Post-election there is a critical factor that will be pivotal in determining the outcome of these proposals: the digital deliverability of each policy the winning party has promised to implement.

Digital deliverability is critical because data and digital infrastructure form the backbone of government operations. The products and services supported by the Government Digital Service are used by 13 million people weekly and involve 1,900 public sector organisations.

If the government is serious about policy delivery it must understand the extent to which its policies are digitally deliverable in this context. 

During my time in the civil service, I saw many great ideas designed to improve services, save money and create better government experiences. Unfortunately, I also witnessed several occasions when these efforts were hampered by a lack of consideration of the organisational and technical barriers that would need to be overcome .

The consequences of this are severe, including wasted public money, erosion of the public’s trust in government and a negative impact on people’s lives when policies are poorly implemented or not implemented at all.

We will need a significant change in how government teams think and collaborate with each other if we are to address these problems

 Better collaboration on policy design is key

Failures to implement digital-ready policy initiatives in the UK often stem from a lack of early collaboration between leadership and policy teams. And also with other key stakeholders including end users, frontline staff and the digital teams responsible for creating and maintaining the necessary products and services.

In other countries, it’s different. In Denmark, for instance, new legislation presented before parliament must include an impact assessment of its digital consequences. The UK should adopt a similar approach by fostering closer collaboration between policymakers and digital design experts early in the process. Combining data, user research and digital skills can create user-centric, digital-ready policies aligned with GDS and Agile principles.

The benefits of this approach include rapid advancement of policy thinking through direct citizen engagement and ongoing testing, plus better understanding by policymakers of what is technically feasible. We would also see better alignment of policy with the digital needs of citizens and reduction of errors and risks in the design process.

Immediate, practical measures are needed to advance this alignment and provide direction. For example, focused transformation workshops can unite key stakeholders – including senior managers, digital teams and users.

The goal should be to identify the problems the organisation aims to solve, achieve consensus on desired outcomes and understand constraints and priority areas. Teams can use this as a base on which to rapidly co-design prototypes that will help with faster digital delivery of policy. 

I know this approach works from experience. Workshops conducted within a short time frame accelerate decision-making. Stakeholders become aligned and — through their hands-on involvement — have visibility and ownership of the problem.

Systems thinking is required

In the longer term, we must address substantial accumulated technical debt in legacy systems across government that hinder the delivery of new policy-driven initiatives.  Rather than continuing to talk of digital transformation this will require a shift to ‘systems thinking’ supported by agile delivery that considers all related challenges holistically with an iterative approach rather than a big bang. 

Policy initiatives are inherently complex, involving many legacy technologies, processes, and stakeholders. Systems thinking helps identify unnecessary complexity accumulated over time, allowing organisations to replace convoluted workflows with efficiency, simplicity and user-centric designs. It also deals with complexity by breaking down systems into manageable chunks and understanding their relationships.

 Systems thinking also emphasises the importance of feedback loops to gauge impact over time continually. Driving innovation isn’t just about launching something to fanfare; it’s about constantly monitoring and adapting to achieve the desired outcomes.

Change is possible

Digital deliverability must be a key test for policy post-election. By fostering collaboration and embracing systems thinking departments can overcome many of the policy implementation challenges they have faced in recent years.

Partly this will mean leaning into the experience of external partners who can provide not only technical execution but also strategic engagement with leadership and stakeholders. For their part, those consultants must be flexible and responsive to changing requirements and bring specialised expertise to address digital skills gaps and inform senior leaders  This approach will lead to more effective, efficient and trusted government operations. 

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It’s well recognised that SMEs are the backbone of the UK’s economy, and that mid-sized and scale-up businesses are the engine room of innovation, growth and international trade.  The UK’s 5.51 million SMEs represent 99.9% of UK businesses, employ 61% of the total workforce, and contribute £2.4 trillion (53%) to the UK economy.  Therefore, common sense suggests that leveraging SMEs and scale-up businesses is key to the UK’s prosperity, growth, economic resilience, and global competitiveness.

The UK needs a pipeline of great businesses.  Businesses that challenge the existing marketplace and make it more diverse, competitive, resilient, and productive.  Businesses that are aspirational, with a growth mindset, and that contribute economically through high-value job creation, commercialising innovative products and services, and that increase the UK’s international trade.

If we shape great policy that builds great businesses then we also shape an economy that encourages and incentivises UK entrepreneurs, SMEs and scale-up companies to build the successful small businesses that are an important part of our local communities, and that can go onto becoming the mid-sized, large businesses and exporters of the future.  Great policy that encourages SMEs to invest and grow will create skilled employment opportunities across local communities; businesses that more willingly adopt technology and better train their staff; and stronger more globally competitive industries across our regions.  Great businesses also tend to give back to the communities from which they grow.

There is a very real ‘Valley of Death’ for companies that are disproportionately burdened by government regulations and unnecessarily difficult or complex trading conditions.  Businesses have not yet finished navigating through the long and sustained period of financial, health, energy and economic challenges that started with the global financial crisis of 2008.

As an entrepreneur and economist by background, I am faithful to the concept that common sense should have no colour when it comes to matters of business and the economy.  Adding costs, bureaucracy and increasing burdensome regulations will be enormously detrimental to the recovery and growth of UK businesses, and therefore also to our economy.

It makes no sense to make it too difficult for small, medium and scaling companies to run a competitive, profitable business.  It makes no sense to discourage entrepreneurs from working hard, assuming personal and financial risks, taking on debt, investing in innovation, recruiting additional staff, upskilling their people, scaling-up the business, and taking their products and services to new international markets! 

Great policy balances the harsh realities and hard work of running and scaling up a company with incentives that encourage ambition, investment, risk-taking and perseverance.  This is especially important in key sectors, which often require significant investment in R&D, high-value skills and capability development, and regulatory compliance burdens as the business grows.

As a founder, my executive team and I have built a business that is successful, resilient, has a scalable digital operating model, can diversify and adapt depending on market conditions and opportunities, is able to raise capital when needed, and has successfully navigated more than three decades of UK and global economic cycles.

As a leader, I believe in the principle of ‘what is good for the hive, is good for the bees’ and our people are part of a great hive, evidenced independently with a 97% rating in “Great Places to Work” – being in the top 1% of employers globally.  Informed Solutions is a mid-sized international business, headquartered in Greater Manchester, recognised with two Queens Awards for Innovation and three World Innovation, Technology and Services Alliance Awards.  Therefore, I offer these opinions based on considerable lived experience as an entrepreneur which started, built and grew their business internationally over 30+ years and 4 UK governments of different colours.

In my view, key enablers for sustainable growth are incentives for ambitious, scaling, successful businesses and patient capital investors.  The key disablers of growth are burdensome, unnecessarily complicated regulations that drain productivity, disincentivise hard work, and remove rewards for risk taking and business success.  I am especially keen to see bold, progressive government policy that incentivises companies to recruit and build skills (competent, confident, better paid staff); adopt digital capabilities (more productive, scale-up ready businesses); demonstrate responsible and sustainable business practices (because ethics and behaviours matter) that create social value as well as economic value; and grow businesses into international markets to increase the UK’s global competitiveness.

Our national and regional economies, local communities, and future prosperity rely on great businesses.  Of course, the UK celebrates those rare unicorns.  Equally importantly, we need to build broader, stronger and more resilient economic foundations for sustainable development and growth.  This means, encouraging entrepreneurs, investors and scale-up businesses to fill the ‘missing middle’ – i.e. we need more small companies to successfully grow into mid-sized and large businesses.

My ambition for our incoming government is that they create bold, progressive policy that encourages, incentivises, celebrates and rewards the success of all great UK businesses – start-up, scale-up, small, medium, and large.

My hope is that common sense has no colour.

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We are calling for… [a] Local Government Centre for Digital Technology: using technological innovation to deliver reform and promote inclusive economic growth across councils.

There’s no more detail in the document, and little in the news article about it in UKAuthority either.

Now, I’ve been chatting with Owen Pritchard, who I would guess is the person behind this line, for a few years now, and I don’t doubt that he has his own, very long list of things he thinks the centre should do – so I’m pretty excited to find out in due course what that looks like.

In the meantime though, let me toss around a few ideas… what could this centre do?

1) Coordinate procurement

The first thing for me would be to start investigating how the buying power of the sector could be consolidated to produce economies of scale, and better contracts.

I’d start in the bottom right of a Wardley map, the commoditised digital gubbins that keeps councils running, and where it makes no sense to have that stuff duplicated 300 odd times across the country.

Laptops, phones, broadband connections, hosting services… all these things have councils up and down the country running procurement exercises, negotiating contracts, managing those contracts… all this could be done once nationally, or a few times regionally, with no negative impact on local service delivery.

Once that’s done, how about we move on to using that collective buying power to:

• demand better products from suppliers, particularly in the line of business system market
• consolidate social value across contracts, to create meaningful, large scale opportunities for suppliers to support local public services
• Invest in the development of new products and services, either through existing or new companies, or even local authority trading organisations

This stuff is pretty boring in many ways, but I’m putting it first in this list because I think the actual opportunities are vast.

2) Fill the security gaps

With the cyber assessment framework and the LGA’s own cyber 360 reviews, there is plenty of advice out there in terms of best practice on security. However, many councils are lacking the capacity and the capability to implement this guidance. It’s nobody’s fault, just the result of many small organisations, who through years of austerity have been unable to invest in their technical infrastructure.

This could be sorted by having support available to councils to put in place the measures needed to ensure that data and information is kept as safe as possible from a technical standpoint. Flying squads of security experts who understand the local government environment, are knowledgeable about the frameworks and guidance, and can put in place the necessary steps to make all councils as secure as possible.

3) Education, education, education

One of the most important things that a centre like this could do would be to put a lot of effort into increasing the knowledge of digital across local government. Despite various efforts in recent years, the level of digital confidence within the general workforce in the sector is remarkably low.

We need people in leadership positions to understand what is possible and what they can do to unlock this potential. We need politicians who understand the strategic levers they need to pull to ensure the right long term decisions are being made in councils around technology strategy. We need the specialist teams within local government to be up to speed with the latest developments in cloud, development, security, and data, depending on their role. We need council teams to be way more confident in utilising user-centric service design approaches.

All of this could be advanced really quickly through a properly funded and planned out strategic learning programme across the sector.

The second strand is less about formal training and more about curating existing good practice case studies and examples, and creating ones that don’t exist but really should. Part of the problem of a fragmented sector of over 300 organisations is that it is really hard for anyone to know what is going on everywhere else.

The standard of documenting the good stuff is really poor. Case studies are dominated by vendors, announcing deals and anticipated outcomes, but with no follow up. We have councils going through the process of turning into unitaries, for example, but no documented playbook on how to successfully aggregate the IT in these situations. Why the hell not!? A local government dedicate centre could have a team of researchers and content designers producing useful, findable, actionable content that would help spread the word on how to get things done.

4) Data and standards

Everyone knows about the untapped potential of data within local government, but nobody so far has had the right mix of time, money, and intestinal fortitude to get it done properly.

It means taking on the line of business system providers to open up access to the data; to help navigate the arcane table structures of these creaking software behemoths; to have in place the data platforms to aggregate, transform, and usefully visualise data; to have data engineers and scientists able to formulate the right questions and figure out how to get the answers; and to have service managers who are open and willing to become data informed, and to change a lifetime’s habit of going by hunches and guesswork.

It’s a big ask, and it’s no wonder that progress has been slow. But so many of these problems are shared by every single council in the country. A centre such as the one being propose could come up with a whole host of replicable and scalable answers to these problems.

Alongside this kind of support, there’s also a need for standards around data and a centre could help coordinate and manage standards where they exist, and support the development of them where they are needed. Just as importantly, though, the centre could provide some teeth, ensuring that councils and their suppliers are meeting these standards to enable the safe use of data to improve outcomes for local areas. The use of coordinated, collective buying power would definitely help with this!

Another area of standards where a centre could help would be to produce re-usable data sharing agreements and policy documents, to help councils collaborate with other parts of the local public service system, without the need to reinvent the wheel at significant cost, over and over again.

5) Innovate at scale

Finally, I’d want to see some collective effort at innovating in a coordinated, replicable and scalable way. Pooled resources that can reduce the risk exposure for individual councils, bringing together the best brains and ideas with the people best at delivering results, to experiment, test, iterate and improve on radical ideas for local public services.

It’s far too big a risk for individual councils to take on, and no surprise that transformational change in local government is often so incremental. The exploration of new operating models in the internet era – companies like Uber, AirBnB, Netflix and so on – have been funded by billions in venture capital. But somehow we expect councils do be able to do it, alongside running the existing services, on a shoestring?

Imagine a centre, with enough resources to be able to pull together the best service design folk, the best data people, the best technologists, the subject matter experts for specific services, all able to identify the biggest challenges facing the sector and to innovate their way through to workable solutions that can be adopted across the sector. With this kind of scale and authority, such a centre could have the clout to agitate for legislative reform where it is needed, to call for the establishment of new institutions to deliver specific outcomes, or to work alongside existing council teams to help them adopt the new models.

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As an Amazon Web Services (AWS) government transformation advisor, I’ve observed best practices that deliver success, and in this post, I summarise them. Here are 10 ways that governments use incentives to accelerate successful digital transformation. 

1. Government grants and other financial support

Governments may offer agencies a share of savings achieved through change, as well as grants, subsidies, tax incentives, or low-interest loans. These support vehicles help offset the initial cost of transformation and encourage investment in technology upgrades.

For example, the Australia Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) invests in digital infrastructure that drives the digital economy. There are tax and other financial incentives targeted at building skills and using the DTA’s digital skills passport, MyPass.

2. Capacity building and training

Governments provide training programs, educational resources, hackathons, labs, incubators, and test beds to build digital literacy and technical skills among public sector employees, businesses, and citizens.

The Canadian government’s Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) program Beyond the Cloud trains people and upskill employees for essential roles such as cloud architects, engineers, and administrators. Beyond the Cloud is designed to give people skills to enter the modern workplace and to give businesses and the government the capability to transform. 

3. Regulatory reforms

Governments update regulations and policies to remove barriers to digital innovation and entrepreneurship. This includes simplifying licensing processes, promoting interoperability standards, and creating regulatory sandboxes to allow for experimentation with new technologies in a controlled environment. Built-in guardrails and checkpoints increase awareness of reforms, compliance, and successful use.

Cloud-first policies are an example of a regulatory reform to incentivise digital transformation by removing blockers to commercial cloud adoption and use. In the Philippines, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) published the country’s Cloud First Policy to drive cloud adoption and “foster flexibility, security, and cost-efficiency.”

4. Public-private partnerships (PPPs)

Governments collaborate with private sector companies, industry associations, and academic institutions to develop joint initiatives and projects to advance digital transformation.

PPPs are one way to invest in the digital public infrastructure (DPI) that is an essential foundation for digital services. Ukraine’s open government procurement site Prozorro (which means transparency in Ukrainian) is an example of a successful PPP investment in DPI. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) invested in the development of Prozorro, which is estimated to have saved Ukraine’s government $6 billion since 2017.

Examples of successful government partnerships for transformation also include the development of cloud procurement agreements, cloud-first policies, and digital marketplaces. 

5. Open data initiatives

Governments release public datasets and APIs to promote transparency, innovation, and economic development. Open data initiatives provide resources for businesses, researchers, and developers to use government data to create products and services.

Spain launched the Aporta Initiative in 2009 to open public information and promote data-based development of modern services. Aporta, backed by the provides insights on how to manage open data. 

6. Digital service delivery

Governments digitise public services to improve accessibility, convenience, and efficiency for people and businesses. They develop online portals, mobile apps, and digital platforms to access government services and information. Simpler access drives service use and increases customer demand and adoption.

The United Kingdom Government Digital Service (GDS) incentivises public sector transformation with tools it creates that remove barriers to change and improve services. These are available for reuse. An example is the GDS design system, which streamlines websites and digital content with standardized styles, components, and patterns and offers a guide on how to use them. Another example is the General Services Administration’s (GSA) 18F in the US.

7. Recognition and awards

Governments recognise and reward organisations and individuals that demonstrate excellence in digital transformation and innovation. These awards raise awareness, incentivise best practices, and inspire others to embark on their digital transformation journey.

In 2023, the European Union had more than 330 applicants for the European Digital Skills Awards across five categories. Digital government awards build culture and community and motivate people to try new things. 

8. National strategies and roadmaps

Governments develop national strategies for digital transformation to coordinate objectives and resource allocation across sectors and stakeholders. Digital strategies linked to government priorities tend to succeed. For example, the Korean Digital New Deal launched by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) has 12 goals across four sectors. Though the scope is broad, the individual goals are focused on specific government objectives and have led to South Korea being a recognised digital leader.

9. Monitor and evaluate against objectives

Governments set clear objectives and create mechanisms for continual introspection, improvement, and accountability. This helps leaders to make adjustments to keep activity on track. 

For example, Saudi Arabia’s Digital Government Authority (DGA) established indicators and a public website to provide open and transparent measurement towards its goal to move 80% of its workloads to the cloud. The DGA goal and measurement support the Saudi 2030 Vision.

10. Financial operations and spending controls

FinOps is the practice of managing spend on cloud technology. Governments establish FinOps teams, produce guidance, and provide tools to help plan, monitor, and control spending. These resources help users manage the transition from upfront investment in capital infrastructure used for traditional IT to the pay-as-you-go model used to buy cloud technology.

The UK Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) provides guidance on cloud spending controls for all of the government. It owns and standardises controls, which reduces effort, removes guess work, and creates organization-wide best practices.

Conclusion

By implementing these incentives and strategies, governments create an enabling culture of innovation for digital transformation that supports increased user adoption, more transparency and trust, and better impacts. Incentives are a powerful mechanism for transformation. In building and executing on a digital strategy, consider how these and other incentives can be used to navigate different types of blockers to realize transformation objectives.

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Our mission at dxw is to build services that fit seamlessly into users’ lives, making public services usable and accessible to all – especially to those most in need. Yet, the digital divide is still with us, and as more and more aspects of modern life move entirely online, millions of people are in danger of missing out.

Local authorities provide so many of the services we all rely on, and have a vital role to play in bridging the digital divide. The toolkit provides much needed resources to help them set up the right kind of support to tackle digital poverty.

While it’s true that the majority of people have access to the internet at home, that’s not true of everyone. Ofcom’s most recent Online Nation report says 7% of people still lack internet access at home but the figure for over 65’s is far higher at 18%.

For the past twenty plus years, governments of all political persuasion have invested billions in providing digital public services.

While digital public services are legally obliged to provide offline alternatives, these are of variable quality. And with acute and increasing pressure on public spending, the future for these assisted digital channels which are by their nature more expensive to deliver looks far from secure.

Meanwhile, from banks to utilities to retail, the private sector has increasingly looked online to do business. Whether you want to manage your household bills or book train tickets, it is getting harder to do these things over the phone or in-person.

Quite apart from access to the very services we all rely on to live our lives, there are the less tangible things that people will miss out on by virtue of lack of access. For example, banks close branches as more and more people bank online. Retailers like Debenhams have disappeared from the high street and moved online.

This is why digital inclusion matters and why dxw is proud to support the Digital Inclusion Toolkit. There’s some more information about the toolkit below.

How was the toolkit developed?

100% Digital Leeds and TechResort recognised there was no independent and comprehensive source of digital inclusion advice for local councils.

They decided to join forces and secured £318k of DLUHC funding in 3 funding rounds from August 2020. An agile multidisciplinary team was formed, led by Leeds City Council and TechResort. They created digitalinclusionkit.org, a depository for guides, case studies and insights to support councils’ digital inclusion work.

Who is the toolkit for?

Many councils recognise the need to tackle digital exclusion in their areas, even though this is not a statutory service. Some have officers and policy makers responsible for digital exclusion.  Research found these officers are time poor, often juggling these responsibilities with other work. Many are new to the role. Posts are often temporary. This toolkit is designed to help them.

What does the toolkit do?

It provides a comprehensive “how to” guide for digital inclusion work in the public sector and up to date and actionable digital inclusion news. This ensures officers who are often new to post or working part time can quickly access the latest guidance, and avoid making wrong turns and reinventing the wheel.

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Together, we’re building an artificial intelligence (AI) enabled service for GOV.UK that will help British people get information quickly and easily. There’s so much to consider.

As a Content Designer at CYB, I’ve been thinking a lot about how, where and why content fits into user-centred AI design. We know an important part of this project is that people need to trust they’re getting the right information from the UK Government. As a team, we’ve been asking one question in particular – do users need to know the project uses AI?

A project recap – AI helps people help themselves

At the moment, if people need help from the FCDO about living or travelling abroad, they can send an online enquiry. An agent at a contact centre responds by email within a few hours or days with the most relevant templated answer from a database of pre-written content.

Our AI-assisted tool will step in before someone sends an enquiry and try to find what they need instantly. When someone asks a question (or questions), the tool interprets what people are looking for, matches their question to the most relevant template and returns it straight away.

Although the tool uses generative AI, it’s not creating new content – there’s no risk that it’ll invent its own answers or give people incorrect information. We’re using it to do the thinking, not the speaking. 

It’s not a search, either – the LLM is not trawling GOV.UK and returning results. This tool does what the FCDO contact centre staff do, but without the wait. Ultimately, it’ll give contact centre staff space to support more vulnerable people.

What do users need to know about AI?

As part of the project, we’ve talked a lot about how much we should tell people about the tech we use, and how that knowledge might affect the way they feel about and use our service. Do users need to know that the project is built using LLM tools? And what difference does it make if they do? 

My first thoughts about revealing what’s behind the magical AI curtain was: why tell people anything? We wouldn’t normally reveal the tech behind digital services, so what makes this any different?

My desk research didn’t reveal much evidence about the best way for designers to approach the use of AI – most of what I found talked about chatbots in commercial settings, which is quite different to creating a government service. But one word that came up often was transparency. It seems clear that we should aim to be honest about what we’re doing with AI – this will give our users a sense of control and choice, and allow them to feel included in the service we’re creating.

Being honest with our users

So in normal circumstances, I am fairly sure the last thing any of us care about when we’re looking for information from the government is the tech behind the answer. But, as we worked on the service, and tested each new iteration, we recognised some possible user benefits to being more honest about how we’re using AI, including:

• managing expectations about the answers people will get
• allowing people to adapt how they interact with the tool
• taking the opportunity to educate and build trust in AI technology

Maybe we can simply create a good user experience and be transparent about it – that way, we can also begin to address the fear and suspicion around AI.

What we found in user testing

Initially, we tested the service without any additional context around our use of AI. We found participants were mostly indifferent to how their question was answered. They looked at the service as either a form that would go to a real person to answer several days later, or a search that would bring up a list of results immediately, neither of which set the right expectations.

To help correct those expectations, we decided to add in some AI info. Without burdening users with a wall of text, we needed to explain:

• who (or what) is answering their question
• how long they’ll wait for a reply
• where the information is coming from – and that it’s trustworthy
• what the answer will look like

After a lot of sticky notes, editing, and trying desperately to avoid the word ‘search’, we came up with this one-liner:

‘We’ll use artificial intelligence (AI) to understand your question and instantly find relevant information from GOV.UK.’ 

We took this line into user testing. It’s definitely something we’ll keep iterating, according to the way people use the tool and the feedback we get.

When we asked participants how they felt about it being an AI-assisted service, we got a mixed reception, including:

“Oh wow! Government’s using AI, how cool!’

“I don’t know much [about AI] but I know it’s taking people’s jobs away”

“It’s a bit sad but that’s the way the world’s going”

We got a few extremely positive or negative reactions – mainly based on individual experiences with AI, or what they’d chosen to read about it. But, generally, people just accepted it – a reflection of how AI is part of our lives now. 

Having the knowledge that this was AI-assisted definitely made a difference to the way participants used the tool. Most understood that keywords would affect results and they didn’t need to enter full sentences. 

Before they knew it was AI, people entered things like:

“I am in Thailand and I have decided to get married – to a girl from Thailand – is there any specific documentation that I require in order for the marriage to be valid in the UK?”

And once they knew it was AI:

“need information. marrying in Thailand”

It was interesting (and heartwarming) that some still added a ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ for the tool! 

People really just want answers

The overwhelming thing that came out of the testing was that, AI or no AI, people wanted to feel that they’d been understood and were given clear answers to their questions. So, no surprises there. 

Although using the pre-approved templates reduces the risk of giving people the wrong answer, it means we’re giving generic information and links, rather than a tailored response. But our participants generally understood and accepted that the tool has limits, and were happy with their answers.

We’ll carry on improving how the tool interprets questions. We’ll make sure the answers it returns are easy to understand, helpful and accessible – the content design staples.

We’ll make a service that’s efficient and reliable, and maybe start to demystify AI a little bit and prove how useful it can be.

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After diving into the seemingly ‘open’ datasets across the Scottish transport network, what we found did not embody ‘openness’ at all. Outdated datasets, unstructured information, and missing data were all major obstacles to carrying out effective analysis and problem-solving.

But don’t assume this is a technical problem. These challenges have real-world consequences that impact people’s everyday experiences. 

A notable example is the impact on public transport journeys, particularly to and from rural Scotland, where the lack of connectivity between transport providers leads to significant waiting times.

The challenges we encountered during our research extend beyond technical difficulties– they have a direct impact on democracy at the grassroots level.

Imagine a scenario where community activists want to improve local transport links, advocating for changes in bus/ferry/train schedules and enhanced connectivity between various modes of transportation. How can they substantiate their arguments if the relevant data is inaccessible or unusable?

In the context of Scotland, the consequences of this data usability gap become even more significant. Long waiting times between connections, as we’ve illustrated through our examination of transport schedules, compound the challenges faced by locals. Not only do they directly suffer from poor scheduling, but they are also unable to do anything about it. So, this is not merely a matter of convenience; it’s about fostering a space where citizens can actively participate in discussions that impact their daily lives.

In Scotland, the focus must shift towards making data usable, ensuring that it empowers local communities rather than hindering their efforts. By doing so, we will lay the foundation for a more transparent and accountable democracy, where citizens have access to the information necessary to actively participate in decisions affecting their daily lives.

Let’s move beyond the general rhetoric of open data and focus on making it truly accessible and usable for the citizens it aims to serve. By connecting the dots between open data challenges and their real-world implications, we pave the way for a future where local democracy thrives, powered by transparent, accessible, and usable data.

Originally posted here

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But while the standard and its fourteen points remain an important tool in driving service development and accountability, some challenges need to be addressed and overcome to ensure it continues to meet the ever-evolving digital landscape. 

Evolving requirements and landscapes

The methodology behind the standard was developed some time ago, and whilst it has been updated in part, it continues to primarily focus on the experiences of external users, not internal staff. As digital transformation continues across the public sector, we’re seeing more systems being developed where all or parts of the service are to be used by employees within departments (or between departments). As this is a relatively new development, service assessments are being carried out on these solutions by people who don’t always have experience and understanding of the impact and nuance that exists when delivering systems internally, or on the constraints set by internal ways of working. 

This means services created for internal users are assessed in the wrong way. Sometimes meeting user needs is not the most important thing, despite being the primary focus of an assessment. Not enough time is given to how well this new internal service aligns with policy or gathers data effectively. Digital teams then need to focus on matching their work to the standard spuriously, rather than meeting the core principles of the standard and all users’ needs, costing valuable time and resources.

At the same time, when the standard is applied too strictly during assessments, it can prevent teams from being able to continuously deliver and adapt to changing circumstances and needs. This can result in services not meeting user needs and platforms being developed that already need updating before they’ve even had a chance to be embedded. 

If we want to continue to produce high-quality digital services, the way the standard is upheld and services are assessed may need to change.

Letting go of bureaucracy and embracing flexibility

To address the challenges around internal user-centred services, there needs to be a rethink about how platforms and products are assessed and deemed to be appropriately meeting the standard. The assessment process in its current form is too much of a tick-box exercise, meaning pragmatism is being lost and services aren’t being designed with the right kinds of user, organisational and policy needs front and centre.

Updating the standard to meet the needs of different users, creating more room for flexibility and training assessors to understand these requirements, would allow digital partners and departments to create services quicker, more efficiently and cost-effectively.

When it comes to the strict application of the standard, there needs to be an acceptance and appreciation of embracing more flexible ways of working, rather than the traditional discovery/alpha/beta approach. 

Digital projects never follow a rigid timeline where there is a linear progression from beginning to end. Instead, they need to be taking a more agile approach, where continuous development and changes can be made throughout the project. This will allow updates to be made to a product at different stages without the fear of needing to get everything reassessed, while it will also allow projects to move quickly and for the prioritisation of the riskiest aspects of delivery and testing it in safe “pilot” environments.

The Digital Service Standard and the principles that sit behind it are key to ensuring public services are built to be accessible, user-centred and solving the intended need. However, technology and service requirements have changed since their initial development and we have moved beyond an era where a one-size-fits-all Standard is appropriate. The standard needs to adapt with the times, and by updating it and the assessment process to reflect broader user needs and agile ways of working, we can ensure we have regulations and services that meet the needs of everyone, from civil servants to the public.

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Government position

Currently, the UK approach to AI regulation rests on five principles, modelled loosely on those published by the OECD:

1. Safety, security and robustness

2. Appropriate transparency and explainability

3. Fairness

4. Accountability and governance

5. Contestability and redress

The Government intends for these principles to be interpreted and acted on by existing regulators – such as the Financial Conduct Authority in the finance sector, and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the pharmaceutical sector – to ‘guide and inform the responsible development and use of AI in all sectors of the economy’. They are effectively instructions to regulators about what outcomes they should be aiming for when AI is deployed in the areas for which they are responsible. The principles will not – initially – be placed on a statutory footing, and so regulators will have no legal obligation to take them into account, although the Government has said it will consider introducing legislation in the future.

Why legislate now?

The current situation leaves significant gaps in the legal framework for governing AI. Legal analysis from the Ada Lovelace Institute identified several issues:

• Highly inconsistent set of powers across regulators to monitor, investigate and enforce the principles within their domains – for example, many regulators do not have appropriate information gathering powers that permit them to interrogate the existence and functionality of algorithms, AI models, and underlying data use by regulated entities.

• Absence of regulators to enforce the principles in domains such as recruitment and employment, or diffusely regulated areas of public service delivery like policing or benefits and tax administration.

• Absence of developer-focused obligations that would meaningfully incentivise larger companies developing powerful ‘foundation models’ like GPT-4 to adhere to transparency and safety measures. The Government has acknowledged the risks from these models in its own research, stating ‘there may not be sufficient economic incentives to develop advanced AI with sufficient guardrails in place, and adequate safety standards have not yet been established for these potential future risks’. Regulators will also need powers to address AI harms that flow from these at their source, rather than ‘downstream’ at the point of use.

• Absence and high variability of meaningful recourse mechanisms when things go wrong – for example, the inability of ordinary people to secure enough information about automated decisions made about them to meaningfully challenge them under existing laws.

The AI authority

My Bill proposes the creation of an ‘AI Authority’ to spot these gaps and ensure that relevant regulators take account of AI. A full list of proposed responsibility is set out in Clause 1 of the Bill:

(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision to create a body called the AI Authority.

(2) The functions of the AI Authority are to—

(a) ensure that relevant regulators take account of AI;

(b) ensure alignment of approach across relevant regulators in respect of AI;

(c) undertake a gap analysis of regulatory responsibilities in respect of AI;

(d) coordinate a review of relevant legislation, including product safety, privacy and consumer protection, to assess its suitability to address the challenges and opportunities presented by AI;

(e) monitor and evaluate the overall regulatory framework’s effectiveness and the implementation of the principles in section 2, including the extent to which they support innovation;

(f) assess and monitor risks across the economy arising from AI;

(g) conduct horizon-scanning, including by consulting the AI industry, to inform a coherent response to emerging AI technology trends;

(h) support testbeds and sandbox initiatives (see section 3) to help AI innovators get new technologies to market;

(i) accredit independent AI auditors (see section 5(1)(a)(iv));

(j) provide education and awareness to give clarity to businesses and to empower individuals to express views as part of the iteration of the framework;

(k) promote interoperability with international regulatory frameworks

(3) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend the functions in subsection (2), and may dissolve the AI Authority, following consultation with such persons as he or she considers appropriate.

Who regulates what?

During the second reading debate on the Bill my colleague Lord Young of Cookham drew the Minister’s attention to Clause 1(2)(c), which states that the function of the AI authority is to,

“undertake a gap analysis of regulatory responsibilities in respect of AI”.

The Government’s White Paper and the consultation outcome have numerous references to regulators but without naming them. There is no list of all regulators, or relevant regulators, or reference to what they regulate in a way that could be applied to responsibilities with regard to regulating AI.

Lord Young went on to make the point that this lack of clarity can lead to confusion. Using the education sector as an illustration he pointed out

We have a shortage of teachers in many disciplines, and many complain about paperwork and are thinking of leaving. There is a huge contribution to be made by AI. But who is in charge? If you put the question into Google, it says, “the DFE is responsible for children’s services and education”. Then there is Ofsted, which inspects schools; there is Ofqual, which deals with exams; and then there is the Office for Students. The Russell group of universities have signed up to a set of principles ensuring that pupils would be taught to become AI literate.

Who is looking at the huge volume of material which AI companies are drowning schools and teachers with, as new and more accessible chatbots are developed? Who is looking at AI for marking homework? What about AI for adaptive testing? Who is looking at AI being used for home tuition, as increasingly used by parents? Who is looking at AI for marking papers? As my noble friend said, what happens if they get it wrong?

Lord Young of Cookham, House of Lords, 22 March 2024

Lord Young followed up this powerful intervention to ask the Government whether they would publish the regulators referred to in A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation.

A wide range but not specific

The Minister responded this week with this statement:

Given the cross-cutting nature of AI, our regulatory approach is relevant to a wide range of regulators, and as such the White Paper and government response did not refer to specific regulators. We encourage all regulators to consider how our AI regulatory principles may be applied within their remits and have published guidance to support them with this.

We have published the letters that the Secretary of State wrote jointly with cabinet colleagues to a number of regulators impacted by AI, asking them to publish an update on their strategic approach to AI by 30^th April.

Viscount Camrose

The Government has published some non-statutory principles and has asked all regulators to think about how AI fits into their remit. It is asking a lot of our regulators and giving them very little in the way of what they need to grapple with this huge technological advance we are facing. The Ada Lovelace Report is clear about the scale of the challenge and makes several recommendations around regulatory capability stressing that regulating AI is resource-intensive and highly technical. Regulators, civil society organisations and other actors need new capabilities to properly carry out their duties.

Conclusion

This is why I have drafted my AI Regulation Bill. To pro-actively, engage fellow Parliamentarians and the Government with the ideas, and the concrete steps – such as a targeted, well resourced, coordinating regulatory body such as the AI Authority – that we need to take to ensure we shape AI positively for the public’s benefit and lead the international community in AI’s ethical development.

Originally posted here

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The UK is facing a major cost of living crisis. Many households are struggling with their rent or mortgage payments, forced to tighten discretionary spending and resort to desperate measures like unplugging fridges to cope with rising bills.

Right now, effectively supporting the most vulnerable groups across the country must be a priority.

Enter Citizens Advice, a UK-based, independent, consumer charity that specialises in providing advice and assistance to people with legal, debt, housing, and similar problems. Their ground-breaking “Closing the Gap” report outlined their vision for improving consumer support in essential services.

The report shed light on the inadequacy of the current approach to data sharing among essential service providers like energy, water, telecoms, and financial companies. It stressed that the customer journey of accessing support is way too complex and disjointed, resulting in people missing out on the support they are entitled to. Additionally, the report outlined what a better system could look like, one that bridges the gap between the support people need and the support they receive.

Early last year, our team conducted Innovate UK-funded research, investigating the value and opportunities of effectively working with permissions data that describes individuals’ preferences for the use of their personal information.

To continue exploring the subject with industry peers, we held a co-creation session in collaboration with the Open Data Institute (ODI). At the workshop, the topic of supporting vulnerable groups emerged as a priority and sparked a passionate discussion about the ways in which open and therefore trustworthy data ecosystems could facilitate ethical data sharing and improve the current system.

Figure 2: Suggested roadmap for an Essential Services Industry Taskforce to establish an ethical data ecosystem to create simple and controllable support services for consumers in vulnerable circumstances.

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