This is a quick ‘hot take’ as the kids say about the launch of the new digital centre for government yesterday. There were only a few local government people there so I thought it would be helpful to share.
In parallel the state of digital government was published (spoiler alert: turns out the state is not that digital ) and a blueprint for change which is the todo list for GDS 2.0. A number of new products were also launched and/trailed today – full list is here and it’s worth a look at as there is some good stuff.
Lots to be positive about in all this:
- Peter Kyle is a secretary of state who gets it, is working alongside industry experts like Martha Lane Fox and can speak confidently and passionately about the work. There is sense of leadership and direction which will be needed
- Some really sensible prioritisation in terms of areas to look at and problems to solve but also an understanding the need to get under the hood and buy better stuff
- Pleased to see the link to the growth agenda here – hugely important to leverage the public sectors purchasing power to drive innovation and growth
- There is a thread of proper architecture and data integration – all of the tribes working together!
- Emphasis on the need for digital skills in senior posts – personally pleasing as I have been going on about this for years
If I were to want it to go further – or bend in a slightly different way there are a few things I don’t see
- Civic tech was not present and we will need it to move into a different and better social contract with citizens. The Consult product is an interesting first step into that space but I think its important not to lose sight of this agenda as government should be thinking of its democractic at the same time as its transactional role
- I think there is more to do in terms of person centred design in all this and I think that would be brilliant to do that with local government which is where we see the impact of silo’d thinking and where we have the capability to get into proper relationships with our citizens
- there are references to but no proper narrative about how to link this to proper reform and reimagining of government – but I would be hopeful of this all lining up better soon
- I think the safety aspects of AI are well covered but I think we also need to be thinking about the ethics of this stuff
- Local government is talked about but not nearly enough or with enough nuance yet
This last point is the one I think needs shouting about – local government is on the top slope of a massive change curve – if we don’t integrate digital into it right now we will missed a moment where we could be building new digital first organisations rather than having to dig through a load of legacy tech that non-tech savvy (according to the state of digital report) have just extended by 5 years as they didn’t have the bandwidth to get into it.
A lot has been achieved in this space in a short period – and I feel a bit demanding asking for more but we have a big opportunity in local government right now and I want it to get the attention is deserves. A lot rests on Theo Blackwell who is in there right now trying to make that happen.
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