It’s been a busy and in parts, deeply unpleasant week. There’s nothing like six constituency surgeries to bring things back into focus though. They re-affirm a belief in the crusade for social justice and are a reminder of what is important in life and what isn’t.
Likewise, the new job at the Cabinet office is going well. For the first time in ages, I think I’m in a position to make a difference. On Monday, I’m giving a speech loosely entitled Government 2.0. I’m talking to a number of people in the public sector who are responsible change in the delivery of public services. Any ideas on what I should say? Do you have examples of best practice with web enabled services or new business processes that illustrate a wider point? I’d be grateful for your views.
16 comments ↓
If anything, the problem is more the lack of ‘examples of best practice’. The whole ’2.0′ thing is about reinvention, challenging the established way of things, breaking the rules. There isn’t a lot of ‘startup mentality’ in the average Whitehall department: and where there is some, it’s often stifled by vested interests and senior management who daren’t jeopardise their cosy pension arrangements.
My perspective? Urge focus and concentration on the users (citizens) and their expectations and needs, rather than amazingly wonderful IT visions that are either too complicated for users to use, or too complicated to deliver. The online government world is littered with complicated ‘solutions’ and not easy to use and elegant user experiences that reinforce users trust in the ability of government to deliver.
It begins with attitudes (improved or strengthened through epxeriemtn with building real realtionships through the social web).
Challenge your audience to find out how many people in their departments are authorised to talk to the public online. I bet it’s a minimal number. Why? How easy is it for the public to comment on what is being done. If it is hard – why? Do departments trust the public to help them improve things? If not why not?
The 2 comments so far point in one direction: the public sector must stop tinkering with details and operate in the way that its legislation forces all other organisations to behave. The public sector must throughout implement govt policies on quality management and information security, ensuring that people in post are appointed on ability to do their jobs, trained and proven competent, regularly assessed, and given the necessary resources – if this threatens senior management, then let them retrain. Have you heard of the PINO project? Its an ICT project that is governed by Prince 2 but doesn’t do what Prince rules say: Prince In Name Only – under a formal quality assessment regime such a project’s management would be removed from their posts.
Now the public sector will rightly tell you that there are restrictions placed on it that mean they cannot do their jobs properly, and you must find out what they are, challenge them where they are internal failures that the organisation should be dealing with, and move to have the real restrictions dealt with in public.
There are more and more reports that citizens are under-represented, and not being able to ensure that our tax monies are spent efficiently is just one area where we are increasingly disaffected. Yesterday (Sat 8 March) on BBC World Service World Business Review, Prof Paul Webley (London U) said of tax: “Is it a good deal or not? Is it fair?” – he was billed as an expert in the psychology of taxation. Its not a good deal here. It will be fairer if we can get some of the very rich to pay more, but we may have to accept that we need them here and live with their ability to pay very little.
I’d get the big, high-profile (not to mention obvious) problems sorted first. Make sure HMRC has enough bandwidth to cope with the not-too-hard-to-predict demand spike when everyone wants to submit their tax return as late as possible. This kind of thing not only annoys the taxpayers (and don’t forget that they pay for the service) but also makes the govt look really stupid. It’s not too hard to throw extra money into the traffic pot for one week per year.
Tom
24 hours to give you some thoughts – had you not already written your speech ?
Government 2.0 or web 2.0 will not really succeed if you forget that the people need either the ability to read and write, and a PC, to get involved in this two way conversation. Lots of people still do not have access, and there are only 6 of us replying to your request so far.
Also, what have you done since last time to make us feel our comments make a difference ? I have not noticed any replies from you since your first post.
You could try saying in your speech that the thought police keep away from civil s**f as he/she was only trying to tell the stories openly and accurately.
Previously working in a gov department on a contract I came across some very good people who really wanted to help public through innovation but management were the problem.
The management were incompetent-lazy-scared-retarded-stupid-whatever. Get rid of those so called ‘managers’, they are unfit for the jobs.
First, a few characteristics of web2.0: it’s fast and experimental (everything’s in beta, at least to begin with; and often permanently) and it’s about harnessing the power of the crowd (but less than you think – 50% of all Wikipedia edits are by 1% of users) – related to this is the separation of roles (usually that a site provides functionality and its users provide content; although facebook is an example of trying to open up functionality too).
The former is difficult in government, but doesn’t need to be – if google employ enough smart people to be able to devote some to trying new ideas, government certainly does – it also helps in recruiting and retaining the best people, and motivating them to make a difference.
Harnessing the power of the crowd is not necessarily some naive communitarian view; it’s about enabling outsiders who’ve got special knowledge, or special reason to care, to contribute. People act solipsistically (in their own interest) and only when they believe it’s going to be effective. The self-interest can be about kudos (which drives Wikipedia editors), about their own lives (drives fixmystreet) or about basic utility (drives librarything and flickr).
In terms of government 2.0, you have two additional dimensions – clearly, there’s a suggestion that there’s a technology element; but there’s also a very important and far more challenging attitudinal element. 2.0 thinking is all about “why not?” – government usually has a pretty strong inbuilt resistance to “why not?” If 2.0 requires openness and opening up, government usually requires control – and the two don’t sit easily together. Government 2.0 probably requires many initiatives which need to be driven bottom up; and from the outside. It’s why mysociety have contributed so much; because they’re on the outside.
It’s always easy to argue with “why not?” but it’s about paradigm shift, so let’s try some “why not?” examples:
– Why don’t Local Police forces have to run websites where we, the local residents, can raise concerns or ideas in public forums, with the Police Chiefs having to go online and answer them regularly? This is about harnessing the power of concerned outsiders and taking it inside. Does the police chief in my area know that the non-999 number rings for 20 minutes or more before being answered, or often just cutting out? If they did, and did nothing about it, we’d be right to give them a hard time. If this could work for local police, perhaps Council leaders, chief executives and other senior officers. Perhaps health authority and transport chiefs too. It’s notable that British Retailers are so successful because their most senior executives are very close to their customers; they shop there, they shop in competitors and they continually monitor customer research – it’s harder to do that in the public sector, but 2.0 ideas make it possible.
– Why not do lobbying online? If a minister or senior civil servant told lobbyists “I’m not going to meet you privately; just come to my website and make your points/ask your questions in public”, they’d be just as able to listen to legitimate interest groups as now, but would no longer be as susceptible to the charms or one-sided arguments as currently. Instead, if Tesco wanted to convince you of something, and Asda saw what they were saying and made the counterargument, you’ve outsourced much of the cost and thinking to the most interested parties. If Tesco and Asda agree with each other, but the local shopkeepers and CPRE don’t agree with them, then the public get to see the debate too – and government gets a far wider range of views than ever. Why not? Is there anything really confidential that Tesco need to say to government?
– Why not publish the details of local authority contracts online? Let the other refuse collection companies see the terms of deals made, so that they can try to beat them in future. Let residents spot that commitments are or aren’t being met – effectively outsourcing parts of contract management to the people with most interest in making sure it works.
The shifts in mindset required are difficult, especially in any bureaucracy, but there’s so much scope to do revolutionary things for very little expenditure (actually, you could do the above ideas within existing budgets, as so many of these authorities already spend heavily on expensive website infrastructures which could be partially repurposed). The key is to deliver some beta projects quickly, probably at local and departmental project levels, and then expand the ones which work.
Tom – would be helpful if you could publish the text of your speech on your website. I hoped to be there this morning but the bad weather prevented me. Also, did you manage to stay to hear Harry Metcalfe talk? Be great to know what you thought.
How did it go?
Dear Tom – it was a terrific speech.
Of course I think you’re spot on with your underlying themes: the Power of Information, reusable information, participation and mashups.
It will take quite a long time for the full implications of what you’re suggesting to sink in to the government IT community and its suppliers, and far longer for it to work its way through into reality.
But the people who matter are the customers, users, people. We will prevail and the first stage is to set it out.
I also appreciated what you said about Civil Serf: I thought you chose your words very well.
…oh, and I liked your use of email feedback. The Harry Metcalfe presentation echoed your reusability point from a more technical users’ point of view.
[...] I have a nasty feeling this has set back the cause of ‘government 2.0′ by a good few months – just as it seemed the word ‘blog’ had shaken off its most negative connotations. It’ll be interesting to see if Tom Watson makes reference to it in his big speech tomorrow. [...]
…but somebody needs to be prepared to pay attention to the detail.
Tom, from a disability perspective I think 2.0 should be about personalising access to services. I think its about allowing disabled people to feel as if they are in the driving seat, not government. The independent living movement has slowly been consumed by Government (at least locally) to the point that cost is everything.
From a wider perspective, the simplest things have been most effective. Filing carers tax returns on-line (even though HMRC still send me paper forms every year!), and applying for tax discs without having to visit a post office (sorry).
Sorry its late.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/11/transformation_minister_mashups/comments/
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