Mark Dearnley, the new Chief Digital and Information Officer for HMRC, announced at the Ignite conference in London that HMRC will “become a fully accessible digital business.” ... He went on to say: “The multi-channel digital tax platform will have security at the heart of it. The new Government Identity Assurance Programme platform will be part of that".
But Mr Dearnley, there is no Government Identity Assurance Programme platform. And there isn't going to be. HMRC need an alternative.
Last year, you will remember, Tim O'Reilly and Jennifer Pahlka of Code for America (CfA) came over to the UK and kindly told our Government Digital Service (GDS) how marvellous they are. That was 12 November 2012.
In an act of reciprocal diplomacy, returning the compliment, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken went over to the US last month to speak at the CfA Summit 2013, 16 October 2013, so that he could tell them how marvellous GDS are.
The Americans have a lot to learn it seems.
At 32'46" long, the speech he gave – Redesigning Government – is astonishing, ranging as it does over big subjects, and even bigger subjects:
Government isn't big, says the man, not really big, not if you look at it. (Apart from the fact that the UK government's Total Managed Expenditure accounts for well over 40% of gross domestic product according to Her Majesty's Treasury, who could disagree?)
Government faces a "delivery crisis", he says, and risks becoming irrelevant. There would be riots in the streets but for GDS. (That's the implication.)
With all due humility, he says, we're the show, GDS is government. (Maybe it's a joke. But is it funny?)
On-line security is irrelevant, usability is all that counts. ("This is the BBC news. In an entirely predictable security breach yesterday, the banking details of everyone in the UK were stolen by a 14 year-old in Peoria. Luckily GDS's identity assurance system is very usable, so no harm done. In other news, a programmer at GDS who used Helvetica instead of Tahoma has been charged under the usability laws and remanded in custody for her own protection.")
Technology is a fourth-order priority, he says. Sort out the user requirements first, then the policy, then the operational needs, then and only then the technology, if necessary. (A good point, but an odd one from the executive director of GDS, whose job it is to implement digital-by-default – technology decision taken first, then everything else.)
Documenting your requirements is a waste of time. (Parliament, legislating away, writing down the law, wasting their time?)
Don't bother working out your strategy ... (In the special case of GDS, at least four professors agree.)
... just deliver something. (Like an identity assurance system, for example? First promised for autumn 2012, there's still no sign of it.)
With reference to the ObamaCare website – big organisations are rubbish. (Apple? Google? eBay? Amazon? Facebook? Rubbish? And how about small organisations?)
If you want to be like GDS, concentrate on those jobs that only government can do. Like operating student loans, suggests ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken. But that doesn't require government. Any bank could do it. And will, just as soon as the student loan book is privatised.
Anyone trying to emulate GDS's success in government will encounter obstacles. Don't confront them. You'll lose. Instead, "route round" them, he says, without saying what that means in terms of accountability and openness, not to mention co-operation/team-playing with GDS's colleagues in Whitehall.
GDS's success? What success? He gives an example in the clip below (taken from the full speech, starting at 9'36"):
Listeners may be left with the impression that GDS's Identity Assurance Programme (IDAP) already provides proof of identity for 45 million users. It doesn't. IDAP doesn't exist.
"The first services run out with our tax system this month [October 2013]" – no IDAP services were made available to the public by Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC) then, none such have been mentioned in GDS's subsequent weekly diaries or anywhere else and, despite all GDS's routing round, the transformation dashboard continues to show only one "exemplar" live – student loans, exemplar #6. The tax exemplars ##15 and 16 are still in beta. That statement about running out with our tax system is either false or meaningless.
"We're at the very early days yet", he says, having previously said "we're rolling this service out right now". Which is it?
"We have about eight or nine companies already providing identity to us". GDS have told us that they recently signed contracts with five companies. Not eight. Not nine, see Identity Assurance: First delivery contracts signed, 3 September 2013. The ID hub required has yet to be unveiled, let alone commissioned, so it's hard to see how these five/eight?/nine? so-called "identity providers" (IDPs) can provide anything to GDS or how 45 million people can provide anything to the IDPs. That statement about already having companies providing identities to GDS is either false or meaningless.
"We've changed 20 years of thinking about identity in the digital space in government". No. That thinking was changed when Whitehall finally admitted that their antediluvian plans for government-issued ID cards had failed – flaky biometrics, cards no use on-line. Back in 2010. At least. Probably earlier. Long before GDS existed.
That's just one minute out of the 32.
One minute of listeners being misled.
During the other 31, the claims to have made £500 million of savings (13'20") and £10 billion of savings (25'00") merit particular attention. Route round reality like GDS if you will, CfA, but remember – GOV.UK may have won all sorts of awards, it may be a work of art, but without identity assurance, that's all it is.
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Updated 21.11.13:
At around 25'00" into his speech, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken claims without support that the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG) have saved about £10 billion of Whitehall costs and tells CfA that this figure represents about 4% of the UK's gross domestic product (GDP).
According to the latest figures from the UK's Office for National Statistics, GDP in the four quarters to 30 September 2013 was, in £billions – 376.5, 377.5, 380.2 and 382.8. That's £1.517 trillion in all.
Which means, if you look at the reliable facts, that £10 billion is about 0.6% of GDP and not 4%.
Digitalising public services could save citizens, the Exchequer and businesses £1.2 billion over the course of this parliament, rising to an estimated £1.7 billion each year after 2015.
These are the same figures which have been mentioned ever since 6 December 2012 at least, over a year ago. It's strange how, in this agile world, they never change. And how they never add up to Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE's £10 billion.
Updated 18.8.14 #1
Back in October 2013, Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE told CfA that ERG had saved about £10 billion and that that represented about 4% of UK GDP. In fact, it represents only about 0.6%.
We have just hosted the Wikimania conference here in the UK, at the Barbican, and in his speech Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE claimed that ERG had saved about £14.3 billion last year and that that represents about 1% of GDP, please see 5'50"-6'10", including applause.
The arithmetic is getting better.
But where does the £14.3 billion figure come from?
The big ticket items are major projects (£2.479 billion), workforce reductions (£2.392 billion), pensions reform (£2.340 billion), and so on – nothing to do with the Government Digital Service (GDS).
The GDS savings, which is what you might think Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE is talking about in his Wikimania speech, amount to £0.210 billion = GDS controls savings and GDS wider savings (£0.091 billion) + GDS transformation (£0.119 billion).
For the avoidance of doubt, if the UK's GDP is about £1,517 billion, then GDS's contribution of £0.210 billion to the savings made last year amounts to about 0.0138% of GDP and not the quoted figure of 1%.
We have just hosted the Wikimania conference here in the UK, at the Barbican, and in his speech Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE said that GDS is currently rolling out IDA, please see 2'50"-3'20".
In what sense is it true that IDA is currently being rolled out?
They're currently looking for private sector "identity providers" to join the IDA scheme. They've got five providers signed up so far – Digidentity, Experian, Mydex, the Post Office and Verizon. They need more. The Open Identity Exchange and KPMG together arranged for GDS to present to about 150 companies.
At their presentation on 9 June 2014, IDA demonstrated the Post Office's suggested dialogue for issuing people with an on-line digital identity. It's not very convincing and if that's all the progress that's been made since 31 October 2011, any one of those 150 companies would be very brave to subscribe now.
It is in that sense that IDA is currently being rolled out.
Updated 1.10.15
The Code for America Summit 2013 was followed by the Code for America Summit 2014.
Ex-Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE ex-CDO ex-CDO, ex-Chief Executive of the Government Digital Service (GDS) and ex-Senior Responsible Owner of the pan-government identity assurance programme now known as "GOV.UK Verify (RIP)", didn't speak at the Code for America Summit 2014. Instead, his ex-deputy, Tom Loosemore, spoke.
Mr Loosemore took advantage of the occasion to repeat what Mr Bracken had said in 2013:
The last section of Mr Loosemore's talk between about 17'45" and 19'20" considered GDS's digital service which allows people in the UK to apply on-line to register to vote. We have about 45 million voters here. 1,114 people took the trouble to rate the service. That is 0.002% of voters.
They were apparently 92% satisfied with the service, whatever "satisfied" means. And that is an example, Mr Loosemore told the Summit, of the triumph that awaits the US if only it follows the lead of the UK.
His talk is not available yet on YouTube. Everyone is recommended to seek it out and watch it as soon as it does become available.
Updated 9.10.15
Talking of Tom Loosemore's talk given to the Code for America Summit 2015, we said: "Everyone is recommended to seek it out and watch it as soon as it does become available".
Code for America put all the Summit 2015 videos up on their YouTube channel yesterday,
No Loosemore talk. We shall never be able to see him saying whatever he said.
Updated 1.12.15
"We shall never be able to see him", we said, back in October, "saying whatever he said". Wrong. It was published on YouTube six days later.
How do they know? What are their credentials? What do they know about public administration? What experience have they had of designing and maintaining population-scale systems?
Answer, GDS – the Government Digital Service. "Done", as it says on the cover of the book, rubber-stamped, digital transformation, they've done it at GDS. GDS is their credentials, so to speak.
Mike Bracken spoke at the Code for America Summit in October 2013, please see above. Tom Loosemore spoke at the 2014 and 2015 Summits, also please see above.
Not sure whether anyone from GDS attended the 2016 and 2017 Summits but, this year, Code for America Summit 2018, GDS was represented by Louise Downe, "Director of Design and Service Standards for the UK Government at the Government Digital Service (GDS)", who spoke on the subject of Getting From Here to There: A Sustainable Future for Public Services.
The Summit agenda says: "The U.K. Government Digital Service (GDS) was set up 6 years ago to help government work better for users. Since then, GDS has built, delivered and supported a huge amount - from ...".
Let's stop there for a moment. Clearly the text is about to list a selection of huge digital transformation achievements after six years of strategic delivery at scale. We're looking for the end-to-end re-engineering of crucial components in the national infrastructure.
Which examples would you choose?
No idea.
Which examples did GDS/Code for America choose?
Answer: "... GDS has built, delivered and supported a huge amount - from the single government website GOV.UK to new digital services for renewing passports or registering to vote".
We already had government websites long before GDS's GOV.UK. We could already apply on-line to renew our passports eight years before GDS was created and we could already apply on-line to register to vote.
Last year, you will remember, Tim O'Reilly and Jennifer Pahlka of Code for America (CfA) came over to the UK and kindly told our Government Digital Service (GDS) how marvellous they are. That was 12 November 2012.
In an act of reciprocal diplomacy, returning the compliment, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken went over to the US last month to speak at the CfA Summit 2013, 16 October 2013, so that he could tell them how marvellous GDS are.
The pan-government identity assurance programme is hoping to hire up to five people in January in preparation for the launch of its first live services early next year ...
An official working on the programme recently explained that they are hoping for new providers to join next year, in particular to support level three assurance for more sensitive data.
"What would you like for Christmas?", DMossEsq asked his maternal grandmother about 25 years ago.
"I want one of those typewriters with a television on top."
Word processing. That was a killer app. Its value was clear even to an old woman RIP who grew up 85 years before, travelling the highways and by-ways of Jamaica in a pony and trap.
And spreadsheets. Visicalc. Supercalc. Lotus 1-2-3. Excel. That was another killer app. All those book-keepers and auditors with their seven-column analysis paper. They didn't need to be told twice. It was obvious. The spreadsheet sold itself. And the microcomputer it ran on.
We've been promised killer apps for midata. Apps whose worth is so obvious that you just have to have them and you'll take midata as well, unthinkingly, because that's just the typewriter with a television on top that the apps run on.
"Hi I’m Dan, Director of the midata Innovation Lab, part of the midata voluntary [?] programme. I wanted take this opportunity to share my vision for the lab, or mIL as we call it", Dan Bates told us on 23 May 2013 when he was still Working with business to fan the flames of innovation. (He's left now.)
"I want some really interesting apps and services to come out of the mIL", Dan told Ctrl-Shift News back on 1 August 2013, "we want the mIL to be transformative. We want to kick start a collective inflection point in business ...".
Well?
What's happened?
You won't find out from Craig Belsham's blog ("information about midata"). We haven't heard anything from Craig since 1 October 2013 when he went to Glastonbury.
But don't be fooled by the silence. There are not one, not two, but five prototype appsmidata are working on. Including MI FINANCES which gives you advice like
Save £70 a month by buying your own ingredients and cooking yourself. Your health may improve too!
and
You're having an average of 4 takeaways a month. Why not make it a special treat? Cut down to once a month and save £100.
Is that a killer app?
Ask Granny. She'll tell you. "Call that an inflection point in business? I don't think so. It's an electronic Mary Poppins. It's digital nagging and you can already be nagged through any number of channels. You great mooncalf, you don't need midata. How much is that Dan charging you for his re-heated apps? And why's he trying to put all the takeaways out of business?"
"What would you like for Christmas?", DMossEsq asked his maternal grandmother about 25 years ago.
"I want one of those typewriters with a television on top."
Word processing. That was a killer app. Its value was clear even to an old woman RIP who grew up 85 years before, travelling the highways and by-ways of Jamaica in a pony and trap.
And spreadsheets. Visicalc. Supercalc. Lotus 1-2-3. Excel. That was another killer app. All those book-keepers and auditors with their seven-column analysis paper. They didn't need to be told twice. It was obvious. The spreadsheet sold itself. And the microcomputer it ran on.
We've been promised killer apps for midata. Apps whose worth is so obvious that you just have to have them and you'll take midata as well, unthinkingly, because that's just the typewriter with a television on top that the apps run on.
The "Digital Services framework, which is now open with 183 companies evaluated and selected to supply services" is the result of a year's work by GDS, the Government Digital Service.
"It gives government access to a competitive and wider pool of innovative suppliers, to design and build user focused digital by default services in an agile way". That's joshr's entry in the competition to get as many buzzwords as possible into a single sentence – "user focussed", "digital by default" and "agile" all in one sentence is good, but surely we can do better.
Anyway, there's going to be a Digital Services Store according to joshr on which suppliers can offer their services and government users can buy them:
Suppliers have one place to go to apply to offer these services, and in the upcoming store, buyers will have a single place to procure. The framework will also be the first one of its kind to be supported with a managed service from Government Digital Service and Government Procurement Service.
But hang on a minute.
Suppliers can already offer their services on the CloudStore. Buyers already "have a single place to procure". What joshr means is that suppliers will now have to register with two different stores doing the same thing and users will have two places to procure.
GDS must know about CloudStore – they've been responsible for it since 1 June 2013. The Government Procurement Service must know about it as well – Phil Pavitt told us a year ago that supliers on CloudStore are "required to meet a set of mandatory criteria set out by Government Procurement Services".
joshr should say that the Digital Services Store is the second one of its kind "to be supported with a managed service from Government Digital Service and Government Procurement Service".
Why launch a second store to do the same thing?
Left hand not in touch with right hand?
Maybe.
Or maybe GDS don't like CloudStore. Not invented here.
In which case, CloudStore, having crashed twice in the past two weeks, beware. GDS have been known to let projects hang out to dry if they don't approve of them. GDS avoid "becoming fully involved", as the ruthless ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken told the FT, and "not that close to it" as he told the BBC about Universal Credit going down below the waves for the third time.
The Digital Services framework is "iterative, evolving and adapting, the framework itself being designed in an agile way and based on user needs" – that's joshr's second entry in the buzzwords competition, and much better than his first. Can anyone on the G-Cloud team beat that?
The Government Digital Service (GDS) is currently exploring plans to merge the G-Cloud and digital services frameworks.
The service is hoping to create one single marketplace by amalgamating the Cloudstore (which acts as a catalogue for services and suppliers on the G-Cloud framework) and the Digital Services Store (which provides the same function for digital services) ...
Two frameworks to build digital services What’s the difference between the two frameworks? Simply put, G-Cloud provides access to commodity, cloud-based services. Digital Services framework (DSf) allows the public sector to commission capabilities to help design and build bespoke digital services ...
Rolling out the Digital Marketplace ... The Digital Marketplace will then replace the current CloudStore for G-Cloud 6 – which we expect to be live in Autumn 2014 ...
Updated 27.1.15
Over a year after this all started – the duplicate/rival digital services forums – where have we got to?
Mark Craddock, former G-cloud lead, said: "GDS is obsessed with what I call pub-prietary software – the public sector building everything in-house and putting itself in danger of replicating the failures of the large [system integrators]" ... Craddock added: "G-Cloud needs to be handled with care, because too many people want it to fail."
Former G-Cloud head Chris Chant has entered the growing row over the status of the framework under the UK's Government Digital Service (GDS), criticising its decision to ditch a brand "that has won hearts and minds" ... According to Chant, "G-Cloud is about a fundamental change in the way the government does computing – not just about cloud computing".
G-Cloud is by no means the biggest casualty of the GDS juggernaut. Its demise will leave the excellent Mr Chant even freer than he has been until now to pursue his six month-long truth-not-trust campaign.
Unlike G-Cloud, GDS has always enjoyed powerful political support. It's seen to have votes attached to it.
Secure public services delivered over the web – digital by default – depend on identity assurance. Central government departments and local government need to be sure that you are who you say you are on-line. Ever the fashion victim, GDS has hitched itself to a "trust framework" to deliver identity assurance through the stillborn GOV.UK Verify service. It doesn't work. It can't.
And who better to convey that message than Mr Truth-Not-Trust himself, Chris Chant?
The "Digital Services framework, which is now open with 183 companies evaluated and selected to supply services" is the result of a year's work by GDS, the Government Digital Service.
"It gives government access to a competitive and wider pool of innovative suppliers, to design and build user focused digital by default services in an agile way". That's joshr's entry in the competition to get as many buzzwords as possible into a single sentence – "user focussed", "digital by default" and "agile" all in one sentence is good, but surely we can do better.
Anyway, there's going to be a Digital Services Store according to joshr on which suppliers can offer their services and government users can buy them:
Suppliers have one place to go to apply to offer these services, and in the upcoming store, buyers will have a single place to procure. The framework will also be the first one of its kind to be supported with a managed service from Government Digital Service and Government Procurement Service.
Tom Loosemore 
Mike Bracken 
Chris Thorpe 
