Six stage digital engagement

May 27, 2012

Thanks to GovTech for pointing me to CivicPlus’s attempt to sell web services to government by telling them there are six stages to engagement. It’s actually a US company so the questionnaire involved is focused on the needs of US citizens but even so is quite amusing by its assumptions. I thought I’d complete it as a citizen (one of the choices), and after a few minutes had done it! If only life were that easy…

CivicPlus label the six stages – static, emerging, active, receptive, participatory and fully-engaged and I state again, if only matters we that simple…

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The design method

May 10, 2012

On a slightly tangential track, and those who know me know I love tangents, I found a great post on Richard Layman’s blog on urban design. His recent post ‘All the talk of e-government, digital government, and open source government is really about employing the design method’ actually says it all in the title, and if that isn’t clear to you he writes that all these things are essentially about process redesign – how true!

As well as promoting the work of John Friedmann, of which I wasn’t aware but now am going to read, he links this to design method and design thinking, which wouldn’t appear to be a million miles away from systems thinking. Richard then goes on to criticize the thinking that believes social media, apps, web and cloud will change government. He recognizes that it’s all really about processes – it doesn’t matter how good an app is, if the process behind it is rubbish, it’ll be rubbish. Similarly he states that ‘”open government” is really about process redesign’.

If all town/transport planners were as broad thinking I suspect the world would be a different place…

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Good progress

May 6, 2012

It has recently been down to UK Member of Parliament Michael Dugher to try and determine the state of the G-Cloud and Greening Government IT Strategy. In an a list of questions and (sort of) answers published in Hansard that will have amused journalists by their vacuity, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude effectively responds by saying that all will be revealed in the near future in the annual reports. I do know that the Green IT Strategy was in preparation when I was last in conference with the Green Development Unit in March 2012, but the bigger wait is for the ICT Strategy annual report itself.

The major revelation from the questioning was that, at a cost of £4.93 Million the G-Cloud is expected to save an estimated £340 million, which is amazing! I wonder if this saving includes that from the Public Sector Network (PSN) or is it purely from the cloud? Over what period will that saving be made – five years, ten years, twenty years? However when Mr Dugher asked Mr Maude about the number of data centres government maintained in May 2010, March 2011, September 2011 and March 2012, all Mr Maude could say was that “In February 2012, Cabinet Office collected baseline information on the number of data centres maintained by Departments in order to progress commitments to consolidate and rationalise data centres to help save energy and costs in line with Government ICT Strategy. This information will be published alongside ICT Strategy annual update report, due shortly. Information on the number of data centres across Government prior to this February 2012 is not available.” However, back in May 2011 some figures were provided by Cabinet Office to the Public Administration Committee dated 30 March 2011 in a written answer stating “A survey commissioned by CIO Council during June 2010 identified 220 Data Centres across Central Government”, which I suspect was an underestimate since I clearly remember someone, possibly Andrew Stott, quoting a figure nearer 400 to the Local CIO Council a couple of  years ago.

When Michael Dugher asks the Minister for the Cabinet Office what progress he has made on the implementation of G-Cloud computing, the response is a resounding “The G-Cloud programme is making good progress”. I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to know…

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A digital nation

May 3, 2012

A new report from Canada examines Provincial and Territorial eGovernment Initiatives. Entitled ‘Becoming a Digital Nation: An Evaluation of Provincial and Territorial eGovernment Initiatives‘ PDF, 89 pages, 8Mb. The report notes in the Introduction that in the report, in order to” provide context for this assessment, we applied the same methodology to three other jurisdictions: California, Massachusetts, and Wales. Our study indicates that Canada’s provinces and territories are doing well in this comparison with four provinces ahead of the international jurisdictions and all the  others competitive.” Which may upset all three, although they all did pretty well compared with the Canadian average.

Interestingly the latest usage statistics are provided on page 7: “Most recent data show over half of Canadians (56.5%) use the Internet to search for government-related information, while 26.9% utilize the Internet to communicate with their governments”, which may assist those concerned about the limited UK usage! I’m please to say that Socitm’s ’Planting the Flag’, that I played a small part in producing has been used as a part of the background material and the methodology employed in measuring the web sites is not unlike that used in Socitm’s Better Connected exercise.

Of the 13 jurisdictions studied, it’s hardly surprising that there is some difference between the most populated territories and the lesser ones. There are also issues around the number of languages with not just English and French being required in many places, but in some there are native languages to deal with.  As a summary the report states on page 48 that: “Areas of improvement focus on providing more advanced ways for citizens to give or get more information through online Contact Us forms or feedback surveys”, which I’d always argue for in the form of feedback loops.

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Irish ways

May 1, 2012

A new report is out from the Irish Government entitled Supporting Public Service Reform eGovernment 2012 – 2015. Particularly welcome are the proposals that :

“Action 13 The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform will develop an electronic channel allowing citizens and businesses to suggest potential new eGovernment services and to track progress of their suggestions.

Action 14 Opportunities for users to provide feedback should be integrated into the design of new electronic systems to facilitate suggestions from those that use the systems with a view to ensuring continuous improvement. This feedback could be through the system itself or through links with social media where appropriate.”

But what about the older applications? Have I missed something? All current channels need feedback to assist improvement, along with measurement of usage. Many services will have existing poor e-channels that may be choking the opportunity for electronic service delivery.

As to Open Data, it’s the usual:

“Action 21 All public bodies will publish appropriate data in machine-readable formats to facilitate re-use. Initially this will include data newly released (in reports, on websites etc.). Over time, public bodies should identify additional data that could be released as open data. This action will enable individuals and businesses to use data in ways most helpful to them including developing applications relevant to their own needs and interests.”

But CSV is a machine-readable format, what about RDF and the like?

Interestingly Annex II contains a definition of e-government, which demonstrates willingness to achieve clarity in what the Irish government is attempting to do, if all nations had established a definition, along with some initial benchmarks a substantial part of the international deficit might have been saved. It’s a good report, and shockingly lacking the gloss and spin that one becomes accustomed to in such documents. It’s also given itself a reasonable three years space to work within, which is very practical.

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