Tuesday, 20 May, 2025

😮‍💨 Coming up for air

It’s been nearly 6 months since I last posted here, and I have been really quiet on the likes of LinkedIn and Bluesky too. If I am honest doesn’t feel like months, this year has just raced past.

What’s been keeping me busy is a whole range of things, the big one being we moved house (again! but hopefully for the last time) on Christmas Eve – not recommended – and have been having a whole load of work done to make the place work for us. This is the first time I have really owned a house, and it’s been a real learning curve.

While all that was going on I’ve also had ups and downs with my health – as I get older my type 1 diabetes demands more and more of my time and changes to my lifestyle. I’ve been going to lots of appointments, at GPs and hospitals, having injections in my eyes and all sorts of things. It’s all positive, and I am feeling the benefits – but again, it’s just taken up a lot of my thinking time. More recently I have had some awful trouble with my teeth, which took me out of action for a few weeks.

Finally work has been intense this year so far. It’s been brilliant, but knackering. I’ve done loads of strategy work for various councils, as well as looking into areas such as skills, leadership, and more. It’s been incredibly fulfilling, if occasionally stressful at times. I also got to contribute to reports like Future Governance Forum’s ‘Local government for the digital era‘ and the LGA’s research into the implications of local government reorganisation on digital teams.

I’ve also been lucky to be working with the Local Digital team at MHCLG, helping form strategy and approaches to improving the consistency of digital in councils across the country. This is continuing through the year, which is great, and offers opportunities to help research the potential of things like One Login for the sector, amongst other things.

Anyway, the work on the house is coming to a conclusion, I’m feeling better in myself, and work is a bit less intense. So I’m emerging from my cave, reopening my feed reader, and re-engaging with the online world again.

#😮‍💨 Coming up for air

Thursday, 16 January, 2025

🖥️ Join the Change Makers – every month, online!

My good friend Carl Haggerty and I are really pleased to be kicking off a new monthly thing – The Change Makers.

The first one is on Tuesday, 28th January 2025 at 11am and you can sign up for it now. We’ll be having a fairly open conversation about the broad topic of organisational change and our experiences of it.

Carl has recently started his own business – Relationships for Change – and I have been busy in the last few months rebranding what I do workwise, from SensibleTech to Localise. So it seems a good opportunity to bring our respective perspectives on change in local public services together.

We will be taking a change related topic every month, having a chat between ourselves and inviting all those who join us to offer their perspectives as well. We will flag up on our blogs what subjects we will be tackling each month, but it will always be something relating to change, and how the people and the digital elements can sometimes conflict, but can also combine well to create lasting, positive change.

We weren’t sure whether to do a podcast or a live online call, so we’ve decided to do both at the same time – a monthly online call that anyone can join and contribute to, that we record and publish afterwards.

If you would like to take part in the sessions, they are run on Zoom on the last Tuesday of every month at 11am for an hour. You can sign up for all the sessions on TicketTailor – slightly annoyingly, you have to do each one individually – but we promise it will be worth it!

To enable us to share useful things with those that join in or catch up with our discussions, we have also created a space on GovGroups which anyone can join. Just visit GovGroups, create your account, and then visit our Change Makers groupand join it!

We both look forward to seeing you there, and to grow our community of change makers in local public services!

#🖥️ Join the Change Makers – every month, online!

Wednesday, 18 December, 2024

📅 Daily Note: December 18, 2024

Ed Zitron:

The people running the majority of internet services have used a combination of monopolies and a cartel-like commitment to growth-at-all-costs thinking to make war with the user, turning the customer into something between a lab rat and an unpaid intern, with the goal to juice as much value from the interaction as possible. To be clear, tech has always had an avaricious streak, and it would be naive to suggest otherwise, but this moment feels different. I’m stunned by the extremes tech companies are going to extract value from customers, but also by the insidious way they’ve gradually degraded their products.

# – micropost 22871

The English Devolution White Paper.

That is why I am wasting no time in finally giving local leaders and communities the tools they need to deliver growth for their area and raise living standards in every part of the country.

Need to read it through properly.

# – micropost 22873

Denise Wilton writes One for all and all for none:

You can look for available GP appointments using the NHS app. Pretty cool. Unless your local surgery has opted to use a different system. If that’s the case, you need to make sure you don’t click the ‘Check for available GP appointments’ button in the app because it will just say ‘No appointments available’. And when you phone the surgery, you’ll get a recorded message which says to use the app. So you’ll try again of course and get the same result: No appointments available. Perhaps you’ll feel bad for being a burden – because it’s flu season and the surgery must be flat out. Perhaps you’ll wait another day and when you try again you’ll find there are still no appointments available.

# – micropost 22874

Rachel Coldicutt, Words Matter:

Digital technologies require a strange combination of seemingly unconnected things, including (but not limited to) big material things like data centres, small things like phones and computers, even smaller things like chips and processors, and a bunch of invisible processes and protocols that conjure tools and services and apps and web pages and all the rest into being. What we see at the end tends to look quite neat and tidy, but many decisions and things are hidden behind those icons and dashboards and shiny cases, so they need great big stories to talk them up and make them feel exciting.

# – micropost 22875

#📅 Daily Note: December 18, 2024

Friday, 13 December, 2024

Thursday, 12 December, 2024

📅 Daily Note: December 12, 2024

It looks like – thanks to some heavy debugging and re-developing from Steph – the new way of creating the Daily Notes is working! I’ll write up the thinking about it and how it works shortly.

# – micropost 22785

# – micropost 22796

One issue with my new blogging workflow is its dependence on a WordPress custom post type – and my editor of choice, MarsEdit, doesn’t currently talk to such things.

So, am testing a bit of code to get around this. In effect, I send a ‘normal’ post to WordPress from MarsEdit, only as a draft, and in a particular category.

When WordPress receives this, it spots it, copies the content and tags to a new micropost in the custom post type.

Currently the original post is left in drafts for me to delete manually, but I’ll probably automate that once I’m confident it’s working ok.

So, a bit janky and duplicative, but it ought to work ok. Will see if there’s any unforeseen repercussions on performance or anything like that. Code is on Github, if you’d like to make use of it.

# – micropost 22812

Jeremy’s 5 reflections on his year at Homes England are interesting, wise, and definitely worth thinking over.

# – micropost 22839

#📅 Daily Note: December 12, 2024

Wednesday, 11 December, 2024

📅 Daily Note: December 11, 2024

Digitisation, politicisation and the civil service by Martha Lane Fox:

Today’s reality is clear: digital skills are no longer optional extras. Data analysis, digital service design, agile project management, let alone the nuance needed in understanding new AI tools, have become as essential to governance as policy writing and stakeholder management. This shift creates real tensions within our supposedly neutral institutions.

# –

AI product management in high stakes domains – Alan Wright shares a bunch of approaches that have worked well for him.

# –

Our positions on generative AI – Steve Messer details a sensible set of stances on the ethical and effective use of LLMs and so forth.

AI is more of a concept, but generative AI as a general purpose technology has come to the fore due to recent developments in cloud-based computation and machine learning. Plus, technology is more widespread and available to more people, so more people are talking about generative AI – compared to something even more ubiquitous like HTML.

# –

Lloyd has written up how he is using Micro.blog and a custom script to deliver a daily summary of his micro-posting to his WordPress blog.

There’s more than one way to skin this cat!

# –

#📅 Daily Note: December 11, 2024

Tuesday, 10 December, 2024

📅 Daily Note: December 10, 2024

Am testing a new way of doing my daily blogging. I’ve created a custom post type in WordPress, called ‘microposts’. This way, each of my ‘paragraphs‘ exist as separate items. For example, here is the permalink for this particular micropost.

I have used ChatGPT to help me produce some code that will assemble them everyday to create the ‘Daily note‘ style roundup. Will have to see how that works – expect some jankiness!

#📅 Daily Note: December 10, 2024

Tuesday, 26 November, 2024

💡 How the Institute of Digital Public Services could get started

A lot of people seemed to like the idea of the ‘Institute of Digital Public Services’ (IDPS) – admittedly a few didn’t, but not enough to convince me it isn’t an idea worth pursuing!

How on earth to get something like that off the ground though? I must admit I am well outside my comfort zone with things like this. Findings funders, setting up governance arrangements, creating legal entities. Not really my wheelhouse.

So, as is often the case with one of my ideas, I think about how it could be bootstrapped with minimal effort and risk. Of course, that means there’s a higher chance of it not being as effective, but I have to work with what I’ve got, right?

So how about this:

  • The IDPS is a website. People join, which means they are added to an email list
  • Every other month, a clever digital government type is asked to pen an article that sets out a big idea, and it gets published via the site and the email list, and all the social get a ping. Comments on the article provide a space for discussion
  • A few weeks later, an online session is run where the author gets to explain their idea, an expert panel quizzes them, and a Q&A happens with the attendees
  • Rinse and repeat every couple of months
  • Maybe – maybe – an annual in person get together where the speakers discuss their ideas in person and everyone gets to meet each other, which might be nice

So, cost = low, risk = low, impact = probably also low. But it would be a start and maybe enough to get serious people interested in doing it properly.

Thoughts?

#💡 How the Institute of Digital Public Services could get started

Monday, 25 November, 2024

📅 Daily note for 22 November 2024

Whoops, forgot to hit publish on Friday. #

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. #

Ben Holliday: Analogue because of digital⬈:

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.

#

Alan Wright’s favourite tools for analysing user and product data⬈ #

#📅 Daily note for 22 November 2024

Thursday, 21 November, 2024

💡 I think we need an “Institute for Digital Public Services”.

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.

#💡 I think we need an “Institute for Digital Public Services”.

Monday, 11 November, 2024

📅 Daily note for 11 November 2024

My ongoing search for the perfect ‘everything bucket’ has led me to UpNote⬈. It looks good, but expect me to never mention it again. #

Against the standardisation of product management⬈ by Roger Swannell. Am stealing this:

standardise where interoperability is required, otherwise optimise for innovation

#

From ideals to realities: navigating complexities in adult social care⬈ from dxw.

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.

#

GOV.UK Forms in motion⬈:

#

#📅 Daily note for 11 November 2024

Friday, 8 November, 2024

📅 Weak note for 8 November 2024

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. #

An extremely useful looking AI risk assessment⬈ shared by the Wildlife Trust. #

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. #

Speaking of online events, Nick has one coming up later this month on the role of process management in cultural change⬈, featuring some fab council speakers. #

#📅 Weak note for 8 November 2024

Wednesday, 30 October, 2024

📅 Daily note for 30 October 2024

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. #

Richard Pope (again!) on services that work harder⬈. #

Dave Rogers: Toxic Technology⬈. Not come across this before (how!?) but Sarah Drummond⬈ linked to it so thanks to her 🙂 #

Paul Maltby: Why public sector procurement needs a serious rethink to deliver on the promise of AI and tech⬈. #

Sharon Dale⬈ shared TidyCal⬈ on LinkedIn – basically Calendly⬈ but more flexible and a lot cheaper. I have set mine up here⬈. #

#📅 Daily note for 30 October 2024

Monday, 28 October, 2024

Friday, 25 October, 2024

📅 Daily note for 24 October 2024

Patient records and the NHS App⬈ – or why this stuff is really, really hard. #

Southwark Council⬈ have made some interesting design decisions on their new LocalGovDrupal website.

A week note from Catherine Howe⬈ should always be celebrated. #

A gobbet from a piece I’m drafting for a project:

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.

#

4 ideas for the digital centre of government⬈ from dxw. #

The role of Transactive Memory Systems in great teams⬈ by Emily Webber.

Daniel Wegner introduced the term ” transactive memory System” in 1985 as a counter to more negative perceptions of group behaviours.

Transactive memory is like an index of where to find things rather than knowing them yourself.

#

#📅 Daily note for 24 October 2024

Thursday, 17 October, 2024

Friday, 4 October, 2024

📅 Daily note for 4 October 2024

Jukesie shares his ideas⬈ for the new Digital Centre Design Panel⬈. They are very sensible. #

Steve⬈ has shared a really good looking intro to product management course⬈ – it’s online and free. #

How government defines a service⬈ (via Neilly⬈)

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.

#

I love Giles’ list of internet inspirations⬈. #

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 note for 4 October 2024

Wednesday, 2 October, 2024

📅 Daily note for 2 October 2024

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. #

Phil wrote up⬈ his LocalGovCamp experience. #

As did Carl⬈. I’ve missed Carl. #

Lloyd has been making some fun vlogs recently.⬈ #

Jerry Fishenden: “Forms? Where we’re going, we don’t need forms!”⬈ #

#📅 Daily note for 2 October 2024

Wednesday, 18 September, 2024

📅 Daily note for 18 September 2024

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. #

“3 non-tech principles for decommissioning legacy systems⬈”:

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 isn’t what I used to think it is⬈”:

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.

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#📅 Daily note for 18 September 2024