the rise and fall – and rise? – of the performance platform

Open data and open standards were given a welcome and practical revival in the early days of the Government Digital Service (GDS). This included the

Improving identity assurance and trust

We may live in a digital age, but paper documents – notably passports – are still the most trusted evidence to help prove who we

fixing organisational design

I’m still seeing service design in many brownfield organisations being compromised by current organisational policies, dogma, assumptions, culture, silos, processes, egos and structures. However much

remembering government.direct – the first interactive green paper

“Top 5% of all Web sites!” “Networking industry awards!” “Awards for excellence!” No, these accolades aren’t for GOV.UK. They’re for the much earlier 1994 central

Data Privacy Day musings

Consider this on #DataPrivacyDay. For more than 60 years now, organisations have been trying to understand and manipulate the way we think, as the first

The political opportunity – and threat – of better public services

Hard to believe I know, but we’re approaching ten years ago – 4th June 2009 to be precise – when Tim O’Reilly set out his

public policy, technology and society – democracy in an age of change

The intersection of public policy, technology and society is complex. And yes, that’s something of an understatement. A mix of politics, law, design, architecture, usability,

payday loans and the missed opportunity?

In our book Digitizing Government: understanding and implementing new digital business models, there’s a table illustrating how often grand announcements have been made around the

The wellsprings of UK digital reform part 2 – separating porcine lip enhancement from transformation

Previously This is the second episode of a mini-series of blogs looking at the origins of the UK government’s digital reform programme since 2010. Part

The wellsprings of UK digital reform part 1 – the backstory

While there are some great pockets of work taking place to deliver better public services, the UK government’s overall attempts at technology-enabled, or “e-government” or

Manifesto for Better Public Services

Last night at the Institute for Government, I helped launch the “Manifesto for Better Public Services”, along with an accompanying and much more detailed “Better

the inadequate scope of public sector “reform”

In the 1999 book “Reinventing Government”, information is placed at the centre of the government reform model: The rings identify multiple aspects that need to be addressed