Friday 29 November 2013

GDS now Lane Foxless

Martha-now-Lady Lane Fox is the salesman who sold the government the revolutionary idea of digital-by-default and laid down the constitution of the Government Digital Service (GDS) to deliver it.

She is now stepping down from her rôle as the UK's Digital Champion.

Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, the executive director of GDS and revolutionary envoy, writes on the GDS blog, Thank you, Martha:
If you’re a regular reader of this blog then you’ll know how often we refer to Martha’s report. It’s impossible to understate its importance to GDS.
Does he mean that?

Or is he really trying to say that it's impossible to over-state the importance of her report?

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Update 13:18:

"understate" has now been changed to "overstate" on the GDS blog. There's a copy of the 29-11-2013 12:41 version here.

GDS now Lane Foxless

Martha-now-Lady Lane Fox is the salesman who sold the government the revolutionary idea of digital-by-default and laid down the constitution of the Government Digital Service (GDS) to deliver it.

She is now stepping down from her rôle as the UK's Digital Champion.

Wednesday 27 November 2013

Civil Service Awards 2013 – rarest bug

Whereas DMossEsq normally tries to entertain all his millions of readers at once, this post is highly technical and may only appeal to the computer programmers, book-keepers and legal draftsmen among you.

The only game in town, all attention recently has been on this year's Civil Service awards:
The Civil Service Awards, now in their eighth year, celebrate and promote innovation and creativity across government. They are a unique way of rewarding and thanking civil servants for outstanding achievements.
Awards have been made in 17 categories:
  • The Analysis and Use of Evidence Award
  • The Communication Award
  • The Employee Engagement and Skills Award
  • The Dame Lesley Strathie Award for Operational Excellence
  • The Growth Award
  • The Policy Award
  • The Project and Programme Management Award
  • The Procurement Award
  • The Innovative Delivery Award
  • The International Award
  • The Professional of the Year Award
  • The Leadership Award
  • Excellence in Civil Service Reform Award
  • Diversity & Equality Award
  • The Head of the Civil Service Award
  • PAC Award for Outstanding Value for Money
  • PAC Award for most Improved Government Body
Innovative delivery? Leadership? Excellence in Civil Service Reform? How many awards would the Government Digital Service win, we were all wondering?

None.

Perhaps with GDS's declared policy of "routing round" Whitehall, Whitehall has decided now to "route round" GDS?

Maybe the awards committee thought that GDS hadn't done anything for the past 12 months.

Who knows?

The awards link above is to the civilservice.gov.uk beta website and GDS still get their name in anyway because, bottom left, it says: "This site is provided by GDS. In comment sections we ask that you stick to our [sichouse rules. Where opinions or assumptions are expressed, these represent the views of the individual and not necessarily those of the government.".

GDS have their standard cookies warning message under the content, and a "Don't show this message again" button, bottom right.

Press the button and the cookies message should disappear, leaving the screen otherwise unchanged. The cookies message does, indeed, disappear but a completely different page of content is then displayed:
The Prime Minister joined us at the truly inspirational Civil Service Awards. We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate each and every winner. Hearing the stories behind each award was stirring and it brought home to us the tireless effort – both team and individual – that goes into delivering exceptional public services.
is replaced with
Nominations for the Civil Service Awards are now closed ... We received over 500 great examples of Civil Service excellence, thank you to everyone who took the time to nominate ...See whose [sic] made the shortlist at http://awards.civilserviceworld.com/civil-service-awards/shortlist
That's a bug.

Not only that, but the address has changed and if you go back to the old address the cookies message is still there despite the user telling it to go away.

That's a mistake. A mistake not made by any other professional expert web developer in the world. Probably. If only there had been an eighteenth category, a Rarest Bug category, GDS might have won an award after all.

Civil Service Awards 2013 – rarest bug

Whereas DMossEsq normally tries to entertain all his millions of readers at once, this post is highly technical and may only appeal to the computer programmers, book-keepers and legal draftsmen among you.

GDS and international relations

GDS, the Government Digital Service, is always written about as though it's a young organisation, practically new, but actually it's been around for long enough now to have missed deadlines, annoyed people, faced criticism and to have acquired all the other attributes of any mature organisation, including a nostalgic past.

They're a gregarious lot, GDS. They're always welcoming delegations from overseas or attending functions abroad.

And in the good old days they used to employ someone to stick pins in a map showing all the places they'd dealt with. Too sad, it's just a distant memory now, but like the holiday snaps in the attic, the faithful old map is still there on the web. They don't make 'em like that any more. You had to be there:

GDS visitors map
There was sometimes a bit of a write-up on these meetings on the GDS blog. After a trip to Estonia, for example, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's postcard said: "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".

Estonia
You go to Estonia and what happens? You find that your core principles are linked.

Korea comes to you and what happens? According to Liam Maxwell, Her Majesty's Government's Chief Technology Officer: "As demonstrated in last month’s Conference on Cyberspace in Seoul, we have much in common with Korea, but we also have much to learn from each other. Yesterday’s signing commits both of our countries to creating digital public services that put the needs of the citizen first, and I'm excited that we’ll be working more closely together".

The list goes on. But you get the gist. There's no need to multiply the examples.

Korea
It's uncanny. Travel broadens the mind and makes people aware of their similarities, it reveals their shared experience and exposes their common interests which, in the case of Bulgaria, is "digital leaders".

When DMossEsq goes abroad what does he talk about? Digital services. Like you and, no doubt, like GDS. We know that without being told.

But GDS aren't like us. They're part of government. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) can use them to send messages discreetly to overseas administrations and those administrations, in turn, can communicate with the British government via GDS. A trip abroad is an opportunity. An opportunity for diplomacy.


Until recently we ordinary members of the public have had very little idea how this diplomacy business works. Now, thanks to the filming of ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's speech to the Code for America conference, we at last have some insight.

Who knows what the US made of it, or the scores of other countries who have heard it through GDS, but the FCO's message to the audience in the first three minutes of the speech is that the UK government is out of date and needs to be re-designed in order to overcome the "delivery crisis" which it faces.

That's central government.

Around the five-minute mark, the message is that local government is no better.

All branches of the UK government are useless except GDS ("we are the show", 17'39") because they know how to "route round" (18'46", 20'17" onwards) the obstacles created by their colleagues and the useless consultants and contractors they retain, and if it wasn't for GDS's success with GOV.UK we'd be back to the riots we had in the summer of 2011 (21'08").

The clip below is taken from the last two minutes or so of the FCO message.

Democracy faces "profound pressures" (31'07"), picture of the riots again, governments face an existential threat (31'23"), they could become irrelevant (31'30"), people could "route round" them (31'33"), picture of the Reichstag (31'36"), GDS's website isn't there to enable government, it is government (32'00"), government redesigned for survival in the modern world, let them eat cake:


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Updated 25.8.15

Diplomatic to the end, Why are senior staff fleeing the Government Digital Service?:
"Diginomica ... has the full scoop on why senior staff are fleeing the organisation", says Mr du Preez, "Manzoni [Chief Executive of the UK Civil Service] just didn't get it" and "it would be useful to have someone running the civil service that understands why a platform approach makes sense for public services".

Perhaps Mr du Preez is right that Mr Manzoni is just too stupid to understand.

But just suppose that he's wrong. Maybe Mr Manzoni looked at GDS's record and correctly decided that behind the bluster too little has been achieved.

GDS promised to get rural payments working. Mike Bracken spent time every week on the system, praised it for its adoption of agile methods, asserted that it was going to be an early example of GaaP and vaingloriously predicted that the new system would change the UK's relationship with Europe.

In the event, despite his personal involvement in the project, the computer system has had to be withdrawn and farmers are using paper to make their claims.

If GDS can't even get rural payments up and running, Mr Manzoni may have thought, what use are they going to be helping HMRC with the ASPIRE contract on which the UK depends for raising £500 billion in tax every year? And what chance do they have of making GaaP a reality?

He may not be as dim as Mr du Preez suggests.

GDS and international relations

GDS, the Government Digital Service, is always written about as though it's a young organisation, practically new, but actually it's been around for long enough now to have missed deadlines, annoyed people, faced criticism and to have acquired all the other attributes of any mature organisation, including a nostalgic past.

They're a gregarious lot, GDS. They're always welcoming delegations from overseas or attending functions abroad.

Tuesday 26 November 2013

Only 10 more shopping days to the Autumn Statement 2013

5 December 2012, HM Treasury, Autumn Statement 2012, p.58, para.2.9:
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’.
We have tried to make sense of the alleged savings made by the Government Digital Service (GDS) and their digital-by-default project at least twice before – in The savings to be expected from digital-by-default – a clarification and Cutting costs/making savings, and GDS's fantasy strategy – and failed both times.

When the Chancellor made his Autumn Statement a year ago we were still expecting GDS's identity assurance system to be "fully operational" by March 2013. It wasn't, it still isn't and, without identity assurance, digital-by-default can't start. Her Majesty's Treasury will therefore have received none of the £1.2 billion they were hoping for yet.

Our budget deficit in the UK is around £120 billion and the national debt is heading towards £1,500 billion by the time of the 2015 general election. £1.2 billion of savings would be appreciated, of course, but it's not a big number against that background.

Material savings are supposed to be made by digital-by-default when take-up reaches 82% according to GDS's Digital Efficiency Report, p.11. And when will that be? 11 or 12 years after digital-by-default starts, according to the graph on p.20. And when will digital-by-default start? No-one knows.

In 10 days time the Chancellor will make this year's Autumn Statement.

He is unlikely to complain about the lack of progress made towards the promised £1.2 billion. That wouldn't be politic.

At the present rate of GDS's progress, he would be imprudent to rely on any savings from digital-by-default in this spending round.

Expect the subject not to be mentioned this year.

Only 10 more shopping days to the Autumn Statement 2013

5 December 2012, HM Treasury, Autumn Statement 2012, p.58, para.2.9:
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’.
We have tried to make sense of the alleged savings made by the Government Digital Service (GDS) and their digital-by-default project at least twice before – in The savings to be expected from digital-by-default – a clarification and Cutting costs/making savings, and GDS's fantasy strategy – and failed both times.

When the Chancellor made his Autumn Statement a year ago we were still expecting GDS's identity assurance system to be "fully operational" by March 2013. It wasn't, it still isn't and, without identity assurance, digital-by-default can't start. Her Majesty's Treasury will therefore have received none of the £1.2 billion they were hoping for yet.

Our budget deficit in the UK is around £120 billion and the national debt is heading towards £1,500 billion by the time of the 2015 general election. £1.2 billion of savings would be appreciated, of course, but it's not a big number against that background.

Material savings are supposed to be made by digital-by-default when take-up reaches 82% according to GDS's Digital Efficiency Report, p.11. And when will that be? 11 or 12 years after digital-by-default starts, according to the graph on p.20. And when will digital-by-default start? No-one knows.

Monday 25 November 2013

The technology tail shouldn't be allowed to wag the public service dog but that's just what it's doing, wagging it

A: Here's a clip which starts 10'50" into the astonishing speech about Redesigning Government made by ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken on 16 October 2013 at a conference in the US:


"Technology is a fourth-order question in government", he says. Only after the user needs and the policy needs and the operational needs have been determined should attention be paid to the technology needs, if any.

If we let technology determine public services, then "we are literally starting in the wrong place and guaranteeing failure". The proper question to ask is: "What technology may we need to provide the service?".
 
"One of the first battles you've got to fight", he says, "is putting technology in its place".

"Words are important, aren't they", he says. Yes. And the distinction he is making between "technology" and "digital" is unfathomable.

Never mind what the distinction is. For our purposes here, the important point he is making is that the design of public services shouldn't be determined by technology, that's the wrong way round and guarantees failure.

B: Rewind to 29 July 2011 and a post written by ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, Welcome to the Government Digital Service blog. The opening paragraph reads, in full:
We exist to make public services digital by default, and we are relentlessly focused on user needs.
Far from relentlessly focussing on user needs, digital-by-default ignores the needs of users who can't or won't use the web.

Digital-by-default is an example of policy being made on the basis of technology instead of user need and may therefore be, according to ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's 16 October 2013 speech, a case of "literally starting in the wrong place and guaranteeing failure".

Technology has been allowed to dominate. It has become a first-order question and needs to be put back in its place – fourth.

C: Roll forward to 17 October 2012 and another post by ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, Why GOV.UK matters: A platform for a digital Government. It gets off to a rotten start. This is the opening sentence:
On Wednesday October 17th 2012, our new digital service www.gov.uk moved out of public beta development to replace the two main government websites, Directgov and Business Link.
Directgov and Business Link had not been replaced on 17 October 2012 and they still haven't been over a year later – see for example the Benefits adviser page on www.dwpe-services.direct.gov.uk or the Contracts finder page on online.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk. Both supposed to have been replaced. Both still there.

It's hard to recover your credibility after a mistake like that.

It gets harder as the post proceeds:
GOV.UK has been designed with transparency, participation and simplicity at its core. It will always be based on open standards, and is unapologetically open source. This architecture ensures its integration into the growing ecosystem of the Internet. Inevitably, innovation will follow, driven from within and without. GOV.UK is not Government on the Internet, but of the Internet.
What is "GOV.UK is not Government on the Internet, but of the Internet" supposed to mean?

GOV.UK is not Government on the Internet. Nor is it Government of the Internet. Nor, for that matter, is it Government on the B1051 from Mountfitchet finally crossing the Internet just south of Alsa Wood.

For the simple reason that GOV.UK isn't government.

It's a website.

To confuse the two is to make an even bigger mistake than pretending that GOV.UK replaces two websites which manifestly haven't been replaced.

The technology tail shouldn't be allowed to wag the public service dog but that's just what it's doing, wagging it

A: Here's a clip which starts 10'50" into the astonishing speech about Redesigning Government made by ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken on 16 October 2013 at a conference in the US:


"Technology is a fourth-order question in government", he says. Only after the user needs and the policy needs and the operational needs have been determined should attention be paid to the technology needs, if any.

If we let technology determine public services, then "we are literally starting in the wrong place and guaranteeing failure". The proper question to ask is: "What technology may we need to provide the service?".
 
"One of the first battles you've got to fight", he says, "is putting technology in its place".

"Words are important, aren't they", he says. Yes. And the distinction he is making between "technology" and "digital" is unfathomable.