The National Digital Exchange

The UK government just announced something big. The National Digital Exchange (NDX) promises £1.2 billion in annual savings and a complete overhaul of how the government buys technology. But here's what really matters: this could finally fix how citizens AND employees experience public services.

The Problem is Real

Public sector technology procurement has followed the same path for a long time. Whilst the recent changes brought in by the latest procurement act have made some changes in many ways, it is still a broken system. Considering the amount of spend the public sector is accountable for, it could be done much better. Every NHS Trust or Local Council, so hundreds of organisations, largely negotiate their own technology agreements. That's 529 organizations all buying similar tech separately. Madness.

The public sector fails to realise the value of its buying power.

The State of digital government review painted a stark picture of under investment in new technology, services hindered by legacy technologies, inconsistent user journeys hampered by fragmented data silos, and a lack of digital leadership.

The numbers tell the story: Digital and data projects are 60% more likely to be reporting 'Red' than the wider Government Major Projects Portfolio, with only 9% reporting a 'Green' status according to the review.

Meanwhile, only six percent of public sector IT decision makers say their organisation has fully integrated digital transformation.

What the NDX Actually Does

The National Digital Exchange isn't just another government initiative. It's an AI-powered marketplace that:

• Matches departments with suppliers in hours, not months
• Let users rate and review what they've bought (imagine that!)
• Provides pre-negotiated national pricing
• Targets 40% more small business involvement

At Deskpro, we're already G-Cloud and BOS2 framework compliant and serve major public sector departments across customer service, IT support, and HR help desks. But we're relatively unknown compared to many of the long-standing technology vendors in the sector, so current procurement policies, despite their best endeavours, make it difficult for adoption of SMEs like Deskpro. That is why we're excited to bring our proven track record to the NDX platform.

Why This Changes Everything

Here's the thing about help desk services in government: whether it's citizens calling about benefits, employees reporting IT issues, or staff needing HR support, when these systems fail, there's nowhere else to go.

The NDX can transform this by:

• Making Procurement Fast: No more 18-month procurement cycles while staff struggle with broken IT systems and citizens can't get help
• Creating Accountability: Real user reviews mean help desk platforms have to actually work for IT teams, HR departments, and customer service agents
• Spreading Best Practice: When one department finds a solution that streamlines their HR queries or IT tickets, others can see the reviews and adopt it quickly

The Real Impact

By allowing the public sector to make better and quicker buying decisions of technologies that (based on peer reviews and experience) are more likely to succeed, you open the door to a more rapid and effective transformation of citizen and employee services.

Let's take the HR help desk as an example… an employee wants to book compassionate leave but can't find the policy. They email the HR help desk, but the agent doesn't know where it's buried in SharePoint. The email gets forwarded, missed, and lost in the pile.

Research shows employees spend 0.5-1.5 hours per week following up on internal queries alone. For a Trust of 10,000 employees, that's 260,000 hours annually of wasted time.

Now, if we have an HR manager who wants to make a change. Enable them to find solutions that can address their challenges. If the NDX can highlight technologies that address their issues, find the best-of-breed instead of the ‘one-we-always-use’, whilst at the same time ensuring the best possible value for money, then it's a win for everyone.

The Challenge

But this change won’t come without potential pitfalls. The objective for a long time has been to increase the number of SMEs that the public sector does business with. There are too many big businesses that have dominated public sector spend for too long, relying on long-standing relationships, vendor lock-in, and the effort required to find and implement new tech. The NDX seeks to address that, but as with previous changes, there needs to be a real focus on ensuring they have a real impact.

The Bottom Line

The NDX represents more than procurement reform. It's about creating internal operations that actually work and external services that citizens can rely on.

For technology providers, success will mean proving real value across all these use cases through transparent reviews. For government departments, it means access to tools that can finally handle the complexity of modern public service delivery.

For everyone involved? It hopefully means the difference between frustration and efficiency, whether you're a citizen trying to report an issue, an employee needing IT support, or an HR team managing hundreds of policy queries, a procurement manager trying to make best value decisions, or a budget holder trying to deliver change with decreasing spend available.

The NDX will aim to deliver a change not only to public sector buying power, how solutions are bought, but crucially, the knock-on to how quickly and effectively these solutions can have a tangible impact on citizens.

Don't want to wait for the NDX? Deskpro is already helping major UK government departments like HMRC and the NHS deliver exceptional service across HR, IT, and customer support. Book a demo to see how our G-Cloud compliant platform can streamline your operations and improve satisfaction today.