Willing enthusiasm isn't enough

11:19 a.m., 8 October 2014, 18 months ago, someone saves a copy of the Transactions Explorer page of the Government Digital Service's performance platform:

Then someone updates HMRC digital team plights troth to wrong Liege and forgets about it ...

... until recently.

You will notice that GDS were trying to measure how digital central government is, department by department. The data they used is repeated below. You won't be surprised which department wins ...

Department	Digital take-up*	Total cost*	Data coverage*	Transactions per year
HM Revenue and Customs	91.90%	£528m	77.30%	1,233,662,926
Department for Transport	57.40%	£268m	73.60%	130,337,698
Home Office	4.83%	£1.43bn	76.20%	126,270,677
Department for Work and Pensions	17.20%	£3.77bn	95.80%	107,781,180
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills	82.40%	£242m	54%	40,513,661
Department of Health	40.80%	£308m	61.90%	33,647,220
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs	86.60%	£101m	76.20%	22,580,710
Ministry of Justice	21.40%	£5.02m	52.40%	8,508,685
Cabinet Office	100%	£32.1k	100%	4,870,984
Department of Energy and Climate Change				1,331,834
Foreign and Commonwealth Office				549,065
Department for Communities and Local Government				515,756
Ministry of Defence				477,707
Department for Education				245,144
Attorney General's Office				65,658
Department for Culture, Media and Sport				33,589
Department for International Development				21,001
* Figures are based on data for high-volume services only

... yes, the Cabinet Office, which includes GDS, has 100% digital take-up (whatever that means) and 100% data coverage (whatever that means) and it's the winner.

That was 18 months ago. The figures were questionable.

Now, if you look at the services data on the performance platform, you find that GDS have stopped trying to measure digital take-up and data coverage. They list 802 public services and they have data on 571 of them which, between them, notch up 2.38 billion transactions p.a.

Take a look at GDS's data and you see that the 802 public services are divided up, department by department, as follows:

Department	No. services
Department for Business, Innovation & Skills	177
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs	118
Department of Health	98
Department for Transport	77
Department of Energy & Climate Change	67
Department for Work and Pensions	48
Department for Culture, Media & Sport	43
Home Office	41
HM Revenue & Customs	34
Ministry of Justice	29
Foreign & Commonwealth Office	18
Department for Education	11
Cabinet Office	11
HM Treasury	10
Valuation Office Agency	9
Department for International Development	3
Department for Communities and Local Government	3
Ministry of Defence	2
Attorney General's Office	2
UK Export Finance	1

Does the Department for Communities and Local Government really offer only three services? And the Ministry of Defence just two?

Again, the figures seem questionable.

GDS keep promising us canonical registers. On which government policy can be based rationally. Their performance platform omits data on the Government Gateway. And it omits data on the Basic Payment Scheme for farmers. And it doesn't look as though GDS can even count public services.

The Office for National Statistics have got a lot of work to do to bring GDS up to speed on data science. Willing enthusiasm isn't enough.

How can GDS be ready to build Government as a Platform?

Tomorrow they're attending – or possibly even hosting – a seminar on blockchain, Blockchain: exploring uses in government. Are they ready for that?