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Blockchain vs Democracy (aka ‘software is politics, now’)
The Economist succinctly nails the issue I have with “federated trust” distributed ledgers such as Blockchain / Ethereum: The idea of making trust a matter of coding, rather than of democratic politics, legitimacy and accountability, is not necessarily an appealing or empowering one. To be clear, append-only, immutable, verifiable ledgers (distributed or otherwise) are properly exciting as a… — read more
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Stuff that matters, done the right way
There are so many committed teams delivering digital services all over government, it feels unnatural to highlight just one – but when it comes to doing stuff that matters, at scale, and under pressure, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) team developing the Universal Credit (UC) Digital Service is impossible to ignore. Here’s a… — read more
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Done.
It’s five years since Martha Lane Fox tempted me into digital government. The mission: put the needs of users at the heart of the design of public services. The report we wrote in 2010 was subtitled “Revolution, not evolution.” Martha, we got that bit 100% right. And the conversation inside government has changed. It’s increasingly about the redesign of services centred on the needs of… — read more
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Keynote at the Code For America Summit 2014
Code for America are a fantastic US not for profit, injecting digital thinking into all levels of the US Government through a range of initiatives. For example, they’ve been instrumental in the setting up of the nascent US Digital Service. Last year Mike gave an overview of the UK Government Digital Service at their annual… — read more
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Scotland D14 Conference Talk: Reinvention, not repair
A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking at the D14 Conference in Glasgow. I had a fine day, going to several interesting workshops, and catching up with old friends from my BBC and Channel 4 days. The speech itself seemed to go ok; the questions were excellent. And in my talk I was invited… — read more
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Webstock 2014 talk: Institutions: An Internet survival guide
Earlier this year I was honoured to be invited to talk at Webstock 14. Webstock is a truly fabulous, unique conference, organised for the pure love of the web, not the money. If you get a chance, go. As a speaker, it was easily the best organised conference I’ve attended, as well as the friendliest. While… — read more
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One link on GOV.UK – 350,000 more organ donors
Last autumn we shared early results of testing various versions of the GOV.UK ‘Thank You’ page. First introduced a year ago, people see this page once they’ve bought their tax disc via GOV.UK. People are generally more open to trying out new stuff after completing a successful transaction, so we’ve been using this page to encourage as… — read more
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Report a misleading website to search engines
Government services have been getting a growing number of complaints from people who feel misled by websites which charge for access to public services that are either free or much cheaper when accessed via the official GOV.UK website. Examples include people trying to renew their passport or driving licence, book a driving test or apply… — read more
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DVLA, we salute you
My first visit to meet DVLA in Swansea back in the summer of 2012 filled me with hope. I met Carolyn Williams MBE, who runs DVLA’s tax disc service. She showed me a wonderfully well-categorised list of feedback sent in by users of her very popular online service; tens of thousands of comments each year.… — read more
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Browser, operating system and screen resolution data for GOV.UK
(Image courtesy of Guy Moorhouse) Earlier this month I dug into the analytics data to better understand what devices people are using when visiting GOV.UK. I thought I’d also quickly share headline data on what browsers, operating systems and screen resolutions we’ve seen over the past month across the whole site. I hope it’s useful. Rank… — read more
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Tom Loosemore 