Digital government, empowerment and the Estonian fallacy

Don't be fooled into believing that "digital government"

will automatically deliver empowerment

Last Sunday night/Monday morning DMossEsq started a post. It's a good thing he fell asleep before finishing it and you never had to read it. It wasn't getting anywhere:

The lesson today is taken from the Book of Onwurah and our text is:

Labour’s history, our roots, are in the empowerment of people. All too often government is something done to the people. Digital government must not be like that.

That is as it is recorded in the Guardian version of the Estonian Bible of Digital Government. In the Civil Service World version, it is written:

We see digital government as a way to empower citizens and enable the public sector to do more with less; the Tories see it as just another way to slim down the state and deliver a public sector which does less with less.

The "more with less" tag will be recognised of course from an earlier lesson, Less for more:

... Not so fast, said, Ian Watmore, Chief Operating Officer of ERG [the Efficiency and Reform Group], whose motto, devised by Lord Brown of Madingley, Chairman of ERG and previously Chairman of BP and the Gulf of Mexico, is "more for less" ...

Then in Thursday's Times David Aaronovitch re-kindled interest in the unfinished post. He was writing about the letter sent to the Guardian by 19 "members of the progressive community" about Labour's manifesto for the May 2015 general election here in the UK:

If it were to sell this vision, Labour required an election manifesto based on a list of principles including “prevention of the causes of our social, environmental, physical and mental health problems, which requires a holistic and long-term approach to governance”, and the “empowerment of everybody . . . to enable them to play a full role as active citizens”. This “empowerment of everybody” would need much devolution of power, said the letter, before ending in a peroration that included the assertion that “the era of building the capacity and platforms for people to ‘do things for themselves, together’ is now upon us” ... When you write this badly, when you are so unclear that even experts in your field cannot decipher your intention, there is a reason for it. It could, of course, simply be that you are an idiot. But two other explanations are more likely: either that you don’t really know what you mean yourself; or that you do know, but you’d rather not spell it out.

It's not just the Labour tribe hoping to win by banging on about empowerment, as Mr Aaronovitch would have known if he had only read the DMossEsq post that was never published:

The Conservative tribe – the "Tories" as the prophet Onwurah calls them – also invoke empowerment. The October 2002 Book of Carswell, for example, is actually called Direct Democracy – empowering people to make their lives better.

And the Lib-Dem tribe, too. Repeatedly.

Here is the Lib-Dem prophet Davey:

Government, business and consumer groups commit to midata vision of consumer empowerment ... Today’s announcement marks the first time globally there has been such a Government-backed initiative to empower individuals ...

And Davey's successor, the Lib-Dem Lamb:

The Government launched the consumer empowerment strategy, Better Choices Better Deals: Consumers Powering Growth, in April 2011. The strategy set out ways for Government and others to help give consumers more power in a rapidly changing and complex economy.

And Lamb's successor, the Lib-Dem Swinson, with her midata Innovation Lab. And her successor in turn, the Lib-Dem Willott, who detects "progress on the consumer empowerment strategy".

It's up to these politicians to explain clearly what they mean by "empowerment". If they can. We must be able to answer the question what is this power that our politicians are so graciously granting back to us. Only then can we the public judge their offering.

The one germane point to add here is this. Don't be fooled into believing that "digital government" will automatically deliver empowerment.

That's what many of these politicians are advocating. And they're wrong. It's the Estonian fallacy.

Once we all maintain personal data stores with total strangers (the Government Digital Service's spooky so-called "identity providers") and once all government applications are scudding around out of control in the cloud, digital government could just as easily tighten the grip of Westminster and Whitehall – or Amazon, Google and Facebook – and perpetuate the tradition of government as "something done to the people", as Ms Onwurah aptly puts it.

Digital government, empowerment and the Estonian fallacy

Don't be fooled into believing that "digital government"

will automatically deliver empowerment

Last Sunday night/Monday morning DMossEsq started a post. It's a good thing he fell asleep before finishing it and you never had to read it. It wasn't getting anywhere:

The lesson today is taken from the Book of Onwurah and our text is:

Labour’s history, our roots, are in the empowerment of people. All too often government is something done to the people. Digital government must not be like that.

That is as it is recorded in the Guardian version of the Estonian Bible of Digital Government. In the Civil Service World version, it is written:

We see digital government as a way to empower citizens and enable the public sector to do more with less; the Tories see it as just another way to slim down the state and deliver a public sector which does less with less.

The "more with less" tag will be recognised of course from an earlier lesson, Less for more:

... Not so fast, said, Ian Watmore, Chief Operating Officer of ERG [the Efficiency and Reform Group], whose motto, devised by Lord Brown of Madingley, Chairman of ERG and previously Chairman of BP and the Gulf of Mexico, is "more for less" ...

Then in Thursday's Times David Aaronovitch re-kindled interest in the unfinished post. He was writing about the letter sent to the Guardian by 19 "members of the progressive community" about Labour's manifesto for the May 2015 general election here in the UK:

If it were to sell this vision, Labour required an election manifesto based on a list of principles including “prevention of the causes of our social, environmental, physical and mental health problems, which requires a holistic and long-term approach to governance”, and the “empowerment of everybody . . . to enable them to play a full role as active citizens”. This “empowerment of everybody” would need much devolution of power, said the letter, before ending in a peroration that included the assertion that “the era of building the capacity and platforms for people to ‘do things for themselves, together’ is now upon us” ... When you write this badly, when you are so unclear that even experts in your field cannot decipher your intention, there is a reason for it. It could, of course, simply be that you are an idiot. But two other explanations are more likely: either that you don’t really know what you mean yourself; or that you do know, but you’d rather not spell it out.

It's not just the Labour tribe hoping to win by banging on about empowerment, as Mr Aaronovitch would have known if he had only read the DMossEsq post that was never published:

The Conservative tribe – the "Tories" as the prophet Onwurah calls them – also invoke empowerment. The October 2002 Book of Carswell, for example, is actually called Direct Democracy – empowering people to make their lives better.

And the Lib-Dem tribe, too. Repeatedly.

Here is the Lib-Dem prophet Davey:

Government, business and consumer groups commit to midata vision of consumer empowerment ... Today’s announcement marks the first time globally there has been such a Government-backed initiative to empower individuals ...

And Davey's successor, the Lib-Dem Lamb:

The Government launched the consumer empowerment strategy, Better Choices Better Deals: Consumers Powering Growth, in April 2011. The strategy set out ways for Government and others to help give consumers more power in a rapidly changing and complex economy.

And Lamb's successor, the Lib-Dem Swinson, with her midata Innovation Lab. And her successor in turn, the Lib-Dem Willott, who detects "progress on the consumer empowerment strategy".

It's up to these politicians to explain clearly what they mean by "empowerment". If they can. We must be able to answer the question what is this power that our politicians are so graciously granting back to us. Only then can we the public judge their offering.

The one germane point to add here is this. Don't be fooled into believing that "digital government" will automatically deliver empowerment.

That's what many of these politicians are advocating. And they're wrong. It's the Estonian fallacy.

Digital government – the customer is always wrong 2

We noted, a couple of months back, an open letter to the Government Digital Service (GDS) and the Government Procurement Service (now the Crown Commercial Service). The letter was orchestrated by Skyscape Cloud Services, please see G-Cloud – Animal Farm, and included this suggestion:

There is little, if any, transparency of forthcoming opportunity to the supplier, which can in turn lead to negative speculation about how long-lists and shortlists are compiled. We recommend that transparency principles are applied to all areas of G-Cloud transacting: That an opportunity pipeline is published so that suppliers can see who is planning to buy and when (Contracts Finder would be the logical channel); That suppliers are informed if they have been long-listed – and that reasons for failing to make the shortlist are communicated to the supplier. Suppliers can then improve their products and pricing which will in turn benefit the market as a whole.

Skyscape and their 14 fellow signatories want to force prospective customers to tell suppliers what new business is available and they want to force them to explain why they rejected all the other suppliers in favour of the lucky ones who were shortlisted.

"10 out of 10 for trying", you may say, "a bit pushy, unlikely to work – what sanction do suppliers have if customers simply refuse to explain themselves? – but, who knows, they might get away with it. Someone might fall for the it's-in-your-own-best-interests argument, prices will fall and quality will rise. There again, do Skyscape and their friends really want to get into a public shouting match about why they were rejected, how bad their products are and/or how stupid the customers are for rejecting them? The customer is always right, isn't he? ..."

Never mind all that.

How could suppliers be notified of new business opportunities? "Contracts Finder would be the logical channel", say the Skyscape 15, referring to the venerable Contracts Finder website on BusinessLink.gov.uk, a domain which isn't supposed to exist any more but does, like Direct.Gov.uk, don't tell GDS.

Someone has had a better idea.

We refer once again to GDS's Designing the Digital Marketplace, a blog post which includes this:

On commercial retail websites it’s common to favourite or bookmark things (like a house for sale on Rightmove, or a book on Amazon). Adding something to your shortlist on the Digital Marketplace is similar, except it would also allow you to record your reason for including it, for the purposes of an audit trail. We’re currently testing Projects as a way to organise multiple shortlists. For example, if you’re working on creating a website you will need multiple things; including a CMS [content management system] and hosting. A Project page, which contains shortlists, is one means of organising choices and recording how decisions are made. Later we’ll be designing and testing what adding collaborators to a project (or a shortlist) might look like.

What looks like a facility to help customers manage the product selection process could easily be transformed into a way of giving prospective suppliers detailed information about new business opportunities and the prospective customers' innermost thoughts about them.

It may be advisable not to use this "Projects" facility. Unless you want Skyscape and 14 other suppliers ringing you up every day to badger you.

Digital government – the customer is always wrong 2

We noted, a couple of months back, an open letter to the Government Digital Service (GDS) and the Government Procurement Service (now the Crown Commercial Service). The letter was orchestrated by Skyscape Cloud Services, please see G-Cloud – Animal Farm, and included this suggestion:

There is little, if any, transparency of forthcoming opportunity to the supplier, which can in turn lead to negative speculation about how long-lists and shortlists are compiled. We recommend that transparency principles are applied to all areas of G-Cloud transacting: That an opportunity pipeline is published so that suppliers can see who is planning to buy and when (Contracts Finder would be the logical channel); That suppliers are informed if they have been long-listed – and that reasons for failing to make the shortlist are communicated to the supplier. Suppliers can then improve their products and pricing which will in turn benefit the market as a whole.

Skyscape and their 14 fellow signatories want to force prospective customers to tell suppliers what new business is available and they want to force them to explain why they rejected all the other suppliers in favour of the lucky ones who were shortlisted.

"10 out of 10 for trying", you may say, "a bit pushy, unlikely to work – what sanction do suppliers have if customers simply refuse to explain themselves? – but, who knows, they might get away with it. Someone might fall for the it's-in-your-own-best-interests argument, prices will fall and quality will rise. There again, do Skyscape and their friends really want to get into a public shouting match about why they were rejected, how bad their products are and/or how stupid the customers are for rejecting them? The customer is always right, isn't he? ..."

Never mind all that.

How could suppliers be notified of new business opportunities? "Contracts Finder would be the logical channel", say the Skyscape 15, referring to the venerable Contracts Finder website on BusinessLink.gov.uk, a domain which isn't supposed to exist any more but does, like Direct.Gov.uk, don't tell GDS.

Someone has had a better idea.

Digital government – the market in contempt

Dotted around central government and local government there are thousands of experienced and responsible buyers, among them people who buy IT hardware, software and services. They've been doing it for decades. They know what they're doing. They're not idiots.

It is sensible to collect their experience together. That way standards can be raised and mistakes avoided. It is sensible to share their experience. That cuts out wasteful, repetitive work – there's not much point 100 branches of government assessing the same product 100 times. It is sensible to create centralised "digital marketplaces" like the Digital Services framework, where suppliers will be made to compete on price and quality openly, in full view of the buying public.

In connection with which, please see Designing the Digital Marketplace, which was posted a few days ago on the Government Digital Service's digital marketplace blog and which discusses "some of the exciting new features and improvements we’re bringing to the Digital Marketplace":

... a major design goal is to reassure buyers that they’re buying the right thing, and to make sure buyers are supported throughout the buying process ... A problem with the current CloudStore is that it’s tricky to find the same search result twice, because the search results are randomised. We’re working on making it easier to find the service you need by improving browsing and searching. One way we’re doing that is by looking at language. The acronyms SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS mean something to those who know, but to those who are new to cloud services they are confusing. To help users understand the phrasing and categorisation, we’re looking at including a full phrase, an explanation of what it means, and some examples (the most popular) of what these services actually are (see screenshot below). But even with the full phrase, do our users know what “software as a service” means? (For those interested, Ivanka’s written previously about the importance of language.) ...

"... a major design goal is to reassure buyers that they’re buying the right thing"? Do GDS really believe that their colleagues in government who are professional buyers would buy something when they're not sure what it is?

"The acronyms SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS mean something to those who know, but to those who are new to cloud services they are confusing"? Do GDS really believe that their colleagues in government who are professional buyers are out there buying acronyms without knowing what they stand for?

"... even with the full phrase, do our users know what “software as a service” means? (For those interested, Ivanka’s written previously about the importance of language.)"? If someone doesn't know what "software as a service" means, what on earth are they doing buying SaaS? And do we really need Ivanka to tell us that language is important?

It is the thoughts expressed by language which are important. GDS, whose own record is not unblemished, might do well to rein in this thought that they're dealing with idiots when it comes to government buyers. And to the rest of us.

Digital government – the market in contempt

Dotted around central government and local government there are thousands of experienced and responsible buyers, among them people who buy IT hardware, software and services. They've been doing it for decades. They know what they're doing. They're not idiots.

RIP IDA – where is it?

No need to say it, it goes without saying, it should be obvious to all but, just in case it isn't obvious to all, IDA is dead.

IDA is the Cabinet Office Identity Assurance programme. And it's dead.

----------

The Government Digital Service (GDS) are trying to transform government by making it digital by default. They have chosen 25 public services as exemplars. Exemplar no.9 is a service for DVLA – the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency – and is described as follows:

If you are a driver you will be able to view information from your record, including what vehicles you can drive and any penalty points and disqualifications. Drivers' data will be made available via a new DVLA enquiry platform built to handle high-volume enquiries

That's point #1.

Point #2 – GDS have been trying for some time to get identity assurance working. On 11 February 2014 they told us that IDA was finally being tested behind the scenes, and that testing on exemplar no.9 would start to use IDA in public in March:

Initially we will be adding more services and users quite gradually, as we continue to get the service ready for wider use. Other services will begin to use identity assurance from March onwards, starting with DVLA’s view driving record service. The DVLA will start trialling identity assurance for some users, aiming to use it exclusively once the identity assurance service is in public beta.

Point #3, on 1 April 2014 DVLA announced that:

Yesterday, at just after midday, we launched the public beta of View Driving Record on GOV.UK.

"... after 15 months of hard work this was it", they said, "we had delivered the first part of what we had set out to achieve ...".

Can you now see "what vehicles you can drive and any penalty points and disqualifications" on-line? Yes.

And can you see IDA in action? No.

After 15 months of work, what we get is the screen form above with just four fields to fill in and when you press the button you get two database lookups – the vehicles you can drive and any points on your licence. Maybe it's harder than it looks but it doesn't look as though that should take 15 months. Not if you're using "agile" software engineering methods.

Leave a space in your National Insurance number or in your post code when you enter it, and GDS tell you "Sorry, due to a technical problem we can't display your details right now. Please try again later" – an obtuse way to tell users to remove the spaces, and a surprising approach for an organisation that prides itself on designing user interfaces.

Are you really the user of this service? The objective is to make life easier for DVLA and for the car hire companies – this service is one step along the path to dispensing with the paper counterpart driving licences we all lose. The objective is also to make it easier for car insurance companies to check that we're telling the truth on our proposals.

This heavy reliance on National Insurance numbers to identify us is likely, we are told, to underpin the individual electoral registration service due to be released in June 2014. Does it provide adequate assurance?

All of these matters and more we can debate. But, point #4, that debate is set against the background of the continued glaring absence of IDA. Where are the so-called "identity providers"? Where are the personal data stores? Where is the secure identity hub?

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Updated 7.10.14

"From today, [DVLA, the UK's Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency] has launched a new digital service. Now you can view your driving licence information online." That's what the Government Digital Service (GDS) said today in a Tweet. And they provided a link to a post on the GDS blog, A new way to view your driving licence info online.

You might take that at face value.

If you were born yesterday.

But as the rest of us know, if only from the 8 April 2014 post above, the service was launched at least six months ago.

No-one knows why it was launched then.

It's of no use to drivers.

And no-one knows why it's being re-launched now. It's still of no use to drivers. And it still operates without the benefit of the long-promised identity assurance.

From today, @dvlagovuk has launched a new digital service. Now you can view your driving licence information online. http://t.co/TMS7YfX78C — GDS (@gdsteam) October 7, 2014

RIP IDA – where is it?

No need to say it, it goes without saying, it should be obvious to all but, just in case it isn't obvious to all, IDA is dead.

IDA is the Cabinet Office Identity Assurance programme. And it's dead.

----------

The Government Digital Service (GDS) are trying to transform government by making it digital by default. They have chosen 25 public services as exemplars. Exemplar no.9 is a service for DVLA – the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency – and is described as follows:

If you are a driver you will be able to view information from your record, including what vehicles you can drive and any penalty points and disqualifications. Drivers' data will be made available via a new DVLA enquiry platform built to handle high-volume enquiries

That's point #1.

Point #2 – GDS have been trying for some time to get identity assurance working. On 11 February 2014 they told us that IDA was finally being tested behind the scenes, and that testing on exemplar no.9 would start to use IDA in public in March:

Initially we will be adding more services and users quite gradually, as we continue to get the service ready for wider use. Other services will begin to use identity assurance from March onwards, starting with DVLA’s view driving record service. The DVLA will start trialling identity assurance for some users, aiming to use it exclusively once the identity assurance service is in public beta.

Point #3, on 1 April 2014 DVLA announced that:

Yesterday, at just after midday, we launched the public beta of View Driving Record on GOV.UK.

"... after 15 months of hard work this was it", they said, "we had delivered the first part of what we had set out to achieve ...".

Can you now see "what vehicles you can drive and any penalty points and disqualifications" on-line? Yes.

And can you see IDA in action? No.

RIP IDA – long odds

No need to say it, it goes without saying, it should be obvious to all but, just in case it isn't obvious to all, IDA is dead.

IDA is the Cabinet Office Identity Assurance programme. And it's dead.

----------

Last Friday the Government Digital Service (GDS) announced that they would be issuing a new invitation to tender for identity assurance work (IDA), please see Identity assurance, procurement 2.

As noted, it looks as though enrolment into IDA would cost 35 times more than GDS previously told us. £30 million was meant to pay for 21 million putative registrations. In the event, it will cover only 600,000 putative registrations.

In a typically clear-headed assessment published in Computer Weekly magazine, Toby Stevens describes the difficulties GDS face with IDA. He also examines the position of suppliers considering a bid. Should they try to become "identity providers" (IDPs)? He has this to say:

... an IDP would need to run a population of 250,000 users in the first year just to have a chance of breaking even. That's going to be a problem for stretched Sales Directors who are evaluating bid risks and trying to determine where to focus their sales resources. Why bid the high-risk job with the deferred payback, when they could go for safer projects with up-front payment ... I think I’d rather put my money on a 5-horse accumulator than an IDP bid team.

No board is going to sanction betting on the horses as a business development strategy. The equity analysts wouldn't wear it. Neither would the shareholders. The directors could kiss goodbye to their careers.

Nevertheless, the salesmen will probably turn up to the 28 April 2014 "event for interested organisations". That's what salesmen do. Quite rightly. It promises to be a re-run of the 20 September 2010 meeting, please see Identity assurance. Only the future is certain – doom 1.

GDS didn't exist then, back in September 2010. They do now. But it remains the case nevertheless that investing in IDA is akin to betting on the horses. Toby Stevens says: "GDS has a track record of delivering 'impossible' projects". He is a kinder man than DMossEsq. "Impossible" means impossible. RIP.

RIP IDA – long odds

No need to say it, it goes without saying, it should be obvious to all but, just in case it isn't obvious to all, IDA is dead.

IDA is the Cabinet Office Identity Assurance programme. And it's dead.

----------

Last Friday the Government Digital Service (GDS) announced that they would be issuing a new invitation to tender for identity assurance work (IDA), please see Identity assurance, procurement 2.

As noted, it looks as though enrolment into IDA would cost 35 times more than GDS previously told us. £30 million was meant to pay for 21 million putative registrations. In the event, it will cover only 600,000 putative registrations.

In a typically clear-headed assessment published in Computer Weekly magazine, Toby Stevens describes the difficulties GDS face with IDA. He also examines the position of suppliers considering a bid. Should they try to become "identity providers" (IDPs)? He has this to say:

... an IDP would need to run a population of 250,000 users in the first year just to have a chance of breaking even. That's going to be a problem for stretched Sales Directors who are evaluating bid risks and trying to determine where to focus their sales resources. Why bid the high-risk job with the deferred payback, when they could go for safer projects with up-front payment ... I think I’d rather put my money on a 5-horse accumulator than an IDP bid team.

No board is going to sanction betting on the horses as a business development strategy. The equity analysts wouldn't wear it. Neither would the shareholders. The directors could kiss goodbye to their careers.