Thursday 18 April 2013

Joined up government – national identity register rejected, and will be compiled this summer

What was it Mr Maude said? Oh yes:
We want people to be able to interact with government online, for example, in applying for benefits or a disabled parking permit, in a way that is quick, easy and secure. To do this we need to give them a way of proving their identity online, but only if they choose to. This would be done without a national, central scheme.
That was back in April 2012 when he was angry with the Guardian for misrepresenting him:
This is not a question of increasing the volume of data-sharing that takes place across government, but ensuring an appropriate framework is in place so that government can deliver more effective, joined-up and personalised public services, through effective data-linking.
There it is. Government policy:
  • No single, central, national identity register.
  • No increase in data-sharing between government departments.
  • Effective data-linking, on the other hand, is a good thing because it will allow people to identify themselves on-line when transacting with the government.
Here we are now a year later and what do we find?

We find the Cabinet Office paper Simplifying the transition to Individual Electoral Registration (hat tip: Owen Boswarva).

Individual electoral registration is designed to make sure that the data held on the electoral register is accurate and up to date and it is designed to make sure that all eligible electors and only eligible electors are registered.

We've come across this before in Identity assurance – shall we vote on it?. Individual electoral registration is being championed by Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister. He wants to continue the practice of creating a single, national electoral/identity register:
13. ... The full register is already made available under current legislation to a number of government organisations for official purposes ... In addition the full register is also supplied to credit reference agencies ...
And he wants to tidy up the data on the register by sharing data between Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and DWP and other government departments. That is illegal according to the impact assessment report on individual electoral registration:
Key assumptions/sensitivities/risks: Data matching – national rollout would require primary legislation.
But he wants to proceed anyway and in this simplifying-the-transition document, the Cabinet Office say (para.3.3):
In summer 2013 every Local Authority in England, Wales and the Scottish Valuation Joint Boards will participate in a Confirmation Dry Run. This will provide the opportunity for each ERO to complete a fully IT enabled dry-run of the confirmation process and obtain indicative match results for their area. This information can then be used to assist in the planning and allocation of resources for the transition.
"Match results"? What's that? It involves comparing the electoral register with the Department for Work and Pensions national insurance number database and (para.2.5):
Where they had the capacity to do so, a number of pilot areas also opted to use locally held data sets (for example Council Tax data or Housing Benefit data) to conduct supplementary data matching.
and (para.3.3):
Comparisons of ward level match rates and data from the 2011 England and Wales Census provide further support ...
There has been no primary legislation to legalise this increased national data-sharing. It is proceeding against the law and against Mr Maude's stated policy. And it will produce a single, central database which, Mr Maude said last year, is anathema.

Who is responsible for testing data-matching for individual electoral registration?

You can bet that the Home Office's Identity & Passport Service (IPS) are involved. They hold all the passport data and their chief executive doubles as the Registrar General of England and Wales.

As it happens, you lose your bet (para.2.3). IPS are still persona non grata:
This process was carried out by the Government Digital Service (GDS) for the purposes of the pilot, using criteria developed by the Cabinet Office in conjunction with ...
What do you make of all that?

Joined up government – national identity register rejected, and will be compiled this summer

What was it Mr Maude said? Oh yes:
We want people to be able to interact with government online, for example, in applying for benefits or a disabled parking permit, in a way that is quick, easy and secure. To do this we need to give them a way of proving their identity online, but only if they choose to. This would be done without a national, central scheme.
That was back in April 2012 when he was angry with the Guardian for misrepresenting him:
This is not a question of increasing the volume of data-sharing that takes place across government, but ensuring an appropriate framework is in place so that government can deliver more effective, joined-up and personalised public services, through effective data-linking.
There it is. Government policy:
  • No single, central, national identity register.
  • No increase in data-sharing between government departments.
  • Effective data-linking, on the other hand, is a good thing because it will allow people to identify themselves on-line when transacting with the government.
Here we are now a year later and what do we find?

Tuesday 16 April 2013

GDS: not governance as we know it

Still no progress on identity assurance, but the Government Digital Service (GDS) have now published From the centre and here to help.

GDS have produced the Government Service Design Manual and the question is, how can they enforce these standards across Whitehall and local government?

That governance question is tackled by ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, executive director of GDS and senior responsible officer owner for the pan-government Identity Assurance programme (IDAP). He abjures the old-style "dead hand of bureaucratic overkill". (Who doesn't?) He recommends instead a more collaborative form of governance, "help from the centre".

How does that work? What will GDS do if a department of state ignores the new Government Service Design Manual?

The matter is raised in a comment on his blog post (submitted too late to be published today). We look forward to the answer:
dmossesq #

Please Note: Your comment is awaiting moderation.

When Martha Lane Fox wrote the Constitution for GDS and said that “[GDS] SWAT teams … should be given a remit to support and challenge departments and agencies … We must give these SWAT teams the necessary support to challenge any policy and legal barriers which stop services being designed around user needs” never had support sounded so minatory. The department’s policy displeases GDS? Support it out of the way! What GDS want is illegal? Challenge the law until it complies with the users’ needs and, if there’s any doubt what those needs are, let GDS decide.

It was hard to believe at the time – 14 October 2012 – that this constitution would be adopted but, wrong, it now has the support of Sir Jeremy Heywood, Sir Bob Kerslake and Minister of State, Francis Maude.

According to the post above: “… ‘Governance’ is a top-down term. Monthly meetings, forests of paper, dozens of steering boards and the natural exclusivity, which comes with managers of large budgets making decisions for all – these are all indicators of a hierarchical approach”. That sounds a bit old-fashioned, perhaps.

These days: “The centre of government’s digital estate needs to free up departments and agencies to deliver; it needs to provide support, link up a sometimes divided community and help bottom-up, user-focused services to develop. Setting standards and managing them have their place, but this manual is designed to free up government from the dead hand of bureaucratic overkill. This browser-based service will accelerate decision making and remove the need for many boards and unwieldy processes. As our digital services become primarily digital, the tools and governance we use should reflect that”. Governance now is more about freeing up and support and linking up and helping.

But hang on a minute. What does a modern, supportive GDS do if a department departs from the published standards? If they just ignore this derogation, that’s not governance at all. If, on the other [hand], GDS remonstrates with the department and finally imposes its will, how is that different from the old-fashioned “dead hand of bureaucratic overkill”?

It may help to take an example. GDS wants digital-by-default. DWP have elected for the opposite when it comes to Universal Credit. They’re planning for face-to-face meetings, telephone calls and letters in the post.

There’s a little test of the new governance model. Are GDS going to support DWP until UC becomes digital-by-default? Or are they going to stand by and watch while DWP ignore them?

16/04/2013
----------

29 April 2013

A response to the comment above has now (29.4.13 09:52) been published on the GDS blog. See what you make of it.

GDS: not governance as we know it

Still no progress on identity assurance, but the Government Digital Service (GDS) have now published From the centre and here to help.

GDS have produced the Government Service Design Manual and the question is, how can they enforce these standards across Whitehall and local government?

That governance question is tackled by ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, executive director of GDS and senior responsible officer owner for the pan-government Identity Assurance programme (IDAP). He abjures the old-style "dead hand of bureaucratic overkill". (Who doesn't?) He recommends instead a more collaborative form of governance, "help from the centre".

How does that work? What will GDS do if a department of state ignores the new Government Service Design Manual?

Monday 1 April 2013

Cloud computing – away with the fairies

We all know that the present arrangements for government computing in the UK can't go on. We're in the pan fat.

Instead, we should adopt cloud computing. That would solve the problem, say many commentators. They're well-meaning, no doubt. But wouldn't cloud computing simply move us into the fire?

It certainly looks like it. Cloud computing is meant to be a sort of utility – you get rid of the overheads and only pay for what you use. It sounds eminently sensible until you remember what's happening to your utility bills right now – they're going through the roof.

But that wouldn't happen with cloud computing, say the well-meaners. The G-Cloud people in Whitehall, for example, claim to believe that the suppliers of cloud services want nothing more than to cut their prices and increase the quality of service.

Amazon, for example. They're the biggest suppliers of cloud in the world. They wouldn't put their prices up. Would they?

They just did. Amazon's fees hike for third-party traders provokes fury:
'Marketplace' traders in UK and major European markets to be hit by fee hikes of up to 70% after Easter, following similar rises in US ...

Amazon is facing a revolt from small traders as the internet retailer – which describes itself as "Earth's most customer-centric" company – plans to impose a wave of fee rises on third parties who use its network to sell consumer electronics, automotive parts and other goods in the UK and across Europe ...

The fee increases – which in some cases amount to as much as 70% – have left traders furious, although none are prepared to go on the record because they are concerned about how Amazon will respond.

Cloud computing – away with the fairies

We all know that the present arrangements for government computing in the UK can't go on. We're in the pan fat.

Instead, we should adopt cloud computing. That would solve the problem, say many commentators. They're well-meaning, no doubt. But wouldn't cloud computing simply move us into the fire?

It certainly looks like it. Cloud computing is meant to be a sort of utility – you get rid of the overheads and only pay for what you use. It sounds eminently sensible until you remember what's happening to your utility bills right now – they're going through the roof.

But that wouldn't happen with cloud computing, say the well-meaners. The G-Cloud people in Whitehall, for example, claim to believe that the suppliers of cloud services want nothing more than to cut their prices and increase the quality of service.

Amazon, for example. They're the biggest suppliers of cloud in the world. They wouldn't put their prices up. Would they?

Martin Sorrell: if you don’t eat your children, someone else will

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph a few weeks back, Mr Sorrell explained quite openly what he means when he says that Business must embrace this digital revolution:
How can legacy businesses keep their traditional, profitable operations going, while the new digital upstarts bite into their businesses? It’s the old cannibalisation argument – if you don’t eat your children, someone else will.
He makes two points. One about data ...
We are increasingly embracing the application of technology to our business, along with big data, which means we are Maths Men as well as Mad Men ... the application of technology and big data have become areas of competitive differentiation ... the new and more complex sources of data, which these new media bring, mean that measurement of effectiveness and return on investment has become more achievable – although media fragmentation has made it more complex ... Big data – which to me means the collection of all sources of data (ours and our competitors’) and deployment on dashboards in real time – is for the first time a real possibility.
... and one about clients:
... our target customer is no longer just the chief executive officer and chief marketing officer but, increasingly, the chief information officer or chief technology officer, along with the chief procurement officer and chief financial officer.
Mr Sorrell's companies, remember, are the true users of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, et al –  together, the latter-day Pied Pipers of Hamelin.

You don't spend a farthing on using Google, Facebook and the others. Whereas Mr Sorrell's companies spend £46 billion a year with the Pied Pipers. They count. You don't.

To make sure that the money is spent wisely, the Mad Men need data. Lots of it. Remember that, when you read about the Department for Business Innovation and Skills's midata initiative. BIS may say that you will be in control of your own data. With £46 billion at stake, forget it.

The personal data to be stored by midata is indistinguishable in Whitehall's eyes from the government/public data to be mined for the UK's big data applications. You know that. That's why the same man is in charge of both projects – Professor Nigel Shadbolt.

Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, chief executive of the Government Digital Service (GDS), has recently announced changes in the governance of Whitehall, promoting CIOs (chief information officers) as the main ideas men for new digital services. When Mr Sorrell's men come knocking, they will be warmly welcomed. £46 billion buys you a lot of welcome.

It also buys you a lot of space. And GDS's GOV.UK has a lot of space. Take a look. All that lovely space down the left- and right-hand sides of the web page is just begging for advertisements.

And it buys you a lot of eyeballs. And with public services becoming digital-by-default, GDS can offer up to 60 million pairs.

It's a dish cooked in Heaven. Willing buyer, willing seller, everybody's happy. Everybody that counts, at least.

Feeling peckish, anyone?

Martin Sorrell: if you don’t eat your children, someone else will

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph a few weeks back, Mr Sorrell explained quite openly what he means when he says that Business must embrace this digital revolution:
How can legacy businesses keep their traditional, profitable operations going, while the new digital upstarts bite into their businesses? It’s the old cannibalisation argument – if you don’t eat your children, someone else will.

Google and The Economist

... what sort of a twerp would agree?

Google Reader is a service that was offered by Google which has now been discontinued. Or as the Economist put it on 21 March 2013:
GOOGLE is killing Google Reader ... Google Reader has been mourned over, angrily at times, ...
"Killing"? "Mourned"? "Angrily"? A bit melodramatic, surely. But not as melodramatic as one Google Reader murder report quoted in the Economist article:
Google is in the process of abandoning its mission. Google's stated mission is to organize all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. RSS is a way that a small number of us organize our information. Google no longer cares. It seems what they care about is mass-markets...
"Abandoning its mission"? "Google no longer cares"? Any minute now, you sense, someone is going to accuse Google of not understanding them, before stamping their foot, walking out and slamming the door behind them, their lip quivering with helpless indignation at the unfairness of Google's behaviour.

There is no justification for this indignation, as the writer acknowledges:
[Google] hasn't done this because we're its customers, it's worth remembering. We aren't; we're the products Google sells to its customers, the advertisers.
But that doesn't stop him or her from moaning ...
Google has asked us to build our lives around it: to use its e-mail system (which, for many of us, is truly indispensible), its search engines, its maps, its calendars, its cloud-based apps and storage services, its video- and photo-hosting services, and on and on and on.
... and impotently threatening Google ...
Yanking away services beloved by early adopters almost guarantees that critical masses can't be obtained: not, at any rate, without the provision of an incentive or commitment mechanism to protect the would-be users from the risk of losing a vital service ... in the long run that's a problem for Google.
... before finally turning back to Nanny:
Once they [network externalities which have been ignored] concern large swathes of economic output and the cognitive activity of millions of people, it is difficult to keep the government out ... I find myself thinking again of the brave new world of the industrial city ... the history of modern urbanisation is littered with examples of privately provided goods and services that became the domain of the government once everyone realised that this new life and new us couldn't work without them.
The Economist used once to be rational to the point of ruthlessness. It is the duty of a company to discontinue services that don't make a profit, the Economist would then have said, that's the only way to keep the business honest.

It's not Google's duty to "protect the would-be users from the risk of losing a vital service", Google Reader isn't a vital service, what on earth is the writer doing describing it as "beloved", Google hasn't asked anyone to build their lives around its services and, even if Google did ask, what sort of a twerp would agree?

Google isn't abandoning its mission. It's pursuing it. With precisely the rigorous logic that seems now to have deserted the Economist.

Time was when the Economist's mission was to bully the world into behaving rationally. Now they just want to quiver with self-pity. Which they call "rearranging our mental architecture".

That narcissism is a problem. Google and a few other companies (the latter-day Pied Pipers of Hamelin) exercise considerable and growing power:
What Google has actually done is create a powerful infrastructure. The shape of that infrastructure influences everything that goes online. And it influences the allocation of mental resources of everyone who interacts with the online world ...

That's a lot of power to put in the hands of a company that now seems interested, mostly, in identifying core mass-market services it can use to maximise its return on investment.
Some people see the web as the key to transforming government in the 21st century – the old Economist could have helped to temper that uncritical, star-struck naïvety.

In the UK, the Government Digital Service work every day to transfer power from the government to the Pied Pipers – the old Economist could have restrained the projected embrace of web-enabled totalitarianism.

As it is, all they can do is bleat about the death of Google Reader:
The bottom line is that the more we all participate in this world, the more we come to depend on it.

Google and The Economist

... what sort of a twerp would agree?

Google Reader is a service that was offered by Google which has now been discontinued. Or as the Economist put it on 21 March 2013:
GOOGLE is killing Google Reader ... Google Reader has been mourned over, angrily at times, ...
"Killing"? "Mourned"? "Angrily"? A bit melodramatic, surely. But not as melodramatic as one Google Reader murder report quoted in the Economist article:
Google is in the process of abandoning its mission. Google's stated mission is to organize all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. RSS is a way that a small number of us organize our information. Google no longer cares. It seems what they care about is mass-markets...
"Abandoning its mission"? "Google no longer cares"? Any minute now, you sense, someone is going to accuse Google of not understanding them, before stamping their foot, walking out and slamming the door behind them, their lip quivering with helpless indignation at the unfairness of Google's behaviour.