Week 35: Shake up
A short work week for me, as I had a few days off, but a busy news week for digital government.
On Tuesday the State of digital government review was published, along with a blueprint for digital government.
There’s lots to like in both documents, both in recognising the issues which hold back digital government, and presenting a vision for change.
These are some of my favourite quotes:
We are encumbered by the siloed structure of government and incentives that act against modern approaches. When value is measured only within organisational boundaries, it’s hard to invest in technology and services that create value beyond them.
Technology has shifted from a capital-intensive business, based on the acquisition and creation of hardware and software assets, to a revenue intensive business based on continuous improvement and subscription services. […] In Government many have highlighted that it is easier to get capital funds] than operating funds.
Modern digital government should reduce the ‘time tax’ on people using public services. Not just the time it takes to use a service, but the time to understand what needs to be done.
Openness, service lists, roadmaps
Amongst the priority reforms are 3 commitments which caught my eye:
- Empower public servants to work in the open to improve our services and build public trust.
- Create an inventory of services to measure the progress of service modernisation and publish a version of this in the open.
- Set an expectation that all central government departments publish their public-facing product roadmaps at least annually
Yes, yes, yes. Big fan of all these.
I’m an advocate for working in the open, and I’ve been quietly helping to maintain a list of gov.uk services for many years. There’s also a similar effort within the NHS to try and discover and document the various existing digital prevention services - more of that soon.
Public roadmaps can be great too, and there’s a list of public sector backlogs and routemaps which is worth exploring.
Usability testing
On my project, we’ve begin usability testing our new designs for the main ‘record a vaccination journey’.
As I’ve been off, I’ve not yet been able to observe any, but I’m looking forward to observing some next week, and watching back the recordings from this week.
Fingers crossed the designs mostly worked - although I’m sure we’ll learn a lot either way.
Days are getting noticeably lighter now! Stay safe in Storm Éowyn.