What endures when government innovation units close
When we created 18F in 2013, our vision was to transform how government builds and buys technology — bringing modern practices into government to create digital services that truly work for the American people. Following the UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS) model, 18F inspired digital service teams worldwide, including the Ontario Digital Service (ODS) I later helped build in Canada.
The recent shuttering of 18F and the dramatic restructuring of ODS was met with shock and disbelief by the global digital government community. For those of us who built these teams, it feels deeply personal — years dedicated to driving change in digital government, only to see our structures dismantled.
Yet this is not a eulogy. By working in the open from day one, 18F created blueprints not just for digital transformation, but for building inclusive team cultures where delivering services for all people meant respecting and supporting all people on the team. The elimination of a self-funded organization that delivered exceptional value reveals deeper tensions in how governments approach modernization.
The true resilience of digital government isn’t in organizational structures but in the people, practices, and cultural shifts that outlive any single team. What matters most is not whether specific teams endure, but how their impact continues to ripple outward long after they’re gone.
Beyond efficiency: the real value at stake.
The dismantling of digital service units is often justified as “efficiency” or “streamlining.” However, 18F operated on a cost-recovery model where agencies chose to work with them because they delivered immense value and savings. In the U.S. federal context, the timing of 18F’s closure suggests something beyond routine reorganization. It appears to be part of a systematic effort to remove internal technical expertise from government. Digital service units represent a fundamentally different approach to government technology — prioritizing user needs and building services with rather than for people. The removal of these teams creates a vacuum inevitably filled by contractors without adequate oversight. Without in-house expertise that understands delivery, who’s left to evaluate whether these contractors are actually building what people need?
Meanwhile, ODS’s restructuring had its own complex drivers, but most concerning is what these closures signal about how governments value digital expertise. Many digital units began with a startup-like ethos, emphasizing speed and autonomy. While this allowed for rapid innovation, it also sometimes led to a perception of digital teams as separate from, rather than integral to, the machinery of government. Leadership’s failure to recognize this expertise as core to modern governance relegates digital capacity to a “nice-to-have” rather than an essential capability for effective public service in the digital age.
What endures when digital units dissolve
Despite these challenges, several elements have remarkable staying power:
The talent we grow endures beyond organizational boundaries. Hundreds of technologists, designers, and product managers from 18F and ODS are now scattered throughout government, civic tech, and the private sector. These change agents possess a shared approach for delivering excellent public services with inclusive, multi-disciplinary teams.
Methods and practices prove surprisingly resilient. The user research playbooks, agile approaches, and design standards created by these teams continue to power the creation of accessible, effective services. The U.S. Web Design System, born at 18F, is used by hundreds of government websites. At ODS, our service design playbook has been adopted by ministries that previously never considered user research essential.
Shared infrastructure outlasts individual programs. 18F’s most enduring contributions might be platforms like Cloud.gov, Login.gov, and Analytics.USA.gov — essential shared services that demonstrate how targeted infrastructure projects create lasting change by making the right thing the easy thing.
Policy changes, when crafted effectively, can be remarkably durable. Both 18F and ODS embedded their approaches into official policy. Once formalized, these standards create requirements that future administrations must actively work to undo rather than simply ignore. ODS created the Simpler, Faster, Better Services Act to require digital services and open data standards; and 18F was instrumental in the enterprise-wise deployment of the Federal Open Source Policy and other key compliance frameworks.
Cultural shifts in how government perceives its relationship with the public. Perhaps the most profound legacy is a fundamental reorientation toward user needs. Once civil servants experience working directly with the people they serve, that perspective rarely disappears entirely.
Understanding what naturally endures helps us identify where to focus our efforts when building more resilient institutions for the future.
Building for resilience
If you’re an administrator, politician, or program owner hoping to build a digital team in your jurisdiction, here are a few things to consider as you get started:
Focus early on institutional allies across government. It’s easy to think you’re alone in pushing for change, but potential champions exist in budget offices, legislative bodies, and oversight agencies. Building these alliances creates a web of support harder to dismantle.
Pursue a diversified funding model rather than relying entirely on cost recovery or appropriations. A mixed approach — with some base funding for core infrastructure alongside fee-for-service work –will provide more stability and strategic flexibility.
Measure and communicate impact relentlessly. Documentation and storytelling are always easy to put on the back burner, but it’s important to document successes in terms that resonate with decision-makers. Concrete metrics about cost savings, improved resident experiences, and enhanced security are hard to dismiss.
Build broad political constituencies beyond immediate supporters. Digital services teams often enjoy support from a particular administration but fail to cultivate champions across the political spectrum. The work of digital government shouldn’t be partisan — efficient, effective services benefit people regardless of political leaning.
Institutionalize change through policy, not just projects. Durable change comes from embedding new ways of working into policies, laws, and procurement practices. The more transformation efforts are tied to governance mechanisms rather than individual initiatives, the harder they are to unwind.
These strategies work best when implemented from the beginning, but for teams already facing political or bureaucratic headwinds these tactical approaches can help preserve your impact:
Document everything. Create detailed records of not just what was built, but why decisions were made and what value is being delivered. This helps new leadership understand the rationale behind initiatives.
Demos, not memos. Concrete demonstrations of working products that solve real problems are more compelling than slide decks and status charts. When the IRS Direct File system helped Americans file taxes for free, it created tangible evidence that transcended political talking points.
Find overlaps between your mission and new priorities. Digital services teams are fundamentally about making government work better — a goal that can align with various political visions, though the emphasis may shift.
Build a distributed movement. The more we invest in training teams across government, the less dependent transformation becomes on any single organization. ODS and 18F may have been disbanded, but the people who learned from them are still driving change.
Align with broader public service mandates. Governments sustain digital work when it aligns with core public service priorities like efficiency, accessibility, and better service delivery.
The work goes on
The true cost of dismantling digital service teams won’t be found in immediate budget savings. Residents will pay through degraded services, bloated contracts without proper oversight, loss of institutional knowledge, and reversed progress.
Transformation in any sector — especially government — is a long game. Our job isn’t to “finish” the work but to advance it before handing it off to the next generation. The pioneering work at GDS, USDS (United States Digital Service), and 18F sparked similar efforts in countries across the globe. ODS showed how these approaches could work at the provincial level and now there are dozens of state, local, and provincial teams in North America.
For those continuing this work worldwide, know that your efforts matter beyond the boundaries of any single institution. The path isn’t linear, but the direction is clear. The legacy of 18F and ODS is in the thousands of public servants who now see that a different way of working is possible — and the millions of people who experience better government services as a result.
We’re not done yet.
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Hillary Hartley is the former CEO of U.S. Digital Response. She was a co-founder of 18F and was Chief Digital and Data Officer and Deputy Minister of the Ontario Public Service in Canada.
Originally published by The Service Gazette on Medium.