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?

The war of independence

Here in the UK, the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) state benefit is in the process of being replaced by the Personal Independence Payment (PIP), worth between £21 and £134.40 per week. "PIP helps with some of the extra costs caused by long-term ill-health or a disability", which is good, but the whole point is that many claimants will be dependent on this benefit which makes it very odd to call it a "Personal Independence Payment". Something odd is happening to the concept of independence here.

The same odd thing is happening to the concept of control. Mr Andrew Dilnot, chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, argues that there should be a limit of £35,000 on the amount old people pay for their social care. That limit should apply even if an old person owns a house, say, worth £2 million, say. They shouldn't have to sell the house to pay for their care.

Why not?

So that they can leave the house to their children? No, says Mr Dilnot, that's not the point. The point is, he says, that with the state paying for all their care after the first £35,000, old people will have "control over their lives at a time when they're vulnerable and need that control".

No.

Far from granting control, Mr Dilnot's proposal will take it away. If someone else is paying for your care home, they have control and you don't. Yield that control, and your independence goes with it.

That's not the case just for care homes, of course. You don't pay to use Google or Facebook, do you. You don't have any control over what they do with all the personal information about you that they collect. You're in no position to complain. You take what you get. Because you're dependent on them.

Google, by contrast, dispose of considerable power. Just ask Interflora UK. They displeased Google by trying to "game" the search engine's PageRanking system. So Google just omitted them from any search results. With its on-line sales threatened, a contrite Interflora UK swore obedience and was subsequently readmitted to the fold.

That's real power. Power that some web evangelists ignore. Douglas Carswell, for example, and his curate's egg of a book, The End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy. Our politicians and our civil servants here in the UK might be ever so useless, yes, but to believe that we could be returned to some prelapsarian iDemocratic idyll if only the government were replaced by the web is to ignore the power of the Googles of this world.

Taking a holiday some years ago from their normal diet of heavy-handed legislation and irritating regulation, so much of it ineffectual, look at the banking world, our politicians got the idea that perhaps they could exert power using the wily tricks of the marketing world. Thus was born Whitehall's Behavioural Insights Team, who were meant to "nudge" us into doing certain things, no legislation required, just clever psychology.

Fat chance.

The Behavioural Insights Team worked with the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) on the midata project. The idea was to nudge retailers into releasing data back to consumers so that we would all be "empowered". Result? No cigar, so BIS asked parliament for statutory powers to underpin midata. And with that resounding failure to nudge, the Behavioural Insights team have been kicked out of Whitehall and adopted by Capita. Good luck, Capita.

BIS got their statutory powers the other day, with the passing of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013. "Regulatory reform" in the UK is supposed to imply the reduction of government regulation. midata is dealt with at clauses 85-87 of the Act and what do we find at 86(1)?

Regulations may make provision for the enforcement of regulations under section 85 (“customer data regulations”) by the Information Commissioner or any other person specified in the regulations (and, in this section, “enforcer” means a person on whom functions of enforcement are conferred by the regulations).

Far from reducing regulation, the Act will increase it.

We should have known.

In the midata consultation document last year BIS and the Behavioural Insights Team said, para.4, p.11:

Increased data transparency and greater consumer choice will help promote innovation and competition and could also have a deregulatory effect. By giving people access to their data in a format which is machine readable it may be possible to avoid the need for some types of regulation, for example, specifying product characteristics.

In what sense can this new regulation have a deregulatory effect? Grant us this power to regulate data access by consumers, BIS answered, otherwise we'll make your life hell with a lot of other regulations about product specification – the logic of the protection racket.

Responses to that consultation had to be returned to a Mr Craig Belsham at BIS by 10 September 2012. He popped up again the other day:

Welcome to my new blog about midata 2 May 2013 Craig Belsham I’m Craig Belsham from BIS, where I head up the midata programme. This blog is designed to give some insight into that programme, help people and business understand it and hopefully encourage both to start to get involved.

It's not really a blog. You can't submit comments. And there's no feed – you can't add http://blogs.bis.gov.uk/midata/ to a blogroll.

The Government Digital Service heaped praise on themselves last month for completing the project to bring all central government departmental websites into one single government domain, the award-winning GOV.UK. http://blogs.bis.gov.uk/midata/ shouldn't exist. But it does, and there's Mr Belsham to prove it.

And does Mr Belsham really "head up" the midata programme?

• What's happened to Kirstin Green, the deputy director at BIS who led the open forums on midata?
• What's happened to Professor Nigel Shadbolt, chair of the midata programme?
• And what's happened to William Heath, member of the midata strategy board and chairman of Mydex, the only system ever mentioned in connection with the personal data stores BIS want us all to maintain?

As to the last question, Mr Heath continues to promise that "Mydex gives individuals back control over their personal data" although when asked to explain how, in public, he doesn't.

It's not in Mydex's power to grant that control. It's an odd view of control anyway. You get control of your data back, so goes the Mydex argument, by storing it all with them, complete strangers, in a personal data store, out of your control, on the web, in the cloud, the Wild West where – so Symantec tell us – 250,000 cyber-attacks take place every year.

Normally that wouldn't make sense.

But if you're surrounded

• by people who call a personal dependence payment a "personal independence payment"
• and who argue that you stay in control of your personal care by giving up control of it
• and who write that politics has ended when clearly it hasn't
• and who conclude that the way to nudge people is to legislate
• and who claim that regulation can have a deregulatory effect
• and who operate a blog that isn't a blog on a website that doesn't exist
• and who represent themselves as the head of a programme when perhaps they're not
• and who congratulate themselves on the completion of a project which is manifestly incomplete

then perhaps it does make some sort of sense

• to take back control of your personal data by giving it away.

You might fall for it. But Google won't. They'll win the war. Because they still understand what power and regulation and control and independence are.

The war of independence

Here in the UK, the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) state benefit is in the process of being replaced by the Personal Independence Payment (PIP), worth between £21 and £134.40 per week. "PIP helps with some of the extra costs caused by long-term ill-health or a disability", which is good, but the whole point is that many claimants will be dependent on this benefit which makes it very odd to call it a "Personal Independence Payment". Something odd is happening to the concept of independence here.

The same odd thing is happening to the concept of control. Mr Andrew Dilnot, chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, argues that there should be a limit of £35,000 on the amount old people pay for their social care. That limit should apply even if an old person owns a house, say, worth £2 million, say. They shouldn't have to sell the house to pay for their care.

Why not?

GDS, the NAO, the BBC, parliament and DWP – five questions

The National Audit Office (NAO) have released a new report, Digital Britain 2: Putting users at the heart of government’s digital services, examining the Government Digital Service (GDS) plans for digital-by-default. The report's conclusions concentrate on the problems faced by people who can't or won't use on-line public services.

The same problem was examined the day before yesterday by Mark Easton, the BBC's home affairs editor.

And 52 members of parliament have put their name to an early day motion to debate the problem.

Meanwhile the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), who were depending on digital-by-default for the introduction of Universal Credit, have published not one but two documents confirming that benefits will continue to rely on face-to-face meetings, telephone calls and letters in the post – the very opposite of digital-by-default – please see Local Support Services Framework and Universal Credit – Your claim journey.

GDS have responded to the NAO report with a post on their blog today:

Overall, this report is a really positive sign we’re moving in the right direction. But it’s also a helpful reminder of the work we still need to do to support those who are less able to use online services.

The NAO report has some ("really positive"?) comments to make on the putative savings we can look forward to from digital-by-default:

1.5 The GDS has also highlighted the possible savings from switching to digital channels. As the strategy states, central government provides more than 650 public services – which cost between £6 billion and £9 billion in 2011-12, according to GDS. The GDS has estimated total potential annual savings of £1.7 billion to £1.8 billion if all these services were operated through digital channels. More than 300 of these services have no digital channel. The savings estimate does not include the costs that may be required to create or redesign digital services. However, it also does not take into account the government’s new approach to becoming digital, set out in its strategy, which could lead to greater savings being achieved more quickly. The GDS states that the average cost of a central government digital transaction can be almost 20 times lower than by phone and 50 times lower than face-to-face. 1.6 We have not audited the estimated savings in the Government Digital Strategy, nor have we audited how government will redesign and develop its new digital services. Our future audits will evaluate the value for money of digital services as the GDS and departments work together to move more than 650 services online.

The report also mentions (without being "really positive") the need for identity assurance. Someone posted a comment on the GDS blog:
28/03/2013

dmossesq # Please Note: Your comment is awaiting moderation. The NAO report is available at http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/10123-001-Digital-Britain-2-Book.pdf Under the heading “Trust”, the report includes the following: QUOTE 4.9 To use online public services people need to be able to trust the government with the information they provide online. The Government Digital Strategy recognises that users of public services often find it hard to register for online services, and that it needs to offer a more straightforward, secure way to allow users to identify themselves online while preserving their privacy. Therefore there is an Identity Assurance Programme [IDAP] under way in GDS and we were told that this is to develop a framework to enable federated identity assurance to be adopted across government services. 4.10 The government also told us that this will involve creating a simple, trusted and secure new way for people and businesses to access government services, which will provide assurance to government that the right person is accessing their own personal information. UNQUOTE Without IDAP, there is no digital-by-default. DWP were led to believe that IDAP would be “fully operational” for up to 21 million claimants of Universal Credit “from March 2013″, https://online.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk/Common/View%20Notice.aspx?NoticeId=797279 Here we are in March 2013. And the question the NAO almost ask is, where is IDAP? 28/03/2013

That comment has now been moderated. Has it been published? No. It's been deleted.

Tomorrow should see the publication of ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's video diary, This week at GDS.

He's the executive director of GDS and the senior responsible officer owner for the pan-government identity assurance programme. Will he comment on:

1. the NAO report?
2. the BBC report?
3. the early day motion in parliament?
4. DWP being stranded without IDAP?
5. the deliberations of the permanent secretaries who met at GDS's offices yesterday to consider digital-by-default?

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Added 16:48:

Following publication of the post above, DMossEsq brought it to the attention of GDS. The comment which had previously been deleted from their blog has now been published by GDS. Also, this week's edition of This week at GDS has been published, a day early, perhaps because of the bank holiday. No response to questions 2., 3. and 4. above. A passing mention of 5. and a promise to consider 1. in next week's edition.

GDS, the NAO, the BBC, parliament and DWP – five questions

The National Audit Office (NAO) have released a new report, Digital Britain 2: Putting users at the heart of government’s digital services, examining the Government Digital Service (GDS) plans for digital-by-default. The report's conclusions concentrate on the problems faced by people who can't or won't use on-line public services.

The same problem was examined the day before yesterday by Mark Easton, the BBC's home affairs editor.

And 52 members of parliament have put their name to an early day motion to debate the problem.

Meanwhile the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), who were depending on digital-by-default for the introduction of Universal Credit, have published not one but two documents confirming that benefits will continue to rely on face-to-face meetings, telephone calls and letters in the post – the very opposite of digital-by-default – please see Local Support Services Framework and Universal Credit – Your claim journey.

GDS have responded to the NAO report with a post on their blog today:

Overall, this report is a really positive sign we’re moving in the right direction. But it’s also a helpful reminder of the work we still need to do to support those who are less able to use online services.

GDS falls at the first fence (Software Engineering 101)

Like any religion, digital-by-default needs manuals for its adherents to follow and the lead story in the Government Digital Service (GDS) broadcast on 15 March 2013 is the publication of one such manual, the Digital by Default Service Standard:


To embrace digital-by-default is to see government as the design of so many services and the question is what makes a service a good service, what is the definition here of "excellence"? This is the question to which ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken addresses himself in the clip above and the gospel answer is given in the service standard manual.

There are four stages apparently through which you must progress in the development of a digital-by-default service:

• Discovery
• Alpha
• Beta
• Live

"The discovery phase is your chance to gain an understanding of what the users of the service need ...", it says in the manual ...

which reveals further that "This information is found through: workshops ... simple mock ups ... paper prototypes ... [and] plenty of whiteboard diagrams" ...

and that "A small team will be required, consisting of your stakeholders and any core team members that have been identified, including the service manager. The phase should not take longer than a week. At the end of the phase a decision should be made whether to proceed to the alpha phase".

Click on the "small team" link above and a message is displayed saying "This web page is not available". For the moment, we can't be sure just how small a team is required. No religion is complete without its mysteries.

Still, if you click on the other links, you can follow the steps yourself from the discovery phase all the way through to the fully operational live phase, when a service is released to the users that is so excellent that they will immediately want to use it in preference to any rival – "Build services so good that people prefer to use them", as they say at GDS, that's their motto.

As we know, for GDS, "the people and organisations with which we work must be imbued by the culture and ethos of the web generation ... we are not just on the web, but of the web. And our culture and governance must reflect that". That is the central article of the digital-by-default faith.

And who better to lead in its practice than GDS themselves? Who better to exemplify its efficacy?

Exemplify?

Consider for example the identity and assurance programme (IDAP, or sometimes just plain IDA), a service which was promised to be "fully operational" for 21 million DWP claimants "by March 2013".

Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, chief executive of GDS, is the senior responsible officer owner for this pan-government digital-by-default service (a fact which he modestly fails to mention in his weekly broadcasts). We may safely assume that a small team spent a week discovering the users' requirements and then proceeded to the alpha phase.

Actually we don't have to assume that, we know it – Identity Alphas was published on the GDS blog on 12 March 2013. A bit late, perhaps, given that IDAP was meant to be fully operational already, but remember, digital-by-default is ... agile.

And the acid test, do "people prefer to use" GDS's IDAP?

No. They don't:

IDA services put on ice for Universal Credit delivery No mention was made of the use of IDA in the DWP's Local Support Services Framework ... Instead, the paper referenced the issuing of PIN numbers to users for their online accounts ...

Oh God.

#Fail.

Back to the whiteboard.

GDS falls at the first fence (Software Engineering 101)

Like any religion, digital-by-default needs manuals for its adherents to follow and the lead story in the Government Digital Service (GDS) broadcast on 15 March 2013 is the publication of one such manual, the Digital by Default Service Standard:


To embrace digital-by-default is to see government as the design of so many services and the question is what makes a service a good service, what is the definition here of "excellence"? This is the question to which ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken addresses himself in the clip above and the gospel answer is given in the service standard manual.

GDS's Identity Assurance Programme goes up in smoke

Computer Weekly, 14 March 2013:

IDA services put on ice for Universal Credit delivery

Only the other day there we were, weren't we, asking if the Government Digital Service's pan-government Identity Assurance service is up and running yet. They had promised that it would be "fully operational" for 21 million Department for Work and Pensions claimants "by March 2013".

Well now, thanks to Computer Weekly, we know the answer.

No mention was made of the use of IDA in the DWP’s Local Support Services Framework ... Instead, the paper referenced the issuing of PIN numbers to users for their online accounts ...

GDS talked a good game once. Is there any hope now for IDA?

No. Judging by this 12 March 2013 post on their blog, Identity Alphas, GDS are innocents abroad in the world of identity management.

"Where did it all go wrong?" You may well ask.

GDS's Identity Assurance Programme goes up in smoke

Computer Weekly, 14 March 2013:

IDA services put on ice for Universal Credit delivery

Only the other day there we were, weren't we, asking if the Government Digital Service's pan-government Identity Assurance service is up and running yet. They had promised that it would be "fully operational" for 21 million Department for Work and Pensions claimants "by March 2013".

Well now, thanks to Computer Weekly, we know the answer.

No mention was made of the use of IDA in the DWP’s Local Support Services Framework ... Instead, the paper referenced the issuing of PIN numbers to users for their online accounts ...

GDS talked a good game once. Is there any hope now for IDA?

No. Judging by this 12 March 2013 post on their blog, Identity Alphas, GDS are innocents abroad in the world of identity management.

"Where did it all go wrong?" You may well ask.

21 million prospective Universal Credit claimants, 40,000+ ex-public servants, 400 days and GDS

From spring 2013
It is the Government Digital Service's dream to make all public services digital by default. To make that happy dream come true they need identity assurance – each UK parishioner needs his or her own electronic ID.

• 20 April 2011:
... To someone's dyspeptic eye, IDA looks like a non-starter, another elaborate and expensive plan which turns out to be fantasy, doomed to failure when it confronts reality. The timetable for IDA was presented and described as not over-ambitious. That is perfectly accurate. The timetable is not over-ambitious. It looks more like the psychedelic product of a prolonged session on hallucinogenic drugs. Far from being merely over-ambitious, it is quite simply impossible.

• 22 September 2012, Universal Credit and the December putsch:
... The revised notice was published on 1 March 2012 and the service has to be operational from the Spring of 2013? Barely a year later? Only six months after the contracts are awarded? 21 million claimants? Millions of whom have never used the web? Operational? Countrywide? ... It's a tall order.

• 25 September 2012, Identity assurance – the clock is ticking, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's chickens are coming home to roost:
... That's six months time if we measure to the start of next spring, or nine months if we measure to the end. Either way, DWP's Universal Credit (UC) scheme has to be up and running by October 2013 and UC depends on identity assurance as Lord Freud, the welfare reform minister, has emphasised – no identity assurance, no UC.

• 6 November 2012, Identity assurance – shall we vote on it?:
... That's what it says in the draft legislation. Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken was meant to announce who would be the UK's so-called "identity providers" by 30 September 2012. We're still waiting ... He'd better hurry up. He's promised to have an identity assurance service "operational" for 21 million Universal Credit claimants by Spring 2013.

• 26 November 2012, Identity assurance – one under the eight:
More to the point, there are 21 million prospective claimants for Universal Credit in the UK. Identity assurance is meant to be operational by the Spring of 2013 for all 21 million of them. The chances of that happening are now nil. GDS's failure is extending the imprisonment in the poverty trap of millions of claimants who could be released by Universal Credit. Putting the wrong people in charge of identity assurance has miserable social consequences.

• 10 December 2012, Universal Credit – GDS's part in its downfall:
... That wouldn't be feasible, not now, December 2012, not even if the details of IDAP had all been worked out but they haven't been ("we now have a group of suppliers with whom we can work out the practical issues"). Why hasn't it already been done? How much longer will it take?

• 11 December 2012, GDS's identity assurance story continues to unravel:
... GDS went on in their blog post of last March to refer to the procurement of identity assurance services, needed by DWP for their Universal Credit initiative: "The initial DWP services will be required to provide identity assurance for approximately 21 000 000 claimants ... To support the rollout of universal credit and personal independence payments, identity assurance suppliers will be selected in summer 2012 and systems will need to be fully operational from spring 2013" ... Question – how did GDS come up with that timetable?

• 18 January 2013, #2 of many lessons about GDS and the external digital thought-leaders:
... it's impossible. Would you trust an organisation that promises the impossible?

And so was born GDS's Identity Assurance Programme (IDAP) [29.12.17: currently known as "GOV.UK Verify (RIP)"] which they have repeatedly promised would be "fully operational from spring 2013".

In the first instance, GDS need to provide identity assurance for the new Universal Credit (UC) system which is designed to rescue people from welfare dependency by making work pay. It's UC that needs identity assurance to be fully operational from spring 2013 and that's what GDS have promised.

From March 2013
Eight so-called "identity providers" have been appointed to turn IDAP into reality. The documentation on the IDAP contracts was published the other day, 16 January 2013, and includes this:

To support the rollout of universal credit and personal independence payments providers will be selected by June 2012 and systems will need to be fully operational from March 2013.

"... fully operational from March 2013" – 37 days away.

That deadline has seemed impossible for years, since at least 20 April 2011 (please see opposite), before GDS existed, but they (GDS) have never sought in public to change it and, even now with only 37 days to go, there may be up to 21 million prospective universal credit claimants out there who assume that the deadline will be met.

It won't. It can't be.

April 2014
In his 22 January 2013 Computer Weekly blog the engaging Toby Stevens reports on the current state of IDAP and says:

And when does all this happen? We would expect to see the first pilots in October this year, with more widespread use kicking off in April 2014.

Fully operational from March 2013? No. October 2013. But that's just "trials". So not fully operational. Maybe more like April 2014. And maybe not.

Has anyone told Iain Duncan Smith that GDS have delayed his beacon policy by at least a year? Presumably not as he keeps telling Parliament that UC's going swimmingly. Has anyone told the press? Or the prospective claimants of UC?

No.

GDS have kept quiet about it.

Cui bono?
Instead, they have diverted us with scores of blog posts about how important the users are – excluding benefit claimants, presumably – and how the users' needs are GDS's only guide and only concern.

They trumpet the success of their single government domain project – "This website replaces Directgov [and] Business Link", it says on the home page of GOV.UK. Manifestly false. The IDAP documentation quoted from above, for example, is on businesslink.gov.uk.

They proudly announce that they will make a minimum of 40,000 public servants redundant thereby saving the government – but not the public – up to £1.8 billion p.a.

Cheekily, in view of UC, GDS claim to believe that they are dedicated to "delivery".

And on 21 January 2013, they held a jamboree, The future is here, attended by 300 civil servants to celebrate themselves and to announce vaingloriously that they would transform government in 400 days.

Who is this all for?

It's clearly not for the users. It's not for the 21 million prospective UC claimants. And it's not for the 40,000+ ex-public servants.

That's alright then
The executive director of GDS and senior responsible officer owner for IDAP is ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken. And on his website he modestly quotes these words of Martha Lane Fox's:

It is a rare individual that can take a bunch of ideas and turn them into a reality in any environment but particularly in government. Mike is doing just that for me and it has been a privilege to watch.

Ms Lane Fox was interviewed at the heady, revivalist, the-future-is-here jamboree by a Computer Weekly journalist, Kathleen Hall, who finishes her article with this:

Although Lane Fox has been digital champion for four years, she has no immediate plans to step down. “I think you have to be constantly appraising yourself as to whether yours is the best voice – or whether you are becoming a bit like white noise, and not doing a good as job as you could be. But at the minute I’m still having a great time,” she said.

GDS's new world
Martha Lane Fox describes her digital-by-default project as a revolution. Those of us who were born yesterday will have no trouble believing that we are living in a new world. First we believed that UC would be fully operational in 37 days time. Then seamlessly we believed that the target is 400 days.

And in 400 days time?

What will GDS have us believe then?

21 million prospective Universal Credit claimants, 40,000+ ex-public servants, 400 days and GDS

From spring 2013
It is the Government Digital Service's dream to make all public services digital by default. To make that happy dream come true they need identity assurance – each UK parishioner needs his or her own electronic ID.

• 20 April 2011:
... To someone's dyspeptic eye, IDA looks like a non-starter, another elaborate and expensive plan which turns out to be fantasy, doomed to failure when it confronts reality. The timetable for IDA was presented and described as not over-ambitious. That is perfectly accurate. The timetable is not over-ambitious. It looks more like the psychedelic product of a prolonged session on hallucinogenic drugs. Far from being merely over-ambitious, it is quite simply impossible.

• 22 September 2012, Universal Credit and the December putsch:
... The revised notice was published on 1 March 2012 and the service has to be operational from the Spring of 2013? Barely a year later? Only six months after the contracts are awarded? 21 million claimants? Millions of whom have never used the web? Operational? Countrywide? ... It's a tall order.

• 25 September 2012, Identity assurance – the clock is ticking, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's chickens are coming home to roost:
... That's six months time if we measure to the start of next spring, or nine months if we measure to the end. Either way, DWP's Universal Credit (UC) scheme has to be up and running by October 2013 and UC depends on identity assurance as Lord Freud, the welfare reform minister, has emphasised – no identity assurance, no UC.

• 6 November 2012, Identity assurance – shall we vote on it?:
... That's what it says in the draft legislation. Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken was meant to announce who would be the UK's so-called "identity providers" by 30 September 2012. We're still waiting ... He'd better hurry up. He's promised to have an identity assurance service "operational" for 21 million Universal Credit claimants by Spring 2013.

• 26 November 2012, Identity assurance – one under the eight:
More to the point, there are 21 million prospective claimants for Universal Credit in the UK. Identity assurance is meant to be operational by the Spring of 2013 for all 21 million of them. The chances of that happening are now nil. GDS's failure is extending the imprisonment in the poverty trap of millions of claimants who could be released by Universal Credit. Putting the wrong people in charge of identity assurance has miserable social consequences.

• 10 December 2012, Universal Credit – GDS's part in its downfall:
... That wouldn't be feasible, not now, December 2012, not even if the details of IDAP had all been worked out but they haven't been ("we now have a group of suppliers with whom we can work out the practical issues"). Why hasn't it already been done? How much longer will it take?

• 11 December 2012, GDS's identity assurance story continues to unravel:
... GDS went on in their blog post of last March to refer to the procurement of identity assurance services, needed by DWP for their Universal Credit initiative: "The initial DWP services will be required to provide identity assurance for approximately 21 000 000 claimants ... To support the rollout of universal credit and personal independence payments, identity assurance suppliers will be selected in summer 2012 and systems will need to be fully operational from spring 2013" ... Question – how did GDS come up with that timetable?

• 18 January 2013, #2 of many lessons about GDS and the external digital thought-leaders:
... it's impossible. Would you trust an organisation that promises the impossible?

And so was born GDS's Identity Assurance Programme (IDAP) [29.12.17: currently known as "GOV.UK Verify (RIP)"] which they have repeatedly promised would be "fully operational from spring 2013".

In the first instance, GDS need to provide identity assurance for the new Universal Credit (UC) system which is designed to rescue people from welfare dependency by making work pay. It's UC that needs identity assurance to be fully operational from spring 2013 and that's what GDS have promised.

From March 2013
Eight so-called "identity providers" have been appointed to turn IDAP into reality. The documentation on the IDAP contracts was published the other day, 16 January 2013, and includes this:

To support the rollout of universal credit and personal independence payments providers will be selected by June 2012 and systems will need to be fully operational from March 2013.

"... fully operational from March 2013" – 37 days away.

That deadline has seemed impossible for years, since at least 20 April 2011 (please see opposite), before GDS existed, but they (GDS) have never sought in public to change it and, even now with only 37 days to go, there may be up to 21 million prospective universal credit claimants out there who assume that the deadline will be met.

It won't. It can't be.

April 2014
In his 22 January 2013 Computer Weekly blog the engaging Toby Stevens reports on the current state of IDAP and says:

And when does all this happen? We would expect to see the first pilots in October this year, with more widespread use kicking off in April 2014.

Fully operational from March 2013? No. October 2013. But that's just "trials". So not fully operational. Maybe more like April 2014. And maybe not.

Has anyone told Iain Duncan Smith that GDS have delayed his beacon policy by at least a year? Presumably not as he keeps telling Parliament that UC's going swimmingly. Has anyone told the press? Or the prospective claimants of UC?

No.

GDS have kept quiet about it.

Cui bono?
Instead, they have diverted us with scores of blog posts about how important the users are – excluding benefit claimants, presumably – and how the users' needs are GDS's only guide and only concern.

They trumpet the success of their single government domain project – "This website replaces Directgov [and] Business Link", it says on the home page of GOV.UK. Manifestly false. The IDAP documentation quoted from above, for example, is on businesslink.gov.uk.

They proudly announce that they will make a minimum of 40,000 public servants redundant thereby saving the government – but not the public – up to £1.8 billion p.a.

Cheekily, in view of UC, GDS claim to believe that they are dedicated to "delivery".

And on 21 January 2013, they held a jamboree, The future is here, attended by 300 civil servants to celebrate themselves and to announce vaingloriously that they would transform government in 400 days.

Who is this all for?

It's clearly not for the users. It's not for the 21 million prospective UC claimants. And it's not for the 40,000+ ex-public servants.

That's alright then
The executive director of GDS and senior responsible officer owner for IDAP is ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken. And on his website he modestly quotes these words of Martha Lane Fox's:

It is a rare individual that can take a bunch of ideas and turn them into a reality in any environment but particularly in government. Mike is doing just that for me and it has been a privilege to watch.

Ms Lane Fox was interviewed at the heady, revivalist, the-future-is-here jamboree by a Computer Weekly journalist, Kathleen Hall, who finishes her article with this:

Although Lane Fox has been digital champion for four years, she has no immediate plans to step down. “I think you have to be constantly appraising yourself as to whether yours is the best voice – or whether you are becoming a bit like white noise, and not doing a good as job as you could be. But at the minute I’m still having a great time,” she said.

GDS's new world
Martha Lane Fox describes her digital-by-default project as a revolution. Those of us who were born yesterday will have no trouble believing that we are living in a new world. First we believed that UC would be fully operational in 37 days time. Then seamlessly we believed that the target is 400 days.

And in 400 days time?

What will GDS have us believe then?

The identity of the UK's eighth identity provider has now been provided, reluctantly

The acknowledged problems with public administration in the UK are to be solved, it is proposed, by making public services digital by default, which requires us all to have electronic identities (eIDs). These are to be provided by eight so-called "identity providers" of whom only seven were previously announced, please see Identity assurance – one under the eight.

The eighth identity provider is PayPal.

How do we know that?

Did the Government Digital Service (GDS) make an announcement? No.

Did the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) make an announcement? Not really. DWP posted a notice on the Contracts Finder service of businesslink.gov.uk, a website which GDS say no longer exists – it's supposed to have been replaced by their GOV.UK.

So how?

Answer:

DWP publishes details of eight IDPs for ID Assurance services, including Paypal contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk/Common/View%20… — OIX UK (@OIXUK) January 16, 2013

This is not an open way to deal with the public.

Check the Contracts Finder link in the Tweet above and you'll find that PayPal have been on the ID assurance list of suppliers for months. Why the delay in making an announcement? Who was reluctant? Why?

Hundreds of millions of pounds are scheduled to be wasted on the failure of GDS's identity assurance programme. The appointment of a national identity provider is an important matter. Why is its announcement buried on Twitter?

And what is the rôle of OIX in the UK's new Constitution?

The identity of the UK's eighth identity provider has now been provided, reluctantly

The acknowledged problems with public administration in the UK are to be solved, it is proposed, by making public services digital by default, which requires us all to have electronic identities (eIDs). These are to be provided by eight so-called "identity providers" of whom only seven were previously announced, please see Identity assurance – one under the eight.

The eighth identity provider is PayPal.

How do we know that?

GDS's identity assurance story continues to unravel

The Potential Provider shall complete Phase 1 by 31 December 2012

DWP, the Department for Work and Pensions, is by far the biggest spender in government, having clocked up £242.3 billion in 2011-12, see HM Treasury's Public Spending Statistics July 2012 (p.53), including £93 billion on pensions.

On 1 March 2012 GDS, the Government Digital Service, wrote: "Today the cross-Government Identity Assurance programme sanctioned DWP to publish a tender to procure Identity services for all of Government", see Identity: One small step for all of Government.

Sanctioned?

Somehow DWP put up with this condescension. GDS would be well-advised not to try it on with our next biggest spender, the Department of Health, £121.3 billion.

GDS went on in their blog post of last March to refer to the procurement of identity assurance services, needed by DWP for their Universal Credit initiative: "The initial DWP services will be required to provide identity assurance for approximately 21 000 000 claimants ... To support the rollout of universal credit and personal independence payments, identity assurance suppliers will be selected in summer 2012 and systems will need to be fully operational from spring 2013".

Let's say that GDS mean that identity assurance services "will need to be fully operational" on or before 22 June 2013.

Question – how did GDS come up with that timetable?

Before you answer, consider – there must have been some reasoning behind GDS's choice of date. They must have had some idea which suppliers will be involved and how they will satisfy DWP's needs.

Yesterday, 10 December 2012, GDS published the details of an identity assurance contract they put out for tender and which they have now awarded. This contract is for qualitative research into the way people could use multiple identity providers to access public services.

Almost every sentence in GDS's invitation to tender (ITT) is contentious. But let's content ourselves with just one, para.4.2.4, the opening sentence of this post: "The Potential Provider shall complete Phase 1 by 31 December 2012".

This is fundamental research for the Identity Assurance Programme. It won't be finished until 31 December 2012. GDS have the option to extend it by up to three months. 31 March 2013. And then there's Phase 2.

The chances of DWP getting its identity assurance services before 22 June 2013? Nil.

GDS's ITT wasn't even completed until 12 November 2012, eight months after they sanctioned DWP's ITT. GDS must have known then that their timetable is a fantasy.

Meanwhile there are 21 million potential claimants out there, waiting for GDS, whose priorities are clearly elsewhere.

If anybody asks you what "misfeasance" means, misfeasance in Whitehall, just point them at GDS.

(Hat tip: Toby Stevens)

GDS's identity assurance story continues to unravel

The Potential Provider shall complete Phase 1 by 31 December 2012

DWP, the Department for Work and Pensions, is by far the biggest spender in government, having clocked up £242.3 billion in 2011-12, see HM Treasury's Public Spending Statistics July 2012 (p.53), including £93 billion on pensions.

On 1 March 2012 GDS, the Government Digital Service, wrote: "Today the cross-Government Identity Assurance programme sanctioned DWP to publish a tender to procure Identity services for all of Government", see Identity: One small step for all of Government.

Sanctioned?

Universal Credit – GDS's part in its downfall

The importance of IDAP
If public services are to become digital-by-default the Government Digital Service (GDS) need to deliver on identity assurance.

It's their responsibility:

• Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, the Chief Executive of GDS, is also the senior responsible officer owner for Her Majesty's Government's Identity Assurance Programme (IDAP).
• GDS acknowledge an IDAP project on their blog.
• And they said on 1 March 2012 that they want to ensure that "... ultimately, HMG-wide Identity Assurance is supplied across central departments via a common procurement portal ... and governed by the Cabinet Office [i.e. by GDS]".

And without IDAP, they say, people who want to use public services will not be able to assert their identities on-line and there will be no digital-by-default:

• Francis Maude, Cabinet Office Minister, talking about digital-by-default on 6 March 2012: "... for all this to work users of digital public services need to be able to assert their identities safely, securely and simply".

How's it going? What progress is there on IDAP?

IDAP has a customer ...
The first guinea pig has been chosen. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are responsible for Universal Credit (UC) and UC will be the first public service to use IDAP, c.f. Francis Maude again: "... soon Identity Assurance Services will be used to support the Department for Work and Pension’s Universal Credit scheme and the Personal Independence payment which, from 2013, will replace the complex and outdated benefit system".

No IDAP, no UC.

What's involved?

... and IDAP has seven suppliers ...
According to the 1 March 2012 notice placed in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU): "The initial DWP services will be required to provide identity assurance for approximately 21 000 000 claimants ... To support the rollout of universal credit and personal independence payments, identity assurance suppliers will be selected in summer 2012 and systems will need to be fully operational from spring 2013".

Two deadlines came and went. 30 September 2012 and 22 October 2012. In the end, it was 13 November 2012 when DWP announced the names of seven "identity assurance suppliers". That's what they were called in the March OJEU notice but, by November, they had become "identity providers" (IDPs).

There were meant to be eight of them but the identity of the reluctant eighth IDP remains a mystery.

Not that the other seven are exactly well-known in the UK – the Post Office, Cassidian, Digidentity, Experian, Ingeus, Mydex, and Verizon – apart from the Post Office, of course, but no-one thinks of that venerable institution as an IDP.

And they're a strange collection. Just look who isn't there. Where are the banks? Where are the (UK) telcos? What happened to the utility companies and the insurance people? Too sensible to accept the hospital pass?

For the first time in history, the UK has official identity providers. You think you already have an identity? Not if it hasn't been provided by an IDP, you don't, not if GDS have their way, not in their modernised, joined up, transformational UK.

As yet, we know nothing about what these IDPs will do – how will IDAP work?

... but the bit in between is missing – there is no IDAP service

It should be big news but the media haven't paid much attention and DWP haven't mentioned IDPs since their 13 November 2012 press release. We have no idea from them how IDAP is meant to work.

Mydex blogged about it but there's been no publicity from the other six named IDPs.

And GDS, the people in charge, have managed just one reference to the appointment of the IDPs, "... we now have a group of suppliers with whom we can work out the practical issues of becoming operational as Identity Providers across all of government".

GDS haven't worked out the "practical issues" yet? It's two years since the prospective suppliers went off to work out the details of what was then the Digital Delivery Identity Assurance Project, part of the G-Digital Programme. Haven't they worked anything out in the interim? What was in GDS's invitation to tender? How do you choose and appoint suppliers if you don't know what you want them to do?

The IDPs are only getting an 18-month contract. And they have to register 21 million claimants for no more than £25 million and issue them all with electronic IDs. How are they going to do that? When are they going to do that? And where?

Remember, OJEU notice: "systems will need to be fully operational from spring 2013". That wouldn't be feasible, not now, December 2012, not even if the details of IDAP had all been worked out but they haven't been ("we now have a group of suppliers with whom we can work out the practical issues"). Why hasn't it already been done? How much longer will it take?

Some lessons from recent history
IDAP requires us all to have an electronic ID which will allow us to identify ourselves on-line so that we can transact with the authorities.

The Home Office – or more specifically the Identity & Passport Service (IPS) – had eight years from 2002 to 2010 of unlimited budgets and unstinting political support to issue us all with ID cards, they had the whole of Whitehall behind them, every management consultant money can buy and most of the media, and yet they failed.

IPS couldn't settle on the objectives of the ID cards scheme, they couldn't make their case, they couldn't say what the point was, they didn't have enough registration centres, the chosen biometrics technology doesn't work, CESG refused to sanction DWP's database as the foundation for the National Identity Register, the public had concerns about data-sharing and the loss of personal privacy, and there were unanswered questions about the security of the system.

By paying airport workers to register and by leaning on Home Office staff to register, IPS finally managed to enrol about 30,000 (?) people on the National Identity Register, 0.07% (?) of the target population of 45 million, before giving up, kissing goodbye to at least £292 million of public funds – your money and mine – and having an institutional nervous breakdown from which they still haven't recovered.

Identity assurance requires trust on all sides and IPS destroyed it wholesale.

GDS haven't even started their eight-year march yet.

Two years ago, IDAP was nowhere. It still is.

No progress has been made.

Why did GDS make their promise to have IDAP operational by the Spring of 2013? Why haven't they announced yet that deployment will have to be delayed? Why are DWP still committed to testing UC from March 2013 and having it fully operational by October 2013?

What have GDS been doing all this time?

Three boondoggles and a talking shop

10 February 2012, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, Thoughts on my recent trip to the West Coast with Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office: "Andrew Nash, Google’s Director of Identity, ran us through the current issues facing identity.He explained how Google aim to grow and be part of an ecosystem of identify providers, and encouraged the UK Government to play its part in a federated system. The UK ID Assurance team and Google agreed to work more closely to define our strategy – so look out for future announcements. Andrew also took the opportunity to walk the Minister through the Identity ecosystem".

It's not known what Francis Maude made of his walk through the identity ecosystem. One way and another, though, Google were excluded from the list of official IDPs.

4 May 2012, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, Estonia’s technology economy and online service provision- back to the future?: "We came to see how a small country of 1.3 million has developed a culture and system of Governance and public service provision using the Internet and transparency as core principles ... Whilst we met dozens of people at breakneck speed, many of whom we hope to see in the UK soon, over the next week I will be explaining the wider points we have uncovered which reflect directly on our challenge to make public services in the UK digital by default, and how the Estonian experience links to our core principles".

Despite their links to the UK's core principles, there is no known Estonian among our IDPs.

29 May 2012, and GDS reported their trip to the White House, Steve Wreyford, Identity Assurance goes to Washington. Connected with which, 14 June 2012, Steve Wreyford, Cabinet Office joins the Open Identity Exchange – the OIX is a talking shop.

And that seems to be about it IDAPwise for GDS. A trip to California. A trip to Estonia. A trip to Washington. And signing up to a talking shop.

What else have GDS been up to?

Playing with computers
Using a team of up to 140, GDS have produced a new website, https://www.gov.uk (GOV.UK). That involved re-writing two existing websites, Directgov and Business Link. They are now in the process of re-writing most of the central government departmental websites and incorporating them into GOV.UK.

Why? It's a huge job and what's the point? Why go to the trouble?

Whatever the answers to those questions, GOV.UK is undeniably something GDS have done.

Unlike providing an identity assurance service.

Producing websites is obviously what GDS are at home with, it's what they enjoy and what they apply themselves to, it's what floats their boat:

Wow! New @mysociety Mapumental product bit.ly/VUX17g Great example ofkind of utility whichshould come from opening Govt data — Mike Bracken (@MTBracken) November 17, 2012

Ooh, interesting for identity in govt services @gdsteam RT @timbray AccountChooser, a project of the OpenID Foundation: goo.gl/zY5h1 — Mike Bracken (@MTBracken) December 5, 2012

Why re-write all these websites? GDS say that it's all something to do with improving the user experience of government websites. But what's a "user experience"? GDS offer no definition. In the end, arguably, GDS decide for themselves, inscrutably, whether they have improved the user experience:

Early days but there's no answer to this tweet yet: @neillyneil @tomskitomski @gdsteam Can you tell us your definition of "user experience" at GDS? — David Moss (@DMossEsq) December 7, 2012

And they say that it's all something to do with a new approach to government. Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken: "GOV.UK is not Government on the Internet, but of the Internet".

To them, the web is so special that there is something religiose about their mission and when they wanted a blessing for their work on GOV.UK, did they turn to a satisfied user whose experience had been improved? No, they turned to Tim O'Reilly. How did he get past security? How did he even know where the GDS building is?

The Government Gateway – convenience and/or security
Do we need a way to communicate with the government on-line?

Yes, of course we do.

And what's more, we already have a way and we have had for 10 years and more – the UK Government Gateway. Why throw that away? Are we so rich? We can afford to re-write websites and throw away the expensive originals? We can afford to throw away the tried and tested Gateway?

But if GDS have decided to throw it away, how can it take two years not to specify and develop the Gateway's replacement?

The objection to the Gateway is that it's hard to use. Millions of us manage but, yes, it's not easy. GDS promise something easier to use, something more like Facebook. They haven't developed a replacement, or even specified it, but that's what they promise.

But suppose that's impossible? Suppose that if you want a secure system, it just has to be more difficult to use than Facebook? Suppose that if a system is as easy to use as Facebook, then it just can't be secure?

These questions are unanswered. On the one hand, there is no proof that secure systems have to be relatively hard to use. And on the other, GDS certainly haven't provided any proof that "convenient" systems can be adequately secure.

Universal Credit
Universal Credit is important. Many people in the UK – maybe millions – are caught in the poverty trap set by our poorly-designed welfare system. UC could spring the trap and release them. They're not guinea pigs, we're talking about the lives of human beings here. While GDS are talking about computers.

Iain Duncan Smith is Secretary of State at DWP. How did he allow an important political initiative to be turned into an experiment for digital-by-default? If people were computers, digital-by-default might work but we're not, are we. Judging from outside:

• DWP's and GDS's deadlines cannot possibly be achieved – how can Francis Maude say that "soon Identity Assurance Services will be used to support the Department for Work and Pension’s Universal Credit scheme"?
• Iain Duncan Smith and his officials have increased the likelihood of UC failing.
• DWP made a terrible mistake when they ceded control to GDS ...
• ... they must take back control over identity assurance for UC ...
• ... otherwise there will be no escape from the poverty trap.
• GDS are simply not up to the job of providing identity assurance services ...
• ... it's not their bag, it's not what they're interested in ...
• ... let them play to their strengths, developing websites, and let them get out of the way of progress on UC.

----------

Daily Telegraph, 17 September 2012, Cyber attacks threaten welfare reforms, ministers warn:

Universal Credit is due to replace scores of individual benefits from next year, simplifying claims and allowing claimants to keep more of their benefits when they take paid work. The regime will be internet-based, with ministers intending that most claimants apply and report a change in circumstances online. Appearing before a Commons inquiry into the reform, Lord Freud, the welfare reform minister, was asked what was the biggest risk to the programme. “I’ll say what the challenges are, what we need to get right: to get the security system working properly,” he said. Private security companies will be commissioned to develop a system of “identity assurance” to check that only real claimants can get benefits. “That’s one of the biggest challenges,” said Lord Freud.