bmwelby's blog

Thoughts from the mind of Ben Welby

Tag: Digital Government

An elegant bronze scale stands on a cobblestone quay beside a calm river, with the British Houses of Parliament and Big Ben visible in the background. On one side of the scale, a woman in professional attire stands with her back to the viewer, symbolizing human values. On the opposite side, a digital figure illuminated with glowing blue circuitry represents artificial intelligence. The scale is heavily tipped in favor of the woman, showing that human values outweigh technology. The scene has a warm and optimistic atmosphere, with a clear sky indicating a pleasant spring or early summer day.

AI in government: it’s about people, not technology (as always)

September 13, 2024 / / 1 Comment

It was our first week back for Vineyard English School after the summer break1. Many familiar faces were absent, but one young Eritrean was eager to see us – he’d just received a letter about his asylum claim.

We were back in the hotel today after stopping over the summer (more volunteers would allow for doing this year round). Here's a photo of a letter that had been received by one of the hotel residents. Two native English speakers had to check with one another that we actually understood it.

— Benjamin Welby (@bm.wel.by) 2024-09-11T17:13:33.941Z

The letter was dense, bureaucratic, and impenetrable. It’s a far cry from the aspirations for content design that so many advocate for as a central plank in reimagining the relationship between the state and its users.

He looked to us for an explanation. But even among the fluent English speakers, we had to consult amongst ourselves to ensure we understood it correctly. Hardly surprising, since according to The First Word’s readability test, this letter is on par with reading Nietzsche.

A visual display of book covers arranged by difficulty level, ranging from "Very Easy" (0-20) to "Very Challenging" (61-100). The cover in the middle, labeled "20 - 30," stands out in yellow and features the title "Beyond Good and Evil" by Nietzsche. Other covers represent a range of genres and styles.

The power of AI

I reached for ChatGPT.

Continue reading

Five things I think about GDS, CDDO and i.AI moving into DSIT

July 10, 2024 / / 5 Comments

If those acronyms mean nothing to you then this blog post is not for you. It’s written in response to the news that the Government Digital Service (GDS) and the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), and the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (i.AI) are moving from the Cabinet Office to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) under the responsibility of Peter Kyle as the responsible minister.

At the OECD one of the things we would emphasise was the importance of a mandate and authority for providing leadership of digital government across the entire public sector. GDS was the poster child for this idea. Many countries have established their own Digital Government Units similarly located at the centre of government and operating in proximity to the country’s political leadership. In more than one country the digital function has been given even more prominence and made an extension of the President or the Prime Minister. This has been critical in ensuring that the agenda receives support at the highest levels and made a priority.

In the UK, GDS benefitted from Francis Maude as the Minister for Cabinet Office (MCO) with his leadership backing the wave of transformation through to 2015. Under his watch many of the things that established the culture for digital transformation bedded in. And then in 2015 there started a sequence of 12 MCOs in 9 years. Not many of them showed the same aptitude for leading digital transformation as Maude.

Along the way the clarity of responsibility for digital started to fray. Digital inclusion, some aspects of data, some parts of Artificial Intelligence, and some parts of digital identity moving over to what is now DSIT.

Continue reading

Re: The oddness of the political moment

July 9, 2024 / / 3 Comments

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.

1. Accountability of politicians

“…it seems increasingly clear we need people whose day job it is to care about the infrastructure that underpins accountability and the associated discourse…”

The oddness of the political moment, James Plunkett (07/06/2024)

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.

Continue reading

Digital Government in Chile – Improving Public Service Design and Delivery

May 30, 2020 / / 1 Comment

I really enjoyed a lot of what was involved in this piece of work. It was great to work with the colleagues in Chile (including Felipe González-Zapata who started the project on the Chilean side and who had become a team mate on the OECD side before we came to finalise the publication) and to have a brilliant peer team of Ignacia Orellana, a service designer from GDS in the UK (but a Chilean herself), Paulo Value from AMA in Portugal, and Pedro Farias from the Inter-American Development Bank.

The experience in Chile gave a fascinating opportunity to get under the skin of what it looks like to think about blending in-person user experiences with a digital-first mindset. The ambition for ChileAtiende to create a seamless experience of government has such familiar echoes of the aspiration associated with GOV.UK but applying it to the built environment, and imagining what ‘government on the High Street’ could look like, is a completely different kettle of fish.

As well as considering the particular needs of Chile, this piece of work has been so helpful in our thinking about a Framework for Service Design and Delivery. The Framework, as described here, went on to become a staple of Digital Government Reviews.

What’s the TL;DR?

This report considers the intersection of Chile’s digital, telephone and physical service channels, and identifies the importance of ensuring the same service experience for all users, in all contexts, through all channels. To make the physical, offline and digital elements of a service work together in meeting user needs, service design is critical. It provides the basis for service delivery and the resulting experience for the public by:

  • understanding a user’s journey from their first attempt at solving a problem, through to final resolution (from end to end),
  • addressing citizen-facing experiences and back-office processes as a single continuum rather than two separate models (from external to internal, and vice versa), and
  • creating consistency of access and experience across and among all channels (omni-channel).

We establish a three part conceptual framework for thinking about service design and delivery that underpins the analysis of Chile and ChileAtiende:

Part 1. The context for service design and delivery: these include a country’s representative and organisational politics, any historic channel strategies, the legacy of technology and infrastructure and finally, society and geography

Part 2. The philosophy of service design: expressed through six critical ways of working covering political, organisational and external leadership and vision; the understanding of whole problems; the design of the end to end service experience; involving the public; combining policy, delivery and operations
to work across organisational boundaries; and taking an agile approach

Part 3. The practical enablers for service design: following from the Digital Government Policy Framework‘s “Government as a Platform” pillar, these enablers include sharing best practices and guidelines; governance, spending and assurance; digital inclusion; common components and tools (such as digital identity, notifications and payments); data governance and its application for public value; and public sector talent and capabilities.

Available as a PDF

    Key policy recommendations

    • Define a clear cross-government strategy and coherent action plan for the government of Chile to establish and nurture a design culture that places users at its heart, in order to respond to their needs across all channels and throughout the policy and delivery lifecycle.
    • Enable Chilean public sector organisations to understand the needs of the public in order to be proactive in finding solutions to the problems that cause the most pain and the highest costs.
    • Ensure a joined-up and simple-to-navigate experience of government with brand clarity for all interactions between government and its stakeholders, whether citizen, business or visitor.
    • Commit to an inclusive experience of government services that builds on Chile’s expertise in offline service provision to ensure those services are understood:
      • from when someone first attempts to solve a problem through to its resolution (from end to end)
      • on a continuum between citizen experience and back-office process (external to internal)
      • across any and all of the channels involved (omni-channel).
    • Secure cross-government political and administrative support for a holistic service design and delivery agenda ensuring ‘Government as a Platform’ enablers to scale transformation from the most high profile through to the ‘long tail’ of government services, including:
      • a clear data strategy
      • guiding principles and guidelines
      • the necessary human capital
      • technical and practical support to common components such as digital identity and payments
    • Establish clear organisational responsibilities to provide coherent governance and effective leadership between:
      • the Ministry General Secretariat of the Presidency (Ministerio Secretaría General de la Presidencia, MINSEGPRES) and its Digital Government Division and LabGob (Laboratorio de Gobierno),
      • the Ministry of Finance (Ministerio de Hacienda) and its Modernisation Secretariat,
      • the Social Security Institute (Instituto de Previsión Social, IPS) and ChileAtiende, and
      • the Civil Service.

    The Blurb

    The e-government era saw efforts to move government services online, automate internal processes and reduce administrative overheads for the public. Often technology led, those efforts sometimes led to the exclusion of some users and created digital-by-default siloes rather than coherent, cross-government, omni-channel services. Now, with the move toward digital government, OECD countries are giving greater priority to how services are designed and delivered, to ensure that digital progress benefits everyone, including those who rely on face-to-face interactions.

    This report presents a conceptual model for service design and delivery that challenges governments to develop a design-led culture and ensure access to the enabling tools and resources necessary to deliver services that improve outcomes, efficiency, satisfaction and well-being. This model is used to analyse the situation in Chile and provide recommendations about how the ChileAtiende service delivery network can bring the state closer to citizens through a simpler, more efficient and transparent approach. By considering the intersection of digital, telephone and physical service channels, it recommends digital government approaches that ensure consistently high-quality service experiences for all users, in all contexts, and through all channels.

    Available as a PDF

    Digital Government in Chile – Digital Identity

    October 1, 2019 / / 0 Comments

    In a world increasingly driven by digital transformation, governments are navigating the complexities of verifying identity in an online environment. Chile is one of the leading countries when it comes to digital government in Latin America but wants to build on that progress by tackling digital identity.

    This was the first occasion on which I worked with an external consultant to complete a publication at the OECD. They had already been working on this for a while before I joined so as with the Data-Driven Public Sector working paper, I picked up a piece that was already quite well advanced.

    Unfortunately on this occasion that meant I ended up having to do quite a bit of rewriting and rewiring of the content to make sure we were giving the most value to the Government of Chile. I also wrote an additional chapter that in the end wasn’t included here. Edit: It subsequently came to inform work done for the G20 and the OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Digital Identity.

    This study tries to detail all the elements that need to be thought about in terms of the roadmap towards implementing effective digital identity in Chile, drawing on the comparative experience of 13 countries.

    Available as a HTML publication or a PDF

    What’s the TL;DR?

    This paper explores how Chile can implement a fully functional digital identity system that transforms how citizens prove who they are in a digital world. By building on existing national infrastructure, Chile can streamline identity management while ensuring long-term financial and political support.

    An Analytical Framework for Digital Identity

    This report doesn’t just focus on Chile in isolation, the Chile study draws on the experiences of Austria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Korea, New
    Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom and Uruguay to establish a robust framework. The framework we’ve developed assesses everything from national identity infrastructure and adoption levers to transparency and monitoring. It allows Chile to not only evaluate its progress but also ensure its model is positioned for future scalability and international interoperability.

    A chart outlining key components of digital identity (DI) initiatives, divided into four main sections: 1. Foundations for DI (National identity infrastructure, DI policy, Governance and leadership), 2. Digital identity solutions (DI platform, Browser-based solutions, Smartcards, Mobile devices, Biometrics), 3. Policy levers and adoption (Legal and regulatory framework, Funding and enforcement, Government services, Private sector services, Enablers and constraints), and 4. Transparency and monitoring (Citizen control of their data, Performance data, Impact assessment).

    Chile’s Foundations: Leveraging the Cédula de Identidad

    Chile has a strong foundation in its existing Cédula de Identidad and ClaveÚnica systems. We think these can serve as the backbone for further development, eliminating the need to reinvent the wheel. We hope that this means Chile can move quite quickly, building on its strengths while simplifying access to digital services for both citizens and businesses.

    The road(map) ahead

    This report is more than just a technical guide—it’s a roadmap for how Chile can establish itself as a global leader in digital identity. The recommendations provide the building blocks to ensure that digital identity isn’t just about access, but about trust, empowerment, and seamless service delivery.

    Chile has already made impressive strides, but with the right governance, collaboration, and long-term planning, its digital identity strategy can become a model for the region and beyond. As the study emphasises, digital identity is not just a technical solution – it’s a societal transformation.

    Policy recommendations

    The Recommendations are designed to ensure Chile’s Digital Identity efforts are sustainable and impactful. Here are the most critical points:

    • Build Chile’s Digital Identity on the existing infrastructure provided by the Civil Registry Service of Chile (Servicio de Registro Civil e Identificación, SRCeI) and the Cédula de Identidad. As a result Chile does not need to pursue the generation of validated identities with the private sector.
    • Ensure the focus on Digital Identity within the Government’s Digital Transformation Strategy is sustainable through the provision of long term financial and political commitment.
    • Identify or create a senior responsible role with responsibility to shape and deliver identity according to the vision established by the Government’s Digital Transformation Strategy.
    • Consider the design of identity management (both physical and digital) as an end-to-end process throughout a citizen’s life from birth, through life and at death. This should consider the future possibilities of technology in the physical identity card, creating the conditions to iterate the service, and ensure a clear understanding of the needs of users both within and outside government.
    • Prioritise development of ClaveÚnica to support putting the citizen in control of their data and being able to grant, and revoke, permissions to access and use it.
    • Reach an understanding of the identity needs for businesses and develop a shared roadmap with the relevant organisations for the future state of Digital Identity in general. This may need to include the convergence of business and citizen Digital Identity and the transition of users to consolidate usage around a single approach.
    • Identify priority private sector services for the use of ClaveÚnica and establish a working partnership to ensure ClaveÚnica works for the private sector as well as the public sector.
    • Establish the adequate legal and regulatory framework to manage the use of
      ClaveÚnica credentials to access private sector services, particularly where that opens the possibility of personal data being reused.
    • Explore with regional partners how interoperability of identity can facilitate crossborder services and meets the needs of Chilean residents abroad.
    • Use the expansion of ClaveÚnica as an opportunity to provide citizens with digital literacy and digital skills training through ChileAtiende and other face to face locations whilst people are activating their ClaveÚnica for the first time.
    • Include Digital Identity as an explicit topic in spend controls, quality assurance processes,
      design guidelines and training and capacity building. This is to maximise awareness and adoption within government and avoid the development of duplicate solutions.
    • Make funding available to meet the needs of government teams in seeing
      ClaveÚnica as a reliable and respected service. This should ensure the design of ClaveÚnica’s technical solution is easy to implement and supported by ongoing reference materials, guidance and, where necessary, consultancy. It should also include the necessary support to service teams in producing clear cost-benefit analysis and rationale for identifying return on investment when making business cases for implementation and adoption.
    • Review the mechanisms by which public agencies agree to exchange data and
      provide guidance and boilerplate templates to support a more efficient process. This should complement efforts to implement interoperability standards across both legacy and newly developed systems.
    • Identify Key Performance Indicators relating to the time and cost involved in
      providing non-Digital Identity enabled services to provide a baseline for measuring, comparing and demonstrating the benefits of implementing Digital Identity. Publish this as Open Government Data and within the performance dashboards detailing the quality of service provision in Chile.

    The blurb

    In our interactions with the people we know we don’t give any thought to the proof of their identity. When we meet someone for the first time we trust they are who they say they are. Sometimes an introduction is brokered by a mutual, trusted, acquaintance who knows both parties. However, in our transactional dealings with government there is a greater expectation – and need – to be able to prove who we are, where we live and what we can access. The provision of digital identity (DI) is critical to government ambitions for transforming the quality of public services.

    This study discusses Chile’s experience of DI alongside a comparison of 13 OECD countries, and aims to support the Government of Chile in developing and enhancing their approach to the development of DI as a piece of core digital government infrastructure and an enabler of seamless service delivery. The study uses a framework that covers the foundations for identity in terms of existing national identity infrastructure, policies and governance, the technical solutions that have been explored, the factors which impact adoption, and the ways in which DI can empower citizens through greater control of their data, transparency and measurement of impact.

    Available as a HTML publication or a PDF

    The impact of digital government on citizen well-being

    May 15, 2019 / / 1 Comment

    I’m really pleased with how this paper came together. It’s the first thing I’ve written at the OECD, and the first ‘academic’ work that’s been published in my name.

    Available as a PDF.

    What’s the TL;DR?

    This paper exists because the OECD more broadly is interested in this idea of “citizen well-being”. There’s a cross-cutting horizontal project about it with different teams writing up how their work is important to the concept.

    And we’re no different. So what impact can digital government have on citizen well-being? Well, my argument in the paper is that there are three characteristics of government that create outcomes that improve well-being. They are responsive, protective and trustworthy:

    Continue reading

    Text

    © 2024 bmwelby's blog // Cookies and your privacy

    Theme by Anders Norén — Up ↑