Have sent out my first newsletter on Email Octopus. It’s a nice system to use.
digital
š Daily Note: September 3, 2025
Brentās Innovation Journey: Building a āBaseā for Local Government Innovation by Ryan Hamilton on the LOTI blog:
At Brent, weāve been trying to rethink how we tackle problems in a way that makes āinnovationā not just a buzzword, but a practical, everyday reality in local government.
That journey led us to something exciting: We will soon be launching āThe Baseā , a dedicated space at the Civic Centre (both physical and cultural) where bold ideas, agile working and collaborative experimentation come to life.
What makes a good outcome? by Jamie Arnold:
In the world of digital and organisational change, being able to define and communicate a strong outcome is a leadership superpower. Whether youāre working on a product, service, or internal shift, a well-crafted outcome sets direction, aligns teams, and builds momentum. Hereās how to make your outcomes truly effective.
New book to improve accessibility of Welsh digital public services ā from the Centre for Digital Public Services.
The Wildlife Trustās work-in-progress digital transformation maturity scale. Really good stuff and fabulous sharing by Alice Kershaw on LinkedIn.
I like the idea of ādigital everywhereā ā amongst a whole range of brilliant ideas and reflections from Catherine Howe:
Digital everywhere: The embedding of digital practitioners within services alongside a digital skills development program is something I feel weāve tested in a limited way but clearly it works when done right and Iām really looking forward to having the capacity to develop this approach. This requires a really strong approach to making sure those digital roles are properly designed and also wired into the core digital team as well as clear guide rails that need to be context sensitive.
Product strategy, prioritisation frameworks and responding to change by Alan Wright:
Product teams often face more opportunities than they can act on, with new ones arising all the time. This post explores the link between strategy and priorities, when prioritisation frameworks help or hinder, and how to empower teams to make smart, timely decisions as new opportunities emerge.
From Strategy to Strolls: A Few Weeks of Progress and Pauses, by Atika:
One of the standout achievements in the last few weeks was securing approval for our new strategic framework and governance model. This marks a significant step forward in aligning our digital ambitions with the Councilās broader priorities. The framework, shaped through collaboration and challenge, is now the backbone of how weāll deliver impactāanchored in transparency, agility, and accountability. Weāre also making good progress on the TOM work to make sure we have the culture and capability to deliver this.
The courage to digitally transform with the Digital Layer and AI ā interesting talk from Mark Thompson.
š Daily Note: August 7, 2025
AI in Adult Social Care – guidance for adult care providers on the use of AI.
Giles shares “examples and links about working in the open and agile communication”.
Service mapping: building transparency, trust and transformation together on the Public Digital blog.
Service maps arenāt just tools – theyāre catalysts for transformation. They clarify complexity, foster collaboration and enable informed decision-making. They help organisations navigate the challenges of transforming and continuously improving their services. We worked with Defraās Farming and Countryside Programme (FCP) to develop a service map and a set of service outcomes.
Blood, Sweat and Roadmaps by Maarten Dalmijn:
Your roadmap is like an indicator species that reveals all the organizational dysfunctions in your organization. The roadmap is where business and tech meet, where your vision and strategy collide with your execution and teams. The roadmap is where departments and business units compete with your teams and other organizational priorities.
Steve Messer: Donāt just keep the lights on, shine bright:
Platform products, built by government for public sector organisations, are intended to be better, cheaper and preferable to competitors. If an arms-length body or small government organisation has to choose between a private-sector platform or a platform built by government, both of those platforms are in a market. The arms-length body will choose which platform to use based on the features offered, the price, the complexity of integration, design, accessibility, and loads of other factors.
Alan Wright – Jobs to be Done surveys:
As a product manager, one of my favourite ways to prioritise problems to solve for users is to understand their Jobs to be Done (JTBD). The best way to get this data is by having conversations with many users, but this is not always something users have time for. Surveys are a great complimentary method to gather this data quantitatively and quickly. In this post, I share the thinking behind the Jobs to be Done survey I have been running with users in my current role.
š Daily Note: July 11, 2025
Digital and mission-driven government: digital, burdens and networks – Richard Pope’s first essay of three looking at how his Platformland thinking “can provide a unifying role in the successful delivery of the governmentās missions”.
In the digital age the answer is more subtle: using technology and digital-age design to systematically eliminate āadministrative burdensā, one by one.
How is it that I keep seeing these posts where people have made all these cool things with image generation AI, and I only ever get absolutely terrible results?!
Is it worth bothering with LinkedIn articles any more? Seems easier and more engaging to just whack even longer form content into posts, as long as it fits into the character limit (3,000 or 500 words or so).
James Plunkett: How to save bureaucracy from itself
Iām struck by how common it is these days to hear people working in government say some version of ābureaucracy is brokenā, ranging from senior civil servants to political appointees.
These are thoughtful people, so their point isnāt that everything in government is broken. Theyāre just saying that the problem runs deep ā that itās not enough to try harder, or to run things better, because at least part of the problem relates to the logic by which bureaucracy functions.
If thatās right, what do we do about it? A principle I find helpful is the idea from systems theory that when a system fails we need to work at the level of the problem.
Tom Loosemore: behind the scenes of the Universal Credit Reset – really interesting podcast episode.
š Balancing ambition and caution in LGR
Chatting with Clare this morning about all things digital and local government reorganisation, I came to the conclusion that it really is all a balancing act. The risks of things going wrong are huge, and the importance of being ‘safe and legal’ is vital… but at the same time this is a generational opportunity for positive change and genuine transformation that must not be wasted.
So I think the answer for leaders going into this is: be ambitious, but be aware of the minefield you are working in. Be realistic about what can be achieved in what timescale, but absolutely make sure that at the right points in your roadmap (which ought to span a decade, if we are being honest) radical reform is on the agenda.
A couple of ideas on what that looks like. One of those inflection points is right at the beginning, when the business case is being put together and the design of the new organisation is being thought about. This is a moment for radicalism, for the new council to be infused with digital-age principles: responsive, user-centred, flexible, a positive actor within a wider system, preventative, relational, etc.
Do not, whatever you do, factor in any short term savings around digital and IT – it ain’t happening.
But when planning for day 1, I’d be cautious. Get everyone on the same Microsoft tenancy so you can at least all talk to each other. Having a single finance system will make managing budgets a hell of a lot easier. Make sure the basics of security are in the right place. A single website front end would be nice. I think that’s enough to be getting on with. Extend all the contracts that all the original councils had with existing suppliers – they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Beyond day 1, we can start being radical again. Set out a realistic roadmap for the next 5 years or so, identifying the major service areas for redesign. This cannot, must not, just involve aggregating everyone onto a single system, but is the opportunity for ground up, blank sheet of paper style transformation, with the right technology a key part of making it happen. Don’t take on too much – even with a big team, these could take multiple years to complete.
From that point, iteratively keep circling around, don’t take on too much, manage expectations that real transformation is hard work, takes time, but is worth it. Each service area will be reached, at the right point in time, and until then, services must do the best they can with what they have – it’s worked oki-ish for the last 20 years, it can keep going another 5. Best not to rush, take the time and do it properly.
As I said at the beginning, keep in mind: we have to be ambitious, but those landmines are everywhere. Think about where you are treading, don’t be hasty. This is an amazing opportunity, so let’s not cock it up.
This was originally posted on LinkedIn, saved here for posterity.