13 and 14 October 2026, Radisson Blu Edwardian Heathrow
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Registration Desk60 mins
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Main room10 mins
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Main room30 mins
- Digital, Data & AI
Government is moving from AI ambition to delivery; but the real challenge is applying technology effectively to complex, real-world problems. The No.10 Innovation Fellowship tackles this by embedding world-class technical talent into priority challenges across Whitehall, accelerating progress and delivering tangible outcomes at pace. In this keynote, Eoin Mulgrew is joined by one of the Fellows to bring this model to life. Blending strategic insight with a live case study, they will share what it takes to move from concept to impact; including what works, what doesn’t, and the barriers that remain. This session offers senior leaders a view from the frontline of transformation, providing a tangible, proven model for delivering AI-enabled change across government.
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Main room20 mins
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Main room30 minsOur signature ‘Dragons’ Den’ session provides each solution provider with an opportunity to deliver a 60 second pitch, explaining why they are here and how their services can help tackle some of the s ...
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Networking and business meetingsNetworking Area75 mins15 minute meetings with suppliers who are offering solutions most relevant to your challenges. Please check the schedule on the back of your delegate pass for your meeting timings.
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Main room50 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
- Digital, Data & AI
AI adoption across central government has moved from pilot projects to an operational expectation. But beneath the surface, a harder question is emerging: are we truly transforming services, or simply layering AI onto systems that aren’t fit for purpose? This opening keynote challenges the narrative of progress and asks leaders to confront the gap between ambition and delivery. With growing pressure to demonstrate value under tight fiscal conditions, departments must move beyond proof-of-concept and into measurable, citizen-facing outcomes. This session will examine what is actually working, what is falling behind, and what must change to deliver AI at scale. From data quality and legacy constraints to governance, procurement, and accountability, speakers will explore the ways government is structurally ready for AI, and what it will take to get the rest of the way there.
- How are departments moving from pilots to scalable, outcome-driven AI adoption?
- What governance models enable safe, but agile, AI deployment?
- How can policy, procurement, and delivery functions align to avoid duplication?
- How are legacy systems being addressed to ensure AI tools are effective?
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Main room20 mins
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Networking lunch45 minsAn opportunity to connect with your peers and suppliers to talk over the learnings from the event. Lunch is served buffet style and a range of options are available to cater for different dietary requ ...
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Main room40 mins
- Outcomes & Impact
Trust has become the defining measure of success for digital government, but it cannot be designed in, it must be earned through outcomes, transparency, and data integrity. As AI-enabled services and digital identity programmes expand, central government faces growing scrutiny over how citizen data is used, shared, and protected while delivering results that lead to meaningful improvements in citizens’ lives. At the heart of this is data: its quality, its governance, and how confidently it can be used to drive fair, inclusive, and accountable decisions. This discussion will explore how departments can better align service design, data strategy, and delivery to create services that citizens not only use, but trust.
- How is poor data quality undermining citizen experience and confidence? Do citizens understand and trust how their data is used?
- Are digital-enabled transformation efforts delivering measurable improvements in outcomes, particularly for underserved groups?
- How can government use data to drive efficiency while maintaining accessibility, transparency, and public trust?
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Main room20 mins
Main room and breakout room presentations
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Main room10 mins
Main room and breakout room presentations
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Networking and business meetingsNetworking Area60 mins15 minute meetings with suppliers who are offering solutions most relevant to your challenges. Please check the schedule on the back of your delegate pass for your meeting timings.
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Main room60 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
- Digital, Data & AI
- Operations & Service Delivery
These roundtable discussions give leaders the chance to share real-world challenges and solutions with peers facing similar issues. Delegates will submit topics ahead of the event, which will then be used to shape each roundtable around pre-defined themes with guiding questions. Attendees will choose the table most relevant to their priorities and engage in peer-to-peer conversations on approaches, lessons learned, and strategies to apply going forward. Senior leaders will conclude by distilling the insights into an Action Manifesto: a practical set of commitments to guide leadership and decision-making over the year ahead.
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115 mins
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Drinks reception and networking dinner150 minsNetworking sessions – throughout the event we host a networking lunch as well as a dinner and drinks reception to give you ample opportunity to connect with your peers and suppliers over the learnings ...
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Main room5 mins
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Main room20 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
- Digital, Data & AI
Importance of having a clear vision and engaging teams to align behind it How GDS sets the strategic tone for AI adoption across departments Inspiring civil servants to see AI not as a tool, but a lever for public impact Ensuring the UK leads from the front
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Main room30 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
- Workforce, Skills & Culture
Government has talked about building digital capability for years, yet many departments continue to be heavily reliant on contractors. As transformation accelerates, a critical question emerges: is government building sustainable capability, or outsourcing its future? Despite growing investment, skills gaps persist, digital literacy remains uneven, and competition with the private sector continues to intensify. At the same time, expectations of the civil service are rising to build sustainable, in-house capability and foster cultures that embrace digital change. This panel explores how government can move from short-term resourcing fixes to long-term capability, aligning workforce strategy with transformation goals.
- Where should departments prioritise investment to build high-impact, in-house data and digital capability?
- How can government reduce reliance on contractors without slowing delivery?
- How do we scale meaningful digital literacy across the civil service?
- How can leaders evolve culture, career pathways, and incentives to retain talent?
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Main room40 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
- Digital, Data & AI
- Operations & Service Delivery
Despite efforts to reform, central government still operates largely in departmental silos, limiting opportunities to deliver joined-up, efficient systems. With pressure mounting to do more with less, 2026 marks a shift toward converged operating models and cross-government collaboration. Yet barriers remain around data-sharing, supplier management and investment decisions. This session brings together leaders to explore how government can move from isolated initiatives to a system-wide approach. What practical steps would enable data sharing and align strategy across departments?
- How can government overcome cultural and organisational barriers to effective data sharing?
- What does a realistic, joined-up operating model look like across departments?
- How can shared services reduce duplication while respecting departmental autonomy?
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Networking and business meetingsNetworking Area60 mins15 minute meetings with suppliers who are offering solutions most relevant to your challenges. Please check the schedule on the back of your delegate pass for your meeting timings.
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Main room20 mins
Main room and breakout room presentations
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Main room30 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
- Finance & Sustainability
Effective procurement is no longer about buying services, but a strategic lever for innovation. In 2026, there is a renewed emphasis on working with SMEs, embedding social value, and fostering homegrown capability rather than relying solely on large vendors. This session explores how government can buy smarter, deliver better outcomes, and enable innovation across the public sector. How can we balance risk with efficiency, while ensuring tech investments contribute to the green transition, mission-led innovation, and UK digital capability, and align with broader government objectives.
- How can departments balance working with SMEs and large vendors to drive innovation?
- How can procurement decisions strengthen UK digital capability rather than just buying solutions?
- How do procurement reforms support environmental, social, and economic objectives?
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Breakout room 130 mins
- Digital, Data & AI
- Operations & Service Delivery
Quantum computing, agentic AI, and other emerging technologies are rapidly reshaping the cyber threat landscape and redefining how governments protect critical systems and data. While these technologies unlock new capabilities for public service delivery, they also introduce systemic risks that current security models are not designed to withstand. For central government leaders, the challenge is no longer awareness, but readiness. This session will explore how to build resilient, future-ready systems while seizing strategic advantage in the face of accelerating technological change.
- Where should government focus investment to balance long-term resilience with near-term operational demands?
- How can cross-government collaboration strengthen security, ethics, and interoperability at scale?
- What does evidence-led cyber resilience look like across critical national infrastructure, and how do we operationalise it?
- Where should government invest now to prepare for the opportunities and challenges of new technologies?
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Breakout room 230 mins
- Digital, Data & AI
- Operations & Service Delivery
Legacy tech is a widely recognised barrier to transformation, but a deeper challenge lies in understanding what already exists. Across central government, decades of system changes, undocumented workarounds, and staff turnover have created significant gaps in institutional memory, making modernisation complex, costly, and high-risk. As departments push to adopt AI and new digital services, many are finding that progress is constrained not just by outdated systems, but by a lack of visibility into how those systems operate. This session explores how organisations can take a more strategic approach to modernisation.
- How can departments better understand and map legacy systems before attempting transformation?
- How should leaders balance the cost of modernisation with long-term operational value?
- What practical approaches enable low-risk migration to modern platforms?
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Main room40 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
- Operations & Service Delivery
As government shifts to platform-based services, delivery is fundamentally changing. Systems are no longer owned by single departments, but built on shared infrastructure, powered by cross-government data, and shaped by automated decision-making. While this enables scale and efficiency, it raises a critical question: when something goes wrong, who is accountable? This panel will explore real-world experiences from senior leaders operating in complex, cross-government environments. Rather than theoretical discussion, speakers will reflect on situations where accountability was unclear, decisions had to be made under pressure, and existing governance models were tested.
- When systems are jointly owned and continuously evolving, how should accountability be defined?
- How do we assign responsibility when decisions become automated?
- Are current governance, audit, and assurance models fit for platform-based government?
- What practical steps can leaders take now to prepare for failure, not just delivery success?
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Main room5 mins
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Networking lunch40 mins
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