GOV.UK and user needs

GOV.UK is the public face of the UK government on-line.

Take a look:

Zoom in on the orange text and you see:

"This website replaces DirectGov" is an assertoric statement. It can have one of only two truth-values, True or False. Which is it?

Suppose you want to register for Jobseeker's Allowance.

Search GOV.UK for "jobseeker's allowance" and four clicks later you see this:

Zoom in top left and you see:

DirectGov has not been replaced. The assertoric statement is false ...

... and needs to be corrected. That is a user need. We can't have the government publishing information which is manifestly false.

There should be no prevarication. GOV.UK is the award-winning product of GDS, the Government Digital Service. And what drives GDS? One thing. User needs.

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Updated 15:07:

Comment submitted to the GDS blog:

dmossesq # Please Note: Your comment is awaiting moderation. Faulkner did indeed recommend that writers should be prepared to kill their darlings but he’s more famous for evoking the pious honour of the southern states, a virtue which GDS may consider in connection with GOV.UK which currently says “This website replaces DirectGov [and] Business Link” when manifestly it doesn’t, please see GOV.UK and user needs. Leaving that claim on the site detracts from trust. Removing GDS’s darling loses nothing.

15:12: comment deleted from GDS blog.


Updated 18.3.14

Tom Loosemore, the Deputy Director of the Government Digital Service, has a new blog post today:

One link on GOV.UK – 350,000 more organ donors Tom Loosemore, 18 March 2014 — GOV.UK, Measurement and analytics Last autumn we shared early results of testing various versions of the GOV.UK ‘Thank You’ page. First introduced a year ago, people see this page once they've bought their tax disc via GOV.UK. People are generally more open to trying out new stuff after completing a successful transaction, so we’ve been using this page to encourage as many  as possible join the NHS organ donation register ...

"... once they've bought their tax disc via GOV.UK ...", he says. You buy your tax disc on-line from https://www.taxdisc.direct.gov.uk. There's no telling what Mr Loosemore sees when he looks at that page. But what you'll see is this:

DirectGov has still not been replaced by GOV.UK.


Updated 27.10.14

Happy birthday GOV.UK, said Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE on 17 October 2014, and added:

On 17 October 2012, GOV.UK became the official website of the UK government, taking over from Directgov and Business Link, both of which were switched off on the same day.

This statement remains manifestly false:

• Directgov and Business Link weren't "switched off" two years ago ...
• ... and they still haven't been today. Applying on-line for a Blue Badge, for example, still takes you to direct.gov.uk. And the Contracts Finder service, for example, is still on businesslink.gov.uk.

Updated 28.10.14 #1

Suppose you wanted to find a job.

How to go about it?

You might start at GOV.UK's Find a job with Universal Jobmatch.

Click on Log in to Universal Jobmatch if you have an account, and what do you see?

But, no, surely this is impossible. Directgov was "switched off" two years ago. Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE says so. So that's not what you see.

And when you get to the Universal JobMatch welcome screen on ...

https://jobsearch.direct.gov.uk

... that's not on direct.gov.uk.

Despite what it looks like.

Because it can't be.

Because Directgov has been replaced.

Everyone knows that.

That's what it says on the GOV.UK home page:

Updated 28.10.14 #2

Suppose you wanted to find a contract.

How to go about it?

You might start at GOV.UK's Contracts Finder.

Click on Start now and what do you see?

And where do you see it?

https://online.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk/

But, no, surely this is impossible. Business Link was "switched off" two years ago. Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE says so. So that's not what you see.

Regardless, suppose you enter "government digital service" into the search box and see what that turns up:

• Item #1 is RM1043 Digital Services - Government Digital eMarketplace RFP, the contract to replace the G-Cloud CloudStore, which is said to be "insufficiently robust to accommodate GDS's future roll-out plans". It's actually the third version of CloudStore that's being replaced. This fourth version is what we now know as the "Digital Marketplace". Is there any end to this iteration? No.
• The Digital Marketplace contract was won by a tiny new company called 6Point6. Unlike Item #61, Individual Electoral Registration Application Support – RM3658 - L0372 - Contract, which was won by Kainos Software, a longer established and more substantial company with 650+ staff. Together with our old friends Skyscape, Kainos have to keep the electoral registration system up and running 24 hours a day.
• And then there's Item #63, RM4106 L0492 GDS Research Procurement - CONTRACT, commissioning yet more research for GDS's ever-starting assisted digital project. This contract has been awarded to TNS UK, who are part of Kantar, which is a division of WPP.

There's an enormous amount of fascinating detail like that available on the Contracts Finder service on businesslink.gov.uk.

Which is odd, considering that Business Link is supposed to have been replaced by GOV.UK:

Updated 9.11.14

GOV.UK is two years old.

Go to Apply for your first provisional driving licence on GOV.UK, click on Start now and guess where you end up – Directgov, the same Directgov that was replaced by GOV.UK two years ago according to GDS.

Updated 24.11.15 and 28.11.15

"This website replaces DirectGov BusinessLink", as they used to say. We have expressed some scepticism about this claim. Now, from the Department for You Couldn't Make It Up, we learn that "the most popular page on GOV.UK is Find a job with Universal Jobmatch, with 56.3 million page views between October 2014 and October 2015". GOV.UK is three years old and that is just one of the indices of its success asserted by GDS in 2 billion and counting.

And whaddaya know? Universal Jobmatch is a DirectGov service for job searchers. As we speak, there are 391 jobs for IT consultants, for example, within 20 miles of the London post code, SW1A (https://jobsearch.direct.gov.uk).

How do we know? Because employers list their vacancies on Universal Jobmatch. And how do they do that? By using BusinessLink (http://jobvacancies.businesslink.gov.uk).

(No.2 in the 2014-15 hit parade, by the way, is Renew vehicle tax with 40.2 million hits. Happy though they are to take the credit, the on-line vehicle excise duty renewal service actually went live in 2005, six years before GDS existed.)

DMossEsq first wrote about GDS's false claim to have replaced DirectGov and BusinessLink in November 2013. As late as March 2015 they were still deluding themselves, please see Government as a Platform: the next phase of digital transformation:

GOV.UK, the single domain, is a platform for publishing. It’s used by hundreds of departments and agencies, and replacing DirectGov and Business Link alone saved more than £60m a year.

At some point since March 2015 GDS have finally withdrawn the DirectGov/BusinessLink claim from the home page of GOV.UK. They have turned over a new leaf. The first of many, it is to be hoped, in their £450 million bid to satisfy user needs.


Updated 24.11.16

One James Stewart is leaving the Government Digital Service (GDS). He published a moving valedictory yesterday, Moving on: "In February [2017] it will be six years since a small group of us gathered in a scruffy room in Lambeth to work on what we called alpha.gov.uk". Thus began GOV.UK, GDS's award-winning face of the UK government on-line.

Picking out "highlights from the past few years", Mr Stewart remembers first "the long night when we switched off DirectGov and BusinessLink and all the change that has come beyond. On one level GOV.UK is 'just a website' but it was and is also the starting point for everything else, a way to shape and communicate government that is of the internet".

You may remember that phrase, "government of the internet" (26.10.12), from four years ago. Never mind if you don't. It goes with last year's "internet jibba jabba" (12.12.15). GDS's elaborate analogy between the internet and administering the UK has been irritating senior members of Whitehall for some time. But that's not the point.

The point here is Mr Stewart's claim as late as yesterday that DirectGov and BusinessLink were "switched off" years ago, when GOV.UK was just an infant. It wasn't true then and it still isn't true now.

Universal Jobmatch is still on DirectGov – take a look. That's for people looking for a job. And employers posting job vacancies on Universal Jobmatch still use BusinessLink – take a look.

Why make that claim?

GOV.UK and user needs

GOV.UK is the public face of the UK government on-line.

Take a look:

Zoom in on the orange text and you see:

"This website replaces DirectGov" is an assertoric statement. It can have one of only two truth-values, True or False. Which is it?

G-Cloud – how to win

Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, made an important speech yesterday.

The speech is covered on his award-winning GOV.UK website – Minister Francis Maude described how government is moving into a "new world" of technology procurement by opening up opportunities to SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises].

Every step of his argument is contentious.

Let's leave that for another day ...

... and content ourselves here with noting that, one way and another, Mr Maude gets round to saying that "one of our most successful innovations is the delivery of the G-Cloud framework, which embraces open procedures. This is a step change in the way government buys IT. It’s quicker, cheaper, more competitive and more accessible to SMEs ... As a result, of the 700 successful suppliers on the framework – 83% are SMEs" and:

For example, the Home office saved 83% on a hosting contract by contracting with Skyscape. Skyscape is an SME providing hosting and other IT support services – and were one of the first accredited suppliers on G-Cloud. They started as a small start-up with 6 people - and now employ over 30 as a direct result of the business they get through G-Cloud.

Out of 700 candidates, Mr Maude chooses Skyscape for his example.

Why?

Skyscape was only incorporated on 3 May 2011. Just over two years ago. Many SMEs have been established for much longer and have a track record that can be properly evaluated.

How did Skyscape get accredited to G-Cloud?

With no track record, it's a mystery – as Mr Maude says, "this is a step change in the way government buys IT".

Not only were Skyscape accredited, they started winning contracts. With HMRC. And the MOD. And the Government Digital Service. And, as noted in Mr Maude's example, with the Home Office.

That's four chunky contracts that established SMEs failed to win. Instead, they went to Skyscape which, as at 31 March 2012, had sales of £44,416, which cost them £327,320, they'd spent £956,965 on administration and the balance sheet shows negative net assets of £1,240,833.

Is that what Mr Maude means when he says that G-Cloud is "quicker, cheaper, more competitive and more accessible to SMEs"?

What's the trick? How do you beat the G-Cloud competition – 699 of the world's finest – when you've only got £1,000 of share capital, all controlled by one man, when nobody's ever heard of you and you've never done anything except run up debts of £1.2 million?

You'd like to know?

You'd like to know why you lost?

Why the contract wasn't accessible to you after all, even though you have a hard-won track record of success?

Here's a guess.

Take a look at one of Skyscape's press releases. Their very first press release. You don't have to go far back, obviously. Just to 11 November 2011:

SKYSCAPE CLOUD SERVICES APPOINTS COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR November 11, 2011 Skyscape Cloud Services appoints Commercial Director to oversee G-Cloud delivery. Skyscape Cloud Services Limited, ‘the easy to adopt, easy to use and easy to leave’ assured Cloud Services Company, today announced that Nicky Stewart, former G-Cloud Head of ICT Strategy Delivery has joined the company as Commercial Director. Stewart held the position of head of ICT strategy at the Cabinet Office where she was responsible for leading a team of public and private sector organisations to develop the commercial strategy for G-Cloud, data centre consolidation and the government application store. In this newly created position Stewart will work with public sector organisations and the Skyscape Alliance to ensure that the company’s commercial strategy is aligned to their goals and desired outcomes and that future innovative commercial models are developed. “There is an enormous opportunity for the public sector to benefit from the dramatic cost-savings, improved agility and lower carbon footprint that cloud computing offers” said Nicky Stewart. “What I have seen in Skyscape is a unique ability to deliver this in an assured, secure and UK sovereign manner; with almost unlimited capacity”. Phil Dawson, CEO of Skyscape adds “Nicky’s appointment will ensure that Skyscape’s services continue to be truly aligned to the goals of the G-Cloud initiative, with innovative commercial models and the associated financial benefits for the UK public sector. As an industry leading team we are very much looking forward to demonstrating the tremendous benefits that an elastic, on demand IT service will bring to UK public sector”

There's your lesson.

Choose your commercial director carefully – there's not much point bidding otherwise.

Make sure she's the former G-Cloud Head of ICT Strategy Delivery, and you're away.

Simples.

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Updated 25.4.14

This matter has now been aired by James Silver in Wired magazine, 11 April 2014, please see Each cabinet office PC costs UK taxpayers £7,000 a year. Why?.

Apparently DMossEsq is wrong:

When this alleged conflict of interest is put to Bracken, he laughs: "I don't know who Nicky Stewart is, so I've no idea," he says. "We face a systematic problem in the civil service of having a revolving door, usually outwards back to large systems integrators. We can't just tell people in government that you can't work for suppliers. [But we can] do a lot to make sure this doesn't happen, by not handing out massive contracts and then having our best brains and people who know our services going to the places who are delivering them back to us."

and:

Simon Hansford, CTO of Skyscape, responded to Wired: "Nicky has never held a sales role within Skyscape, or any other organisation. Nicky uses her public-sector expertise, and her knowledge of how the UK government purchases, to ensure that Skyscape develops its policies, principles and services in a way that aligns with government ICT strategy principles and meets the needs of the UK public sector. All of Skyscape's business is won through fair and open competition and Skyscape's success comes down to its disruptive business model."

So it remains a mystery how Skyscape won several prestigious central government contracts against established competition before it had even filed its first set of accounts with Companies House.

G-Cloud – how to win

Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, made an important speech yesterday.

The speech is covered on his award-winning GOV.UK website – Minister Francis Maude described how government is moving into a "new world" of technology procurement by opening up opportunities to SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises].

Every step of his argument is contentious.

Let's leave that for another day ...

... and content ourselves here with noting that, one way and another, Mr Maude gets round to saying that "one of our most successful innovations is the delivery of the G-Cloud framework, which embraces open procedures. This is a step change in the way government buys IT. It’s quicker, cheaper, more competitive and more accessible to SMEs ... As a result, of the 700 successful suppliers on the framework – 83% are SMEs" and:

For example, the Home office saved 83% on a hosting contract by contracting with Skyscape. Skyscape is an SME providing hosting and other IT support services – and were one of the first accredited suppliers on G-Cloud. They started as a small start-up with 6 people - and now employ over 30 as a direct result of the business they get through G-Cloud.

Out of 700 candidates, Mr Maude chooses Skyscape for his example.

Why?

GDS PR blitz

10 June 2013, the BBC Radio 4 world news programme World At One (WATO) carries a 5-minute report (27'32"-32'55") by Jon Manel on GDS, the Government Digital Service.

11 June 2013, WATO carries another 8 minutes (24'58"-32'55") of Mr Manel's report on GDS.

12 June 2013, Mr Manel publishes Inside the UK Government Digital Service on the BBC website.

13 June 2013, the Guardian publish a 6'50" video by Jemima Kiss, Gov.uk: how geeks opened up government featuring ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken (executive director, GDS), ex-BBC man Tom Loosemore (deputy director, GDS) and ex-Morgan Stanley man Francis Maude, their political boss (Cabinet Office minister).

What are GDS trying to tell us?

Listen, read, watch and what you learn is that GDS's staff are young, everyone dresses informally and each team has a fluffy mascot:

There is an inflatable guitar - a red one. You cannot fail to miss [notice?] the bunting. And then there are the mascots. "For us, the Platform Team, it's an otter. His name is Jerry," one woman explains pointing to a brown and white soft toy with a rather sad expression on its face ... As for the young civil servants in the GDS headquarters, some of them seem to have an almost evangelical spirit about them.

Some people will find the evangelical spirit which moves GDS charming. Others won't.

The idea is to model public administration on successful web companies, as ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken tells us in the Guardian video. But do Google and Facebook, for example, provide the right model?

The idea is to promote openness in government. GDS's single government domain project, GOV.UK, and their Identity Assurance Programme (IDAP) are major projects. But the Major Projects Authority verdicts on GOV.UK and IDAP have not been published.

An elite team of digital experts has sparked a radical shake-up in the way the government does its business. Some of the UK's best designers and developers are working on building a new single website for all government departments – gov.uk – but their influence has gone much further.

That's the rubric under the 13 June video on the Guardian website.

Pace Jemima Kiss, at least four professors are unconvinced that the team – or at least the Government Digital Strategy – is elite. And Dr Martyn Thomas, visiting professor at the universities of Oxford and Bristol, makes a fifth unconvinced professor – he told the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee that it's impossible to measure the quality of software systems developed with GDS's so-called "agile" methods.

The idea is to avoid the spectacularly poor value for money of some government IT contracts. An unimpeachable objective.

But how will GDS achieve it?

To be told, as we are in the Guardian video, that GDS are trying to improve the search algorithm on GOV.UK is no answer.

So-called "open systems" aren't the answer either, according to the four professors.

Will the "oligopoly" – as Jon Manel calls them – of government contractors fall in with GDS's plans for shorter contracts? Why should they? There's no need to while the big departments of state continue, as they do, to sign long contracts.

Is it the case that GDS's "influence has gone much further", as the Guardian claim? Francis Maude ends the Guardian video saying that there is enormous demand in Whitehall for GDS's services. Is there?

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) spend about £200 billion a year. When Jon Manel asks about DWP's Universal Credit (UC) initiative in the 11 June WATO report, the otherwise jocular ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken becomes guarded, "not that close to it", he says (31'29"), a response which Mr Manel glosses as "not our fault, guv".

GDS hijacked IDAP from DWP and then promised to have it "fully operational" for UC by March 2013. It wasn't and it still isn't. Leaving UC high and dry.

"Not that close to it"? Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken is the senior responsible officer owner for government-wide identity assurance and there's no getting away from it.

The Department of Health spend about £120 billion a year. What are GDS doing about their computer systems? Or the systems at the Department for Education? And what are we to make of BBC money man Paul Lewis's warning on Twitter yesterday:

"We're moving http://t.co/JRcgtJ5eR5 specialist content on to GOV.UK." And 'repurposing' it. Be afraid, lawyers, be v afraid — Paul Lewis (@paullewismoney) June 13, 2013

Apart from GDS, the only government body we hear from in this PR campaign is HMRC, in the 11 June WATO report. The clamorous demand is muted – Lin Homer, chief executive, describes GDS as "bumptious" but adds that there's nothing wrong with that.

She can afford to be kind. GDS haven't laid a glove on her £8 billion ASPIRE contract. Or on her website, www.hmrc.gov.uk, which GDS falsely claim to have incorporated into GOV.UK.

Meanwhile, GDS have some involvement with the plan to make us all enrol on-line on the new electoral register to be used for the 2015 general election. Why don't the BBC and the Guardian tell us anything about that major project?

What about GDS's involvement with the Department for Business Innovation and Skills midata project? And the related Shakespeare Review? What about their new-found responsibility for G-Cloud? What are GDS's plans for the Government Gateway? And what do GDS have to say about cybersecurity?

MPs are worried about digital-by-default – something else the BBC and the Guardian don't mention. Something like 16 million people in the UK will not be able to use the proposed web-based, digital-by-default public services which GDS are meant to deliver. They launched the assisted digital project on 28 July 2011 to try to solve the problem. And in today's weekly GDS diary, 14 June 2013, what does ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken tell us?

Also this week  GOV.UK won two D&AD awards for our content design and the Assisted Digital team had their first market engagement event with suppliers.

Nearly two years after the starting pistol was fired, they had their first meeting with suppliers?

It's early days, you may say, GDS can't be expected to have achieved much yet. Maybe. But in that case the PR is premature. Francis Maude is up in front of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee on Monday to give evidence on digital-by-default. Let's see what that adds to the campaign.

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Update 17.11.13:

15 November 2013: Government Digital Service: the best startup in Europe we can't invest in

So what is it that GDS knows that every chairman and chief executive of a FTSE100 should know?

And what is it that every chairman and chief executive of a FTSE100 knows that GDS should know?

GDS PR blitz

10 June 2013, the BBC Radio 4 world news programme World At One (WATO) carries a 5-minute report (27'32"-32'55") by Jon Manel on GDS, the Government Digital Service.

11 June 2013, WATO carries another 8 minutes (24'58"-32'55") of Mr Manel's report on GDS.

12 June 2013, Mr Manel publishes Inside the UK Government Digital Service on the BBC website.

13 June 2013, the Guardian publish a 6'50" video by Jemima Kiss, Gov.uk: how geeks opened up government featuring ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken (executive director, GDS), ex-BBC man Tom Loosemore (deputy director, GDS) and ex-Morgan Stanley man Francis Maude, their political boss (Cabinet Office minister).

What are GDS trying to tell us?

3 questions about GDS's bailiwick

The Major Projects Authority (MPA) has, as noted, delivered its public verdict on G-Cloud – amber/red.

G-Cloud is the major project designed to reduce government IT costs by outsourcing to cloud service suppliers (Skyscape et al) who currently charge less than the usual suspects, the systems integrators (CapGemini et al).

It's a worrying verdict. This is the MPA's definition of amber/red:

Successful delivery of the project is in doubt, with major risks or issues apparent in a number of key areas. Urgent action is needed to ensure these are addressed, and whether resolution is feasible.

G-Cloud was until 1 June 2013 the responsibility of the G-Cloud team, half a dozen individuals or less, plus the Government Procurement Service.

"Urgent action" was needed, according to the MPA, and urgent action was taken – from that date onwards, responsibility for G-Cloud has moved to the Government Digital Service (GDS).

GDS is responsible for several other major projects, which come under the general heading "digital by default".

We know the verdict of four professors on the chances of digital-by-default being delivered – it is beyond GDS's competence. Amber/red. Or just plain red. When they write "GDS" in the following quotations, the professors mean "government digital strategy", which is written by the Government Digital Service:

... it is not clear how realistic this ideal is ... brevity cannot be an excuse for lack of detail, explanation, and precision ... It is impossible with the detail provided to form any reasonable view of how this key activity will be performed ... there is an urgent need for standards to be developed and agreed ... he had no practical understanding of how to use this strategy to have positive impact on his team’s work; We suspect he is not alone in this view ... The GDS shows no evidence that it is aware or has taken account of the impact of such thinking ... The GDS must avoid falling into the trap of an overly-simplistic response ... Open source solutions are neither free to administer and support, nor are they the most cost-effective answer in all situations ... rapidly changing services will deter the takeup of digital services, not encourage it ... The GDS is remarkably (perhaps alarmingly) silent on the issue of how to coordinate SMEs in project delivery ... We see little discussion of a concrete and practical change management process to support the “digital by default” strategy in the current GDS. We view this as a potentially fatal omission ... the principles on which the current GDS is based centre on too narrow a view of how to attain those benefits, and lack focus on the major adjustment in culture, processes, and technologies that must underpin ... this view is much too simplistic and highly risky ... there is very little detail about how such goals will be achieved, or the broader cultural impact those changes represent ... a lack of consistency in interpretation of how to enact the GDS ... It is not clearly stated in the GDS who is managing the execution process across the 18 UK Government departments to coordinate and assess progress.

But what is the MPA's verdict? Again as noted, we don't know – it hasn't been published.

Which is odd. GDS is part of the Cabinet Office and the Cabinet Office is the custodian of the Coalition government's transparency programme, please see clause 16 in the Coalition programme for government:

16. GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY The Government believes that we need to throw open the doors of public bodies, to enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account. We also recognise that this will help to deliver better value for money in public spending, and help us achieve our aim of cutting the record deficit.

GDS's doors remain locked shut.

It doesn't help that the MPA was plucked from the Treasury (where it used to be the Office for Government Commerce) and re-sited in the Cabinet Office.

Three questions:

• Now that G-Cloud is in GDS's ever-expanding bailiwick, will that be used as an excuse to stop publishing MPA verdicts on it?
• Would that be an unintended consequence of G-Cloud's move to GDS?
• Or is it the unstated purpose of the move?

3 questions about GDS's bailiwick

The Major Projects Authority (MPA) has, as noted, delivered its public verdict on G-Cloud – amber/red.

G-Cloud is the major project designed to reduce government IT costs by outsourcing to cloud service suppliers (Skyscape et al) who currently charge less than the usual suspects, the systems integrators (CapGemini et al).

It's a worrying verdict. This is the MPA's definition of amber/red:

Successful delivery of the project is in doubt, with major risks or issues apparent in a number of key areas. Urgent action is needed to ensure these are addressed, and whether resolution is feasible.

GDS? Who?

Whitehall has a pitiful record when it comes to investing public money. Think of the National Programme for IT, the NHS black hole into which £6 billion of our money disappeared without trace. Or possibly £12 billion. No-one seems to be sure.

Mindful of which, we now have something called the Major Projects Authority (MPA), a Whitehall unit which keeps tabs on where the money's going and how likely we are to see any return. The MPA issues red-amber-green verdicts on our investments. Green is good news. Red means kiss goodbye to the money.

These verdicts have been kept secret until now but following lobbying, not least by Tony Collins, in the spirit of open government, the MPA have recently published their verdicts on 191 major government projects with a combined lifetime value of £353.7 billion.

The verdicts are categorised by department. Looking at the Cabinet Office projects:

• We see for example that the Electoral Registration Transformation Programme gets an amber light.
  – An old friend on this blog, this is the programme which seeks to compile a national identity register, which is the opposite of the Coalition government's stated policy.
  – It seeks to ensure that the register is complete and accurate by illegally matching electoral records against National Insurance Number records, among others. N [please see update below]
  – The data-matching pilots were a complete failure – in one ward in Ceredigion, only 18% of electoral records could be matched (Table C1, p.31).
  – There will nevertheless be a value-for-money illegal national data-matching exercise carried out this summer and apparently a new electoral register in time for the next general election. N [please see update below]
  – Lifetime budget: £218 million. MPA verdict? Amber.
• We see also that another old friend, G-Cloud, gets an amber/red signal.
  – Strange. Only the other day, G-Cloud won an award, the prestigious public cloud project of the year award.
  – Cloud computing, remember, is the quickest way of losing control of our data yet discovered.
  – It's not as though there's a lack of customers for G-Cloud – public bodies are pretty well being ordered to use it, through the Cloud First policy. It's unlikely that the project can fail for lack of take-up, so why the amber/red?
  – Any sign of a lack of spending on G-Cloud, and the programme director, Denise McDonagh, can simply buy something herself as she happens to be IT Director at the Home Office and disposes of a considerable budget. Only the other day (it may have been the same other day), she did just that and bumped up the sales figures by handing Skyscape the £1.5 million contract to host the heir to the Criminal Records Bureau.
  – That's Skyscape, the one-man band that barely existed a year ago but somehow beat the long-established competition in a completely fair selection process.
  – Lifetime budget, according to the MPA: £0.58 million. MPA verdict? Amber/red.
• Which brings us to our oldest friend, the Government Digital Service (GDS).
  – They've got their award-winning GOV.UK project. 24 ministerial departments have been pointlessly and only partially transferred to GOV.UK and several hundred other government bodies are yet to be pointlessly and only partially transferred.
  – They're working on Individual Electoral Registration. Illegally. See above. N [please see update below]
  – They promised to have identity assurance fully operational by March 2013 for 21 million benefit claimants and failed. That leaves DWP's Universal Credit flailing and ditto the BIS midata nonsense.
  – We have eight "identity providers" in the UK with nothing to do as a result.
  – GDS's digital-by-default plan is holed below the waterline (fatally according to four professors) not least because millions of us Brits have never used the web.
  – On 28 July 2011, GDS promised to sort this out with their assisted digital sticking plaster. The best part of two years later, on 23 May 2013, they finally got round to starting to chat about the problem.
  – 56 members of parliament have signed an early day motion to debate digital-by-default.
  – GDS are also meant to replace the cumbersome-but-functional Government Gateway at some point, although what with, they've never said.
  – The mandarins keep expressing their support for GDS, Lord knows why.
  – But what about the MPA verdict, you ask? There isn't one. There just isn't one. None of these GDS projects is major? Or maybe GDS doesn't exist? Or the MPA ran out of colours? One way and another, if you're looking for openness, hard cheese.

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Updated 29 May 2013 12:35
N Data-matching was illegal. With the passing of the Electoral Registration and Administration Act on 31 January 2013, it is assumed to be no longer illegal. The suggestion that it is illegal is now presumably false and misleading. Please see SCOOP? IER, sackcloth, ashes and Rip Van Winkle.

Updated 28.5.14

The other day, the MPA, the Major projects Authority, published their second report, for 2013-14.

Projects don't come much more major than GDS's mission to transform the UK government. GDS (the Government Digital Service) are the show, they tell us, the only solution to the delivery crisis and if it wasn't for them there'd be riots in the streets.

In the interests of openness, what is the MPA's verdict on GDS? How are GDS getting on? Red? Surely not. Amber? Green? That's more like it.

Sadly, no. There's not a mention of GDS. HS2, yes. GDS, no.

GDS? Who?

Whitehall has a pitiful record when it comes to investing public money. Think of the National Programme for IT, the NHS black hole into which £6 billion of our money disappeared without trace. Or possibly £12 billion. No-one seems to be sure.

Mindful of which, we now have something called the Major Projects Authority (MPA), a Whitehall unit which keeps tabs on where the money's going and how likely we are to see any return. The MPA issues red-amber-green verdicts on our investments. Green is good news. Red means kiss goodbye to the money.

The unqualified success of the Government Digital Service

Comment submitted to the UK Constitutional Law Group in response to a post on their blog about the perils of GOV.UK:

When links are broken, a bit of history is lost. This vandalism is always happening on the web. We know that. The web is inimical to scholarship in that way. The advent of GOV.UK was exceptionally vandalistic. The Government Digital Service (GDS), whose baby it is, left behind a trail of destruction. Or rather, they didn’t. They eradicated it. They did so under the terms of reference of a project called "the single government domain". They are prone now to congratulating themselves on completing the transfer of all central government departmental websites to the single government domain, GOV.UK, and several non-departmental sites. Their congratulations are premature. hmrc.gov.uk, for example, lives on, thank goodness. A rare case of GDS’s discretion being the better part of valour. There was internal dissent to the policy-centric GOV.UK approach identified by Liz Fisher. Jeni Tennison argued that destroying departmental identity involved losing something valuable. Judging by the comments on her thoughtful blog post, her objections were slapped down, rather than refuted, and she left GDS. Who grants the licence for GDS’s vandalism? The answer may interest Constitutional lawyers. Martha Lane Fox. Now a peer of the realm, Lady Lane Fox of Soho, it is she who first called for GOV.UK in a letter dated 14 October 2010 where she wrote: A new central commissioning team should take responsibility for the overall user experience on the government web estate, and should commission content from departmental experts. This content should then be published to a single Government website with a consistently excellent user experience. The "new central commissioning team" is GDS. And the departments of state are to be reduced, in Lady Lane Fox’s view, to waiting to be commissioned by GDS to publish their policy. She didn’t stop there. GDS should be able to countermand the law as well as the expertise of policy-makers wherever "user needs" are adversely affected as judged by GDS: [GDS] SWAT teams … should be given a remit to support and challenge departments and agencies … We must give these SWAT teams the necessary support to challenge any policy and legal barriers which stop services being designed around user needs. We all used to get emails from the individual departments bringing their press releases to our attention. Now those emails all come from GDS, GOVUK@public.govdelivery.com. Unprecedented power is being centralised in GDS, whose qualifications – they are a team of website developers – are questionable. It’s a new world.

The unqualified success of the Government Digital Service

Comment submitted to the UK Constitutional Law Group in response to a post on their blog about the perils of GOV.UK:

When links are broken, a bit of history is lost. This vandalism is always happening on the web. We know that. The web is inimical to scholarship in that way. The advent of GOV.UK was exceptionally vandalistic. The Government Digital Service (GDS), whose baby it is, left behind a trail of destruction. Or rather, they didn’t. They eradicated it. They did so under the terms of reference of a project called "the single government domain". They are prone now to congratulating themselves on completing the transfer of all central government departmental websites to the single government domain, GOV.UK, and several non-departmental sites. Their congratulations are premature. hmrc.gov.uk, for example, lives on, thank goodness. A rare case of GDS’s discretion being the better part of valour. There was internal dissent to the policy-centric GOV.UK approach identified by Liz Fisher. Jeni Tennison argued that destroying departmental identity involved losing something valuable. Judging by the comments on her thoughtful blog post, her objections were slapped down, rather than refuted, and she left GDS. Who grants the licence for GDS’s vandalism? The answer may interest Constitutional lawyers. Martha Lane Fox. Now a peer of the realm, Lady Lane Fox of Soho, it is she who first called for GOV.UK in a letter dated 14 October 2010 where she wrote: A new central commissioning team should take responsibility for the overall user experience on the government web estate, and should commission content from departmental experts. This content should then be published to a single Government website with a consistently excellent user experience. The "new central commissioning team" is GDS. And the departments of state are to be reduced, in Lady Lane Fox’s view, to waiting to be commissioned by GDS to publish their policy. She didn’t stop there. GDS should be able to countermand the law as well as the expertise of policy-makers wherever "user needs" are adversely affected as judged by GDS: [GDS] SWAT teams … should be given a remit to support and challenge departments and agencies … We must give these SWAT teams the necessary support to challenge any policy and legal barriers which stop services being designed around user needs. We all used to get emails from the individual departments bringing their press releases to our attention. Now those emails all come from GDS, GOVUK@public.govdelivery.com. Unprecedented power is being centralised in GDS, whose qualifications – they are a team of website developers – are questionable. It’s a new world.

GOV.UK – not the 9 o'clock news

Simpler, clearer, faster – that's GOV.UK's shoutline.

GOV.UK is the new "single government domain" produced by the Government Digital Service and it recently won the Design of the Year award:

Design of the Year jury member Griff Rhys Jones said GOV.UK "was a clear winner".

Great 1980s satirist that he is, Mr Rhys Jones hasn't lost his touch.

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Updated 2 September 2013
GOV.UK wins the only 2013 D&AD award in the newly-created "Writing for Websites and Digital Design" category.

Updated: 15 November 2013
Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken/GDS comes top of the Digital Leaders 50 awards given to those "who demonstrate a pioneering and sustainable approach to digital transformation". The BBC come second and Francis Maude third.

No examples of sustainable digital transformation are given but CloudStore has been unavailable for eight of the 14 days leading up to the awards' being announced on 12 November 2013.

Updated 15 November 2013:
Back in May, G-Cloud won the Public Cloud Project of the Year Datacentre Solutions Award 2013. Few people noticed ...

... but one wag did (@LazBlazter), and retweeted the following on 9 November 2013, just after CloudStore's October outage, on day #2 of the November outage:

"@G_Cloud_UK: Well done to us for winning the public cloud project of the year! #dcs2013" super! — Peter Middleton (@petmiddlet) May 23, 2013

Updated 8 December 2013:

Only one way to go from here, two weeks at the top, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken tumbles to sixth position in the Computer Weekly UKtech50 awards, "our definitive list of the movers and shakers in UK IT".

No.1 now is Liam Maxwell, chief technology officer, HM Government.

And what did ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken tell us about technology in his speech to Code for America? "Technology is a fourth-order question in government", he said. Only after the user needs and the policy needs and the operational needs have been determined should attention be paid to the technology needs, if any ... If we let technology determine public services, then "we are literally starting in the wrong place and guaranteeing failure". The proper question to ask is: "What technology may we need to provide the service?" ... "One of the first battles you've got to fight", he said, "is putting technology in its place".

Clearly the awards panel disagree.

Updated 21 January 2014:
In Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude Decries 'Old Style' Obamacare Insurance Website, published in the Huffington Post, 9 January 2014, Mr Maude makes the uncontentious claim that the US government is useless at IT, unlike the UK government, which has GOV.UK and IDA. At one point we read:

Noting the success of the gov.uk site, a portal that brings the government billions in revenue from countries such as New Zealand that have paid for the source code, Maude said ...

Is this true, does anyone know? Have New Zealand or anyone else paid billions to use the GOV.UK source code?

Updated 26 January 2014:

2013 GovFresh Awards winners
by Luke Fretwell / January 21, 2014, 6:00 am:

City of the Year: Buenos Aires, Argentina Small City of the Year: City of Piqua (Ohio) Mayor of the Year (tie): Pete Buttigieg (South Bend, Ind.), Mike Bloomberg (NYC) Public Servant of the Year: Mike Bracken, Executive Director of Digital, Cabinet Office (UK) Civic Organization of the Year: D.A.T.A. (Uruguay) Civic Entrepreneur of the Year: Chelsea Mauldin, Executive Director, Public Policy Lab Civic Startup of the Year: SmartProcure Civic Design of the Year: nyc.gov Civic App of the Year (tie): CityVoice, RecordTrac Civic Event of the Year: National Day of Civic Hacking

Updated 18.6.14

Since we last looked (15 November 2013) the Digital Leaders 50 awards have become the Digital Leaders 100 awards – twice as good.

All change?

No. Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE, executive director of GDS and senior responsible owner of the identity assurance programme (RIP), is still top:

Mike Bracken wins central govt category at #Dl100 #digileaders followed by Colin Cook of Scottish government & Karen Alexander (NI) — Charlotte Jee (@charlottejee) June 18, 2014

Not only that but the Skyscape express rolls on ...

#digileaders #stunned @skyscapecloud winners Digital Leader Industry Category. Well done team pic.twitter.com/DEiwVhopYe — Phil Dawson (@_PhilDawson) June 18, 2014

... as does the Martha-now-Lady Lane Fox revolution:

Winner of #DL100 #digileaders is @Marthalanefox — Charlotte Jee (@charlottejee) June 18, 2014

Updated 10.9.14

The awards just keep coming in.

One breathless encomium ...

Awesome rsrc RT @mhellstern: Increasing digital take-up - I swear, every day I find a new gem from @gdsteam: https://t.co/8Gj5MGNyrE #w2p — Alexandra Shaw (@ShawAlexandra) August 19, 2014

... after another ...

Great post by @MTBracken on "failure waste" and what digital transformation really means http://t.co/oqf1dZZZKl go @gdsteam #leadership — emercoleman (@emercoleman) July 7, 2014

... and another ...

Great blog from @MTBracken on hard coding of DWP letters and failure waste. That letter used to frustrate me too! > https://t.co/ADNd0xdeAn — Rachael Badger (@cabrachael) July 7, 2014

... and another ...

Brilliant insight & post from @MTBracken on the transformation of Government digital services: https://t.co/MP4NZ6MRxY — katie moffat (@katiemoffat) July 4, 2014

... and another:

Brilliant post from @MTBracken about transforming public services https://t.co/sjnaJ4xzgU — Anna Shipman (@annashipman) July 4, 2014

Sometimes even Anna and Katie and Rachael and Emer and Alexandra must get tired. At which point there's a praise-generating engine in GOV.UK's armoury that takes over:

@MTBracken Congratulations on writing a great UK Gov tweet. http://t.co/ZDcQ3xvIHS (Ranked 3rd for Jul 5.) — GreatUKGovTweets (@UKGovTweets) July 6, 2014

But today, new heights were scaled, when an awards body contacted GDS and begged them to apply so that they can be given an award:

Good morning @gdsteam we think you should be entering the #UXUKAwards, entries close Friday! Info available at http://t.co/jH3ZMLDOd1 — UX UK Awards (@UXUKAwards) September 10, 2014

What next?

Can GDS write an app that generates GOV.UK award-awarders?


Updated 31.10.14

Still the praise keeps coming in – is there no end to it?

The genius of this is mind blowing @MTBracken @tomskitomski @liammax https://t.co/u2ic2GF4ne #seriouschops #demand8 — Saul Klein (@cape) October 29, 2014

Why can @gdsteam and UK govt do this but not one single FTSE100? #demand8 Cc @Amirmizroch @markhawtin100 https://t.co/GeoffZCnLy — Saul Klein (@cape) October 29, 2014

. @gdsteam keeps on rolling RT @DByDNews: Mike Bracken first-ever UK Chief Digital Officer of the Year - http://t.co/U81AQnZWUN @MTBracken — Inde Uppal (@indeuppal) October 30, 2014

I love these design principles from the UK's Government Digital Service (@gdsteam ) - I can't stop reading them: https://t.co/MDHc3Pk9oC — Marita (@TheSmellofPaper) October 30, 2014

Updated 4.12.14

Now Computer Weekly have published UKtech50 2014 - The most influential people in UK IT and the first question must be "where have Skyscape come"? You will remember that Digital by Default News rated Skyscape the number 1 digital leader in the Industry category back in June. Six months later, and Computer Weekly ... don't mention Skyscape.

Still, we know from Simon Wardley that:

Congrats, UK Gov - @liammax and @MTBracken - no. 3 & 4 in the UKTech50 - http://t.co/kGdf06A62r — swardley (@swardley) December 4, 2014

Close.

But no award for accuracy.

Actually they came fourth and fifth, not third and fourth, if you care to look.

Liam Maxwell, the government's chief technology officer who comes in at number 4, is "attempting to break the stranglehold of the oligopoly of large companies that have dominated government IT". That's what Computer Weekly say.

How's that going?

This month figures reach £346M with 53.2% of sales going to SMEs https://t.co/CdnmWE93mq — G-Cloud (@G_Cloud_UK) November 21, 2014

In its first 2½ years of existence, G-Cloud, the government cloud project, has placed 53.2% of £346 million = £184 million of business with SMEs (half of which goes to Skyscape alone, according to Skyscape).

£184 million. £0.184 billion. Spread over 2½ years. And how much does the government spend on IT every year? About £20 billion? Some way to go before Mr Maxwell can expect to come third.

Which brings us to fifth, Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE CDO, executive director of the Government Digital Service and senior responsible owner of the pan-government identity assurance programme (RIP). As Computer Weekly say: "Bracken is the figurehead for a cultural change in how public services are delivered in a digital world".

And how's that going?

As every fule kno, you can't have digital-by-default public services unless you can identify your parishioners. That requires identity assurance.

GDS are several years late starting a small beta test of their offering. The users are finding it hard. No alternative, non-digital registration system is provided. And GDS are breaking their own rules.

Meanwhile, they are providing us with re-written front ends to services we already had, but with no identity assurance, and without re-designing the services first. Culture change? Hardly. The promise of government transformation is not being delivered.

Gavin Patterson, the Chief Executive Officer of BT, came sixth. When Westminster and Whitehall realise in several hundred billion pounds' time that, in digital-by-default, they are chasing a will o' the wisp, Mr Patterson may expect to move up at least one place.

Updated 28.1.15

It's not all prizes. GDS receive the odd brickbat, too. For example, Mr Craddock isn't entirely smitten:

@tomskitomski @DigitalDWP @MTBracken @gdsteam "exciting latent digital promise" < what does that mean in English? — Mark Craddock (@mcraddock) December 13, 2014

But there's still a lot of breathless fan mail like this coming in:

I just can't get enough of gov.uk's awesome @gdsteam. If you haven't explored https://t.co/jj8DQLugT4 do it right now! #content #design #ux — Suzanne Chapman (@LibraryUX) January 1, 2015

And recently, the Prime Minister of Australia joined Suzanne:

ESTABLISHMENT OF A DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OFFICE The Commonwealth Government will establish a Digital Transformation Office (DTO) within the Department of Communications so that government services can be delivered digitally from start to finish and better serve the needs of citizens and businesses ... The DTO will use technology to make services simpler, clearer and faster for Australian families and businesses.

"Simpler, clearer, faster" is, of course, the motto of GDS's GOV.UK.

It's high praise indeed when even the level-headed Australians find you worthy of imitation. "Simpler, clearer, Australia", as Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE CDO rather amusingly said.

And it's not just the Australians. The Americans, too. Look what came out of the White House on 16 January 2015:

U.S.-U.K. Digital Government Partnership Today, we are building on a long history of innovation and collaboration on digital technologies with the United Kingdom.  The President and Prime Minister Cameron just announced a commitment to strengthen and expand the ongoing digital partnership between our two countries.  Both countries have made real progress in working to improve how our governments use digital services to better serve citizens and businesses, and to build a stronger digital economy.  We will expand our already existing collaborations in these areas ... In 2011, the United Kingdom created the Government Digital Service (GDS), a centralized group of digital experts who have vastly improved citizen experiences when using government digital services. This team has worked to make public services digital by default, simpler, less costly, and faster to use ... The United Kingdom developed a comprehensive Digital Strategy ... This strategy, once fully implemented, will save taxpayers in the United Kingdom £2.7 billion per year.

Again, this is high praise indeed.

Positively intoxicating.

So much so that it's as well for Australia and the US to check the record.

Has UK government been transformed by GDS? Has UK Citizen experience of government digital services been vastly improved? Are UK public services digital by default? Is the UK's Government Digital Strategy feasible? When will it be fully implemented? And how sure is anyone that it will save £2.7 billion p.a. (previous estimates include 1.2, 1.7 and 1.8 billion pounds)?

Are the claims made for the efficacy of GDS reliable? Or do they, like the emperor's new clothes, evaporate on inspection? Which is it?

GDS's idea of UK public services becoming digital by default depends on identity assurance. Central government departments and local authorities have to be sure that you are who you say you are when you log on.

The executive director of GDS is also the senior responsible owner of the pan-government identity assurance project and the project is late. Several years late.  He gave a talk in the US on 16 October 2013. Here's a 1'15" clip:

He claimed that GDS have eight or nine "identity providers". They have one. Experian.

He claimed that the first identity assurance services would start later in October 2013 with HMRC (the UK's IRS). The planned test did not take place. No explanation. No acknowledgement.

He claimed that identity assurance would support 45 million users. A year later on 30 October 2014 they had 741 users in a private beta test, please see Slide #14.

"I just can't get enough of gov.uk's awesome @gdsteam"?