Dissident

Civil Serf cornered

For anyone following the story in the UK press, and the churn in the blogosphere, it would seem the internet blogger who published accounts of life as a civil servant at the heart of the Brown Government has been identified and suspended, as reported in the Daily Mail.

Known by the pseudonym Civil Serf, she is a middle manager in the Department for Work and Pensions.

All a bit sad really; it was certainly one of the more entertaining blogs to emanate from the public sector, and I'm not sure she said anything that we don't already know about the workings in Gov. It will be interesting to see precisely which rules she is deemed to have broken.

International e-Participation Symposium

The Empowering Citizens Through Technology and Participation Symposium has posted a couple of webcasts of the two-day event. I was presenting on the first day on the topic of building communities in the local government sector, using metaphors to describe how village communities developed around meeting places such as the village hall in by-gone years, and how communities of practice can flourish once a domain of interest is established (I used the Gosport Allotment Holders association as a contemporary example, where the mix of gardening experts and novices find mutual benefit in belonging to a collective). The key point being that just because we now have much better on-line collaboration tools and technologies, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that it's the people that make communities (of interest, or practice or whatever). A message that was probably lost on a speakers platform that was almost exclusively devoted to Web 2.0 technologies as the panacea for enabling more effective citizen engagement with the public sector. Reinforced of course with a veritable blizzard of 'e' prefixes - e-Collaboration, e-Empowerment, e-Participation, which never fail to give the uninitiated the impression that we're all in the technological fast lane (though some of us suffer from deja vu when we recall a similar e-word blitz associated with the previous dot-com era of the mid-90's. It meant nothing then, it means nothing now!).

The Rt Hon Hazel Blears MP gave the keynote presentation on day one. She was clearly well briefed on social media tools, but I couldn't help chuckle (quietly) when she expounded the virtues of Youtube and how  her department (DCLG) were now using it as a key channel for getting their information (aka 'spin') out. I trust someone will have informed her by now that most government departments and local councils block access to the likes of Youtube, Facebook and Flickr, which are all deemed to be  social  playthings, where staff cannot be trusted to use them properly.

I'd like to think that the government is investing in the right 'e-programmes', but I can't help feeling that their inherent lack of agility and the propensity for the big consultancies to sell them hugely expensive and over-complex Web 2.0 solutions will mean yet more missed opportunities. In the mean time, us citizens get on with life as best we can!   

International ePaticipation and Local Democracy Symposium

I will be attending (and presenting) at the International eParticipation and Local Democracy Symposium on 28/29 February. I will be joining Diane Downey (Assistant Corporate Head of ICT - Delivery, Sunderland City Council), Richard Wilson (MD of Involve) and Matt Rhodes (Head of Research, FreshNetworks) in a joint session entitled "Citizen Empowerment: Where do we begin?"  Full agenda here. Download symposium_agenda.doc

I'm anticipating (nay - hoping) the session will stimulate some discussion on the apparent dichotomy between empowering citizens to engage with central and local government whilst at the same time disenfranchising citizens through lack of consultation prior to the introduction of bi-laws and regulations. The proposed increase to congestion charges in London is a typical example (and I have no hidden agenda here, since I neither live in or use a car to commute to London).

I will also touch on the success of the communities of practice in local government as an example of how staff working in local councils are empowering themselves to improve services - quite often without the knowledge or understanding of their respective Chief Executives!

It should be an interesting couple of days.

ID cards and the database state

Anyone who believes that the UK government is doing a sterling job in protecting our personal information, and that the recent lapses at HMRC, the NHS, the MOD, the ONS, The Driving Standards Agency....etc. are just unfortunate 'one-off' mistakes, or if you're gung-ho about having a shiny new biometric ID card, then you probably shouldn't visit NO2ID.

I'm sure you'll make up your own minds though!

Gov 2.0: Truly Transformative Government

I attended the “Gov 2.0, or Truly Transformative Government” seminar held at Portcullis House yesterday afternoon. The event was sponsored by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) and in partnership with the Oxford Internet Institute. The purpose was to look at how Government can exploit the success of the contemporary Internet.

The event preamble stated:
“Usage of government websites is on the rise but has yet to take off like Facebook, iTunes and many other spectacular examples. In this seminar we look at whether government and public services could engage the public in the way music, shopping contemporary Internet for the design of public services and public engagement? Attendees will have the chance to listen and question leading figures in the area from Government, academia and industry.”

I only attended session 2 (by choice – this seemed the more interesting session to me since it was more ‘end-user’ focused):

• Reinventing Government for the Intranet age – Jerry Fishenden, Microsoft
• Citizen redesign of user-centric government – William Heath, Ideal Government
• Small is beautiful: Re-engineering government from the bottom-up – Tom Steinberg, mySociety.
• There was a panel Q&A chaired by the Earl of Errol.

Jerry Fishenden

• Government systems set up as individual silos to meet needs of the individual departments and not citizen-centric.
• Example of young offender, who may be in and out of education several times, known to social services, then police and ultimately judiciary.
• Data on the individual held in multiple places and limited sharing of data/information.

William Heath

• Web 2.0 is anti-hierarchical. Potential loss of control
• Culture of assertive non-listening and spin in government
• The challenge for CIO’s is to manage up, not down
• IT suppliers are contracted to conform to stated requirements, not solve social problems.
• Lack of a clear customer voice
• Citizen's have difficulty getting information from government that will help them with manage the complexities of living in today's society
• Problems for the citizen – the Computer says ‘No!”

Tom Steinberg
Demonstration of FixMyStreet.

• Shows how existing datasets can be simply re-purposed.
• “World exclusive” demo of mashup enabling users to enter house price and travel time to place of work parameters to identify areas on map that match parameters. Many uses – e.g. those seeking affordable housing within required travel time.
• Don’t try and do culture change. Implement what the user needs – culture change will follow.
• Keep things (projects) small
• Heavyweight project management (e.g. Prince 2) can be the enemy. Need agile project management and agile development.
• Stop wasting money on training; if tools are worth using then training is unnecessary.
• Don’t spend 80% of budget on culture change – double your investment in the technology instead.

Quote of the day (non-attributed)
“There is a stench of failure in traditional project management in government – and quite rightly deserved!”

Q&A (abstract)
Q: Government systems and technology designed to manage highly complex processes – e.g. tax, with incremental change in response to changes in law. Need for

A: Yes, but why can’t HMRC have simple “submit tax form” button on their website?
A:  Government already have most of the personal tax details from previous returns – why can’t they issue tax returns largely completed – citizen then note any changes, sign and return.

Conclusion
Some good presentations, and good insights into what is wrong with Government's use (or misuse) of technology. Nothing really new - the Government can't do agile project management, is crippled by over-large and over-complex projects and only listens to itself! Systems and datasets are designed and developed for one specific use and can't be (easily) re-purposed. The user (citizen) remains a distant - and often annoying - dependency who generally can't be trusted to manage any aspect of his/her life.  Government knows best and will continue to think for us.  In the mean-time, those who live and work in the real world and understand the frustrations of dealing with government departments will continue to strive to be heard and must rely on the handful of innovators and entrepreneurs in the private sector to make small and incremental improvements to their lives.      

HMRC loses personal details for 25million people

So, we wake up today to the news that our favorite government agency - Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has been responsible for the loss of personal data for 25 million people. The data included names, addresses, bank details, national insurance numbers etc., so possibly of mild interest to the criminal fraternity out there. What I can't get my head around is why the Government spends so much time, effort and money on developing standards such as e-GIF, which are meant to enable secure and accurate electronic data transfer between government departments, but relies instead on burning sensitive data to two CD-ROMs and then putting these in the post to the receiving department. If this doesn't already sound like one of those Brian Rix  farces,  consider also the fact that  (a)  the data on the CD-ROMs was not encrypted and (b) they were sent by ordinary mail, not registered mail, recorded delivery or courier.

Would you trust this government to run a national ID system? Answers on a postcard please to:  Gordon Brown, 10 Downing St.  London!

Government report: The Power of Information

The Cabinet Office have commissioned a report - The Power of Information - from Ed Mayo (chief exec of the National Consumer Council) and Tom Steinberg (the man behind mySociety and PledgeBank) to look into the ways government can benefit from user-generated sites, particularly with a view to creating APIs to allow mash-ups with public sector data (like the Ordnance Survey). Press announcement here.

Good to see the that the power of Social Media has penetrated to the heart of UK Gov. But can they resist the urge to regulate it?!

Road Pricing Petition

I assume that like me, anyone who signed the road pricing petition (see earlier blog)  got their 'personal' email from  Tony Blair today. For anyone   interested in seeing what Tony has to say about it, you can find a copy of the email here: Download epetition_response_from_the_prime_minister.htm .

More Government micro-management: E-commerce legislation

I wonder how many UK businesses have complied with the e-commerce legislative requirement to include company registration details on their web sites and in their emails? The law became effective from 1st January 2007. If you are a business owner (as I am), you may be forgiven if you didn't hear much about it, because there was little in the way of any direct communication with businesses.  Unfortunately that will be no excuse when the bureaucrats come to dishing out the fines. Details of the legislation can be found here.

New Guidance on use of Council Tax data

I saw this earlier this week on Public Sector Forums and  reflected  on its significance. The Information Commissioner’s Office will today (26th Jan) publish revised guidance for local authorities wishing to make secondary use of Council Tax Data, for example to populate CRM systems. Previous government guidance on data sharing has created uncertainty in many local authorities on whether they can use this data for other council functions, despite the prevailing common sense that having one authoratitive data set is preverable to building several sets of data about a citizen's residantial status. The ICO guidance asks a series of questions together with explanations which outline the ICO's latest approach, answers to which will determine the permissibility of using the data.  The questions are as follows:

• Is it necessary for the local authority to use the information to carry out its statutory functions?
• If council tax information is used for another purpose, what effect will this have on the people the information is about?
• Would using the information cause unwarranted detriment to any individual?
• Would using the information for another purpose benefit those the local authority provides services to?
• Is the information particularly sensitive?
• Will the information be adequately protected from improper use or disclosure?
• Is there an alternative to sharing information in a form that identifies individuals?
• Do individuals understand how the local authority will use their information?

The guidance is available for Download ICO_Tax_Guidance_2007.pdf .