07 Nov 2004

Month 2: proposed two-prong line of enquiry

I think we should focus for a bit on

- what actually happens when we (or our nearest/dearest) encounter administrative government processes
- what we think it should be like

So Ive drafted a new “about” text on the home page - see on the left.

Do you have any specific current or recent frustrations suitable for this alchemical process? Let me know if you think we’re on a good tack here.

William

 

03 Nov 2004

Openness, transparency and simplicity could start to rebuild trust in government

Whilst I applaud any initiative to improve government, I think that it is important to start from first principles when looking at what is needed and not get too focussed on the technology at the expense of the underlying processes.

There is little point in developing a tool which disseminates government messages, if the public do not believe the information that is presented. Electronic dissemination only works when the reader trusts the publisher - at present such trust has been seriously eroded. To regain it, e-Government has to use the opportunity provided by low-cost electronic collection and dissemination of detailed data to demonstrate a greater degree of openness and transparency, providing the raw data that underpins the government messages so that independent parties can confirm the governments calculations and conclusions.

e-Government also needs to be easy to use. The more complex the underlying processes, the more difficult and costly or even impossible it is to deliver easy to use electronic transaction-oriented services for e-Government - to make these easy to understand and use takes even more time, effort and money. Might it be beneficial to focus on simplifying the processes, using technology to assist with this, and taking e-government fully into account when designing the processes rather than bolting it on as a last-minute extra?

 

02 Nov 2004

Presentation today…

Here are the slides to support what I presented today (sizeable ppt file below - see extended entry). It’s MUCH shorter than what some of us discussed last week, with all vertical specifics (health, education, defence) cut out and used instead as examples to support the three themes

- co-design with users
- build a foundation of trust
- quick win suggestions

The new CIO Ian Watmore is receptive and sharp. Also conscientious about civil service rules and etiquette so the meeting was off record and I can’t post what he said. But there is a considerable amount of thinking along similar lines. I even found the Design Council public services report in the Cabinet Office foyer.

They want feedback on latest changes to DirectGov which I’m sure we’ll be up for. We may get a more specific steer from DirectGov director Gary Ashby. 

 

….and a cheery supporting “Ideal government” leaflet

Man, we’ve been hard at work.

Pse find attached also an eight-page pdf with succinct edited highlights of the blog during October. I’ll try to get a load printed so say if you want one. It’s not very screen-friendly (but then neither are some of the people we want to read it). E&OE, and apologies for anything overly compressed or left out. 

 

Alleviating a Necessary Evil

Put simply, e-government should be used to reduce the inconvenience and cost of dealing with Government. It should not be used to extend the scope of Government or to amass extra data about citizens. Usually, less Government is better Government.

To most people, Government is a “necessary evil:” We pay our taxes; some of us vote; and we all expect decent, efficient, reliable services. We want the minimum of Government intrusion as we get on with our lives. Where practical, we also want free access to government information.

Naturally, many of us go through periods in our lives where we have more contact with Government. Some people have greater needs and so have more contact. Some people need extra help or special facilities. However, most people wish to live their own lives independently and free of Government intrusion.

Unfortunately, some of the early products of e-government reflect Whitehall’s usual tendency to believe that the government always knows best how people should run their lives. They seek to make e-government web sites central to people’s lives. At its worst, e-government is seen as an ideal opportunity to introduce a “command economy” where “subjects” (rather than citizens) are dependent on services and information from the State. Hence the apathy and poor take up of some e-government services.

Internal Systems
In order to make government efficient and cost effective, we expect civil servants to have modern e-government services for internal use. However, people’s privacy must be respected. The government must obtain only the minimum necessary information from people, have robust methods for ensuring its security and accuracy, and permit only closely controlled use of the information.

For example, the medical records of many NHS patients contain serious errors and inappropriate material. While these faulty records exist only on paper, the potential damage to the patient is localized. However, if these same faulty records were simply digitized and made readily available throughout the NHS without correction, there could be great damage to patients. Cleansing the data would be a major but very worthwhile project.

External Systems
Amongst the good examples used by individuals outside government are:

1. Inland Revenue Online Self-Assessment
www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk
Filing the annual Self-Assessment form is a complicated transaction requiring the entry of a host of data, accurately and in time for the annual deadline.

In spite of its flaws, the IR Online Self-Assessment service does reduce the annual pain of completing this form. Some information is copied automatically from previous years. The form is checked. The tax due is calculated automatically. Online payment is possible. The service issues a delivery receipt. The result is transferred electronically to the IR computers without the need for a further stage of data entry.

The online service is now available both for personal taxation and for corporation tax.

However, continual changes to tax laws mean that the self-assessment form and the IR software change each year, resulting in a new format with new problems and bugs each year. The current IR online forms cannot be completed “off-line,” so you have to stay online for several hours. Terms are not explained in “plain English.” Passwords and log-in details are overly complicated. The service has been known to crash!

2. Commonwealth War Graves Commission Web Site
www.cwgc.org
The online “Debt of Honour Register” helps people to trace their relative’s “last resting place.” Often, it gives a description of the relevant military action. Although this information had previously been available in paper documents, its publication on the Internet has made it much more readily accessible to ordinary people throughout the UK.

This service emerged from the previous government’s “open.gov.uk” initiative. The CWGC was one of the first government and quasi-government organisations to make information freely available over the Internet. It is a good example of a relatively simple idea which has brought great benefit to many people.

Conclusions
The “open.gov.uk” and “e-government” initiatives have brought real benefits but have also exposed some real problems and dangers.

Politicians must stop making such frequent changes to taxation, benefits and other services. Otherwise we are unlikely to see attractive, reliable e-government services.

When data is digitized, merged or used for new purposes it must be carefully cleansed, validated and controlled.

E-government should be used to increase efficiency and cost effectiveness rather than to make government more intrusive.

 

We need something fresh and new…

While some remarkable things have been done in many governments, the glitter of e-Government in its current form is fading. Most countries are operating on an e-gov model that they established several years ago.  Something fresh and new is needed. One cannot hold the attention of elected officials for several years.  Issues in government move on over time and the attention of elected officials moves on as well.

Leading countries such as Canada are stepping back and rethinking where they are going with e-Government. The next phase will be called something other than e-Government.  This term is regarded as technology and does not interest most officials in governments.

Some governments are beginning to talk about transformational systems which I have always felt is the end state of e-government.  My sense is that the next phase will be a transition from the information age to the intergovernmental, collaborative phase and that as all sectors of societies form into networks, the new age will be as important as was the transition from the agricultural age to the industrial age.

 

30 Oct 2004

Compressed and edited summary of main points to date

Ive produced an 1800 word compressed edited sampler to print out for Tuesday. It doesn’t go into specifics like health and education (which is where a lot of the action is) and its concetrated around three themes

- designing for user needs
- confidence and trust
- suggestions and implications

See below. It goes with a list of all authors.

Also finalising the presentation - thanks to all who came to Bloomsbury last week and thanks for all suggestions.

 

27 Oct 2004

“Soft power” is worth exploring, and DoD is exploring it…

As well as what we’re seeing on TV news US policy makers have considered aspects of public diplomacy “soft power” for years.

Given that information technology changes the dynamics between government and groups and individuals, DoD is keen to explore how networked forms of organization might possibly have different roles and levels of influence in an emerging noosphere - an intelligent and totally connected world.

This strand of thinking is based on a welcome recognition that “We’ll all be in this together”, as one key player puts it. DoD has looked at Massively Multiplayer Online Games as ways of collaborating. It looks at

- how philanthropic activities such as GRID computing help cure diseases or find antidotes for
toxins like Anthrax; or

- Global giving - an eBay for international development

as ways of acting with those in need directly in this new realm.

Many voices, from NGO’s to new information providers such as Al Jazheera are included in the mix.

There’s a recognition that activist NGOs will lead the way in this world of networks, because they understand networking. The hierarchical world of multinational corporations and governments will need to learn the difference between hard power” and real leadership, that international public opinion matters, and that a lone voice can make itself heard to great effect (viz. Jody Williams winning the Nobel Peace Prize for her Internet-based petition to ban land mines with an international treaty).

Realpolitik may well become “Noopolitik” - the politics of the Noosphere - or another hybrid form of cooperation and collaboration.

Wouldn’t it be better if that’s how power was exercised in future?

 

#4 & #5: Digital divide, and vision

Digital Divide: there is an assumption that (recent digital inclusion report) there is no real problem with the digital divide and that the market and a couple of well meaning alliances can sort out it all out .... wrong there needs to be significant and positive intervention in soft and hard issues to ensure the nation is enabled

Vision: Whilst much of today’s talk is of reality and pragmatism .... I still don’t see a communicable vision for what ICT will do for us as a nation in 2011 or 2031 .or 2005.... the Citizen Direct vision of 2001 .... has come to life in part ... or in bits maybe.... 

 

#3: Delivery

I despair of the number of ICT initiatives in Local Government ... not so close to Cen Gov .... and feel much is there for its own sake .... wheels reinvented .... not so much joined up as gummed up .....a lot of money spent .... but on what and with whom .... creation of endless new quangos and “not for profit” things ....we are in the realm of busy fool .... and clarity lost .... the belated debate on take-up is illustrative of this ..... why would I want to go to a .gov website .... i didn’t want to go to the town hall.

 

Ramblings… # 2: Localism

In terms of a wish list I would want an even greater focus on both localism and personalisation within an appropriate context, and the real benefits for people on the street ... there are many .... but often not well articulated ....we often talk about bpr for organisations .... what we are also doing is changing citizen processes ... but there is little said about this .... when do we see the residents on the debating panel or the small business person .... too often we are represented in many debates by people who think they know ....one thing ICT etc .... can bring is more accessibility to people and the potential for easier consultation.

 

Ramblings from the train #1 - Who are we?

It strikes me that when talking about eGovernment there are a number of distinct constituencies all of which have very different perspectives.

- there is the group now discussing “ideal government” folk at ease with technology and probably in the main early adopters of technology

- there are the “policy makers ..... both politicians and civil servants” who know something needs doing and therefore do lots .... but never really start or finish .... just ensure that a lot is going on ..... a kind of enoise .... so many initiatives .... so little real change

- there are the large majority of public servants, who are rightly nervous of the real impact of real egovernment on their jobs and ways of doing things .... their comfort zones are starting to be threatened

- then there is the great majority (citizens and businesses) to whom much of this is a side show ... in North West (55% not used internet 75% would not use egov)

To me we are failing both with the argument and with the delivery.

 

26 Oct 2004

How about….

...a wibbipedia?

 

It’s not about IT - it’s Process, Process, PROCESS!!!

If one was needed, the furore over the spiralling costs of NHS provides a prime example of muddled thinking as to priorities in e-enabled services. The media headlines say that it will now cost us 3 or 5 times as many Billions as originally estimated, so that we can “choose our own appointment, or be confident our health records were available anywhere”. No wonder the estimates are soaring. They appear to be estimates of IT costs for implementaion of un- or ill-defined requirements!

Across the board, we are seeing Millions (nay, Billions) of pounds being thrown at technology to “improve” and “deliver” the services that apparently everyone desperately needs, and government equally desperately wants to supply (perhaps for different motives). Yet we see little effort - and it doesn’t need much expenditure - to step back and ask whether bigger, and more certain, improvements could be delivered if we just fixed the rocesses themselves. We rush headlong into embracing new technology, in the belief that the answer lies in the technology. But before spending a penny on technology, surely we need to get to grips with underlying processes?

I recently heard a Cabinet Minister, in front of a large number of industry leaders, admit that bringing about change in government processes is hugely difficult, and the biggest single obstacle to progress inside government and in its interfaces with the public. And this is about change in the way of doing things - NOT in the technology - or lack of it - in the process itself.

The public sector is awash - even sinking - under processes which are no longer relevant or purposeful. Exposing them to e-enablement merely emphasises how flawed they are. But supreme resistance arises when the prospect of change, often even simple change, is proposed.

Most organisations - certainly in the private sector - when they’re considering large IT investments first look carefully at the processes they currently follow, then contemplate how they might work better, given that technology is now available. They look outward to how their customers want to interact with them. They look for efficiency gains and savings and overall benefits for all stakeholders. The recipe for failure is the one that starts from assumptions about the technology and then plugs it into the existing processes!

Andrew Pinder, and many others before and after him, have thrown up their hands in surrender at the insurmountable difficulties in bringing about process change, whether it’s about “joining up” government or “reforming” areas of citizen/government interaction. Don’t dare talk about collapsing multi-Departmental processes into simplified, single-unit ones, nor of making savings from 000’s of civil servants no longer required because entire areas of bureaucracy are eliminated! Why not? Because empires are threatened. Because headcount savings are perceived as too difficult to engineer. Because there is no collective will, nor leadership, in applying our public sector resources in truly more efficient ways of achieving desirable ends.

Our civil service has some tremendous strengths. There are processes and standards well above anything in the private sector. But there is an appalling lack of “leadership” (political and management) working together with front-line staff to deliver better outcomes, if it means disruption to what are regarded as sacrosanct areas. e-Enablement is almost always seen as additional cost from additional processes overlaid umpon existing ones. No wonder costs spiral!

Government has invested heavily in a lot of new technology. What is surely needed now, before we apply taxpayers’ cash to even more technology, is a capturing of the benefits, through fundamental re-thinking of processes across the board. Start making the “old” processes work better, and then, and only then, begin to think about radical new “services”.

The world at large has made vast steps forward by utilising new technology - “out of the box”, interoperable, forward-thinking advances. Instead, government projects almost always semm to assume they have to be custom-built. They end up non-standard, impossibly expensive to update, and stuck in the silo of their development. The NHS struggles, years after it started and at enormous cost, to get to grips with email, while the outside world weekly adds almost as many new email users as the NHS requires in total...for a fraction of the cost.

My ideal e-enabled public service? One which, even if I saw no real change in the way I myself interfaced with it, was radically improved (cost, time, undertsanding..) at a net negative cost, because the public sector itself has managed to make large savings while improving the service.

Show me one or two of those, and my faith in government’s ability to come to grips with technology would be restored. And that, surely, is what it’s all about - not whether I can use my PC to fill in a form which I still don’t understand, and which will still fail to deliver what I consider to be real benefits.

 

There *is* a destination

E-government provides plenty of short term frustrations. Making it compulsory and joining it all up into central mega-systems is likely to make these worse not better.

But we have to rise above short term disappointments and frustrations with e-government, because the destination is so important. Government has to help us face global issues, on the scale of how we sustain a dignified lifestyle for a huge population when the main resource we use is in finite supply and the weather is getting weirder. Government needs e-enablement to fulfil its role in an intelligent, totally interconnected and sustainable world.

Evolving into that society will draw on qualities that appear military (survival, discipline, focus, flexibility, application of technology). But a hierarchical mindset which includes secrecy and unthinking devotion to duty is hopelessly ill-suited to this evolution. Government will need the mindset of activist NGOs - independent-thinking, networking, trusting in chaos, feedback, and openness, with a sense of urgency that is driven by compassion.

That’s how we need to deploy and use e-government, and we should give short shrift to anything that doesnt take us in that direction.

 
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Ideal Government

Let's say what we want from e-enabled government. Let's observe government first-hand. Let's say "Wouldn't It Be Better If" (WIBBI). Become an ethnographer of bureaucracy today! It beats getting frustrated with public services.

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