Tag: Public Trust

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 / Benjamin Welby / 0 Comments

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.

We need more participation in policymaking, we certainly don’t need less

July 25, 2024 / Benjamin Welby / 5 Comments

I started writing a comment in response to today’s essay by James O’Malley but it quickly became outsized so I’ve turned it into a blog post instead.

The source for that essay is a new whitepaper from Demos that offers up a roadmap for embedding greater public participation in national policy making. James isn’t a great fan of it and in making the URL for his essay “James vs Demos” he’s clearly writing from a place of provocation. But he’s not alone. It also drew the ire of several commentators on Twitter. What’s strange is that I think in different times all of them would have probably been at the vanguard of enthusiasm for greater openness and engagement from government, not less.

But I can sympathise with their point of view. Some of that is concern that such efforts simply create an open buffet for cranks and extremists to push their agendas because they’re the ones who show up. But overall I sense a tired frustration that the country is just really bad at delivering the things we need. And that the feeling is that the sclerosis in this aspect of modern Britain comes from inviting external voices into the process which delay and obfuscate from what needs to be done because they hold too much sway.

A good example of that could be that some of the ballooning costs of HS2 that ultimately led to its cancellation for the country as a whole coming from efforts to satisfy the concerns of certain local communities and residents. While on the flip side to that, the new government has rapidly pressed ahead with a number of energy initiatives with national (if not international) outcomes in mind that had been being held up by local objections.

But focusing on these issues is to absolve those who govern for their deficiency in leadership. We can say that in either case it’s been a face off between individuals and communities (bad) and government decisiveness (good). But that’s such a bad place for us to end up when it comes to thinking about the sort of society we want to live in and the sort of public discourse we want to engage with.

Building a data-driven public sector Part 3: Unlocking the value of data without losing public trust

July 19, 2024 / Benjamin Welby / 3 Comments

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Building a data driven public sector (DDPS)

On 16th May 2024 I led a 90 minute session as part of the Digital Academy Masterclass, hosted by the Government of Azerbaijan’s Innovation and Digital Development Agency, and delivered by Digital Nation.

I’ve broken the presentation into 4 parts. After the introduction, Part 1 considered the potential of data to deliver public value; Part 2 looked at the elements needed to actually build a data-driven public sector; and this, Part 3, explored how to unlock the value of data without losing public trust.

Unless otherwise indicated or an obvious screenshot, the images were generated by ChatGPT.

Now we’re onto the third and final part of this morning’s session. We’ve thought about where value can come from in terms of what you do with data. We’ve thought about the role you all play in helping to create the conditions for data to be used. But now we will finish with thinking about how our use of data builds and preserves trust.

Trust is such a valuable commodity. But it can be lost so quickly and take so long to repair.

Trust between citizens and their government is the basis on which the legitimacy of public institutions is built. Without trust, some policies lose their meaning and some services cease to be used. Unfortunately, trust is deteriorating in many countries.

Re: The oddness of the political moment

July 9, 2024 / Benjamin Welby / 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.

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

The power of AI

We need more participation in policymaking, we certainly don’t need less

Building a data-driven public sector Part 3: Unlocking the value of data without losing public trust

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Re: The oddness of the political moment

1. Accountability of politicians

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