At the start of June, James Plunkett wrote a piece called The oddness of the political moment. It is amazing just quite how quickly the atmosphere has changed since the election (I’d attribute a lot of how I feel myself to having prayed through Croydon and then for all 650 MPs in the last week) but the post remains very timely and insightful.
I left a couple of comments around accountability. One on the accountability of those elected to serve, and the other about GOV.UK and the policymaking process. David Durant said one needed to be a blog post, but I’ve done both.
“…it seems increasingly clear we need people whose day job it is to care about the infrastructure that underpins accountability and the associated discourse…”
When I decided to leave the OECD, a major factor was the stark disconnect between its stated mission of ‘better policies for better lives’ and the practical reality that means the organisation has to prioritise diplomatic niceties over accountability. I accept that my expectations are perhaps unreasonable. After all, the OECD isn’t an organisation designed, set up or mandated to provide accountability when a member mis-steps. However, you can’t have a ‘rules based international order’ if there’s no accountability against those rules.
In the course of developing this Recommendation I’m particularly proud of how we brought in a wide range of perspectives in the development. We started with an attempt at user research by sitting down with digital identity teams from across the OECD, we workshopped through early iterations of the recommendations, convened an external group of experts and then used the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation’s dedicated consultation platform to open up the earlier draft for public comment.
Honestly it was a bit of a fight to do all of these extra, but value adding, steps (and frustratingly subsequent exercises on these lines have regressed to a PDF and an email address) but this wasn’t cosmetic. The feedback loop with civil society, experts and ordinary citizens mattered. And you can see the difference: between the draft consulted on and the final version endorsed by Ministers, the text gained sharper language on inclusion, stronger recognition of user control, clearer obligations on oversight and redress, and a deeper emphasis on cross-border trust.
Digital identity is critical public infrastructure.
This Recommendation commits OECD countries to govern digital identity not as a narrow technical scheme but as a core enabler of trust, inclusion and international interoperability. It sets out a principles-based framework under three pillars: user-centred inclusion, robust governance, and cross-border portability.
Why it matters
Identity verification has always been essential but in the digital age, physical cards and passports alone are not enough. Digital identity underpins access to services, participation in the economy and cross-border transactions. Yet it is also risky: touching privacy, security, liability, inclusion and trust. That makes governance fundamental. The Recommendation’s narrative frames digital identity as critical digital public infrastructure, on a par with connectivity, payments and registries.
What the Recommendation covers
The Recommendation is structured around three main pillars:
User-centred and inclusive systems
Apply service design methods to make digital identity effective and usable.
Prioritise accessibility and affordability; preserve non-digital alternatives.
Encourage privacy-preserving and consent-based solutions, with user control over attributes and credentials.
Provide support and skills-building for those excluded or struggling to access services.
Monitor, evaluate and publish performance to ensure accountability.
Strengthening governance
Treat digital identity as strategic: set a long-term vision, clarify roles and responsibilities, and establish clear oversight.
Anchor systems in privacy and security by design, with risk-based assurance levels.
Align legal and regulatory frameworks, including liability, dispute resolution and redress.
Promote public–private collaboration, healthy markets, and openness to alternative models.
Establish trust frameworks and ensure ongoing investment, resilience and environmental sustainability.
Anticipate emerging risks and adapt governance accordingly.
Cross-border portability
Identify priority use cases for cross-border interoperability.
Cooperate internationally to map legal requirements, align trust frameworks and technical standards, and explore regulatory experimentation.
Avoid discrimination against foreign users; clarify liability in cross-border transactions.
Designate national points of contact and produce roadmaps for recognising each other’s credentials.
The up-front narrative
The Recommendation opens with a compelling scene-setting:
Digital identity is essential for societies, economies and democracies.
Physical documents alone are no longer adequate.
Governance must balance opportunity with risks: from inclusion and adoption to liability and cybercrime.
Trust between public and private actors is critical, requiring strategy, regulation and international cooperation.
User-centred design and democratic values are non-negotiable foundations.
This narrative positions digital identity not just as a technical matter but as a social and political choice about how trust is mediated in digital societies.
Provisions for transparency, redress and dispute resolution.
Sharper commitments on privacy, user control and limiting data trails.
A clearer roadmap for international collaboration and cross-border trust.
That all helped to make sure that the final version is not only more robust it is also more legitimate because it is shaped by voices beyond government insiders.
Why OECD Recommendations matter
Recommendations are not binding law, but I’d like to think that they matter:
They are adopted by Ministers as collective political commitments
They become benchmarks for national reform and peer review
They are monitored and revisited — in this case, a formal review in 2028
They shape international norms and guide other fora (e.g. G20, EU, World Bank)
All of the above should mean that they are viewed as helpful and reliable sources of inspiration and reference when OECD members, and then particularly candidates for accession, are thinking, planning and delivering their approaches to digital identity.
The blurb
The Recommendation on the Governance of Digital Identity was adopted by the OECD Council meeting at Ministerial level on 8 June 2023 on the proposal of the Public Governance Committee (PGC). The Recommendation aims to guide Adherents in their efforts to successfully establish domestic approaches to digital identity that are user-centred, trusted and well-governed and in so doing create the conditions for achieving the ambition of full international interoperability to realise the value of digital identity across geography, technology and sectors.
Too often, digital is treated as a specialist brick laid by others. But real transformation happens when digital becomes the mortar and binds teams, cultures, and missions together. This framework argues that while investment in digital, data and technology professions and leadership are essentials, the key to unlocking sustainable, whole of government transformation is making digital everyone’s business.
This framework emerged from work led by the OECD’s Digital Government and Data Unit. I had the privilege of co-authoring the paper alongside Lucia Chauvet, supported by the Working Party of Senior Digital Government Officials (E-Leaders) and its Thematic Group on Digital Talent and Skills. It builds on years of OECD collaboration in this space — drawing lessons from country reviews, global case studies, and shared experience from digital leaders across the world.
Since publication, the framework has been embedded in OECD Digital Government Reviews and country support work. It’s designed to be actionable — not just a diagnostic tool, but a map for reform.
One example: we used it as the basis for work with the Government of Tunisia, which led to a resource called Understanding Digital Government — a companion website (formerly at understanding-digital-government.com) in French and Arabic. We worked with Public Digital to design a set of training materials that would help public servants engage with and learn about the five digital government user skills. Sadly, that site is no longer live. I had always hoped we’d be able to translate those materials into every OECD language, but like many good ideas, that ambition outpaced our capacity.
We also used that Tunisian project as an opportunity to work with the School of Good Services to provide training to the most senior decision makers across the Tunisian local government sector.
Digital, data and technology are transforming how we live, and also how we work. This is as true in the public sector as anywhere else.
Governments that want to deliver in a digital world need more than just technical upgrades; they need capable, confident, and collaborative teams. That means:
Creating a working environment that encourages transformation,
Defining and nurturing the skills that matter,
And building the systems to attract, grow, and retain a digital-capable public workforce.
This paper presents the OECD’s framework for digital talent and skills, structured around those three imperatives, each grounded in real-world examples and practices from member and partner countries.
The Three Pillars of the Framework
Pillar 1: Create an environment to encourage digital transformation
Governments need more than strategies — they need workplaces where digital ways of working can thrive. That means:
Digital leadership that’s visible, user-centred, and empowering;
Organisational structures that enable multidisciplinary work and reduce hierarchy;
A learning culture where experimentation is safe and valued;
Tools and ways of working that support agility and delivery.
Pillar 2: Skills to support digital government maturity
Skills aren’t just about technical roles. The framework identifies that countries need to be mindful about the foundational “21st century skills” needed across society for people to thrive in the digital era and then identifies four categories of capability that rest on top:
User skills — digital basics for every public servant
Professional skills — the know-how for delivering digital services
Leadership skills — the ability to model and enable transformation
Each of those areas covers the detail needed to achieve a long-lasting and sustainable transformation and is grounded on raised expectations for all members of society and providing them with levels of digital competency that mean they fully thrive in our Internet-enabled world.
This has implications for government. And a critical observation in the framework is that digital government should not solely be the preserve of those in the digital, data and technology professions. Central to the framework is an expectation that governments should pursue a new baseline expectation for public sector workers to acquire a grounding in five core skills:
Recognising the potential of digital for transformation1
Pillar 3: Establish and maintain a digital workforce
It isn’t possible for governments to click their fingers and swap their existing workforce for a ‘digital’ one. And nor should they want to.
The answer to digital transformation is about having a workforce that is digital. There are important professions and career paths that need to be established but more importantly is creating an ongoing process that can enhance and equip everyone in the public sector to contribute to digital transformation.
This pillar focuses on how governments can:
Attract digital talent through flexible recruitment and employer branding;
Retain people by investing in culture, career progression, and equity;
Support growth through structured development, mentoring, and learning opportunities;
Build the systems to allocate skills effectively across teams and priorities.
The blurb
The rapid pace of technological advance and associated potential for the use of data have not only changed the way people live but also the way people work. This digital disruption hits all sectors, including the public sector, and this working paper emphasises pathways for developing a public sector workforce with the necessary skills to achieve successful digital transformation. It presents the OECD Framework for Digital Talent and Skills in the Public Sector, which highlights the need to create the right working environment, secure the right skills, and evolve the right workforce to support a progression from e-government to digital government.
When a public servant recognises the potential for digital transformation they: * identify, describe and analyse practical examples of digital transformation; * look at the status quo of existing processes and identify opportunities for digital transformation; * have a growing network of digital government practitioners to turn to for advice and challenge; * understand, and can challenge, whether new activity involving technology is consistent with wider strategic activity; * oversee and develop new digital, data or technology activity in ways that complement broader strategic activities * can ask relevant, informed, and challenging questions when they have oversight responsibility for digital, data and technology activity ↩︎
When a public servant understands users and their needs they: * champion and explain the value of user research and participate as part of user research exercises; * can identify the users affected by their area of work, and define the user needs their work meets; * can identify where their work interacts with, receives from, or hands off, to another part of government and recognises the importance of an end to end understanding of the user’s journey; * recognise the different channels and modalities involved in the provision of a service and can map the user’s journey, including associated internal steps; * understand the importance of tackling the digital divide and the priority, roadmap and strategy for accessibility, national connectivity and increasing 21st century skills in society ↩︎
When a public servant collaborates openly for iterative delivery they: * can explain the benefits of ‘working in the open’ and argue positively for an open by default approach * can implement participatory approaches to their area of work to genuinely include their users * understand the value of diverse, multi-disciplinary teams and expect to involve policy, delivery and operational colleagues to ensure a fully-rounded perspective on any given topic * can explain the benefits of an iterative approach to delivery * understand different phases of delivery (e.g., Discovery, Alpha, Beta, Live) and are clear about the benefits of researching, prototyping, testing and learning on an ongoing basis; * have an understanding of open source code and the community-based processes that support them * know where to find, and appraise, the suitability of common standards, components and patterns ↩︎
When a public servant is trustworthy in their use of data and technology they: * understand their responsibilities in the workplace around information security and data handling or processing * are confident in terms of digital security and clear about password policies * understand the legal requirements on them as individuals in terms of their handling of data to protect the privacy of citizens * are comfortable considering the ethical dimensions associated with the use of digital technologies or data, including knowledge of any relevant instruments such as Good Practice Principles * understand the support and activities associated with maintaining a reliable service * ensure that contracts with third party suppliers are consistent with the digital government agenda ↩︎
When a public servant knows about data-driven government they: * are aware of the individuals or organisations that are responsible for the data agenda * understand the priority, roadmap and strategy for taking the steps to establish a data-driven public sector * are familiar with the governance arrangements for access to and sharing of data * are confident in their legal and ethical obligations for the treatment of data * recognise opportunities for how interoperability, the Once Only Principle and access to transactional data can support the better design of services * adopt an empirical approach to the use of data for generating public value in terms of Anticipating and planning, Delivery, and Evaluation and Monitoring * understand the value of Open Government Data to government, and the wider ecosystem. ↩︎
These Good Practice Principles were developed by the Working Party of Senior Digital Government Officials Thematic Group on the Data-Driven Public Sector.
This group had been instrumental in ensuring the value of the experiences highlighted and questions answered through The Path to Becoming a Data-Driven Public Sector and the Data-Driven Public Sector Working Paper.
Lucia and I initiated this work under the leadership of Jaron Haas, Simone Schoof and Marieke Schenk from the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (MINBZK) in the Netherlands. We then workshopped elements of it in Paris during the Expert Group Meeting on Open Government Data prior to the pandemic.
The ultimate value of this exercise owes itself to Arturo’s leadership after he took on the responsibility of stewarding the Data-Driven Public Sector thematic group during this challenging period. He is indebted to the support of those countries but especially Natalia Domagala on behalf of the UK and Omar Bitar on behalf of Canada for getting to their final state.
As governments deepen their use of data and AI, ethical guidance becomes critical. These 10 principles from the OECD are designed to help public officials protect the public interest at every stage of the data lifecycle. They go beyond compliance—emphasising public integrity, trust, and responsible innovation.
The principles stress:
Putting people and the public interest at the centre
Being transparent, inclusive and accountable
Managing risks proactively, especially in automated decision-making
Here are the OECD’s 10 Good Practice Principles for Data Ethics in the Public Sector:
Manage data with integrity
Be aware of and observe relevant government-wide arrangements for trustworthy data access, sharing and use
Incorporate data ethical considerations into governmental, organisational and public sector decision-making processes
Monitor and retain control over data inputs, in particular those used to inform the development and training of AI systems, and adopt a risk-based approach to the automation of decisions
Be specific about the purpose of data use, especially in the case of personal data
Define boundaries for data access, sharing and use
Be clear, inclusive and open
Publish open data and source code
Broaden individuals’ and collectives’ control over their data
Be accountable and proactive in managing risks
Public trust in government is shaped not just by what services are delivered, but how they are delivered, and that increasingly means how data is handled. As digital technologies and AI become part of the machinery of public decision-making, it’s not enough to comply with the law. Citizens expect more: transparency, fairness, inclusion, and accountability.
These principles recognise that data is never neutral. The choices made by public officials – what data to collect, how to use it, when to automate – have real consequences for people’s lives. The OECD’s guidance offers a practical compass: helping governments navigate complexity without losing sight of the human stakes involved.
The blurb
The Good Practice Principles for Data Ethics in the Public Sector presented in this paper seek to shed light on the value and practical implications of data ethics in the public sector. They aim to support public officials in the implementation of data ethics in digital government projects, products, and services such that:
i) trust is placed at the core of their design and delivery and
ii) public integrity is upheld through specific actions taken by governments, public organisations and, at a more granular level, public officials.
Burnham has a theory of political power and is making deliberate moves to strengthen the centre. But it seems much clearer about where power should sit than about how the state beneath it should operate.
AI is already part of our mental health ecosystem, often through tools never designed as health services. The challenge is not whether people will use them, but how to govern what they find when formal support is unavailable or out of reach.
There are some jobs you leave because the evening has ended. The plates are cleared. The conversation has run its course. Someone is stacking chairs. It was good, perhaps even… Read more: When the first plates leave the pass
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