In September 2025, Welsh Government announced that the Centre for Digital Public Services (CDPS) would be absorbed into the organisation.

Since that announcement, there has been little public clarity about what this change means in practice: what the new directorate exists to do, who it is for, how it will work, and how success will be judged.

This matters. Welsh Government and CDPS are funded by public money, so these decisions should be made in public, not behind closed doors.

CDPS was created to raise the standard of how public services in Wales are designed and delivered. Its value lies not in its name or structure, but in the practice, capability and trust it built across the public sector.

This post sets out the minimum standard we expect from the new directorate, and the benefits Wales gains if that standard is met.

Strategy and operating model: who this unit is for

We expect early clarity on who this directorate exists to serve and how it operates.

This unit should exist to support and strengthen delivery across the Welsh public sector — including local government, health, arms-length bodies and delivery teams inside Welsh Government itself.

Its role is not to do work for organisations. It is to:

  • help organisations build their own capability
  • support lasting, sustainable change
  • raise standards through partnership, not dependency

We expect a clear vision, strategy and dynamic operating model that sets this out plainly.

That strategy should include:

  • the design principles the unit will work to
  • how it partners with organisations rather than replacing them
  • how success will be measured over time

This clarity is essential for trust, alignment and pace.

Roadmap and focus: what work will be done

We expect transparency about what the directorate will work on. We expect to see the thinking behind this, not just announcements after decisions are made behind closed doors.

That means publishing:

  • a clear roadmap of priority services and focus areas
  • the rationale for those choices and how they’ve been prioritised
  • how work will be sequenced and reviewed

The emphasis should be on services, not initiatives.

Working in this way allows the wider public sector to engage early, learn from progress, and align their own work. It also makes trade-offs visible and prevents duplication.

Building on what already exists

We expect the new directorate to actively embrace existing standards, guidance and work, including:

Reinventing these would waste time and weaken confidence.

The same applies to ways of working. The practices developed and modelled through CDPS — multidisciplinary teams, test and learn, working in the open — should be the default starting point, not optional extras.

Wales has already invested in this learning. The return comes from using it.

Tools and practices: enabling modern, collaborative and open work

We expect teams to have access to the best tools to do their job and work in the open.

Specialist skills like user research, service design, content design, product and delivery management, engineering and data science need specialist tools to help them do their work well.

For example:

  • designers need access to modern tools that help them work well, such as Miro and Figma
  • product and delivery managers need a place to track and share work, and tools like Trello and Miro to map and visualise plans and thinking
  • user researchers need access to a suite of tools to help them work, such as Optimal Workshop, UserZoom, and Tobii
  • engineers need equipment that helps them build, share code, and manage version control like GitHub, powerful integrated development environments (IDEs), and unrestricted access to knowledgebases and package management

Tools should be picked because they’re the best for their job, not because the Welsh Government already has licences or it’s convenient to use a single jack-of-all-trades tool.

Above all, teams need access to open collaboration tools which support conversation across organisational boundaries and work well with existing industry tools, such as Slack.

Working in the open should be the standard. Regular, open show and tells, weeknotes, and blog posts should be accessible to anyone across the public sector, to demonstrate progress and invite feedback early and often.

All of this takes bravery. It is also how trust and credibility are built.

Governance and risk: supporting agile delivery

We expect governance that supports modern delivery rather than constraining it. This is the right opportunity to review and reset risk appetite and approaches to governance.

That means:

  • a risk appetite aligned to learning, not just avoidance
  • assurance that focuses on outcomes, not documentation
  • genuine feedback loops between teams, leaders and users
  • a move away from retrospective governance to more real-time review and feedback loops

Governance should help teams surface problems early, adjust course and improve. If it only functions at stage gates or after the fact, it is too late to add value or to provide assurance.

People, pay and trust

We expect professional digital and design skills to be treated as core public service capability .

That includes:

  • user research
  • service and content design
  • product and delivery management
  • engineering and data

These roles must have sufficient seniority and authority to shape decisions, not just advise on them.

Pay matters. Salaries need to be competitive with digital roles in England and across the UK public sector. Without this, Wales will continue to lose experienced practitioners and increase its reliance on external suppliers.

We also expect:

  • active retention of experienced people
  • the ability to recruit for future needs
  • trust in professionals to do the work
  • time and space to do it properly
  • access to ongoing, specialist skills training and industry conferences

Communities of practice should be protected and supported. They are how standards are maintained, learning is shared and confidence is built across the system.

What success looks like

Absorbing CDPS into Welsh Government could be a turning point.

Done well, it embeds proven practice at the heart of government and strengthens Wales’ ability to meet public expectations with limited resources.

The difference will not be structure. It will be leadership, standards and choices.

These are the minimum standards we expect to see. Without them, the progress Wales has made over the last 5 years will be lost.

If this move is successful, we should see:

  • credible leadership visible across the UK public sector
  • a clear strategy, operating model and roadmap
  • CDPS practice embedded in everyday delivery
  • modern tools used as standard
  • teams working dynamically and openly
  • stable funding for services and products
  • experienced practitioners staying and leading
  • strong communities of practice across Wales

This is achievable. The foundations already exist.