requirements and is basically a failure,” he said.

However, progress is being made, albeit slowly.

The U.S. federal government’s “cloud first” policy is seeing some progress in using third-party services that deliver software over the Web.

For example, the U.S. General Services Administration shifted its e-mail to Google, saving US$42 million over five years. The U.S. Army Experience Center identified a cloud CRM solution that cost a tenth of its previous technology.

Other digital transformation advances are seen in fostering connected cities such as through “smart” meters, developing automated call centers in social services and using digital government platforms.

In Britain, a 20 million British pound (US$25 million) fund under the GovTech Catalyst scheme is supporting new technologies for the public sector. Successes have included the development of technology that identified Islamic State fighters through still images, while HM Revenue & Customs succeeded in digitizing tax returns and allowing third-party platforms to connect.

And in Australia, the federal government has established the Digital Transformation Agency, tasked with delivering world-leading digital services for the benefit of all Australians.

Embracing the future

Todd Thibodeaux, head of tech industry association CompTIA, says government needs to change its mindset and embrace smaller firms.

“Most of the truly innovative solutions are coming from start-ups to midsize tech firms, not from the large multinational players,” he argues.

If heavily regulated industries such as financial services and health care can adopt emerging technology, government can too, such as by finding critical choke points or facilitating better access to data.

Critics might suggest the bureaucracy is too big a ship to turn around. But if government can inspire the Internet, it should surely be capable of sparking its own IT revolution.