Tag Archives: democracy

Local government digital service: democracy

Work, Local Government, , , , ,
This entry is part 2 of 5 in the series Local government digital service

In this series of blogposts I’m unpacking my opinions about the local government digital service debate. In the first post I set out my opinion that a single entity with the mandate and resource to address the common needs of the public is overdue and here I wonder about what that means for democracy. In the other posts I thought about the distinction between building and buying services, asked how it might work in practice and finish off the series by considering the relevance of the GDS design principles in the context of local government. I hope it goes without saying that I don’t claim to have all the answers and want to know where my assumptions are completely barmy!

In the fanfare and celebration of what has been done in the last two years it can be forgotten that central government had brilliant pockets of service design being delivered by exceptional civil servants. UKGovCamp had been instrumental in joining the dots between those people and created the conditions where GDS could thrive. It is absolutely not the case that everything was rubbish and suddenly GDS made all things new.

And one of the brilliant things about an event the Department for Communities and Local Government recently hosted to stimulate the debate about collaboration between councils was getting to spend the day with a room full of people committed to public service delivery. Whatever might happen in transforming the approach of local government it must acknowledge that the commitment and self-organisation of those brought together by UKGovCamp for central government is exemplified by LocalGovDigital who are dragging their sector forward in the margins of their day jobs.

Continue reading Local government digital service: democracy →

Open data: of illusions and conjuring tricks

Work, Local Government, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series Open data: magic from the inside out?

This is part 3 in a series thinking about whether the magic of open data in local government might be found from the inside out. In part 1, I considered the phrase ‘open data’ and pointed to thoughts elsewhere and part 2 suggested we needed to start from inside our organisations. In today’s third part I’m thinking about those who make magic.

Of illusions and conjuring tricks

In the last post I said that thinking about open data needed to start with how it improves what we do within our organisations because then we might understand it, recognise the value people might add to it and therefore properly champion the concept of ‘open data’.

It’s all very well saying that but if the narrative about exposing public data is difficult then an internal conversation which talks about what data could do for us is perhaps going to be thwarted before it gets off the ground anyway.

Part of the issue is that without concrete examples conversations can tend far too often towards the technicalities. The most helpful conversations aren’t comparing SOAP and RESTful APIs or talking about integration, nor will they bring up open standards or this protocol or that data format with the layman. Phil Jewitt recently wrote a couple of blog posts (1, 2) about how those beyond the project team didn’t need to know about SCRUM they just needed to know what was necessary. The most helpful conversations have at their heart somebody enthusiastically committed to sharing the secret of what’s possible.

Arthur C Clarke’s third law of prediction says that

“any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” Continue reading Open data: of illusions and conjuring tricks →

Open data: Square One

Work, Local Government, , , , , , , , ,
This entry is part 2 of 6 in the series Open data: magic from the inside out?

In Part 1 of this series, I considered the phrase ‘open data’ and pointed to thoughts elsewhere about whether it’s an unhelpful phrase, how communities are engaged to use it and how the government approach has been judged thus far. Today, I’m wondering about Square One.

Square One

It is great that the focus around ‘open data’ may be shifting away from simply getting us compliant and pushing data out to instead think about how engagement can be structured around its use. It’s also brilliant to see twitter buzzing about Saturday’s National Hack The Government Day which wouldn’t have been possible without the data that is there already.

I have no doubt at all that the public sector as a whole is sitting on a goldmine of information that can help make democracy flow and services perform better. But I think there’s a danger of being excited about the cart to the forgetting of its horses.

Continue reading Open data: Square One →