Let’s comment: is Transformational Government the ideal way forward?

Comments on Transformational Government are due 3 Feb. Send em direct here or - far more fun - we’ll bind up the whole Ideal Government conversation on the subject with a covering note.

Looking over the strands in our conversation I see it covers:

Is government clear about what seriously citizen-centric government services would look like?

Is it serious about delivering them?

How will customer group directors and the Service Transformation Board change anything?

Should we take online rights seriously, or are they just a gay middle-class luxury that gets in the way of helping the poor and needy?

Can we establish trust in egovernment at the same time as fulfilling the manifesto commitment to increasingly personalised services?

Do people want joined up government.....and

Do people want personalised services?
...or are these questions not worth asking (answers exist or are just too obvious)

Is there enough stress on ease of use?

Is there a “right” number of web sites and do we know what it is?

Ubiquitous Home Office identifier: cornerstone or kiss of death to trust in egov?

Are multiple identities acceptable? Is context-sensitive identity legitimate?

Is co-creation important and are we creating conditions for it?

Can and should CIOs affect emerging government policies (or how can you have good policies if you havent consulted CIOs or at least someone who knows how IT-based services get delivered)?

If EGU doesnt do policy and policy people dont do IT how do we get wise decisions about technology with political impact?

The word “deliver” appears 51 times, Mike Cross says. How will it actually happen?

That’s a fair list to start with. Anything else before I start to pull a summary together? Anyone got anything they really need to get off their chests, which doesnt quite fit into the corporate submission ?

Published by William Heath on 21/01/06 at 4:10pm

Comments

An addition to your list of key points:-

Have the failures of past IT projects been adequately addressed ? The coverage in the strategy document is superficial and complacent. The success of any developmemnt programme will be as much about process as about objectives and the process being applied is fundamentally broken.

Reply by Alex Morrison on 01/25/06 at 11:05 am
Reality check.

It took 18 months to produce a document (Transformational Government) that contained nothing new. Ian Watmore should have got this out, Kennedy fashion (JFK that is, not Charles), in 30 days. It would have been easy to do - it’s a snapshot of what he inherited, not new ground.

So-called new ideas (segment/audience Directors) are a re-tread of the Franchise Directors Andrew Pinder already introduced.

The “big idea” of shared services is one industry did back in the 1990s.

What took 18 months to produce this? It either indicates a complete lack of knowledge of what went before (worrying), or is deliberately disingenuous in dressing old mutton up as lamb

Watmore himself is clearly sincere. But as MD at Accenture when I knew him he did not drive strategy and policy, his focus was internal admin and running the business, taking partners for lunch and so on. The team he has around him now have poor track records in government and are little respected (it would be good if they would focus on the big issues and stop looking at their watch and tut-tutting red-faced when someone arrives 5 mins late for a meeting). One wonders whether they are really Tories set on completely undermining the Labour party’s agenda, so perverse is their behaviour.

Several years from now we will see yet another report that again says the same things. The guilty will be promoted (again), the innocent punished. Let’s get a real CIO into the new vacancy who can clear out this reactionary bunch, inspire confidence inside and outside of govt - and really make things happen.

Who wants to start the nominations ...?

Reply by silva surfa on 01/27/06 at 5:10 pm
Oh silva s. Good to hear from you. I do hope that’s not actionable...I think not.

I’d forgotten about Andrew Pinder’s Franchise Directors. Where did they end up?

My nominations for CIO are:

Tim Jones (ex NatWest, Mondex etc)
Ross Anderson (shd liven things up)
Owen Barder (ex DfID, now in US)
James Cronin
and now my mind has strayed to Kermit and Miss Piggy, so time to break for a cup of tea. Any more ideas?

Reply by on 01/27/06 at 6:33 pm

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