Category: IT strategy
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Rebooting digital government
I’ve written this article for Computer Weekly. It outlines some of what my new book, Fracture. The collision between technology and democracy—and how we fix it, is all about. Nearly 30 years after the UK’s first pan-government website, what has been achieved in digital government—and how do we make it better? Rebooting digital government to…
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Fracture is now published
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 world, and should be available soon to order from your favourite local bookshop in the UK and USA. UK direct Amazon link US direct Amazon link Fracture is available in…
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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 services within their current policy and administrative silos won’t achieve the “digital transformation” much spoken of and little delivered. Let’s step back briefly to 1996 to understand why. In July…
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“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 implementing digital change“, published today. They found some encouraging signs that parts of government understand that digital isn’t about polishing and automating existing services, but that overall: “Departments have failed…
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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 services—to improve how public service providers and users could interact with each other. Early in the move to put public sector information and services online, the UK recognised that many…
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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 with profound human consequences and suffering, not just a financial cost. Universal Credit (UC) aimed to deliver a radically better approach to welfare benefits, one that would provide: “A dramatically…
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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 long-running programme to improve the safety, security and efficiency of the UK’s border by modernising its technology: while the eGates are not legacy technology, they rely on systems that are.…
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Policymaking 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, real time interfaces to public sector systems, processes and data to help open up, democratise and improve the policy making process. Creating this would benefit all those who want to…
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‘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 ‘new ways of working’ and ‘digital transformation’ and similar digital-blah-blah towards the delivery of practical improvements in the way organisations operate. Microsoft was a well-established global brand, yet I felt…
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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 government site, open.gov.uk. Known by the exciting name of, er, the ‘CCTA Government Information Service’ it was the first attempt to provide a single UK cross-government website. The first common…
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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 anticipated impact of technology on improving our public services: (I guess I should update it with various similar pronouncements since 2013 tirelessly recycling the same sentiments.) Despite some good work…
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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 1 briefly set out the backstory – the focus on understanding the needs of service users (including redesigning services around “life episodes“) and the associated cross-government enabling platforms in place as…
new tech observations from the UK (ntouk) 