Building better, faster: How technology supports public officers

Behind every seamless digital public service, whether it’s applying for a grant, accessing healthcare support services, or securely logging into government portals, is a team of public officers working behind the scenes to make these experiences possible. 

Their job? To keep raising the bar to deliver services better and faster, without compromising on reliability, security, or trust. 

Rising expectations, increasing complexity 

From e-commerce apps to ride-hailing and banking services, citizens now expect government services to be as intuitive, seamless, and responsive as the digital platforms they use every day. This shift is often described as the “digital service expectation gap”, where experiences in the public sector are benchmarked directly against the best of the private sector. 

The OECD Government at a Glance 2025 report found that citizens’ overall satisfaction with public administrative services is closely linked to both the accessibility of services and the ease of using digital platforms. Similarly, the Boston Consulting Group’s Global Digital Government Citizen 2024 Survey have found that citizens increasingly expect digital government services to meet the high standards set by leading private-sector platforms, which are often seen as best-in-class.  

As digital experiences increasingly shape public perception, public officers must constantly improve services to keep them secure, inclusive, and accessible to all. At the same time, engineers are tasked with building systems that can reliably scale to millions of users under evolving demands, while corporate teams must rapidly process growing volumes of information to generate insights that strengthen policymaking and improve service delivery.  

Across roles and functions, one question persists: how can we do more, and do it better, in less time? 

Making work easier, so better work can happen

Consider a public officer who builds government digital services for a living. She cares deeply about making citizens’ lives easier, by simplifying access to government services and improving everyday digital experiences.

But like many of her peers, much of her day gets consumed by repetitive operational work, troubleshooting issues, and managing complex workflows, leaving her with less time for the higher-value work she really wants to focus on: rethinking service design, improving user experiences, and creating more seamless online journeys for citizens.

GovTech’s brand film brings this challenge to life through Jessie’s mum, a software engineer who builds government digital services to simplify citizens’ access to government services and make everyday life easier.

WATCH: Code smarter with SHIP-HATS

In this GovTech brand film, follow Jessie as she introduces her mum to the SHIP-HATS AI Coding Tool, enabling her to code smarter and faster at work. By automating and streamlining parts of her workflow, the tool frees up more time for Jessie’s mum to focus on what truly matters, whether that is finding better ways to serve citizens or simply spending more time with her loved ones.

Watch the full brand video here

With productivity tools like the SHIP-HATS AI Coding Tool, Jessie’s mum is able to automate repetitive coding tasks and troubleshoot issues more quickly, improving both individual and team productivity. As she shares the tool with her team, they too benefit from improved workflows and strengthened collaboration. In turn, this gives her more time to focus on what matters most: spending quality time with her family.

Integrated within the SHIP-HATS platform, the AI Coding Tools help engineers write, review, and ship code faster through AI-assisted suggestions, debugging support, and workflow automation. Depending on their role and code sensitivity requirements, engineers can also work with approved tools such as GitHub Copilot and Claude Code, which offer both agentic and non-agentic capabilities.

By embedding AI directly into development workflows while maintaining security and compliance standards, SHIP-HATS enables engineers to spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time building reliable digital services for citizens.

The impact of these tools extends beyond productivity at work. They also create more room for public officers to focus on what matters, both professionally and outside of work.

Other GovTech-powered work productivity tools

For engineers and technical roles

Other than SHIP-HATS AI Coding Assistant, platforms like StackOps and Container Stack (CStack) also simplify the process of building and launching digital services for public officers.

• StackOps enhances observability and supports Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) by tracking system health and providing actionable insights into application performance. It also serves as a shared platform where agencies can collaborate on monitoring data and exchange insights.

• CStack integrates with SHIP-HATS and StackOps to provide a comprehensive, agile development environment. By streamlining compliance with IM8 and reducing infrastructure complexity, it enables teams to modernise applications more efficiently.

Together, these tools reduce the time spent on product setup and maintenance, allowing engineers to focus on what matters most: designing and improving public services.

For corporate and non-technical roles

AI is also transforming how non-technical teams work, helping officers spend less time processing information and more time making decisions, coordinating teams, and improving outcomes.

• AIBots enables public officers to create and deploy customised GenAI chatbots using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), allowing responses to be grounded in internal knowledge and agency-specific data. This helps officers quickly get accurate, context-specific answers.

• Opus empowers teams to automate workflows and build business rules through a simple visual, drag-and-drop interface. Pre-integrated with whole-of-government tools, it allows officers to move faster without relying heavily on developers, while maintaining security and compliance by design.

• AISAY simplifies the processing of unstructured documents by extracting, classifying, and transforming information into structured outputs that can be integrated into existing systems.

• Transcribe, a Speech-to-Text (STT) platform, converts audio recordings into text using auto-transcription and localised STT services, making it easier to capture meeting notes, improve accessibility, and handle information securely.

Tasks that once took hours, such as searching for information, summarising reports, and drafting communications, can now be completed in minutes.

This doesn’t just improve efficiency. It changes how public officers can spend their time. With less effort spent on repetitive tasks, officers can focus more on critical thinking, planning, collaboration, and improving service outcomes.

From efficiency to impact

Ultimately, these tools are not just improving workflows inside government. They are improving how citizens experience government services.

For public officers, these productivity tools can help them respond more quickly, improve services, and resolve issues faster. By reducing time spent on repetitive and manual tasks, teams are better able to focus their energy on higher-value work that improves service delivery and creates better outcomes.

For citizens, this translates into smoother, more reliable experiences when interacting with government services. Whether it’s faster processing times, clearer communication, or more intuitive digital journeys, these improvements make services easier to access and use.

Better services, improved lives

At its core, this is what GovTech’s mission is about: engineering a digital government, to make lives better.

By equipping public officers with the right tools, GovTech is enabling a government that is more responsive, efficient, and better positioned to meet citizens’ needs. These tools may not always be visible, but their impact is felt every day in the services that people rely on.

10 years of Tech for Public Good, for what truly matters

As GovTech marks its 10th anniversary, this progress reflects a decade of continuous improvement in strengthening capabilities, building resilient systems, and supporting public officers in delivering better services and outcomes.

From foundational platforms to AI-powered productivity tools, GovTech’s journey over the past decade has always been about one thing: using technology to improve lives.

These improvements may happen quietly behind the scenes, but they shape the everyday moments that matter most for citizens and public officers alike. That is what “Tech for Public Good” really means.

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