Hitachi Solutions

Bio  - Sharna Quirke: Strategic Director for Local Government and Health at Hitachi Solutions

Sharna began her career with the Australian government, working in international trade and diplomacy. Her move to the UK came with an opportunity to work in human rights, defining policies and solutions on data sharing, digital inclusion, and the use of technology to significantly improve public service delivery for government in the UK. This post became the turning point of what has now resulted in over 18 years of designing digital solutions to address complex public needs, in the UK and internationally.

During this time, Sharna has delivered countless programmes in customer and digital transformation, designing solutions to meet the most strategic needs (and savings) for local authorities and citizens. With tertiary qualifications in law, economics and business, she drives the perspective that technology should be an enabler to superior public services and achieving business/policy priorities, and not the end goal.
 
Sharna has published academic articles on eDemocracy, advised the World Bank on digital inclusion in service delivery and for the EU and designed a benchmarking framework to assess how digitally advanced local service delivery was across Europe. On behalf of USAid, she was commissioned to work in Georgia, to design an e-Petitions platform for the Prime Minister’s office, to help enhance democracy in the region.

Sharna lives in London with her family, is a School Governor and if time allows, plays the occasional game of tennis.

Why the committee and what we want to get out of it.

Harmony, sincerity and pioneering spirit are traditional Japanese values which inform everything we do at Hitachi Solutions. Although a global organisation, our role and impact in the UK, especially in the public sector is growing rapidly. It was right therefore, to be part of TechUK, whose mission is to champion technology’s role in empowering the UK and delivering a better future for people, the economy and the planet.

Hitachi Solutions is delivering over £100M of value to the UK public sector. Our projects range from improving operational efficiency with new ERP or CRM solutions, improving decision-making with data and insights or enabling organisations to prepare for future innovation (like AI) with cloud technology.  Hitachi Solutions is also the leading consultancy in establishing ‘smart places’ using sensor technology to support decision-making, policy development, and achieving sustainability and carbon net-zero targets.

We are at the forefront of how technology software is developed and we influence this process with our partners globally. Our people have a deep understanding of the industries we work in because they have worked there too! This allows us to move past the conventional approach and deliver cost-effective and innovative solutions, enabling our clients in the public sector to revolutionise how they meet societies and customer expectations, in challenging economic conditions.  

Hitachi Solutions is taking a leading role in the Local Public Services Committee because we understand that public services are faced with a range of challenges, and technology presents the opportunity to do things differently and efficiently and meet those challenges. We wish to work collaboratively with other members of TechUK to explore barriers to entry and challenges with procurement. But also, how the industry can help support the skills deficit in local government, have dynamic conversations on the ‘art of the possible’ and explore the future of data-driven decision-making in local government, and what this will mean for all of us.

Over 60% of our local services are delivered by local authorities while economic challenges are extremely high, and customer expectations and needs are even higher. Never have we needed more, the Hitachi values of coming together in harmony, exploring issues with sincerity and having the courage of the pioneering spirit, to see how it can be done differently. TechUK’s Local Public Services Committee will be an amazing forum to achieve this.