forms – Dave Briggs

📅 Daily Note: November 7, 2025

November 7, 2025

Ash Mann – The discipline of focus, what makes a digital strategy work:

Good digital strategies aren’t long documents or laundry lists. They’re about ruthless focus – choosing a clear direction and sticking to it, even if that means letting go of attractive ideas.

(via Neilly)

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Digital identity and the UK government’s announceability problem, by Richard Pope:

In the search for announcibility, tying it to the issue of immigration, and allowing the language of a singular ‘ID card’ to permeate, the government appeared to abandon the radical incrementalism and replace it with the sort of big bang tech announcement we all hoped were of the past. It also risked creating inertia for those teams in government who are already delivering. The inertia created by competing priorities, combined with a very particular, British, passive approach to calling out those contradictions, is toxic to delivery in the UK civil service.

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I newslettered.

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Lloyd nicely links to my newsletter but also points out the hideous URLs it produces for the web version. He’s right, but I am not sure what to do about it.

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I’ve always been leery of the Jetpack plugin – for some reason I can’t remember – but this article has made me consider reconsidering.

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Essex County Council has some excellent guidance around creating forms.

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📅 Daily note for 2 October 2024

October 2, 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!”⬈ #

Week note for 12 January 2024

January 12, 2024

A slow start to the year, blogging wise, been getting other stuff up straight. So here’s a bunch of things I’ve spotted during the last few days or so…

The delightful people at Lincoln Council are hiring a Web / Digital Officer. Lovely place to work on exciting local government things!

The Disturbing Impact of the Cyberattack at the British Library. Ouch! If organisations still aren’t currently taking this stuff seriously, here’s another reason to start.

One dimensional pacman. Curiously addictive. (I see Neil also linked to this!)

I have had to replace my several years old Apple keyboard, and couldn’t justify to myself the nearly £100 cost of the official one, so picked up a Logitech version for a third of the price. It is taking a bit of getting used to and the resultant loss of productivity is alarming.

Let’s make the indie web easier – sensible post (and follow up) from Giles.

“How governments become addicted to suppliers like Fujitsu”

“How we’re making it easier to access government forms online”

“How can we get to a single shareable patient record?”