Another kerr-azy week of having too much to do and too little time and energy to do it. #
A short post I put up on LinkedIn (and published here and on Localise⬈ as an archive) blew up in a modest way. It even attracted a comment on a blog post! Good heavens. Does feel like there is a gap here to be filled by something. #
Atika has started her CDO type role at Luton Council and she’s published the first blog post⬈ on the Council’s brand new blog in her first week! An inspiration to us all – this is how you impact on culture early. #
My concern is that the default solution to this type of reform will be more technology. However, we still have a greater need for more joined up systems that make better use of existing technology. This includes recognising that not all legacy technology is bad. Dare I say, even some of the pagers and the fax machines.
Where’s the centre of gravity for conversations about how we can and should be leveraging the digital revolution for the benefit of society through our public services? I think about the flurry of activity when James Plunkett kicked off a debate a few months ago⬈ about ‘local GDS’ or the more recent excitement caused by the publication of Richard Pope’s <a href=“https://anatomyofpublicservices.com/”>Platformland⬈. Going back a few years, Mark Thompson has tried to get conversations going with a number of different analogies, whether Lego⬈, Heart FM, or Tesco⬈.
But these discussions are never sustained, and they never seem to make it past conversations and into ‘test and learn’ (to quote Philippa Newis⬈!) to identify which of these ideas might work better than others.
It feels like an institutional gap that an ‘Institute for Digital Public Services’ would fill. A home for the discussions. A place for convening and curating of ideas and practice. A way to consider the full breadth of public service, from central government to local government, with health and blue light services and everything else in-between.
Most importantly a place where the concepts and the theories can be prototyped, experimented with, and new things learned, with practice being developed and adopted along the way – turning ideas into reality.
Due to our short timescale, it was clear that following the perfect co-design methodology wasn’t practical. However, we didn’t want to abandon the concept completely and risk the solution not being fit for purpose. This meant we had to rethink and focus on what we could do in the time available.
I have not been feeling great for a few weeks now – generally run down I think although occasional bouts of toothache aren’t helping. This week has been particularly bad – like wading through treacle whilst being quite grumpy. I apologise to everyone who has come into contact with me 😬 Due to this, I’ve not managed to get a post out this week yet, so consider this a week note rather than a daily one. #
Having just had a moan, I do feel like I had a couple of breakthroughs in some of the more strategic, sector-wide work I am doing at the moment. Broadly speaking:
Councils have too much to do
Digital and tech is very much in the space where workloads could be shared without undermining the local magic that councils provide
However, sharing all but the most commoditised of technology will require harmonisation and standardisation of process, and service design
New models need to be found to incentivise the right behaviour – i.e. adopting standardised processes and technology.
These could be led by councils themselves, sector bodies, central government, maybe even private sector suppliers. Indeed a mix of models is probably a good thing.
Not ground breaking particularly perhaps, but it’s nice to have a rather complicated thing summed up in a handful of bullet points. Need to write this up into a proper blog post. #
Speaking of that kind of thing, this report focusing on universities⬈ is basically exactly what I am taking about for the local government sector. We’ve never really had a nice, professional articulation of these ideas in this format, I don’t think. Anyway, lots to learn/steal here. #
Online collaboration remains a sticky problem in a lot of ways. MS Teams has become the default option in almost all use cases, but it’s a massive pain to configure a lot of the time. People end up resorting to email, still! I’m playing with a little bit of tech to fill that gap between email and Teams, when a quick – almost disposable – online group is needed. If you have a use case, drop me a line and I’ll show you around. (This isn’t a money making thing, more a localgov.blog style scratching an itch thing) #
This is great⬈, I like the idea of slightly asynchronous online events. #
Am thinking again about the structure of my blogging here. I’d much rather than the individual paragraphs in these daily notes existed as posts in their own right, as well as being collected together for the whole day. That way I could publish each item as soon as I type them in, rather than waiting til the end of the day. Main inspiration here is Dave Winer⬈, while Coté⬈ does it but keeping the posts separated rather than presented as daily collections. #
Gavin Beckett is moving on from Placecube to Public Digital, which is nice for him, but for us means he has written a thought provoking set of reflections⬈. #
Consolidation, harmonisation, standardisation… call it what you will. The opportunities however are boundless, but to take them we have to all agree on the central premise: councils have too much to do, and everyone will be better off if they can focus on what really matters to local people.
When we talk about a service, we mean all the things that government collectively provides to deliver an outcome for all of its users, through any path a user takes to reach their goal.
Nice roundup post of interesting thoughts and links⬈ from my favourite anonymous local government blogger. I do like this freewheeling style, a link here, a thought there. Feels natural and authentic, and is the kind of thing I have been aiming for in this notes of mine, too. #
Daily noting is rare at the moment, largely down to being busy, about which I should not complain! Lots of very interesting work, working with new people – which in itself is quite tiring. #
LocalGovCamp last week felt different – more positive, ambitious, optimistic than it has been for a while. In one session Theo⬈ mentioned that with the new government it feels like we have a window now to make some serious change happen in the sector. The last thing we want to be doing at LocalGovCamp ’25 is mulling on what could have been. He’s right. #
I am pretty certain the answer to this problem (how can digital stuff help councils make things better for local people while not going bust?) is based on changing the focus on what constitutes the local bit of local public services. Much of what happens behind the scenes has no positive impact on people’s lives. Let’s find ways to share the burden of those things, and let councils focus on where their local context, and democratic accountability, really makes a difference. #
Am looking into intranets at the moment for a customer. If you have any good stuff to share, please do let me know! Have already heard from Essex County Council and of course Eleanor’s wonderful post⬈ on the topic too. #
Also I’m really interested in stories from local government folk about their experiences trying to implement GOV.UK components like Notify, Pay and so on. Am keen to learn more about what sorts of things are more likely to work than others… #
Kate Tarling has a free email based course called “From silos to services⬈“. Sounds like something you’d be mad not to take advantage of. #
Decommissioning and replacing a legacy system is notoriously challenging. You need some serious technical credentials to navigate a complex legacy landscape and create a new solution that is both flexible and future-proof. All while maintaining business as usual for the people that use them.
But technical prowess is not the whole story. Replacing an existing platform is only as successful as the people who will be operating the new solution. And that’s often forgotten.
Blame culture exists when people feel like they have to explain their actions, and always their failings, as caused by something outside of themselves. This thing happened because that person didn’t do something, they say. Or some other thing didn’t happen because that’s just how it is around here. None of this was caused by my actions, they suggest. That is a culture of blame.
The opposite of a culture of blame isn’t a culture of accepting mistakes, it’s a culture of accepting responsibility. You can see the absence of a culture of blame in the sense of agency people have. When people show initiative and take risks, when they approach problems with ways they can contribute to solving them, when they take control of things within their influence, that’s when there is no culture of blame.
Have ordered a copy of Platformland⬈, Richard Pope’s book on government digital services. Am looking forward to reading it and nodding. Lots of people have their copies already and seem to be enjoying it. #
Work on the rebrand⬈ is progressing – there’s not a lot holding me back now really, except nerves. Which is daft! Who cares, after all? Only me really. #
I use a Blue Yeti⬈ microphone at my desk, and it really does have a positive impact on audio quality, which is great. But it also takes up a lot of space, so I have ordered a microphone arm⬈ to see if that helps declutter things a bit. #
Needed another browser (I like having different accounts in completely different browsers, rather than multiple windows of the same browser. I get easily confused!) So I went for the DuckDuckGo⬈ browser. It’s really good – nice and fast, and all the privacy stuff is good although I’m not overly worried about that stuff. Definitely recommended. #
Well, we have moved. It wasn’t an entirely joyful process, but we got everything shifted on the Friday 6th and by teatime Saturday most things were in their rightful places. It’s a bit galling because this is very much a temporary, interim, move, until the house we really want to live in becomes available. So, we can’t get too comfy. #
We were without broadband until last Friday (13th), and there’s no 4g signal on my phone in the house. The only network with any coverage at all round here is 3, so I bought a SIM on moving day, whacked it into a venerable mifi type unit and we tried to all to work from that for a week. It was slow going, and the application that didn’t cope at all was MS Teams, interestingly. #
I went to find somewhere with wifi to work one afternoon. Managed to find myself in the one Costa in the world with worse wifi than the house did at that time. #
We’ve moved to West Winch, a small village in Norfolk, just to the south of King’s Lynn. Funnily enough, King’s Lynn is where I started my local government career⬈, as a housing benefits assessor back in 2003. The online process to sign up for council tax worked a treat, so well done, Borough Council of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk! #
The other weird thing is that, like Lloyd’s⬈, this blog is 20 years old this year. And when I started it, I was living in… King’s Lynn. The circle closes. #
We are moving house again this week. Lucky enough to have removals folk helping us, they are here packing boxes today, then the big shift happens next week. No broadband til the 13th, so that will be interesting! I hate moving, it’s the kind of disruption and change that I find incredibly unsettling. #
I love the idea of Emily’s planning game⬈. Reminds me of the good old days of the digital engagement game (dead links ahoy in that post, btw). After last week’s workshopping, I fancy doing something new along those lines for the work I am focusing on at the moment. #
Working in the open in the public sector could really do with a renewed, optimistic case for it. By working in the open, I mean teams thinking out loud, announcing product changes they’re trialling, sharing good practice, stuff like that.
Why isn’t there a cookie-cutter website for local councils in the UK?…Imagine if we had a common system, similar to central government’s approach, with shared components and a unified content management system. Councils could save time and money, focusing on improving services rather than reinventing the wheel.
I couldn’t help but dive in, naturally…
I think the days of individual council websites are probably numbered – it isn’t justifiable for 300 organisations to be recreating – mostly quite poorly – the same website over and over again when they are cutting funding on social care and housing, etc. It’d be lovely if there was the money for each and every council to have their own, high quality website, but sadly that isn’t the reality and the sooner decision makers get their heads around that the better.
Do I think all local authority websites ought to be folded into GOV.UK? Probably not. There is a place for some sense of local identity I think for council run services.
But I do think that having 300-odd organisations spending public money building, designing and writing content for websites over and over again is not the best way to be doing things. LocalGovDrupal is a start when it comes to sharing software, but there are still too many costs involved in running it if you don’t have a well stocked tech team. We need a turnkey solution that any council of any size can just start using.
Content needs a focus – so much of the words on council websites are basically the same. Write it once, write it well, and let – or make councils reuse it.
Then move onto online services – establish patterns, build them out in a handful of common platforms, and then make councils use them. If it means standardising some process, so be it, was long as local policy can be reflected in configuration.
There’s a bunch of middle ways between the current fragmented, duplicative, and poor quality mess we are currently in, and a fully centralised single website for all local councils, and in that middle ground the answer will be. Maybe it’s regional working, maybe it’s allowing councils choice between several competing platforms, based on clear and open standards for service patterns, content, and layout etc. #
Another great video from Mark Thompson on how public services can benefit from radical reform in the way they use technology:
August was not the chilled out month I was hoping for! Took a week off for staycationing but otherwise was nose to the grindstone on really exciting work, but work nonetheless. Hoping to be able to poke my head up above the parapet more over the next few weeks! #
One of the things I have been working on is a rebrand of my consultancy business, SensibleTech. I’ve never been hugely keen on the name, and the current website is basically an embarrassment!
So, am rebranding it to Localise, emphasising my almost-total devotion to local public services, and with an awful lot of help from Steph⬈, I’ve been wrangling with WordPress to give a better account of what I actually do these days – embedding stuff like the digital quality model and my strategy framework into something vaguely coherent. Launching soon, but here’s a sneaky peak:
Of course, I know that most people don’t care one jot about this – for the meantime Localise will remain very much Dave Briggs Incorporated – but I think this new brand gives me more of a chance to grow the business, should I choose to in the future. #
Working with a client last week, I ran a new exercise in a face to face workshop which I called Empathy and Efficiency.
It combines producing an empathy map⬈ for a person using a service with an ‘efficiency map’ which looks at things from the council’s perspective. Once both are complete, you are able to compare them and spot areas of alignment, and – perhaps more importantly – where the clashes are.
It is obviously incredibly important to consider user needs, and design around them. But it’s also vital that the organisation’s needs are also met – whether statutory, financial, or political. Otherwise, what’s the point?
I think it worked well, and at some point I’ll tweak it and share some templates, etc. #
I am constantly struck by how often we in local government are forced to buy poor technology. For all the brilliant digital work done over the last decade we as a sector seem remarkably content to put up with badly designed stuff that is built on legacy architecture which is badly translated to the cloud.
It’s simplistic (though tempting!) to blame client side skills gaps for our purchasing decisions and I think thats part of it. I think it’s also down to us not creating an internal appetite for better technology – once you give people an awareness that something better is possible then they will be more demanding.
It’s an important point, brilliantly made, and one I have been wrestling with over the summer a great deal. #
What do you believe about how the world works? Do you believe it works like a machine, that a cause always leads to an effect and that makes the world predictable? Or do believe it works in random ways, where sometimes a cause doesn’t have the expected effect and sometimes effects appear from unknown causes, that the way the world works is unpredictable and emergent.
These two opposite ways of seeing the world are often so deeply rooted that we don’t recognise them, but they matter. They matter when we run organisations the way we see the world. And they matter when we try to apply tools and techniques in our organisations. Our tools and techniques fit with one or the worldview, and they aren’t interchangeable.
Been trying to think of nice stories to tell about the potential for the use of data to really fundamentally change local public service delivery. The best examples I can think of tend to be in the prevention / early intervention space.
The one I am using A LOT at the moment is:
“Imagine you could identify certain wards in the borough where, if a household misses two council tax payments in a row, you know to send the Citizens’ Advice folk round to help them, because otherwise there’s a 50% chance that household will be homeless and needing emergency accommodation at the council’s expense”
It’s not perfect but quite good at getting the general idea across, I think. #
Last week I attended a jointly run LocalGovDigital and LGA session about the service standard and its uptake in local government. Perhaps not surprisingly, uptake has been low so far. Phil wrote about the session on his blog⬈.
Mark Thompson was there and he talked through his ideas, many of which I think are excellent. His focus on standardising back offices to help fund better local services on the frontline led to me making this point in the chat:
We’ve veered a little way from the service standard onto how standardised services and technology might help local gov with some of its problems – which is good, because solving those problems is what needs to happen.
But to wheel back to the starting point, could a local gov service standard be focused on helping to harmonise service design across the sector, so that it can be in a better place to adopt Mark’s thinking in the future, around shared back office capabilities?
In other words, as part of a service assessment: “Oh, you appear to have not followed sector good practice and decided to do your own thing entirely that means you aren’t going to be able to be a part of a more efficient future when we share stuff. What made you think that was a good idea, and how are you going to convince your rate payers that it is in their best interests?”
This week we ran a virtual roundtable for the Town Hall 2030⬈ project, with a bunch of awesome folk across local government digital, one of whom has already written up their perspectives⬈! 😍 #
This report is in response to heads of IT highlighting challenges in recruiting, developing and retaining staff across all IT disciplines, and increasing pressures facing IT teams. All heads of IT (or equivalent position) in all English councils were asked to complete an online survey between October 2023 and January 2024.
Within software and hardware engineering, product management, user centred design and a myriad of other professional practices, there are known ways to make technology more resilient and reliable. What’s missing is the rigour provided by matching enduring teams to enduring technology, to ensure these skills can be applied continuously.
Time and again, National Audit Office reports contain universally similar themes. Over-optimistic delivery plans mean budgets get burnt, deadlines are missed, governance is ineffective.
Terrific series of 4 posts⬈ by Ben Welby on building a data driven public sector.
David McCandless, of Information is Beautiful, suggested that instead of thinking about data like oil, we should rather think of it like soil. Data is a fertile environment from which good things might happen.
I work in tech. I think a lot of cool stuff is being built and a lot of good work is being done. But tech is a mature industry, and most of what is interesting these days has to do with bringing the things we learned from 2000-2015 about how to use software into places that have not yet modernized. We’re at the tail end of what’s interesting and good and novel. Software technology has very little left to change in a major way. And the entire ethos of a16z and the like has utterly failed to produce breakthroughs in computer hardware, biological sciences, energy, environment or any other major sector. The last decade of innovation has been entirely about reducing friction in commerce. That’s it. And it’s not that profitable and will end up with a very small number of winners.
Ever since the decline of Evernote as an ‘everything bucket’ I’ve lacked a decent option for a place to just save stuff – links, PDFs, anything I might want to come back to later. Have tried all the options and not liked any of them! Even venerable native Mac apps like Yojimbo and DevonThink have left me cold.
However Tom Steel’s post⬈ has made me take another look at Notion again, and it isn’t too bad. It has a browser extension for Chrome and Safari, and that saves a whole copy of the content of the page, as well as a link to the original, which is nice. Will see how it goes. #
Local Stuff for Local (Gov) People⬈ really is my favourite blog at the moment. If you’re someone who is thinking about starting to blog but struggling to make the leap, this is such a good example of a new blogger just going for it – a real inspiration! #
I think my view on this is that there needs to be a standard used in local government, but the current one is not nearly flexible enough to cope with the constraints councils operate within. #
In the UK, GDS benefitted from Francis Maude as the Minister for Cabinet Office (MCO) with his leadership backing the wave of transformation through to 2015. Under his watch many of the things that established the culture for digital transformation bedded in. And then in 2015 there started a sequence of 12 MCOs in 9 years. Not many of them showed the same aptitude for leading digital transformation as Maude.
Along the way the clarity of responsibility for digital started to fray. Digital inclusion, some aspects of data, some parts of Artificial Intelligence, and some parts of digital identity moving over to what is now DSIT.
“About ideas⬈” from ‘a council computer person’ shared some good ways to be more creative at work. Also, the posts links to a thing called Mermaid⬈ for drawing diagrams and flow charts, which looks dead useful and interesting. #
Change is never easy; we learned that before. But we also know that effective delivery – and the million silent nods of approval that decent public services can earn – doesn’t happen without the right organisation and the right leadership. Political leadership is an essential part of that.
Ministers decide. The best can unblock delivery too. We hope these ministers will.
