DMossEsq

Thursday 12 November 2015

Warwickshire and the missing attribute – progress

It is just over a month since we last reported on blue badges.

For anyone who doesn't know, the UK Blue Badge Scheme "provides a range of parking and other motoring concessions for people who are registered blind or have severe mobility problems".

Tthere has been an agile flurry of blue badge digital activity in the last 24 hours. @helenolsen wants you to know that Warwickshire are working on an attribute exchange hub for blue badge applications. So do @ukalocaldigital, @UKAuthority, @LDgovUK and @localdirectgov.

Their common source is an article on the UKAuthority.com website:

Warwickshire works on attributes hub

Project with GDS focuses on more flexible approach to identity assurance

Warwickshire County Council is taking the lead on a project to develop a hub for the exchange of attributes connected to people’s identities.

Although the project is still at an early prototype stage, the council hopes it could complement GOV.UK Verify [RIP] in providing a model for all the public sector to use in proving someone’s eligibility for specific services with the minimum exchange of data ...

Warwickshire County Council have worked on GOV.UK Verify (RIP) with the Government Digital Service before. It didn't go well.

GOV.UK Verify (RIP) was still known as "IDA" at the time, Identity Assurance. And the Open Identity Exchange (OIX) reported on the Warwickshire experience. OIX are GDS's business partner and they said:

It was hard to match people's names and addresses.
There were "shortcomings in the user journey".
It was hard to get the level of identity assurance up from 1 (self-certification) to 2 (evidence satisfactory in a civil court) let alone the level 3 required for a criminal court.
Registration was a "convoluted process".
Users couldn't understand why their identity was being verified by private sector companies instead of the government, ...

The private sector companies involved in the Warwickshire test included three of GDS's "identity providers" – Mydex, PayPal and Verizon.

PayPal were the last of the eight "identity providers" to sign up to GDS's first framework agreement for GOV.UK Verify (RIP). No reason has ever been given why it took longer to sign them up than the other seven nor why PayPal abandoned GOV.UK Verify (RIP) after the Warwickshire test.

But they did. PayPal pulled out. No reason given. Cassidian and Ingeus had pulled out before PayPal. No reason given. And Mydex, who had always been the most voluble proponents of GOV.UK Verify (RIP), never delivered a service. No reason given.

Thus it is that GDS's corps of private sector company "identity providers" is currently down from eight members to four – Experian, Digidentity, the Post Office and Verizon. Membership should soon rise, though, to nine. Under their second framework agreement, GDS are adding five more "identity providers", including PayPal, who clearly have some trouble making up their mind about GOV.UK Verify (RIP).

The OIX report about the shortcomings of the GOV.UK Verify (RIP) user journey was published in May 2014 and was co-authored by one Ian Litton.

By October 2014, Mr Litton – Strategy, Programme and Information Manager, Warwickshire County Council – was more sanguine:

Writing in UKAuthority.com, please see Attribute Exchange Discovery Project, he now identified a "wow factor" when people saw, in a test, how easy it could be to apply on-line for a blue badge compared with the current postal application process.
People were no longer baffled by the private sector being involved in providing them with a GOV.UK Verify (RIP) identity.
The user journey had become limpidly clear to the vulnerable 60+ applicants.
There were no problems matching people's names and addresses as recorded by the "identity providers" on the one hand, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on the other and the Department for Transport (DfT) on the third.
The level of identity assurance was adequate for DWP to confirm that an applicant was disabled and for DfT to issue a blue badge.

This is attribute exchange in action. Or rather it would be if the users had been connected to DWP and DfT. But they weren't, "we built proof of concept screens". The research results bulleted above including the "wow factor" are based on the users' reaction to a mock-up of the putative blue badge application service.

Being disabled is an "attribute" in the language of GOV.UK Verify (RIP) and, once that attribute is confirmed by DWP, DfT should be confident enough to issue a blue badge. DWP, in turn, should be confident enough that they're dealing with the right person on-line thanks to the applicant being registered with GDS's GOV.UK Verify (RIP).

Would DWP, DfT and GDS be right to feel sufficiently confident in the level of identity assurance offered for this attribute exchange?

OIX think not. They warn that the "identity providers" are having trouble reaching level of assurance 2 (civil court). And, surely anomalous, baffling in fact, GDS are currently working hard on producing "basic" GOV.UK Verify (RIP) accounts, unverified accounts, self-certification, with the lowly level of assurance 1.

GOV.UK Verify (RIP) may become a hub of verified unverified accounts but Mr Litton was optimistic enough a year ago to announce that:

Warwickshire and GDS are now working on an Alpha project with two of the identity providers, Verizon and Mydex, to deliver a working prototype of attribute exchange.

And he was still smiling optimistically in yesterday's UKAuthority.com article which is where we came in, please see above, Warwickshire works on attributes hub.

How far have Warwickshire progressed beyond their "proof of concept screens"? The "Alpha project" announced by Mr Litton a year ago is "still at an early prototype stage" a year later.

Are Mydex still involved? Are Warwickshire relying on personal data stores (PDSs) to support attribute exchange? There are problems with PDSs. Security. Control. Convenience. Irrelevance. PDSs could be slowing down progress on attribute exchange.

It's difficult to get identity assurance working. More difficult than Russell Davies thought a year ago when he said: "Government thinks it's really complex, but digitally it's about the complexity of a medium-sized dating site". Also known as @undermanager, Mr Davies was GDS's director of strategy at the time. He's gone now.

There doesn't seem to be any progress for @helenolsen, @ukalocaldigital, @UKAuthority, @LDgovUK and @localdirectgov to enthuse about. It looks more as though last year's article on attribute exchange has merely been reprinted.

"We’re trying to engage with the private sector to show how it can work for them", says Mr Litton in yesterday's article. Good luck with that. The first attribute the private sector are going to look for is how it works for local government. And as far as we know it still doesn't.

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Updated 29.3.16

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) runs a Local Digital campaign.

Most government is local government. Local authorities do the work. Local authorities man the front line. It's local authorities who deliver services, in the main, not central government.

Local Digital aims to improve local government through the use of IT.

Fair enough.

But why are they looking to central government for their lead? They're looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

They had a Local Digital boondoggle on 16 March 2016.

First the head of policy and departmental engagement from the Government Digital Service (GDS) explained to the assembled delegates how to solve problems by using buzzwords. That was central government.

What is the point of GOV.UK Verify (RIP)?

Then Ian Litton spoke on the subject of Developing a local role for [GOV.UK Verify (RIP)]. He's local government ...

... and he's been working with four central government satrapies – GDS, DWP, DfT and DCLG – for 2½ years to try to get blue badges working, please see above.

2½ years and the poor man still only has a prototype.

Local government has nothing useful to learn from GDS. Turn the telescope round. It's GDS who need to learn from local government.

Updated 1.5.16

Hard to believe, but the Government Digital Service (GDS) continue to tour the country lecturing local government about identity management:

Second GOV.UK Verify [RIP] workshop for local authorities
by Louis Stockwell | Apr 28, 2016 | Identity and Attribute exchange | 0 comments

24 representatives from 18 councils attended the second GDS GOV.UK Verify [RIP] workshop for local authorities on 19th April 2016, hosted in Warwick ...

It is dutiful of local government to put up with these sessions, and polite of course, but do they really have the time to spare?

It's a problem – local government needs identity management. Local government in many cases has a selection of solutions in operation. Local government is best placed to work out its own solutions.

As of Friday 29 April 2016 it has become more obvious than perhaps it was before that GDS have nothing to offer local government.

Updated 15.7.16

"Today we held the first of 2 discovery days to examine how local authority taxi licensing, concessionary travel and parking permit services might be improved using GOV.UK Verify [RIP] and Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) services ... this is the first opportunity we’ve had to bring together more than 40 colleagues from 27 local authorities across the country". That's what the Government Digital Service say about their latest GOV.UK Verify (RIP) boondoggle.

GDS also said:

Lessons from an authority that’s done it all before
.
Participants heard from Ian Litton from Warwickshire County Council.
.
"Real time attribute exchange builds trust, increases transparency, and reduces the complexity of services for users and for service providers."
.
Ian worked on a project with the Open Identity Exchange looking at attribute exchange as a common way to transform multiple services.

The casual reader, on seeing that Warwickshire County Council has done it all before – where "it" takes the values real time attribute exchange and trust and transparency and reduction of complexity – might rashly conclude that Warwickshire County Council has done it all before.

It hasn't.

Warwickshire County Council and Ian Litton and the Open Identity Exchange are the first to tell you that they were only using prototypes: "During the course of this project we built prototypes of the Blue Badge and Residential Parking Bay services and tested these with citizens" (p.3).

Knocking up a prototype is nothing like having a real service available. It does not amount to having "done it all before" and it is confusing to suggest that it does.

GDS will no doubt wish to clear up this unfortunate confusion at the first opportunity.

Warwickshire and the missing attribute – progress

Warwickshire works on attributes hub

Project with GDS focuses on more flexible approach to identity assurance

Warwickshire County Council is taking the lead on a project to develop a hub for the exchange of attributes connected to people’s identities.

Although the project is still at an early prototype stage, the council hopes it could complement GOV.UK Verify [RIP] in providing a model for all the public sector to use in proving someone’s eligibility for specific services with the minimum exchange of data ...

Warwickshire County Council have worked on GOV.UK Verify (RIP) with the Government Digital Service before. It didn't go well.

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Sunday 8 November 2015

WrinklesInTheMatrix: Mark Thompson 1

Earlier wrinkles:

14 October 2011	Francis Maude
14 October 2011	Oliver Letwin
14 October 2011	Ian Watmore
14 November 2011	Mike Bracken

Mark Thompson believes that 1½ million public servants could be laid off and £35.5 billion could be saved as a result, if only the UK civil service followed the example of Spotify, eBay, Airbnb, Rightmove, Uber and Amazon.

Any number of people believe the same thing. Douglas Carswell MP, for example, the UK Member of Parliament who wrote The End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy, reviewed here in February 2013.

Even HMRC may believe it. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs are trying to break their giant ASPIRE contract into lots of little ones which is part of the Mark Thompson prescription. ASPIRE is unwieldy and ponderous. And expensive. Replace it with a lot of nimbler and more innovative contracts, and the result might be more efficient and cheaper. The question is, how do you get from ponderous to nimble?

@DMossEsq @swardley @HMRCgovuk @BainInsights HMRC/DWP etc don’t listen to people like me; they only speak to large mgt cnsltancies; hence UC
— mark thompson (@markthompson1) October 28, 2015

HMRC have hired Bain & Company, the management consultants, to answer that question. Mr Thompson thinks that it's management consultants who got HMRC into the ASPIRE mess in the first place.

He may be right to be pessimistic about Bain's assignment. But if Mr Thompson had specified how to achieve his £35.5 billion of projected savings, then HMRC wouldn't have had to call in Bain.

Mr Thompson rejects that criticism, ruefully asserting that HMRC and others don't listen to people like him. You may get the impression of Mr Thompson as a lone thinker coming up with great ideas that Whitehall are too hoity-toity to listen to, a powerless Mr Thompson signalling to distant central government departments while trying to stay afloat in a sea of pathos.

But, there's a wrinkle.

Mr Thompson is a "University Senior Lecturer in Information Systems" at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School and according to his profile on their website:

Mark has 22 years of information and systems and change management experience and is currently Strategy Director & Co-owner, Methods Group, where he has created two thriving startups since 2011 (Methods Advisory and Methods Digital). He is a member of the National Audit Office's Digital Advisory Panel, and was until recently a Main Board Member, Intellect UK (now TechUK), and is also a member of the CBI 21st Century Public Services Task and Finish Group. Prior to Methods, Mark was a Change Management Consultant at Accenture.

Mark is acknowledged within the public domain as one of architects of Open Innovation thinking within the UK public sector. In 2007-8 he was a senior adviser to UK Shadow Cabinet under George Osborne, for whom he delivered an influential report proposing widespread adoption of open standards in government IT that has since become policy, helping to create a sea-change in the way the government approaches and uses technology. Mark was credited by Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude as having laid the foundation for the government's current technology procurement strategy and has subsequently authored, co-authored, or significantly influenced a series of white papers, policy documents, and a parliamentary report. Such papers include a think-tank document, Better for Less with Liam Maxwell, which formed the strategy for Cabinet Office's Efficiently and Reform Group, a journal article that has been widely shared in government, the Government IT Strategy and Strategic Implementation Plan.

Mark is a regularly invited industry and government speaker, and is pioneering these ideas in practice through London-based Methods Group, where he is delivering radical, often disruptive transformation with over 15 pathfinding government organisations. He has appeared in digital panels at both Labour and Conservative Party conferences - as well as critiquing some of the early policy developments for the coming manifesto period.

Mark is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Visiting Professor at Surrey Business School.

Far from helpless, he is keen to make it clear in his profile how much he has the ear of the very most senior members of the executive.

Then. And now. Only the other day, the Cabinet Office Minister appointed Mr Thompson to a "Steering Group of digital and data visionaries" who will guide the UK's move to "data-driven government".

Is it really the case that HMRC won't listen to Mr Thompson?

His company, Methods, lists the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office among its clients, who presumably pay to listen to him. The National Audit Office listen to him, as do the CBI and TechUK. George Osborne, Francis Maude and Liam Maxwell listen to him. That gets him HM Treasury and the Cabinet Office plus maybe the Department for Business Innovation and Skills. His students at the Judge Business School and the Surrey Business School must listen to him. Etc ...

No. More likely, HMRC listened to Mr Thompson advocating his Airbnb idea for Whitehall, there was a gap where there should be a clear plan and they decided they'd better get Bain in to make sense of it.

WrinklesInTheMatrix: Mark Thompson 1

Earlier wrinkles:

14 October 2011	Francis Maude
14 October 2011	Oliver Letwin
14 October 2011	Ian Watmore
14 November 2011	Mike Bracken

@DMossEsq @swardley @HMRCgovuk @BainInsights HMRC/DWP etc don’t listen to people like me; they only speak to large mgt cnsltancies; hence UC
— mark thompson (@markthompson1) October 28, 2015

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Thursday 5 November 2015

Does my register look canonical in this?

Cast your mind back seven months to 27 March 2015 and an interview given to TechRepublic magazine's Alex Howard by ex-Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken ex-CDO ex-CDO CBE, ex-executive director 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)".

Mr Bracken was the government's chief data officer at the time, that's one of his CDOs, and Mr Howard was trying to find out what a CDO does.

A CDO has to solve problems, Mr Bracken told him. Problems like multiple lists of the same things: "In the absence of standards, we have allowed a growing number of competing registers of data. There are literally multiple lists of the same things".

And the solution? These registers must become canonical: "We need to make decisions about what registers and data are canonical, and we need to work out some basics, like what an open address format should look like [?]".

Once our registers are canonical, as you know, the economy will grow like topsy and public services will become efficient and trusted and green. But before that could happen Mr Bracken left Whitehall and now it's all eyes on Paul Downey, a Technical Architect at GDS.

Mr Downey makes the link between Government as a Platform (GaaP) and canonical registers. Public services rest on shared platforms, he says. And shared platforms rest on canonical registers, which are, in Mr Downey's words, "authoritative lists you can trust".

We've got a few platforms, according to GDS. The award-winning GOV.UK, for example, is the government's publishing platform. GOV.UK Verify (RIP) is the government's identity assurance platform. There's a government performance platform with 801 dashboards all blaring numbers at you that may or may not measure the performance of public services. And even as we speak a government payments platform is taking its first tottering steps from discovery to alpha.

So we've got some platforms, but what about registers, and are they canonical?

3 November 2015
The Minister for Cabinet Office Matt Hancock spoke about data-driven government at the Open Data Institute (ODI) summit

The digital platforms we’re building, led by the brilliant GDS, will depend on strong data foundations.

This is important. Data-driven government depends on the answer. At least that's what Matt Hancock says. And he's the Cabinet Office Minister.

Let's see if we can get ourselves a data-driven answer by turning first to GDS's latest and sixth lack of progress report on GOV.UK Verify (RIP), Government services using GOV.UK Verify [RIP] - November 2015 update.

Table 1 shows the digital government services currently using GOV.UK Verify (RIP). All 13 of them. Is that an "authoritative list you can trust"?

You'd hope so, but the list includes DEFRA's digital claim rural payments service and that doesn't exist. DEFRA and GDS between them couldn't make it work and UK farmers are now using a manual system to claim their Common Agricultural Policy payments. The list also includes HMRC's digital marriage allowance transfer service and people were having trouble using that service because they couldn't register with GOV.UK Verify (RIP).

So is the authoritative number of government digital services using GOV.UK Verify (RIP) 13 or 12 or 11?

One sure-fire way to find out is to check the performance platform for GOV.UK Verify (RIP). If Mr Downey is to be believed, that platform must depend on an authoritative canonical register you can trust.

Take a look. Under "government services", the GOV.UK Verify (RIP) dashboard includes all the services which use it. All 8 of them. Including DEFRA's claim rural payments service. So maybe that should be 7. Either way, it's not 13 or 12 or 11. It's not authoritative. And it doesn't inspire trust. It may be a register. But it's not canonical. And if Mr Hancock is pinning his hopes for data-driven government on "the brilliant GDS" who are responsible for this unfortunate state of inequalities, then he's in a minority of one, and falling.