We told you so…

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GDS design principles and design-driven public services

WRITTEN ON Wednesday, April 4th, 2012 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Design: Co-creation, Design: user-oriented, Ideal government IT strategy, Save Time and Money, We told you so...

Like a contented snore from a prolonged snooze, here’s a quick and now rare post to acknowledge the new GDS design principles: 1 Start with needs* 2 Do less 3 Design with data 4 Do the hard work to make it simple 5 Iterate. Then iterate again. 6 Build for inclusion 7 Understand context 8 […]

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DWP-HMRC-CSA org-centric data #fail

WRITTEN ON Friday, January 14th, 2011 BY William Heath AND STORED IN We told you so...

Look at this buck-passing after a classic org-centric data #fail: The Parliamentary Ombudsman has criticised three government agencies for a “data sharing blame game” after they failed to put a citizen’s data problems right after a complaint going back to 2006. In a report published by Parliamentary Ombudsman Ann Abraham, the agencies are found to […]

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Lie detector tests for benefits dropped

WRITTEN ON Wednesday, November 10th, 2010 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, We told you so...

Plans to use VRA lie detector software to identify benefit cheats have been scrapped after trials suggest it is unreliable… Professor Lacerda, who is head of phonetics at Stockholm University, told the Guardian he welcomed the government’s decision to drop the technology. “I praise the Department of Work and Pensions for the serious investigation they […]

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Twilight of the speed cameras

WRITTEN ON Thursday, September 23rd, 2010 BY William Heath AND STORED IN We told you so...

It seems councils are starting to turn off vehicle speed cameras (Reading, Derby, Oxfordshire). There must be a German word for this. Something like Fahrzeugsgeschwindigkeitskameraeinrichtungdämmerung.

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Rethink personal data logistics 2: health

WRITTEN ON Saturday, September 4th, 2010 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Identity, We told you so...

The whole business of centrally held health records, summary care records shared without informed consent, detailed care records, secondary uses by all and sundry is far from ideal. Wibbi you could just press a big ol’ button and download your health record, in machine readable format, to put in your personal data store or locally […]

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Databases can’t fix society. But society can fix the databases

WRITTEN ON Sunday, August 8th, 2010 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Design: Co-creation, Foundation of Trust, Power of Information, Save Time and Money, We told you so...

The closure of ContactPoint and the onset of the Databankendämmerung is – let’s say it again – cause for celebration. It’s also cause for congratulation to those who campaigned long and hard, with negligeable resources, against the brick wall of prevailing wisdom to get rid of it. That’s not to say the underlying problems ContactPoint […]

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#idealgits & the “lost decade” in identity and personal data

WRITTEN ON Monday, March 29th, 2010 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Ideal government IT strategy, Identity, Transformational Government, We told you so...

The #idealgits process now has a supportive champion in Jim Knight, DWP Minister charged with all digital aspects of Smarter Government. Jerry and I had a second meeting (we can’t really say where or with whom) at which it was Jim who led in setting out the case for personal control over personal data. There’s […]

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#Idealgits: how we need to do section one

WRITTEN ON Monday, December 28th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Ideal government IT strategy, Political engagement, We told you so..., What do we want?

Britain’s ideal government IT strategy (#idealgits) first needs a plain top-level statement of the role of technology in the context of the society we’re trying to become. We’re going to try to set this out here. It has to address the big issues directly and succinctly. This means it has to support the overriding economic […]

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Time to say what we want from government IT

WRITTEN ON Friday, December 18th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Across the Board, Design: Co-creation, Design: user-oriented, Foundation of Trust, Government Procurement, Ideal Goverment - project, Ideal government IT strategy, Identity, Pertinent Art, Policies, Political engagement, Power of Information, Save Time and Money, Transformational Government, We told you so...

It’s time to say what we want from government IT. Let’s do this together. Let’s say “wouldn’t it be better if” about how tech affects transparency, costs and the quality of public services and how they affect our lives. @ntouk and I have long since been fed up with what one senior Whitehall official yesterday […]

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Michael Wills: “Courteous & mutually respectful dialogue” (#CMRD: was “It’s time to Move Beyond Rhetoric” #IMBR)

WRITTEN ON Thursday, December 10th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Bad stuff, Data nitwittery, Identity, Official fibbing/bad stats, Pertinent Art, Political engagement, Save Time and Money, Transformational Government, We told you so...

In a speech yesterday Michael Wills (whom I dont know myself, but he’s Labour member of Parliament for Swindon North, and a Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice) called for a new, more courteous and respectful dialogue over government’s use of personal data. IdealGovernment has wanted this for years. But – as he […]