Friday, 3 May 2013

GOV.UK – not the 9 o'clock news

Simpler, clearer, faster – that's GOV.UK's shoutline.

GOV.UK is the new "single government domain" produced by the Government Digital Service and it recently won the Design of the Year award:
Design of the Year jury member Griff Rhys Jones said GOV.UK "was a clear winner".
Great 1980s satirist that he is, Mr Rhys Jones hasn't lost his touch.

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Updated 2 September 2013
GOV.UK wins the only 2013 D&AD award in the newly-created "Writing for Websites and Digital Design" category.

Updated: 15 November 2013
Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken/GDS comes top of the Digital Leaders 50 awards given to those "who demonstrate a pioneering and sustainable approach to digital transformation". The BBC come second and Francis Maude third.

No examples of sustainable digital transformation are given but CloudStore has been unavailable for eight of the 14 days leading up to the awards' being announced on 12 November 2013.

Updated 15 November 2013:
Back in May, G-Cloud won the Public Cloud Project of the Year Datacentre Solutions Award 2013. Few people noticed ...

... but one wag did (@LazBlazter), and retweeted the following on 9 November 2013, just after CloudStore's October outage, on day #2 of the November outage:

Updated 8 December 2013:
Only one way to go from here, two weeks at the top, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken tumbles to sixth position in the Computer Weekly UKtech50 awards, "our definitive list of the movers and shakers in UK IT".

No.1 now is Liam Maxwell, chief technology officer, HM Government.

And what did ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken tell us about technology in his speech to Code for America? "Technology is a fourth-order question in government", he said. 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 said, "is putting technology in its place".

Clearly the awards panel disagree.

Updated 21 January 2014:
In Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude Decries 'Old Style' Obamacare Insurance Website, published in the Huffington Post, 9 January 2014, Mr Maude makes the uncontentious claim that the US government is useless at IT, unlike the UK government, which has GOV.UK and IDA. At one point we read:
Noting the success of the gov.uk site, a portal that brings the government billions in revenue from countries such as New Zealand that have paid for the source code, Maude said ...
Is this true, does anyone know? Have New Zealand or anyone else paid billions to use the GOV.UK source code?

Updated 26 January 2014:

2013 GovFresh Awards winners
by Luke Fretwell / January 21, 2014, 6:00 am:
Updated 18.6.14

Since we last looked (15 November 2013) the Digital Leaders 50 awards have become the Digital Leaders 100 awards – twice as good.

All change?

No. Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE, executive director of GDS and senior responsible owner of the identity assurance programme (RIP), is still top:

Not only that but the Skyscape express rolls on ...

... as does the Martha-now-Lady Lane Fox revolution:


Updated 10.9.14

The awards just keep coming in.

One breathless encomium ...

... after another ...

... and another ...

... and another ...

... and another:

Sometimes even Anna and Katie and Rachael and Emer and Alexandra must get tired. At which point there's a praise-generating engine in GOV.UK's armoury that takes over:

But today, new heights were scaled, when an awards body contacted GDS and begged them to apply so that they can be given an award:

What next?

Can GDS write an app that generates GOV.UK award-awarders?


Updated 31.10.14

Still the praise keeps coming in – is there no end to it?





Updated 4.12.14

Now Computer Weekly have published UKtech50 2014 - The most influential people in UK IT and the first question must be "where have Skyscape come"? You will remember that Digital by Default News rated Skyscape the number 1 digital leader in the Industry category back in June. Six months later, and Computer Weekly ... don't mention Skyscape.

Still, we know from Simon Wardley that:

Close.

But no award for accuracy.

Actually they came fourth and fifth, not third and fourth, if you care to look.

Liam Maxwell, the government's chief technology officer who comes in at number 4, is "attempting to break the stranglehold of the oligopoly of large companies that have dominated government IT". That's what Computer Weekly say.

How's that going?

In its first 2½ years of existence, G-Cloud, the government cloud project, has placed 53.2% of £346 million = £184 million of business with SMEs (half of which goes to Skyscape alone, according to Skyscape).

£184 million. £0.184 billion. Spread over 2½ years. And how much does the government spend on IT every year? About £20 billion? Some way to go before Mr Maxwell can expect to come third.

Which brings us to fifth, Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE CDO, executive director of the Government Digital Service and senior responsible owner of the pan-government identity assurance programme (RIP). As Computer Weekly say: "Bracken is the figurehead for a cultural change in how public services are delivered in a digital world".

And how's that going?

As every fule kno, you can't have digital-by-default public services unless you can identify your parishioners. That requires identity assurance.

GDS are several years late starting a small beta test of their offering. The users are finding it hard. No alternative, non-digital registration system is provided. And GDS are breaking their own rules.

Meanwhile, they are providing us with re-written front ends to services we already had, but with no identity assurance, and without re-designing the services first. Culture change? Hardly. The promise of government transformation is not being delivered.

Gavin Patterson, the Chief Executive Officer of BT, came sixth. When Westminster and Whitehall realise in several hundred billion pounds' time that, in digital-by-default, they are chasing a will o' the wisp, Mr Patterson may expect to move up at least one place.


Updated 28.1.15

It's not all prizes. GDS receive the odd brickbat, too. For example, Mr Craddock isn't entirely smitten:

But there's still a lot of breathless fan mail like this coming in:

And recently, the Prime Minister of Australia joined Suzanne:
ESTABLISHMENT OF A DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OFFICE

The Commonwealth Government will establish a Digital Transformation Office (DTO) within the Department of Communications so that government services can be delivered digitally from start to finish and better serve the needs of citizens and businesses ...

The DTO will use technology to make services simpler, clearer and faster for Australian families and businesses.
"Simpler, clearer, faster" is, of course, the motto of GDS's GOV.UK.

It's high praise indeed when even the level-headed Australians find you worthy of imitation. "Simpler, clearer, Australia", as Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE CDO rather amusingly said.

And it's not just the Australians. The Americans, too. Look what came out of the White House on 16 January 2015:
U.S.-U.K. Digital Government Partnership

Today, we are building on a long history of innovation and collaboration on digital technologies with the United Kingdom.  The President and Prime Minister Cameron just announced a commitment to strengthen and expand the ongoing digital partnership between our two countries.  Both countries have made real progress in working to improve how our governments use digital services to better serve citizens and businesses, and to build a stronger digital economy.  We will expand our already existing collaborations in these areas ...

In 2011, the United Kingdom created the Government Digital Service (GDS), a centralized group of digital experts who have vastly improved citizen experiences when using government digital services. This team has worked to make public services digital by default, simpler, less costly, and faster to use ...

The United Kingdom developed a comprehensive Digital Strategy ... This strategy, once fully implemented, will save taxpayers in the United Kingdom £2.7 billion per year.
Again, this is high praise indeed.

Positively intoxicating.

So much so that it's as well for Australia and the US to check the record.

Has UK government been transformed by GDS? Has UK Citizen experience of government digital services been vastly improved? Are UK public services digital by default? Is the UK's Government Digital Strategy feasible? When will it be fully implemented? And how sure is anyone that it will save £2.7 billion p.a. (previous estimates include 1.2, 1.7 and 1.8 billion pounds)?

Are the claims made for the efficacy of GDS reliable? Or do they, like the emperor's new clothes, evaporate on inspection? Which is it?

GDS's idea of UK public services becoming digital by default depends on identity assurance. Central government departments and local authorities have to be sure that you are who you say you are when you log on.

The executive director of GDS is also the senior responsible owner of the pan-government identity assurance project and the project is late. Several years late.  He gave a talk in the US on 16 October 2013. Here's a 1'15" clip:


He claimed that GDS have eight or nine "identity providers". They have one. Experian.

He claimed that the first identity assurance services would start later in October 2013 with HMRC (the UK's IRS). The planned test did not take place. No explanation. No acknowledgement.

He claimed that identity assurance would support 45 million users. A year later on 30 October 2014 they had 741 users in a private beta test, please see Slide #14.

"I just can't get enough of gov.uk's awesome @gdsteam"?
Posted by David Moss at 10:46

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So at last admission “Technology is a fourth-order question in government", Only after the user needs and the policy needs and the operational needs have been determined should attention be paid to the technology needs, BUT that assumes GDS does have latest knowledge of Software Technology that allows the statement to be true? They do not evidenced by their digital frameworks representing 20th century technologies! The intelligent customer status still to be achieved – that means understand capabilities out there and articulate how the supporting technologies will deliver on the 3 other needs. This omission is “misfeasance in public office” by any standard ……the evidence just grows…..?

PS anyone doing an FOI on the billions….?

23 January 2014 at 16:30

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