Formatting code for roleoftech
======The role of contempory technology in future public services======
============
We need a plain top-level statement of what we think the role of technology is in the context of what the UK needs. This must be concise and address the big issues directly.
It has to sit explicitly in the context of
1. Overriding economic and commercial needs of the country
- helping re-design and re-think public services, remodelled around the needs and priorities of the citizen
- helping deliver better quality, more timely and appropriate public services
- demonstrating value for the taxpayer
- enabling academic research, innovation and creativity to play a more active and beneficial role of wider benefit to UK society
- enabling and suppporting innovation (from public services to businesses)
- enabling simplicity (in administration) and helping reduce and remove bureaucracy and nugatory costs (eg in particular around the high frictional costs of tax collection and welfare payments)
- delivering year-on-year savings in the cost of the public sector. The opportunity to cut administration costs is 10 times larger than the opportunity to cut IT spend. The savings opportunity if we streamline or reinvent public services is 10 times as large again. This must not be about IT in splendid isolation: but about its integrated role in the way we operate a 21st century UK.
2. Big social agenda:
Technology pervades every aspect of the way a modern state thinks and operates. We need to understand the role of IT across the entire diversity of functions, not just in the narrow terms that it is often mistakenly conceived. For example:
- its role in localising the relevance and delivery of health and social care, enabling citizens to live longer, better lives in their own homes and communities (look at the pilot work of Kent County Council for example)
- or in re-thinking the way in which and where education happens, not only during the 0-18 years, but throughout our lifetimes
- or in supporting a better balanced geographical distribution of economic investment and activity across the UK
- or in addressing the human impacts on our environment, such as climate change, through the provision of more efficient technologies and the displacement of old patterns of industrial activity with new approaches, such as "remote" working (remote from what of course ...?)
- or helping mitigate the effects of poverty and exclusion in the UK
- or suppporting citizens in social, economic and geographical mobility
- or its role in international relations and defence (helping avoid conflict and supporting peace by removing sources of injustice and conflict, and in providing more effective, consensual security for UK citizens)
The UK needs to ensure it has the appropriate knowledge of, and skills to manage, the role of IT during the inception of policy, not just as an adminstrative/bureacractic after-thought. Of course, IT may not always be the answer: but it needs to be understood and considered so that the right policies are adopted in the first place.
Some of the other areas where IT could be playing a significant contribution as a lever of policymaking include addressing the UK's low productivity (particularly in the public sector, according to ONS statistics) and the way in which some parts of the country are being over-heated, over-priced and over-populated (such as London and the south east) while others are in decline.
Technology has the potential to help reduce our dependency on physical locations, particularly for much white collar related work. Our pre-occupation with physical locations and real estate is wasting over �18Bn+ a year (1.5% of GDP) through inefficient use of property (source: UK Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors). Traffic congestion is costing UK business �20Bn+ per annum (source: CBI). 62% of UK citizens get to/from work by car (source: ONS) and 85% of all journeys are by car, with transport contributing around 25% of carbon dioxide emissions (with 85% of this from road transport).
Yet UK initiatives on bringing the disabled into the workforce, transport, Kyoto targets, flexible retirement / benefits / patterns of working and strategic policy on where to locate new housing do not even mention the transformational and economic impact of technology as part of core public policy. We are missing a trick and need to help fix this through a strategy that relates directly to public policymaking and our public services.
3. Underpinning principles:
- citizen data to be managed by the citizen and respected by the State
- citizen data to be secure and held in privacy-aware ways
- in 1998, the [[http://www.essaywriter.co.uk/essay.aspx essay]] "View from the Queue", the only govt IT document that seems to have actually engaged with citizens, identified the improvements being sought as:
. simplifying procedures and documentation;
. reducing time taken queuing or waiting;
. minimising referrals between officials;
. eliminating interactions which fail to yield outcomes;
. extending contact opportunities beyond office hours;
. improving relationships with the public.
It also sought to:
. ensure �confidentiality� or privacy in interacting with government;
. provide safeguards against fraud or computer hacking;
. provide guarantees about government�s use of information;
. provide assistance and support to users.
It is these types of meaningful outcomes/principles that the strategy needs to embrace in its 1-2 pages. A strategy should not be bound up in technologies of the moment, but offer the guiding principles that govern the application and use of IT with regard to public services.
Timescale: needs to be medium-term, and to establish key principles and objectives that will hold good for a decade. Detailed, operational planning that sits below it that provides the detail of how to deliver those objectives.
What do we consider the best ideas available?
- Consitutionally we want to be as smart as Holland.
- ""FoI"" is not a hassle. It's a given. We need to fast-track our public sevants so they're as comfortable with ""FoI"" within a decade as Scandinavians have become over 240 years. Then we can be bettr at it than the Scandinavians whose ""FoI"" processes are designed for paper systems.
- Customer service: we want the ethic of Canada
- Web savvy of the US or Australia.
What else do we need? Where else does this best?
Whose ideas are best on this? This means taking the ideas of people like Clay Shirkey, Tim O'Reilly, Kim Cameron, Stefan Brands, Doc Searls. We're already working with our own Tim Berners-Lee and Marth Lane-Fox who are doing great work. We're bringing in more Tom Steinberg and Ed Mayo, and we need more Paul Hodgkin and the perspective of exemplary young CIOs like James Cronin and Mike Bracken.
Then our ideal government IT strategy reviews and fuses these, and expresses them in a uniquely British way.
The "beauty" that Christina calls for below must lie in the fitness for purpose of what we propose. It must service a noble purpose in an elegant way. The term "beauty" will doubtless freak some people out so we probably can't use it. But it's a powerful way of expressing what we need, so I want Christina to see the beauty.
A strategy should establish key principles and objectives and be relatively static over time. It is the detailed, operational planning that sits below it that provides the detail of how to deliver those objectives. We need to ensure this distinction between strategic and operational planning, and that the two do not become confused. The work here will distill the 1-2 pages of *strategy* and accompany that strategic purpose with the more detailed principles and ideas evolved by those who participate here, either directly in the wiki or through the comments.
Christina calls for
& MORAL PRINCIPLES:
& - beauty - that is, elegance and lyricism of design architectures;
& - truth - that is, appropriate, feasible and just legislative arrangements;
& - probity - that is, the utter eschewing of vested interests, greed, personal gain;
& - and above all a commitment to imagination - that is the willingness to embrace the full picture in its simplicity.
&
& To reduce that to even shorter terms: we need good conduct, good laws and good design, in that order, and anyone working on this needs to do so in a spirit of service, not profit.
&
& Art of course. Because despite its apparent utter dullness, government IT is actually going to be one of two things: either the cradle of the coming civilisation, or its nemesis.
&
& And unless informed by the four points above, it hasn't a chance and we will founder in a welter of debt, decrepitude, turpitude and turpentine. Or near offer.
&
& Thus so far. Put me on your lists. Bring me to the party. I will sing the heavenly muse of a technology that serves and empowers without imprisoning. It's high time.
&
Back to [[http://wiki.idealgovernment.com/IdealGovernmentITStrategy CTPR Ideal Government IT Strategy home page]]
====Raising Aspirations====
A key role for technology is to raise aspirations, and to show that **I**t **Would** **B**e **B**etter **I**f .... It should be used to raise the aspirations and expectations of the citizens. Things can get better, and should get better, but will only improve substantially if we adapt to use the technology to best advantage.
But it should also be about dangling the carrot in front of both citizens and public servants, saying "If you can learn how to use this technology, there are //these// real benefits for you". Maybe you need to offer the 'best' appointment slots at the doctor's surgery? Or even a discount for completing the Tax Return online? Maybe public servants need to have some of the performance related elements of their salary linked to technological skill development? Perhaps promotion is only available to those with the technological skill sets?
Controversial? Maybe. Discriminatory against those without the technological skills? Possibly, but there needs to be some reason for raising aspirations. Personal gain and professional development go hand in hand. But it's not discriminatory if it's available to all. So open up the technological skills training. Make it more widely and freely available. Publicly hosted Virtual Learning Environments could (and should) be used to give everyone - citizen and public servant alike - access to personal skill development programs. Why an't parents and children sit their A Levels together - online!
Welcome here
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============
We need a plain top-level statement of what we think the role of technology is in the context of what the UK needs. This must be concise and address the big issues directly.
It has to sit explicitly in the context of
1. Overriding economic and commercial needs of the country
- helping re-design and re-think public services, remodelled around the needs and priorities of the citizen
- helping deliver better quality, more timely and appropriate public services
- demonstrating value for the taxpayer
- enabling academic research, innovation and creativity to play a more active and beneficial role of wider benefit to UK society
- enabling and suppporting innovation (from public services to businesses)
- enabling simplicity (in administration) and helping reduce and remove bureaucracy and nugatory costs (eg in particular around the high frictional costs of tax collection and welfare payments)
- delivering year-on-year savings in the cost of the public sector. The opportunity to cut administration costs is 10 times larger than the opportunity to cut IT spend. The savings opportunity if we streamline or reinvent public services is 10 times as large again. This must not be about IT in splendid isolation: but about its integrated role in the way we operate a 21st century UK.
2. Big social agenda:
Technology pervades every aspect of the way a modern state thinks and operates. We need to understand the role of IT across the entire diversity of functions, not just in the narrow terms that it is often mistakenly conceived. For example:
- its role in localising the relevance and delivery of health and social care, enabling citizens to live longer, better lives in their own homes and communities (look at the pilot work of Kent County Council for example)
- or in re-thinking the way in which and where education happens, not only during the 0-18 years, but throughout our lifetimes
- or in supporting a better balanced geographical distribution of economic investment and activity across the UK
- or in addressing the human impacts on our environment, such as climate change, through the provision of more efficient technologies and the displacement of old patterns of industrial activity with new approaches, such as "remote" working (remote from what of course ...?)
- or helping mitigate the effects of poverty and exclusion in the UK
- or suppporting citizens in social, economic and geographical mobility
- or its role in international relations and defence (helping avoid conflict and supporting peace by removing sources of injustice and conflict, and in providing more effective, consensual security for UK citizens)
The UK needs to ensure it has the appropriate knowledge of, and skills to manage, the role of IT during the inception of policy, not just as an adminstrative/bureacractic after-thought. Of course, IT may not always be the answer: but it needs to be understood and considered so that the right policies are adopted in the first place.
Some of the other areas where IT could be playing a significant contribution as a lever of policymaking include addressing the UK's low productivity (particularly in the public sector, according to ONS statistics) and the way in which some parts of the country are being over-heated, over-priced and over-populated (such as London and the south east) while others are in decline.
Technology has the potential to help reduce our dependency on physical locations, particularly for much white collar related work. Our pre-occupation with physical locations and real estate is wasting over �18Bn+ a year (1.5% of GDP) through inefficient use of property (source: UK Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors). Traffic congestion is costing UK business �20Bn+ per annum (source: CBI). 62% of UK citizens get to/from work by car (source: ONS) and 85% of all journeys are by car, with transport contributing around 25% of carbon dioxide emissions (with 85% of this from road transport).
Yet UK initiatives on bringing the disabled into the workforce, transport, Kyoto targets, flexible retirement / benefits / patterns of working and strategic policy on where to locate new housing do not even mention the transformational and economic impact of technology as part of core public policy. We are missing a trick and need to help fix this through a strategy that relates directly to public policymaking and our public services.
3. Underpinning principles:
- citizen data to be managed by the citizen and respected by the State
- citizen data to be secure and held in privacy-aware ways
- in 1998, the [[http://www.essaywriter.co.uk/essay.aspx essay]] "View from the Queue", the only govt IT document that seems to have actually engaged with citizens, identified the improvements being sought as:
. simplifying procedures and documentation;
. reducing time taken queuing or waiting;
. minimising referrals between officials;
. eliminating interactions which fail to yield outcomes;
. extending contact opportunities beyond office hours;
. improving relationships with the public.
It also sought to:
. ensure �confidentiality� or privacy in interacting with government;
. provide safeguards against fraud or computer hacking;
. provide guarantees about government�s use of information;
. provide assistance and support to users.
It is these types of meaningful outcomes/principles that the strategy needs to embrace in its 1-2 pages. A strategy should not be bound up in technologies of the moment, but offer the guiding principles that govern the application and use of IT with regard to public services.
Timescale: needs to be medium-term, and to establish key principles and objectives that will hold good for a decade. Detailed, operational planning that sits below it that provides the detail of how to deliver those objectives.
What do we consider the best ideas available?
- Consitutionally we want to be as smart as Holland.
- ""FoI"" is not a hassle. It's a given. We need to fast-track our public sevants so they're as comfortable with ""FoI"" within a decade as Scandinavians have become over 240 years. Then we can be bettr at it than the Scandinavians whose ""FoI"" processes are designed for paper systems.
- Customer service: we want the ethic of Canada
- Web savvy of the US or Australia.
What else do we need? Where else does this best?
Whose ideas are best on this? This means taking the ideas of people like Clay Shirkey, Tim O'Reilly, Kim Cameron, Stefan Brands, Doc Searls. We're already working with our own Tim Berners-Lee and Marth Lane-Fox who are doing great work. We're bringing in more Tom Steinberg and Ed Mayo, and we need more Paul Hodgkin and the perspective of exemplary young CIOs like James Cronin and Mike Bracken.
Then our ideal government IT strategy reviews and fuses these, and expresses them in a uniquely British way.
The "beauty" that Christina calls for below must lie in the fitness for purpose of what we propose. It must service a noble purpose in an elegant way. The term "beauty" will doubtless freak some people out so we probably can't use it. But it's a powerful way of expressing what we need, so I want Christina to see the beauty.
A strategy should establish key principles and objectives and be relatively static over time. It is the detailed, operational planning that sits below it that provides the detail of how to deliver those objectives. We need to ensure this distinction between strategic and operational planning, and that the two do not become confused. The work here will distill the 1-2 pages of *strategy* and accompany that strategic purpose with the more detailed principles and ideas evolved by those who participate here, either directly in the wiki or through the comments.
Christina calls for
& MORAL PRINCIPLES:
& - beauty - that is, elegance and lyricism of design architectures;
& - truth - that is, appropriate, feasible and just legislative arrangements;
& - probity - that is, the utter eschewing of vested interests, greed, personal gain;
& - and above all a commitment to imagination - that is the willingness to embrace the full picture in its simplicity.
&
& To reduce that to even shorter terms: we need good conduct, good laws and good design, in that order, and anyone working on this needs to do so in a spirit of service, not profit.
&
& Art of course. Because despite its apparent utter dullness, government IT is actually going to be one of two things: either the cradle of the coming civilisation, or its nemesis.
&
& And unless informed by the four points above, it hasn't a chance and we will founder in a welter of debt, decrepitude, turpitude and turpentine. Or near offer.
&
& Thus so far. Put me on your lists. Bring me to the party. I will sing the heavenly muse of a technology that serves and empowers without imprisoning. It's high time.
&
Back to [[http://wiki.idealgovernment.com/IdealGovernmentITStrategy CTPR Ideal Government IT Strategy home page]]
====Raising Aspirations====
A key role for technology is to raise aspirations, and to show that **I**t **Would** **B**e **B**etter **I**f .... It should be used to raise the aspirations and expectations of the citizens. Things can get better, and should get better, but will only improve substantially if we adapt to use the technology to best advantage.
But it should also be about dangling the carrot in front of both citizens and public servants, saying "If you can learn how to use this technology, there are //these// real benefits for you". Maybe you need to offer the 'best' appointment slots at the doctor's surgery? Or even a discount for completing the Tax Return online? Maybe public servants need to have some of the performance related elements of their salary linked to technological skill development? Perhaps promotion is only available to those with the technological skill sets?
Controversial? Maybe. Discriminatory against those without the technological skills? Possibly, but there needs to be some reason for raising aspirations. Personal gain and professional development go hand in hand. But it's not discriminatory if it's available to all. So open up the technological skills training. Make it more widely and freely available. Publicly hosted Virtual Learning Environments could (and should) be used to give everyone - citizen and public servant alike - access to personal skill development programs. Why an't parents and children sit their A Levels together - online!
Welcome here
Excellent source to get refilling task done for free [[http://www.valueshop.co.uk/recycling.asp ink cartridges recycling]] [[http://fashiontrendsandtips.wordpress.com Fashion Trends Blog]] and for those want to book air tickets for [[http://www.cheapflighttoaustralia.org.uk cheap flights to Australia]] from UK.
