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’.
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.
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’.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you're in business you can claim tax allowances, also known as capital allowances, on certain purchases or investments that you make on business assets. You cannot directly deduct your expenditure on those assets when calculating your profits or losses, instead you can deduct a capital allowance. This applies whether you're self-employed and pay Income Tax or are a company or organisation that's liable for Corporation Tax.
Many common business assets such as office equipment, furniture and machines or tools, may be considered to be plant and machinery for capital allowance purposes, and expenditure on them might qualify for plant and machinery allowances.
This guide explains which types of assets might count as plant and machinery for capital allowance purposes, what capital allowances are available for them, and how to calculate and claim them.
This guide does not cover plant and machinery allowances relating to fixtures in buildings or structures, including certain integral features in buildings. For more information, see the guide 'Capital allowances relating to building and renovation'.
HMRC have taken a complicated chunk of statute and case law and made it as clear as possible to lawyers, tax advisors and their clients how HMRC inspectors will handle their case.
GDS can help HMRC?
Or is it the other way round?
While we were all in Italy, GDS launched a new project and a new blog to go with it – HMRC transition to GOV.UK.
The first post on that blog, 20 August 2013, says: "Over the next year we’ll be moving more than 100,000 pages of HMRC content to GOV.UK ...".
"We won’t be moving the HMRC online services that require you to login, e.g. when filing your tax return". Well of course they won't:
It may also be because HMRC would prefer to be able to carry on collecting tax.
"We also won’t be editing HMRC manuals and other content from the HMRC library". That's a relief. As tax people say. Given that a lot of people who know something about the subject work hard to get that content right.
No, they won't be editing the content, they'll be re-purposing it: "These [the manuals and the library] will move across to GOV.UK and will be repurposed into a format that is easier to search, easier to browse, easier to view and easier to print".
Why?
Why undertake this move and run the risk of breaking every link that holds the manuals together at the moment?
"As a homeowner, I plan to sell my house, and want to know if I will have to pay capital gains tax."
And this one:
"As a tax agent, I want to understand Principle [sic] Private Residence Relief, so that I can give my client the right advice."
"Whilst both these user stories relate to tax on property, the content required to satisfy these needs differs considerably in length and complexity." Really.
That's where GDS are starting from. Way up at the shallow end. And still out of their depth.
But they're agile, as they told us on 16 October 2013: "We communicate in an open forum, with daily stand-ups for 15 minutes every morning in front of our wall ... This is the continuously iterative process known as agile delivery".
Remember how, 10 paragraphs ago, GDS weren't going to do any editing?
Plain English is mandatory for all of GOV.UK. This means we don’t use formal or long words when easy or short ones will do. [Like saying "stand-up" instead of "meeting"? "Re-purpose" instead of "edit"? "Communicate in an open forum" instead of "chat"?]
For example, we normally talk about sending something ... rather than ‘submitting’ it ...
We've recently been working with HMRC on moving VAT content to the ‘mainstream‘ ... part of GOV.UK. In the first draft, we used the plain English ‘sending your VAT return’ across all of this content.
However, our HMRC colleagues felt very strongly [44 Magnum?] that we should change this back to ‘submit’ to match the terminology used on the HMRC website, as this is ‘used frequently and known by VAT businesses’.
GDS have graciously backed down over the use of "submitting" after finding some little-used principles in their design manual and drawing a graph.
It's not as though GDS don't have anything else to do. Or HMRC for that matter, they've got plenty of work. GDS bring nothing to the party. To repeat, why are GDS putting themselves through this fatuous work-simulation?
In her 2010 report that helped create GOV.UK, Martha Lane-Fox [sic] emphasised the need to open up government transactions and content so that they can be delivered easily by commercial organisations and charities. She wrote that GOV.UK should be:
a wholesaler, as well as the retail shop front for government services & content, by mandating the development and opening-up of Application Programme [sic] Interfaces (APls) to third parties.
GDS have issued – sorry, sent – the following invitation:
We would like to invite all tax publishers to attend a briefing on GOV.UK. There will be an opportunity for questions on the day and if there is a need we can arrange follow up meetings on a later date. The workshop will be held on Monday 9 December from 1.30pm to 3.30pm at Aviation House. If you would like to attend, please contact the HMRC transition team.
If you've ever wondered what an applications program interface to a tax manual could do for you, why not nip along to the briefing and insist on GDS showing you one?
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.
Tom Loosemore 
Mike Bracken 
Chris Thorpe 
