My new book, Fracture | The collision between technology and democracy—and how we fix it, has now been published. It’s available from Amazon around the
Category: Government as a Platform
A state machine for the state machine
Digital, data, and technology (DDaT) are being used to build shared platforms and infrastructure, and to improve the user experience of government services. But improving
UK Government Platforms | Revisited
The UK Government was a platform pioneer. It was amongst the first to understand the potential of platforms in the design and delivery of public
What can politicians learn from Universal Credit?
The unfortunate saga of Universal Credit is a powerful reminder of the repeated failure to successfully integrate policy making with technology. A failure that comes
UK Government single sign-in since 2001
Here’s my attempt at a very simplified slide summary of UK cross-government single sign-in since 2001: If you have any difficulties seeing the embedded Google
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
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
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
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
Reinventing wheels …?
Imagine this: a government service that enables you to notify a change of address once. Or a government service that enables you to set up
Transformational government
Last Friday I formally submitted our response to the UK’s Transformational Government Strategy. We always committed to make this an open and public document. I’ve
new tech observations from the UK (ntouk) 