Category: service design
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UK to crack down on financial scams
The UK government has announced a ban on all cold calls selling financial products: … last summer, 41 million people were targeted by suspicious calls and texts, according to media regulator Ofcom. UK to ban all cold calls selling financial products. BBC News, 3 May 2023. 41m people targeted in just one summer? Ouch. And…
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Toxic by design
Digital, data, and technology (DDaT) are increasingly being misused to create a 24×7 surveillance society, behavioural manipulation and, in some countries, institutional discrimination and subjugation. This surveillance increasingly underpins private sector revenue and state control, online and offline. All too often, it can seem like there’s little to distinguish between governments and global businesses as they indulge 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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‘Fracture’—an overview
I thought I’d add a bit more detail about my next book exploring the interplay of politics, policymaking, and digital, data and technology. Right now, it’s in three sections: ‘The backstory’, ‘Digital trends’, and ‘Policy and technology’, plus a concluding summary with some ideas for action. Here’s a brief insight into the current scope and…
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Book extract (work in progress)
My book exploring digital, data and technology—and how politicians and policymakers can understand and use them more effectively—is (slowly!) taking shape. It’s currently around 270 pages, but that’s before I give it a severe haircut. Anyhow, here’s a short draft extract from work in progress … I’ll post more raw samples over coming weeks and months.…
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The week in review
Highlights of a few random articles that caught my eye this week … Apple and ID As expected, Apple’s letting users store their driving licences and state IDs in Apple Wallet. It’s a significant improvement over current paper and plastic documents, providing users with more choice and control over what information they release. For example,…
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The policymaking / DDaT divide
I’m making steady progress with my new book. It explores the gap between politics, policymaking, and digital, data and technology (DDaT). More importantly, it looks at how we fix that gap. As it takes shape, I’ll continue sharing odd snippets and thoughts to provide a flavour of what it’s all about. Despite politicians’ grand ambitions…
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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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Back to the past with government identity
The Government Digital Service (GDS) has a generous £400m budget to develop “One Login”, a single sign-on and digital identity system for government services. But it comes with a nagging sense of déjà vu: although billed as a fresh approach, it’s remarkably similar to the solution implemented in 2001 by an earlier Cabinet Office team at a cost…
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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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Digital Government—stuck in a groove?
For the past ~27 years, UK digital government efforts have largely focused on the left column of this table, occasionally drifting into ‘Rationalisation’ — and then, as teams change and drift away and memory fades, repeating the cycle. It was Ed Vaizey MP, the former minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), who commented nearly 5…
new tech observations from the UK (ntouk) 