OBITUARY: Whitehall 1947-2012

Some emperors driven mad by absolute power appoint their horse a senator.

While others create ERG.

This time last year Sir-Gus-now-Lord O'Donnell was still Cabinet Secretary, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office and head of the home civil service. He stood down on 31 December 2011.

The month before, Sir Richard Mottram had published an article in Public Servant magazine, Whitehall shake-up – not all good news.

Sir Richard mentioned a number of the abiding problems faced by Whitehall, problems which existed when Sir Gus took over and which had still not been solved six years later. Among others, how do you govern Whitehall? The big central government departments look like independent satrapies. Silo government. Who, if anyone, is in charge? According to Sir Richard:

... the coalition government has given increasing priority to improving the efficiency of the civil service and the wider public service under a Cabinet Office group ...

The "Cabinet Office group" in question is the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG):

Efficiency, Reform and Growth (ERG), established in 2010 as the Efficiency and Reform Group, is part of the Cabinet Office, which works in partnership with HM Treasury to form the corporate centre for UK Government. Its objectives are to reform the way government works and to support the transformation of government services by both driving cost savings and focusing on growth to build a platform to enhance public services.

Take a step back.

Professor GW Keeton was Dean of the Faculty of Laws at University College, London. In 1952 he published his book The Passing of Parliament, in which he expressed his amazement that the UK had an army of a million public servants. 60 years later the army has swollen to nearer six million. Power has been wrested by Whitehall from parliament. That was easy. Whitehall exists in a state of "administrative lawlessness" as Keeton called it. And money has been wrested from the people – Whitehall now commands a budget of about £700 billion p.a. It is a mercy that Prof Keeton didn't live to see that statistic. And that he never saw the craven media who today regard that as the minimum ante you have to put up to get into the government game.

Whitehall's success – six million staff and an annual income of £700 billion – bespeaks a ruthlessly rapacious cuckoo in the nest of the State. We are used to hearing about property bubbles and stock market bubbles and credit bubbles. But look at public expenditure. In 2000-01 total managed expenditure stood at £443.7 billion. By 2009-10 it had risen to £705.6 billion. Up 59% in real terms in 10 years with no commensurate improvement in outcomes. We're living in the midst of a public administration bubble along with all the other bubbles and like all the other bubbles it's got to burst.

How will it end?

No need to guess. Just open your eyes and look. Circumspice, as the Romans would say.

Some emperors driven mad by absolute power appoint their horse a senator. While others create ERG.

It's a very modern organisation, ERG, boasting the advantages of the very latest in management theory. ERG doesn't have departments or offices or desks or even units. It has clusters. Five of them. It comprises Corporate, Efficiency, Transformation, Growth and Projects clusters.

The Transformation cluster is headed by ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, the Executive Director of Digital, and ex-Rothschild man Ed Welsh, the Executive Director of Commercial Models. You couldn't make it up, you might think. But someone did.

In the decadent and degenerate hands of the Transformation cluster, "government" means making all public services digital by default. Which means making them all available on the web, and only on the web. The fact that about 10 million members of the public have never used the web and will become excluded by default doesn't deter the Transformation cluster. Those members of the public are just people. Whereas transformational government deals only with neatly governable electronic IDs. Neither is the Transformation cluster deterred by the fact that the web is a very dangerous place to be – it's the web which is important, not the people. The UK is, incidentally, according to the police, losing the war on cyber crime.

Judging by his published thoughts, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, regardless of the facts, in defiance of the facts, is impelled by a peculiar cluster of objectives: a weakness for whizzy graphics applications; admiration for NSTIC, the US National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace; devotion to Google; an obsession with making the UK more like Estonia; and a mystical belief in the redemptive properties of the web – "GOV.UK is not Government on the Internet", he says inscrutably, "but of the Internet".

Martha 'digital by default' Lane Fox CBE, 14 October 2010:

Revolution not Evolution

Make Directgov [= the Transformation cluster/GOV.UK] the government front end for all departments' transactional online services to citizens and businesses, with the teeth to mandate cross government solutions, set standards and force departments to improve citizens' experience of key transactions.

Change the model of government online publishing, by putting a new central team in Cabinet Office in absolute control of the overall user experience across all digital channels ...

Appoint a new CEO for Digital in the Cabinet Office with absolute authority over the user experience across all government online services (websites and APls) and the power to direct all government online spending.

I strongly suggest that the core Directgov team concentrates on service quality and that it should be the "citizens' champion with sharp teeth" for transactional service delivery.

Directgov should own the citizen experience of digital public services and be tasked with driving a 'service culture' across government which could, for example, challenge any policy and practice that undermines good service design.

It seems to me that the time is now to use the Internet to shift the lead in the design of services from the policy and legal teams to the end users.

Directgov 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.

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.

Ultimately, departments should stop publishing to their own websites, and instead produce only content commissioned by this central commissioning team.

Ultimately it makes sense to the user for all Government digital services to reside under a single brand ...

... leadership on the digital communications and services agenda in the centre is too fragmented. I recommend that all digital teams in the Cabinet Office - including Digital Delivery, Digital Engagement and Directgov - are brought together under a new CEO for Digital.

This person should have the controls and powers to gain absolute authority over the user experience across all government online services ... and the power to direct all government online spend.

The CEO for Digital should also have the controls and powers to direct set and enforce standards across government departments ...

In order to make public services digital by default ERG must equip everyone with an electronic ID. Their Identity Assurance Programme is doomed to failure. That failure guarantees the failure of digital-by-default in general and it guarantees the failure of DWP's Universal Credit in particular.

DWP is one of our most powerful satrapies. The Department for Work and Pensions is the biggest-spending department in Whitehall.

Nevertheless, in the enervated sickness of the public administration bubble, the mighty DWP has ceded power to ERG.

DWP aren't alone. Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's GOV.UK (of which, more later) is sometimes criticised as a mere re-branding of Whitehall. Every central government department of state is supposed to give up its own website. Each departmental website is to be subsumed by a single government domain, https://www.gov.uk. This process of enfeeblement is endorsed by Sir Gus's successors, Sir Jeremy Heywood and Sir Bob Kerslake, of whom you may have heard, and Richard Heaton, of whom you won't (apart, perhaps, from his re-Tweeting mistake).

The criticism couldn't be wronger. This is de-branding or dis-branding or un-branding. The identities of the separate satrapies are being erased and replaced by a single, amorphous, anonymous, Whitehall cloud without personality or attachment or allegiance or mission – no corp for there to be an esprit de.

Our very own Pravda Izvestia, the Transformation cluster will be the only publisher of all government news.

It is also to have the right of veto over policy – no policy which impairs the "user experience" of GOV.UK will be countenanced.

"Our design and creative teams will ensure a simple, consistent and beautiful experience for all users", trills ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken. But what is a "user experience"? It's not clear. The term is undefined – a serious omission given that the user experience whatever it is, is the touchstone of the Transformation cluster's work. But whatever it is, if the Executive Director of Digital (see above) determines by whatever means that the user experience is in danger, then he is duty-bound to ignore any fuddy-duddy old policy-makers who get in his way.

Similarly, if any dusty old laws, e.g. the laws governing data-sharing between departments, prove obstructive, they are to be ignored or changed. Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, considers these laws to be muddled myths that need to be "busted".

These powers and others are all granted to the Transformation cluster by Martha Lane Fox CBE who designed the new Constitution and who remains chairman of the advisory board.

GOV.UK. Is it a bubble? Is it a cloud?

Never mind which. It is insubstantial and will burst or blow away leaving nothing behind it. It is bursting and blowing away before your very eyes. Now. With not even a body left behind to rest in peace.

Not all good news, Sir Richard?

Look again at his article. The governance of Whitehall is only one of the issues he raises.

Sir Richard is also concerned to ensure that we have cabinet government as opposed to Tony Blair's sofa government. And he asks how the home civil service can have any influence over the Prime Minister if its head is not also the Cabinet Secretary. Most central government departments (HMRC, the UK's tax farmer, is a big exception) are headed by a secretary of state who is in turn a member of the Cabinet. The influence of the departments on their secretaries of state and, through them, on the Cabinet and the Prime Minister is presumably, in Sir Richard's eyes, insufficient.

One might equally ask how the Prime Minister can have any influence on Whitehall. That seems to be a question which exercises him, witness his description of Whitehall officials as the "enemies of enterprise".

The other major issue Sir Richard raises is effective career planning for senior civil servants.

That looks like one of those problems which will not be solved but will simply go away.

Why would anyone join the civil service now if policy is to be determined by the website designers in the Transformation cluster? Why would anyone join the civil service now if ERG encourages the service to ignore the law by stigmatising it as no more than a collection of muddled myths? They won't, and the career development of senior civil servants in that case is the least of our worries.

Undignified and irremediably inane, ERG spells the end of Whitehall. What happens next?

OBITUARY: Whitehall 1947-2012

Some emperors driven mad by absolute power appoint their horse a senator.

While others create ERG.

This time last year Sir-Gus-now-Lord O'Donnell was still Cabinet Secretary, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office and head of the home civil service. He stood down on 31 December 2011.

The month before, Sir Richard Mottram had published an article in Public Servant magazine, Whitehall shake-up – not all good news.

Sir Richard mentioned a number of the abiding problems faced by Whitehall, problems which existed when Sir Gus took over and which had still not been solved six years later. Among others, how do you govern Whitehall? The big central government departments look like independent satrapies. Silo government. Who, if anyone, is in charge? According to Sir Richard:

... the coalition government has given increasing priority to improving the efficiency of the civil service and the wider public service under a Cabinet Office group ...

The gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves

The Department for Business Innovation and Skills want all consumers to store their personal data on the web so that they will be empowered.

The Department for Work and Pensions want 21 million claimants to store all their personal data on the web so that they can register for and claim Universal Credit.

The Government Digital Service want everyone to store their personal data on the web so that public services can become digital-by-default.

HMRC want to store all their local office records on the web so that they can save money.

Good idea?

You be the judge:

Britain 'losing the war on cyber crime' as costs hit £205 million Britain is losing the war on internet crime, a leading police officer has admitted, after it emerged that cyber crime cost UK businesses around £205 million in lost revenue last year. Commissioner Adrian Leppard, head of City of London police, said online fraud is rising “exponentially”, with the largest number of attacks originating from Eastern Europe and Russia. In a stark warning to MPs earlier this month, he said police are struggling to keep up with increasingly sophisticated internet criminals. Keith Vaz, chairman of the commons Home Affairs select committee, suggested to Mr Leppard that internet criminals “keep running rings around some of the best police officers in the country”, adding: “Are we winning this battle?” Mr Leppard responded: “We are not winning. I do not think we are winning globally, and I think this nature of crime is rising exponentially.” The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau has identified some 300 internet fraud gangs worldwide, Mr Leppard told MPs. Groups in 25 countries have chosen Britain as their main target ...

The gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves

The Department for Business Innovation and Skills want all consumers to store their personal data on the web so that they will be empowered.

The Department for Work and Pensions want 21 million claimants to store all their personal data on the web so that they can register for and claim Universal Credit.

The Government Digital Service want everyone to store their personal data on the web so that public services can become digital-by-default.

HMRC want to store all their local office records on the web so that they can save money.

Good idea?

midata – dumb marketing

Do you feel resentful? Permanently? About everything?

Are you susceptible to blatant mercenary manipulation?

Are you a helpless consumer? You see it and you have to buy it?

Then midata is the scheme for you. Here's the Daily Mirror on 17 November 2012 trying to sell the scheme to you in its Money • Personal finance • Shopping section:

Quids in: How new Midata scheme will create your own personal data bank Imagine always getting the cheapest deal on anything you buy, from clothes to energy bills and mobile phone contracts. Imagine never having to worry about keeping receipts or warranty documents when you buy something new for your home. And imagine being able to check that you are always buying the healthiest and cheapest food. That is what the future may hold under a new Government scheme to make firms give you the data they keep on your spending habits. At the moment firms can gather information about a customer and use it for themselves – without sharing it with the person whose details they have stored. The scheme would allow people to access this information and download it on to their “midata” web account. They could then key the data into consumer websites to find money-saving deals on everything from bank accounts to a big night out. It is hoped the scheme will eventually include supermarkets to help customers eat more healthily by showing the fat and salt content as well as all the best food deals. Consumer affairs minister Jo Swinson said that the “midata” scheme is about turning the tables on big retailers and putting power into the hands of consumers. “Many businesses reap huge commercial benefits from the information they gather from consumers’ daily spending patterns,” she said. “Why shouldn’t consumers also benefit from this by having access to their own data to enable them to make better choices?”

Perhaps when Lord Leveson's recommendations are implemented all journalism will be like this – from Whitehall PR handout to printed page/iNewspaper app with nary an intervening intellectual delay.

Until that day, remember that with midata the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) are luring you into a dangerous place, putting all your personal data on the web, in the cloud, with a trusted third party you've never met and have no reason to trust. You know that. You know that the web is a dangerous place. There's no reason to believe that midata will save you money or help the UK economy to grow. BIS know that. They're just doing GDS's dirty work for them. (GDS is the Government Digital Service.)

You may have some residual doubts. Perhaps the banks and the major retailers really do know so much about you that they can predict your every whim and take advantage of you? There are mooncalves who believe that. But do you?

You shouldn't.

Consider four cases:

1. Three months ago DMossEsq booked a stay at a hotel in Madrid. He made the booking on the hotel's website. Then he opened the Guardian newspaper website. And there, alongside the article he wanted to read, was an advertisement for that very same hotel. Spooky? A bit. Maybe. Clearly Google was keeping track of his web browsing and serving up ads accordingly. But never mind spooky, it was just stupid. DMossEsq had already booked the hotel. The ad was too late. And useless.
2. That's Google. How about a brilliant retailer like Amazon? Maybe they're better at this marketing lark? Not obviously. Some years ago, DMossEsq bought a TV through Amazon. Then Amazon started sending him emails trying to inveigle him into buying a TV. Too late. He'd already bought one. As Amazon should have known.
3. OK, if not the retailers, how about the banks? They know just about everything DMossEsq spends his money on. Are they more effective? No. One of DMossEsq's bank accounts went dormant a few months ago, there had been no movement for several years. The bank informed him that they were going to close the account. We agreed where the balance should be transferred to, an active account, the money was duly transferred, the old account was duly closed – everything tickety-boo. Then a glossy sheet of marketing turned up in the post identifying the closed account and saying "you have been pre-selected for a Barclaycard Cashback Business credit card". Brilliant. A credit card on a closed account that the bank knew was closed because they'd just closed it.
4. Do you know anyone who has ever bought anything from an ad-server? Goods? Services? Anything? Ever?

Do you still feel resentful at the power these suppliers have over you in virtue of their knowledge of your spending habits? That's what GDS and BIS want you to feel. They think you're stupid.

Or do you just feel sorry about all us schmuks paying higher retail prices because hotels, shops and banks are wasting their budget on useless marketing services from search engine companies, on-line retailers and whoever Barclays have outsourced their direct marketing to?

midata – dumb marketing

Do you feel resentful? Permanently? About everything?

Are you susceptible to blatant mercenary manipulation?

Are you a helpless consumer? You see it and you have to buy it?

Jo Swinson and Randi Zuckerberg – accelerating towards a digital meltdown

Mark Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook. His sister Randi works in the marketing department. She used Facebook to circulate a family photograph to her friends. She was shocked to discover that the photograph was promptly published for all and sundry to see. The story is covered by Forbes magazine, 26 December 2012 @ 8:52 a.m., 904,546 views at the time of writing:

Oops. Mark Zuckerberg's Sister Has A Private Facebook Photo Go Public. Being a member of the Facebook founder’s family won’t protect you from having your privacy breached on the social network. On Tuesday night, Randi Zuckerberg — older sister to Facebook’s CEO — posted a photo from a family gathering to Facebook (of course), showing her sisters using Facebook’s new Snapchat-esque ’Poke’ app on their phones, with Mark Zuckerberg watching with a confused look on his face. It popped up on the Facebook newsfeed of mediaite Callie Schweitzer who subscribes to Zuckerberg. Assuming the photo was a public one, Schweitzer tweeted it to her nearly 40,000 Twitter followers. Zuckerberg was not pleased.

Mr Zuckerberg may not be the only one with a confused look on his face – what does it all mean? Forbes explain the unfortunate incident thus:

The Facebook Privacy Setting That Tripped Up Randi Zuckerberg ... Callie Schweitzer ... thought the photo was a public one when she spotted it in her newsfeed. In fact, she saw it because she was friends with a person tagged in the photo, one of the Zuckerberg sisters. She was able to see the photo because of a privacy setting that you may or may not realize exists. When you post a photo, you have a range of options as to who gets to see it, from the generic ones — Public, Friends, Fill-In-Your-Schoo-Here, Fill-In-Your-Work-Here — to any lists you may have created — Creepers, Ex-Boyfriends, People I barely remember, Family, People I secretly hate, etc. You may choose “Friends,” as Randi Zuckerberg did, and think your photos can then only be seen by your friends… but you’d be wrong.

It looks as though Ms Zuckerberg made a mistake. As though she got her privacy settings wrong. That wouldn't be surprising. Designing the protocol even for fairly primitive social intercourse is hard work and it can take years of negotiation before the experts involved agree. Then you've got to educate people how to use the protocol. That takes time, too.

Facebook doesn't have years. More like months or even weeks. The company publishes dozens of pages of information about Facebook's privacy settings. People may or may not read them and/or understand them. Mistakes are bound to be made.

Some readers will remember 36 years ago when IBM came up with Resource Access Control Facility, RACF – a system to make sure that only properly authorised users could access any given network resources. It was hard work getting it right then. It still is. The difficulty is unavoidable. Wherever access control is required, wherever there are privacy settings to be made, wherever you need to grant or withhold permission, expect problems.

Wherever. That includes midata, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) initiative which is meant to "empower" consumers.

BIS want us all to maintain Personal Data Stores (PDSs) on the web. They claim that we shall have control over the data in our PDSs. We shall be able, they say, to grant access to our data to some suppliers and withhold it from others. Some apps will have permission to use our data. Others won't.

BIS's favoured PDS supplier seems to be Mydex and according to their website:

Mydex gives individuals back control over their personal data

Really? Like Facebook? Storing all our data on the web with an unknown third party gives us control over it? How? What is there to stop us all ending up in the embarrassing situation of Randi Zuckerberg with all our personal data published for all to see?

If we agree to use PDSs, nothing.

These questions were put to Ed Davey a year ago when he was the first minister in charge of midata. How will midata put consumers in control? He didn't answer. Neither did his officials. The same questions have been recently put to Jo Swinson*, the latest minister in charge. Same response. And they have been put to Mydex several times over the past 18 months. Still no answer.

It's not just BIS promising to give us control over our own data. The UK's Government Digital Service (GDS) are doing the same, Digital public services: putting the citizen in charge, not the state. Seven so-called "identity providers" have been appointed to put us citizens in charge, Mydex being one of them.

Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken is the chief executive of GDS and the senior responsible officer owner for the UK government's Identity Assurance Programme. The idea is to create a platform involving these identity providers from which we can all access public services. As Bracken says:

Accelerating towards a digital future ... We will look to improve user journeys across the platform, add more transactional services and offer richer functionality, especially social features ... Our design and creative teams will ensure a simple, consistent and beautiful experience for all users ...

No reason has ever been advanced to believe GDS's claim that accessing public services can be just as easy and fun as using Facebook and Google and Amazon and eBay – the rigours of RACF persist, however jauntily GDS pretend that we can all be put in charge. And as Randi Zuckerberg's experience makes clear, it isn't always easy and fun using Facebook.

----------

* Jo Swinson has now kindly promised to respond:

@dmossesq thanks for flagging up, on blackberry right now but will endeavour to reply when at my laptop — Jo Swinson(@joswinson) December 28, 2012

Jo Swinson and Randi Zuckerberg – accelerating towards a digital meltdown

Mark Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook. His sister Randi works in the marketing department. She used Facebook to circulate a family photograph to her friends. She was shocked to discover that the photograph was promptly published for all and sundry to see. The story is covered by Forbes magazine, 26 December 2012 @ 8:52 a.m., 904,546 views at the time of writing:

Oops. Mark Zuckerberg's Sister Has A Private Facebook Photo Go Public. Being a member of the Facebook founder’s family won’t protect you from having your privacy breached on the social network. On Tuesday night, Randi Zuckerberg — older sister to Facebook’s CEO — posted a photo from a family gathering to Facebook (of course), showing her sisters using Facebook’s new Snapchat-esque ’Poke’ app on their phones, with Mark Zuckerberg watching with a confused look on his face. It popped up on the Facebook newsfeed of mediaite Callie Schweitzer who subscribes to Zuckerberg. Assuming the photo was a public one, Schweitzer tweeted it to her nearly 40,000 Twitter followers. Zuckerberg was not pleased.

Cloud computing supplier raises doubts about cloud computing suppliers – "suicidal mission with no exit"

It should be made clear that Mr Peter Dawes-Huish, the chief executive officer of LinuxIT, is in favour of cloud computing. "G-Cloud is a great opportunity for government", he is quoted as saying in computing.co.uk.

This has provoked fury in the Twittersphere where Chris Haslam has re-Tweeted Mark_Anthony's scorn: "RT @Mark_Antony: Worst article on the @G_Cloud_UK I have ever had the misfortune to read: http://bit.ly/XzwKw0  - shameful drivel...”".

The shameful drivel Mr Dawes-Huish is guilty of uttering is presumably where he described G-Cloud as a military mission "with an entry route and no exit route" that is "not just dangerous, but suicide".

G-Cloud, of course, is the government cloud, a military mission in the safe hands of the Cabinet Office and the Government Procurement Service (GPS). GPS, if you remember, are the people whose procurement service broke down because it didn't have enough space to store the tenders submitted by prospective suppliers in response to GPS's invitation.

In the worst article ever, Messrs Haslam and Mark_Anthony had the further misfortune to read "if you move your applications and data to a cloud service in the proprietary model then you'll be held to ransom" and "some government departments indicate that using G-Cloud is illegal, or against government policy". Drivel. Shameful.

HMRC's decision to store local tax office data in the cloud is perfectly sensible. So is the Government Digital Service's decision to host GOV.UK in the cloud.

Let there be no doubt about that, both decisions have been made with the support of GPS. There is nothing untoward in the fact that the supplier concerned in each case, Skyscape Cloud Services Ltd, is owned 100% by just one individual (when last checked on Companies House) and provides a map on the web how to get to its data centre. That will not stay CESG's hand for a moment, they will be pleased to confirm that Skyscape meets all security requirements.

Cloud computing is the flavour of the month, Mr Dawes-Huish suggests. It is based on the attractions of the utility model, you only pay for the IT services you actually use. The utility model is in some disrepute in the gas and electricity world at the moment but it would be shameful drivel to suggest that the same fate awaits cloud computing – quasi-monopolists ramping prices, consumers helpless in the face of.

What happens, though, Mr Dawes-Huish asks, when there is a new flavour of the month round at GPS Towers? Will the Gadarene lemmings who have signed up with G-Cloud be able to escape and take advantage of the new flavour? Or will HMRC's records and the entire single government domain GOV.UK be locked in to/held hostage by last month's flavour?

Cloud computing supplier raises doubts about cloud computing suppliers – "suicidal mission with no exit"

It should be made clear that Mr Peter Dawes-Huish, the chief executive officer of LinuxIT, is in favour of cloud computing. "G-Cloud is a great opportunity for government", he is quoted as saying in computing.co.uk.

This has provoked fury in the Twittersphere where Chris Haslam has re-Tweeted Mark_Anthony's scorn: "RT @Mark_Antony: Worst article on the @G_Cloud_UK I have ever had the misfortune to read: http://bit.ly/XzwKw0  - shameful drivel...”".

The shameful drivel Mr Dawes-Huish is guilty of uttering is presumably where he described G-Cloud as a military mission "with an entry route and no exit route" that is "not just dangerous, but suicide".

G-Cloud, of course, is the government cloud, a military mission in the safe hands of the Cabinet Office and the Government Procurement Service (GPS). GPS, if you remember, are the people whose procurement service broke down because it didn't have enough space to store the tenders submitted by prospective suppliers in response to GPS's invitation.

GDS deal death blow to midata

The Government Digital Service (GDS) are currently re-writing all central government websites and moving them to https://www.gov.uk (GOV.UK).

No-one knows why.

Just because the exercise is pointless doesn't mean that it has no effect.

The Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) is a recent victim. The content previously available at http://www.bis.gov.uk should now be available at GOV.UK and browsing old content should redirect you automatically to the new location.

That's the idea.

But it doesn't work with the famous BIS press release A midata future: 10 ways it could shape your choices. That used to be available at http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/consumer-issues/consumer-empowerment/personal-data/midata-future-10-ways-it-could-shape-your-choices. Click on that link now and, however hard you try, you're not going to find the press release, not on GOV.UK, nowhere.

Apart from DMossEsq.com. Luckily there's a copy there, at http://www.dmossesq.com/2012/11/identity-providers-electronic-mary.html So it is still possible to read about the great benefits of midata, BIS's grand plan to satisfy the pent-up demand among the public for a "contracts and warranties dashboard". But no thanks to the butterfingers at GDS.

midata is utterly footling anyway, you may say, depriving it of the oxygen of the BIS publicity machine is neither here nor there.

Quite right, as long as it's only that one press release that's gone missing during GDS's clumsy spring clean.

But is it? What else has gone missing? Maybe something important?

GDS deal death blow to midata

The Government Digital Service (GDS) are currently re-writing all central government websites and moving them to https://www.gov.uk (GOV.UK).

No-one knows why.

Just because the exercise is pointless doesn't mean that it has no effect.

GDS misbriefing

The invitation to tender for the Government Digital Service (GDS) market research contract with IFF Research Ltd includes this picture of the "new identity assurance model":

The document was created on 8 November 2012, according to its Microsoft Word properties, and was last modified on 12 November 2012. Next day, 13 November 2012, the names of the UK's appointed identity providers (the electronic Mary Poppinses) were announced. Halifax weren't on the list. Neither were Lambeth and Visa. Nor Lloyds and Equifax.

Which means that GDS briefed the prospective suppliers wrongly in their invitation to tender.

Experienced consultants like IFF Research will be quite used to that. It always takes a while for the client's real requirements to come to light. By now they will have established a more accurate picture, with seven known identity providers and a mystery one:

How will the interviews go, as IFF Research set about their market research?

IFF: (to person in the street) The government is trying to cause an ecosystem of private sector suppliers to flourish. Would you feel comfortable using Visa as an identity provider?
PITS: yes.
IFF: well they're not on the list. How about Cassidian?


IFF: (to person in the street) The government is trying to cause an ecosystem of private sector suppliers to flourish. Would you feel comfortable using Ingeus as an identity provider?
PITS: are you sure that's how it's pronounced?
IFF: shall I put you down as a don't-know?


IFF: (to person in the street) The government is trying to cause an ecosystem of private sector suppliers to flourish. Would you feel comfortable using Mydex as an identity provider?
PITS: why's it called Mydex? What does it mean?
IFF: I have no idea, the question is would you feel comfortable ...
PITS: any particular reason why I should trust them?
IFF: I ask the questions.


IFF: (to person in the street) The government is trying to cause an ecosystem of private sector suppliers to flourish. Would you feel comfortable using Verizon as an identity provider?
PITS: I thought they were a US mobile phone network.
IFF: they are.
PITS: so how are they going to verify my identity for the UK government?
IFF: I don't know.


IFF: (to person in the street) The government is trying to cause an ecosystem of private sector suppliers to flourish. Would you feel comfortable using a completely unknown supplier represented on this picture by a yellow question mark as an identity provider?
PITS: yes.
IFF: thank you.


IFF: (to person in the street) The government is trying to cause an ecosystem of private sector suppliers to flourish. Would you feel comfortable using digidentity as an identity provider?
PITS: is this a wind-up?
IFF: thank you.

IFF: (to person in the street) The government is trying to cause an ecosystem of private sector suppliers to flourish. Would you feel comfortable using the Post Office as an identity provider?
PITS: the Post Office isn't a private sector supplier.
IFF: Yes it is, look it up on the Companies House website, company number 02154540.
PITS: you mean I can buy shares in it?
IFF: no, the shares in the Post Office are all held by Royal Mail and the shares in Royal Mail are all held by Vince Cable and he's not selling any but otherwise it's a private sector company.
PITS: who's paying for all this identity-providing lark?
IFF: the Department for Work and Pensions, to get Universal Credit going.
PITS: so there's nothing private sector about this at all, is there?
IFF: no, you're right, the private sector element is one of GDS's many fantasies.
PITS: pleasure talking to you, I'm sure, can't wait to see your report.
IFF: don't hold your breath.


IFF: (to person in the street) The government is trying to cause an ecosystem of private sector suppliers to flourish. Would you feel comfortable using Experian as an identity provider?
PITS: yes.
IFF: why? What's the matter with you?
PITS: that's a job they already do, isn't it, they've already demonstrated their competence, unlike any of the other suppliers on your picture.
IFF: is that true?


Why did all the banks and credit card companies refuse to become official identity providers? Why aren't there any UK mobile phone companies among their number? How long will this farce be allowed to continue? How much will it cost us? Will anyone be accountable?

GDS misbriefing

The invitation to tender for the Government Digital Service (GDS) market research contract with IFF Research Ltd includes this picture of the "new identity assurance model":

The document was created on 8 November 2012, according to its Microsoft Word properties, and was last modified on 12 November 2012. Next day, 13 November 2012, the names of the UK's appointed identity providers (the electronic Mary Poppinses) were announced. Halifax weren't on the list. Neither were Lambeth and Visa. Nor Lloyds and Equifax.

Which means that GDS briefed the prospective suppliers wrongly in their invitation to tender.

Jo Swinson on midata – How and Which?

Ms Swinson can plead ignorance. Which? can't.

Writing successful publicity material is hard. Quite beyond DMossesq. And, it seems, Jo Swinson, minister of state at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS). Here she is, trying to write with unfeigned enthusiasm about midata:

Recently I was chatting to the owner of an independent bookshop, who told me animatedly about his Christmas recommendations. In particular which ones I might enjoy most given what other books I had recently read and loved. How great, I thought, to have that personal, tailored advice, and wouldn’t it be great if I could get that everywhere else?

That gem appears on the blog run by Which? magazine and you can see why the consumer champion Which? wants a disclaimer at the bottom of Ms Swinson's post:

Which? Conversation provides guest spots to external contributors. This is from Jo Swinson MP. All opinions expressed here are Jo’s own, not necessarily those of Which?

The benefits of midata that Ms Swinson manages to name are all available already without midata and have been for decades – BIS's initiative is otiose. The other benefits are vague, unnamed and hypothetical – unreliable, in other words, dubious marketing.

And Ms Swinson fails to warn her readers how these mysterious benefits will be earned. By storing all our personal data on the web with a third party we have no reason to trust. She doesn't tell us that. Standard behaviour for a politician, perhaps, but well below the standards for openness expected of Which?.

Is a disclaimer enough, though? The headline on the post is under Which?'s control and reads What if companies gave me control of my data?. midata offers consumers no control over their data that we don't already have. Its advocates keep promising control. But they can never answer the question how midata will confer additional control. It won't. Because it can't.

But Which? are in deeper than a misleading headline. BIS's 3 November 2011 press release lists the organisations which support midata, including Which?. It will take more than a disclaimer to undo the reputational damage that will follow when consumers discover how midata works. Ms Swinson can plead ignorance. Which? can't.

Jo Swinson on midata – How and Which?

Ms Swinson can plead ignorance. Which? can't.

Writing successful publicity material is hard. Quite beyond DMossesq. And, it seems, Jo Swinson, minister of state at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS). Here she is, trying to write with unfeigned enthusiasm about midata:

Recently I was chatting to the owner of an independent bookshop, who told me animatedly about his Christmas recommendations. In particular which ones I might enjoy most given what other books I had recently read and loved. How great, I thought, to have that personal, tailored advice, and wouldn’t it be great if I could get that everywhere else?

That gem appears on the blog run by Which? magazine and you can see why the consumer champion Which? wants a disclaimer at the bottom of Ms Swinson's post:

Which? Conversation provides guest spots to external contributors. This is from Jo Swinson MP. All opinions expressed here are Jo’s own, not necessarily those of Which?

The benefits of midata that Ms Swinson manages to name are all available already without midata and have been for decades – BIS's initiative is otiose. The other benefits are vague, unnamed and hypothetical – unreliable, in other words, dubious marketing.

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.

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?

The savings to be expected from digital-by-default – a clarification

You thought you knew what savings are?

You thought you knew the point of digital-by-default?

Francis Maude said in his Foreword to the Government Digital Strategy that: "By going digital by default, the government could save between £1.7 and £1.8 billion each year ...".

Then in yesterday's Autumn Statement ("AS2012") the Chancellor said: "The recently published Digital Efficiency Report sets out how departments could save approximately £1.2 billion over the remainder of the current spending review period by continuing to move their transactional services online and become ‘digital by default’ ...".

So which is it? 1.2, 1.7 or 1.8? And are we talking about annual figures or the cumulative total over a period of years?

Time for some clarification.

We have tackled this matter before in Cutting costs/making savings, and GDS's fantasy strategy, where we made it clear that the £1.7/1.8 billion of estimated savings ...

• represent annual figures,
• exclude the cost of introducing digitisation (which might amount to £several billion),
• exclude additional savings which could be made (or not), and
• will be largely retained by the government (£1.1/1.3 billiion) ...
• ... so don't go running away with the notion that tax rates might be reduced.

So what's the £1.2 billion? Where did that figure come from?

That's the amount that could be saved by digitisation "during the current spending review period" ("SR2010"), i.e. the five years 2010-11 to 2015-16. That's what the Government Digital Service (GDS) tell us in the Digital Efficiency Report, (p.2). They then promptly confuse the matter again by telling us on p.4 that the £1.7/1.8 billion figures quoted include savings that have already been made by digitisation – it's not all new money.

At which point you may start to feel that you're never going to see any of these savings even if they do materialise. But that's not the half of it. Even more savings you never get the benefit of could be made if only "legislative blockers" were swept away (p.3), those pesky laws of the land/cultural barriers/myths that stand between us and the new world of frictionless data-sharing, please see Alan Travis – Whitehall, the Guardian newspaper and Lord Leveson.

Digitisation has been going on in Whitehall for decades. Despite which, public spending rose by 59% in real terms between 2000-01 (£443.7 billion) and 2009-10 (£705.6 billion). Saving the odd billion by introducing a bit more digitisation is neither here nor there and it certainly isn't worth losing the wisdom of the anti-data-sharing laws which we currently have on the statute book for our protection.

As things stand, with those fusty old laws still in place, GDS reckon that Whitehall can get rid of about 40,000 public servants once digital-by-default is up and running (p.19). That's based on the example of the Driving Standards Agency (p.14) who have gone from 400 staff booking driving tests in 2003 to just 75 in 2012. And on the example of HMRC (p.15) who have got rid of 2,700 staff over the past five years as so many of us have taken to submitting our VAT returns et al on-line.

Has this mass redundancy programme been cleared with the unions?

And while we're waiting for an answer to that, how long do GDS intend to take over this digital-by-default project? The magic figure they're looking at is 82%.

That's the percentage of transactions with the state undertaken by people and companies digitally. And they reckon it could take 11 years or so to get there, long enough for several changes of permanent secretary, Cabinet Office Minister and government.

And if GDS have burned their way through billions by then and there are still no savings trickling down to the public, what then?

And if all our data gets hacked in cyberspace, what then?

The Minister is accountable to parliament. Not the officials. Not GDS.

The savings to be expected from digital-by-default – a clarification

You thought you knew what savings are?

You thought you knew the point of digital-by-default?

Francis Maude said in his Foreword to the Government Digital Strategy that: "By going digital by default, the government could save between £1.7 and £1.8 billion each year ...".

Then in yesterday's Autumn Statement ("AS2012") the Chancellor said: "The recently published Digital Efficiency Report sets out how departments could save approximately £1.2 billion over the remainder of the current spending review period by continuing to move their transactional services online and become ‘digital by default’ ...".

So which is it? 1.2, 1.7 or 1.8? And are we talking about annual figures or the cumulative total over a period of years?

Time for some clarification.

Ooh, wow! GDS and The Interpretation of Tweets (Die Tweetdeutung)

What an awful job IDAP is.

No wonder the subject wishes he were somewhere –

or someone –

else.

Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams (Die Tramdeutung) in 1900 and laid bare for all to see the precise workings of the psyche.

What would Freud have made of tweets? If only he had written it, what secrets of public administration would have been revealed by Die Tweetdeutung?

No need to guess, here are the answers.

---

The cleaning lady tells me that this tweet indicates that the subject prefers not to engage with anyone who disagrees with him. I cannot believe this.

The subject is chief executive of the Government Digital Service (GDS) and senior responsible officer owner for the UK government's Identity Assurance Programme (IDAP). He is a dedicated public servant who is clearly intent on forging a strong and pure national cultural identity.

And they say that just anyone could practise psychoanalysis, even a cleaning lady – ha!.

No. The clue lies in the food. What do trolls eat? Where do they buy it? How much of it do they need? More research needed. It is perfectly clear that the subject wishes to conserve supplies of this resource for the greater good of the nation.

---

One minute (19 July) the subject is the severe public servant conserving national resources (troll food).

Next minute (17 November) he is the exuberant champion of all that is modern and best (multi-coloured interactive graphics) for his parishioners (including context-sensitive advertisements for flats and houses to rent and buy).

The coltish excitement of that "Wow!" – truly a man of 140 characters!

Mapumental is an application that displays the geographical area from which it is possible to travel to a specified destination, by public transport, in a specified time. Monumental!

But will the subject's enthusiasm be reciprocated by an ungrateful public? No. When I click on the Hire us button, I find: "Mapumental's main funder was the – sadly now defunct – 4iP project, from Channel 4".

---

Strangely, this tweet, which was not even created by the subject, and which was merely re-tweeted by him, has given me the most pause for thought. The link takes the browser to 18 photographs of the opening ceremony of the Estonian consulate in Liverpool, mainly a lot of public officials in suits standing round a table with the statue of a bull on it.

It is always sad to see someone who feels out of place and wishes he were somewhere else. It is rare for that other place to be Estonia. (No disrespect to that no doubt fine country.)

---

Here we are, back again with the exuberant subject, "Ooh" look, another multi-coloured must-have?

No.

This is altogether darker than the 17 November "Wow!" tweet.

The subject has once again been attracted by a colourful icon. But this time he is luring his readers into signing up with AccountChooser, a service which invites you to log on to all of your suppliers and each time stores the log-on details in one "convenient" place so that you can effortlessly choose who you want to be on any given occasion.

Inadvisable. GDS's "identity providers" should be avoided. I may be only a psychoanalyst but it seems to me that on the web and in Estonia, and even in real life here on terror firmer, handing over the keys to your identity, to parties unknown, is imprudent. Beware.

And the subject? He's just doing his IDAP job when he recommends that people relinquish control of their own identity. His super-ego must be in overdrive, manufacturing guilt in industrial quantities. What an awful job IDAP is. No wonder the subject wishes he were somewhere – or someone – else.

S Freud (translated)

----------

Updated 14 December 2013:

'Remember, our forefathers came on foot. A very long journey, a hard one over the mountains, and taking a very long time. But, as we all know, it was worth it. It gave them all time to reflect and organize. But, above all, it gave them time to cleanse themselves of Yakawow.' He was using a shorthand, derisive term, which encapsulated for us all the empty hedonism of the Others: even at the time of the Exodus, they had reduced their reactions to whatever they encountered to either a simple reflex negative or positive response: 'Yuck' or 'Wow' – Yakawow.

That's Susan Greenfield in 2121: A Tale From the Next Century (1 July 2013, not recommended) pursuing her idea that the excessive use of computers stops the large networks of neurons which characterise the adult brain from forming. The derivation of "Yakawow" and its early history are interesting, to a certain sort of mind at least ...

... just as maps appeal to a certain sort of mind, see Mapumental above. See also Tim Harford on maps in the second series of his Pop-Up Ideas on BBC Radio 4.