Minister for Cabinet Office Matt Hancock recently gave a speech on the potential of blockchain technology to transform the way the UK government works.
Hancock said that government cannot “bury its head in the sand” and ignore new technologies as they emerge. In order to catch on to the latest technological trends, the UK government has started building ‘government as a platform’.
He described blockchain technology as “digital tools for building trust in data”. Rather than a single central authority demanding trust, the technology is based on the distributed consensus of everyone in the chain. It brings built-in integrity and immutability.
Hancock further pointed out the various areas where the government is seeking to implement the technology. He said:
“We’ve already committed to supporting the Alan Turing Institute with £10 million to investigate digital currencies and distributed ledger technologies, and we’re excited to explore any and all possible use cases for blockchains in government.
“We’re exploring the use of a blockchain to manage the distribution of grants. Monitoring and controlling the use of grants is incredibly complex. A blockchain, accessible to all the parties involved, might be a better way of solving that problem.”
He further noted that the technology could be used to track money, for example, the Student Loans Company tracking money all the way from Treasury to a student’s bank account, or the Department for International Development tracking money all the way to the aid organisation spending the money in country.
“These are just some of the ideas we’re considering in government. We’re still in the early days. That takes time, and a lot of careful thought”, he said.
