GOV.UK cost me my job – but I’m not bitter.

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I like the Institute for Government. Its latest report on making a success of digital government is a good read. As the title says it doesn’t dwell on failure, but makes recommendations about what government must do to improve its track record. Sadly, some recommendations like ‘join up policy and implementation’ are, shall we say, long standing.

Three things stood out for me, firstly never underestimate the time and effort needed to embed change. Too often that is seen as a second order issue compared to getting the policy and the technology right, yet we all know it makes or breaks a change programme. And it’s not just a communications or stakeholder engagement workstream; getting everyone on board is a long-term process that involves listening as much as broadcasting and should be at the heart of the change programme.

Secondly, and it’s one of the things I found during my time leading digital teams in government, is the difficulty in running agile alongside traditional project management processes. Agile worked well  for small scale projects such as building a new intranet, but it was much harder when we tried to scale up. Colleagues get very twitchy not knowing exactly what the product is and when it will be ‘ready’. That’s a reflection of the dependencies of complex projects, a concern that agile reduces accountability and controls, and ‘we’re on a journey’ doesn’t really wash with the Permanent Secretary, Parliament or the media. In that respect, it was good to hear on a recent Today programme a DWP Minister talk about an open policy process of listening to the views of users and others to help redesign of disability benefits. A refreshing change from the usual defence of a pre-agreed position under the guise of consultation – even if it means less need to shout at the radio!

Finally, and the reason for the headline, is the problem of the ‘long tail’. GOV.UK, thankfully, swept away the inconsistency of government websites and the vanity publishing of Minsters and Departments. Yet, in following the data we managed to (seriously) antagonise the influential minority of people, journalists and policy wonks who do want the minutiae of government and knew their way around old departmental websites – and had the ear of Special Advisors. That caused me grief when I was working in government, and still does now I’m an outside specialist user of GOV.UK and local authority websites. But at least it’s easy to find the date of the next Bank Holiday!