My new book, Fracture | The collision between technology and democracy—and how we fix it, is being published February 2023. I’ll update this page when
Category: IT strategy
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
“Dysfunctional, damaging and sometimes dangerous”
“Dysfunctional, damaging and sometimes dangerous” That’s how the Public Accounts Committee describes government technology in the press release that accompanies their latest report, “Challenges in
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
The political cost of legacy systems
Passengers arriving at airports across the UK recently encountered irritating delays because of problems with the automatic eGates. One likely cause is the Home Office’s
policy making in the digital age
UK Authority have published my article Rethinking policy making in the digital age. It explores the need for a national digital infrastructure that provides open,
‘Blueshift’ and the evergreen promise of the ‘future’ of work
15 years ago at Microsoft, I proposed a programme called ‘Blueshift’. It was a deliberate provocation, an attempt to move away from rusty soundbites about
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
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 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
new tech observations from the UK (ntouk) 