Inside GOV.UK: chaos and nightmare as trendy Cabinet Office wrecked govt web(theregister.co.uk)
theregister.co.uk
Inside GOV.UK: chaos and nightmare as trendy Cabinet Office wrecked govt web
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/18/the_inside_story_of_govuk/
15 comments
"Some stuff is much better and some stuff is much worse, as people have said in other comments."
Agreed. And GDS are also very public about what does work and what doesn't work via their service assessments and self certifications https://gdsdata.blog.gov.uk/all-service-assessments-and-self...
See, for example, the rather damning report on the VATMOSS service https://gdsdata.blog.gov.uk/vat-mini-one-stop-shop-service-a...
This is leagues ahead of the previous approaches to developing governmental services. Like you I'd happily take gov.uk over DWP or the NHS PfIT. Even their failures are handled more productively.
Agreed. And GDS are also very public about what does work and what doesn't work via their service assessments and self certifications https://gdsdata.blog.gov.uk/all-service-assessments-and-self...
See, for example, the rather damning report on the VATMOSS service https://gdsdata.blog.gov.uk/vat-mini-one-stop-shop-service-a...
This is leagues ahead of the previous approaches to developing governmental services. Like you I'd happily take gov.uk over DWP or the NHS PfIT. Even their failures are handled more productively.
I’ve had very little middle ground in my experience with gov.uk. It’s either been exceptionally useful in the case of student finance, the electoral roll, contacting local councils and so on - the sections of the site with highly focussed reasons for landing there - or extremely bad in other cases.
For example, earlier this week I was looking for guidance on what responsibilities Unincorporated Associations have to HMRC. The site is pretty much barren, and feels like a link dump with little explanation for what anything is. And because Gov.UK has wedged itself in front of the old HMRC site, half of the URLS plastered around the net redirect to a gov.uk index page instead of letting me view old content.
One specific example that caught me out was a page for finding your local HMRC branch. It existed on the old site, but that URL now redirects to a generic `contact us` page for the entirety of HMRC. (See http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/local/individuals/index.htm)
For example, earlier this week I was looking for guidance on what responsibilities Unincorporated Associations have to HMRC. The site is pretty much barren, and feels like a link dump with little explanation for what anything is. And because Gov.UK has wedged itself in front of the old HMRC site, half of the URLS plastered around the net redirect to a gov.uk index page instead of letting me view old content.
One specific example that caught me out was a page for finding your local HMRC branch. It existed on the old site, but that URL now redirects to a generic `contact us` page for the entirety of HMRC. (See http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/local/individuals/index.htm)
I was looking at that Contact Us page yesterday. 126 items and I couldn't find the one that I needed, and there's no general number to call as far as I could see. Had to scroll through all 126 items and still didn't find anything that was relevant.
I recently renewed my passport and the process was reasonably impressive. However, I also completed my tax return at the same time and found the same jumbled mess as described above.
I applied for a passport online, which all went well at the time, but yesterday I got a letter from them saying that I didn't fill out all the information (on a web form?). Included with the letter was a paper application form which, as far as I can tell, I need to fill out completely, basically starting again. And it's kind of difficult as I've sent all the original documentation with the first application so I don't have all the details at hand.
The passport application is really odd, it is still essentially a paper based process, with a fake web frontend that basically just prints out paperwork.
That was my experience.
1) Fill out web-form
2) They print it for you and mail it to you
3) You sign it.
4) You do the Post Office's "Check and Send" which is pointless.
5) You eventually get a passport.
It is from the dark ages.
1) Fill out web-form
2) They print it for you and mail it to you
3) You sign it.
4) You do the Post Office's "Check and Send" which is pointless.
5) You eventually get a passport.
It is from the dark ages.
I've seen this design before and the reasoning is that your physical signature is needed per policy (at least in the areas of US law I've worked in). We can only replace a physical signature with a two-factor authentication, and you can imagine the nightmare that is to set up in a way that is any bit usable to the general public.
Yes. I wonder if there's old legislation somewhere that mandates the form a passport application will take, and they've gone as far as they can without changing the legislation itself?
Perhaps. Thats why government digital policy needs to be joined up end to end, ie can make legislation to fix dev issues.
For me it was just a renewal, so the form is essentially a tick box. The only complication is that you need to send a new photo.
I can imagine an application for a new passport is going to be a lot more complicated.
Doesn't surprise me. I posted some questions on their self-congratulatory blog post on why they were using tax payers money to write their own front end proxy in golang rather than use nginx/apache.
My post was simply deleted. Obviously don't like public criticism.
The whole thing is an NIH stack of crap from a tech POV. Not only that they've broken the self assessment stuff terribly. It's now a mishmash of two sites that barely work together. I had to dig out a load of tax code notifications recently and it was painful.
Posted as a throwaway account as I've brought this up here before and I was buried.
Edit: This was their third attempt at a front end proxy solution. Even riverbed/f5 appliances are better value by the time you hit your third attempt.
My post was simply deleted. Obviously don't like public criticism.
The whole thing is an NIH stack of crap from a tech POV. Not only that they've broken the self assessment stuff terribly. It's now a mishmash of two sites that barely work together. I had to dig out a load of tax code notifications recently and it was painful.
Posted as a throwaway account as I've brought this up here before and I was buried.
Edit: This was their third attempt at a front end proxy solution. Even riverbed/f5 appliances are better value by the time you hit your third attempt.
I remember the none stop adoption of new tech-stacks that occurred every other month on the Gov.uk project.
It certainly sounded like an interesting place to work, despite the chaos.
It certainly sounded like an interesting place to work, despite the chaos.
NIH syndrome runs deep in GDS. They commissioned their own typeface [1] with tax payer's funds and then refused to make it available to the public.
[1] https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2012/07/05/a-few-notes-on-typography...
[1] https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2012/07/05/a-few-notes-on-typography...
"NIH syndrome runs deep in GDS. They commissioned their own typeface [1] with tax payer's funds and then refused to make it available to the public."
Erm. Not true. GDS did not commission Transport or New Transport.
Transport is a font from the 50s. New Transport is a refined digital version of that from Calvert and Kubel. GDS didn't commission it or cause it to be created in any way. They were just the first web site to use it.
Erm. Not true. GDS did not commission Transport or New Transport.
Transport is a font from the 50s. New Transport is a refined digital version of that from Calvert and Kubel. GDS didn't commission it or cause it to be created in any way. They were just the first web site to use it.
I think they edited the article. I'm pretty sure it was previously worded to imply they funded the created of New Transport (digital variant). It would be nice to get a clear answer on this.
The thing you've referenced there completely contradicts what you've written.
> then refused to make it available to the public.
Why would they make somebody else's licensed work freely-available?
Why would they make somebody else's licensed work freely-available?
Exactly.
Watch the downvotes you get for being critical of GDS as well...
Watch the downvotes you get for being critical of GDS as well...
Mine was for posting something factually false in an inflammatory manner, but YMMV.
As an individual, I find that gov.uk is far more useful than any of the sites that preceded it - especially DirectGov. It's sad to hear that they haven't paid quite so much attention to corporate users of Government services.
However, much of this article appears to be anecdotes of people in Government complaining after-the-fact. Why were they not involved during the transition, when they could best help with the process? I highly doubt the gov.uk team rewrote entire libraries full of quite technical information on their own - there was someone on the side of the departments who failed to do their job.
However, much of this article appears to be anecdotes of people in Government complaining after-the-fact. Why were they not involved during the transition, when they could best help with the process? I highly doubt the gov.uk team rewrote entire libraries full of quite technical information on their own - there was someone on the side of the departments who failed to do their job.
I think you've hit the nail on the head there. A lot of GDS's mandate revolved around modern agile techniques and just doing it.
This doesn't exactly mesh very well with traditional civil service slow bureaucracy. The civil service tend to like getting every bloody stakeholder involved and bury you in meetings upto your eyeballs. And then have meetings about the meetings. And meetings about meetings about the meetings...
That's how we wasted £10bn on the NHS IT system with little to show for it.
This doesn't exactly mesh very well with traditional civil service slow bureaucracy. The civil service tend to like getting every bloody stakeholder involved and bury you in meetings upto your eyeballs. And then have meetings about the meetings. And meetings about meetings about the meetings...
That's how we wasted £10bn on the NHS IT system with little to show for it.
The NHS projects are a little more complicated than gov.uk front end implementation.
Have you seen any of the care pathway workflows? We're talking 128 page documents integrating police, social services etc as well, just for a birth. They're also all or nothing and have reliability requirements. You can't just agile this stuff; it's space shuttle up front design from day one.
One fuck up in one workflow instance and someone misses that imaging referral and then that person goes from stage 1 to metastatic cancer. How do you assign an appropriate cost vs risk trade off to that?
That may make it too complicated to complete to be honest but where do you go from there? You shelve it with a shit ton of bad PR and pay up the people who told you it's not happening.
Have you seen any of the care pathway workflows? We're talking 128 page documents integrating police, social services etc as well, just for a birth. They're also all or nothing and have reliability requirements. You can't just agile this stuff; it's space shuttle up front design from day one.
One fuck up in one workflow instance and someone misses that imaging referral and then that person goes from stage 1 to metastatic cancer. How do you assign an appropriate cost vs risk trade off to that?
That may make it too complicated to complete to be honest but where do you go from there? You shelve it with a shit ton of bad PR and pay up the people who told you it's not happening.
The space shuttle programme was basically a horrible disaster.
In my opinion the only way they could have made it work was to start small and iterate. Start with a health record which was: NHS no, name, dob and make sure everyone is using it first, then start to build APIs which let people add data from the various services to that record and control access etc.
You simply can't design a system from the top down to deal with something as complex and multi-disciplinary as a birth or a lifetime of health records, in fact no one system could probably cope with all those demands, even if it only catered to a few medical specialties - even just between GPs, Surgeons, Anaesthetists and Dentists there are huge gulfs in requirements, let alone bringing in other public services like the police. On top of that people are happy with existing systems and will resist change to some centralised system if you try a big bang approach. So I disagree that it is all or nothing, or even could feasibly be done as an all or nothing project.
You simply can't design a system from the top down to deal with something as complex and multi-disciplinary as a birth or a lifetime of health records, in fact no one system could probably cope with all those demands, even if it only catered to a few medical specialties - even just between GPs, Surgeons, Anaesthetists and Dentists there are huge gulfs in requirements, let alone bringing in other public services like the police. On top of that people are happy with existing systems and will resist change to some centralised system if you try a big bang approach. So I disagree that it is all or nothing, or even could feasibly be done as an all or nothing project.
exactly, the gov.uk team could have involved every department, team and committe and shipped a late, bloated useless product. The issue for the govt.people is they assume it would have been better if they had been involved, but they would have looked at it from an insiders perspective and not from the customers point of view. the result would have been a site useable by people with good knowledge of their area of government (although useless to them as they dont need the info) and useless to the end user who actually needs to use the site.
> As an individual, I find that gov.uk is far more useful than any of the sites that preceded it - especially DirectGov.
I think I have to disagree. With DirectGov I didn't always find what I was looking for, but when I did find it, I trusted it. It was reliable.
With gov.uk, even if I find the information, I don't trust it. For example:
https://www.gov.uk/exchange-foreign-driving-licence/y/yes/ca...
Only the form they propose says the cost is £50, not £43. Only the EU says that an EU license remains valid without exchange.
So now where do I go?
I think I have to disagree. With DirectGov I didn't always find what I was looking for, but when I did find it, I trusted it. It was reliable.
With gov.uk, even if I find the information, I don't trust it. For example:
https://www.gov.uk/exchange-foreign-driving-licence/y/yes/ca...
Only the form they propose says the cost is £50, not £43. Only the EU says that an EU license remains valid without exchange.
So now where do I go?
I'm inclined to trust GOV.UK to have the most current information there, as DVLA reduced its costs a few months ago. My assumption is that DVLA hasn't updated its forms.
That said, it's a source of confusion. Someone, somewhere, hasn't been proactive with that information which should have lead to GDS clarifying the ambiguous cost (assuming DVLA isn't going to get round to updating its forms in a reasonable period of time).
That said, it's a source of confusion. Someone, somewhere, hasn't been proactive with that information which should have lead to GDS clarifying the ambiguous cost (assuming DVLA isn't going to get round to updating its forms in a reasonable period of time).
Genuine thanks for this, I still can't find this information anywhere but did get a £7 refund.
So gov.uk is correct, but the canonical form it directs you to is wrong. And DVLA doesn't have a formal website for clarification, apart from this one.
So gov.uk is correct, but the canonical form it directs you to is wrong. And DVLA doesn't have a formal website for clarification, apart from this one.
You click on the link at the bottom that says ‘Is there anything wrong with this page?’ and report it.
That's super-helpful, thanks.
I used the link to report the incorrect fee when I first noticed it - over a month ago. Nothing has changed. It's still wrong.
I used the link to report the incorrect fee when I first noticed it - over a month ago. Nothing has changed. It's still wrong.
It doesn't surprise me that people are starting to realise this project was a disaster. My own personal experience is that a lot of useful information that used to exist on various government websites is just gone. You can look through really old HN threads about startups/self employment/contracts/eulas in the uk and often people have posted links to useful information on various government websites, and virtually all of those links are dead now.
Add to that the fact that you can't visit any uk government site now without being hit by google analytics tracking (no I do not want google tracking on my tax returns form!).
For the people who actually read the reports and statements departments put out (e.g. charities, affected businesses, campaigners, pressure groups) it seems to be almost universally hated. Lots of complaints about older reports and press releases being just about impossible to find and a huge reduction in transparency. For example: http://markavery.info/2014/10/21/awful-gov/
>I want to make a serious point here. This one single government website is less informative and less easy to use than its multiple predecessors. If you were the least bit suspicious of this government then you might think it had been done on purpose to obscure government actions and policies from the taxpayers who pay for it and the voters who might well choose another bunch of politicians in future.
>This government has done away with watchdogs and independent commissions who had the time and wit to question what government was doing on the environment and now it has obscured its own actions on its own website.
Also of note, supposedly "arms length" non-departmental government bodies like Natural England have also been subsumed by gov.uk, without anybody seeming to notice.
Add to that the fact that you can't visit any uk government site now without being hit by google analytics tracking (no I do not want google tracking on my tax returns form!).
For the people who actually read the reports and statements departments put out (e.g. charities, affected businesses, campaigners, pressure groups) it seems to be almost universally hated. Lots of complaints about older reports and press releases being just about impossible to find and a huge reduction in transparency. For example: http://markavery.info/2014/10/21/awful-gov/
>I want to make a serious point here. This one single government website is less informative and less easy to use than its multiple predecessors. If you were the least bit suspicious of this government then you might think it had been done on purpose to obscure government actions and policies from the taxpayers who pay for it and the voters who might well choose another bunch of politicians in future.
>This government has done away with watchdogs and independent commissions who had the time and wit to question what government was doing on the environment and now it has obscured its own actions on its own website.
Also of note, supposedly "arms length" non-departmental government bodies like Natural England have also been subsumed by gov.uk, without anybody seeming to notice.
This looks rather similar to the Tories' purge of old speeches from their own party website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24924185
Bear in mind the Register enjoy taking contrary opinions just for the sake of it.
I've found that most of the Gov.UK stuff has actually been very good. A welcome redesign of a lot of godawful, confusing old websites that had no consistent interface from department to department. I still have to deal with the old HMRC website and it's such a pain in comparison. In order to file some documents you actually have to fill out a pdf form and submit data from there, rather than just using a simple webform...
I've found that most of the Gov.UK stuff has actually been very good. A welcome redesign of a lot of godawful, confusing old websites that had no consistent interface from department to department. I still have to deal with the old HMRC website and it's such a pain in comparison. In order to file some documents you actually have to fill out a pdf form and submit data from there, rather than just using a simple webform...
The new gov.uk site is so much better than the previous collection of mostly appalling sites and applications.
For example, in a recent project I needed a list of bank holidays in the UK. Not only was it easy to find[0] all you need to do to get at the data in a usable format is add a '.json' to the URL. Same goes for the list of Courts and Tribunals[1]. It's a fantastic service and I'm fully behind them replacing ageing government portals and applications with it.
[0] https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays [1] https://courttribunalfinder.service.gov.uk/search/
For example, in a recent project I needed a list of bank holidays in the UK. Not only was it easy to find[0] all you need to do to get at the data in a usable format is add a '.json' to the URL. Same goes for the list of Courts and Tribunals[1]. It's a fantastic service and I'm fully behind them replacing ageing government portals and applications with it.
[0] https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays [1] https://courttribunalfinder.service.gov.uk/search/
Hell, I was interested in where the military practice in the UK, and it came up with a huge list of places I could visit when the military aren't practising: https://www.gov.uk/public-access-to-military-areas
There's a lot of nicely laid out information on all sorts of arbitrary things on there.
There's a lot of nicely laid out information on all sorts of arbitrary things on there.
My experience with .gov.uk has been quite positive: I recently needed to check Companies House: they had a horrible 'XML gateway' service from the mid-2000s. Someone from .gov.uk got in touch and put me on the beta for the official Companies REST API that replaces the XML gateway.
Also regards to The Register's 'trendy' accusation: GDS chooses what works over what's trendy for everything critical: their apps work without AJAX and CSS too.
Also regards to The Register's 'trendy' accusation: GDS chooses what works over what's trendy for everything critical: their apps work without AJAX and CSS too.
> GDS chooses what works over what's trendy for everything critical: everything critical works without AJAX and CSS too.
Absolutely. The vast majority of the site is a Ruby on Rails content management system, as the reader will find out if they visit the github. There's a few shiny bits that are Go and MongoDB and whatever else (primarily things like load balancers and API endpoints and dynamic metadata services), but most of it is a stack which is, frankly, mostly stable and "enterprise" by now.
Their primary alternative to the system they've built would've been a huge, proprietary content management system - Microsoft SharePoint with a lot of customisation comes to mind, and likely would've cost them more, as well as reducing the pool of developers with experience.
Absolutely. The vast majority of the site is a Ruby on Rails content management system, as the reader will find out if they visit the github. There's a few shiny bits that are Go and MongoDB and whatever else (primarily things like load balancers and API endpoints and dynamic metadata services), but most of it is a stack which is, frankly, mostly stable and "enterprise" by now.
Their primary alternative to the system they've built would've been a huge, proprietary content management system - Microsoft SharePoint with a lot of customisation comes to mind, and likely would've cost them more, as well as reducing the pool of developers with experience.
"GDS chooses what works..."
Erm no. One GDS project requires end users to connect to a number of devices over USB from their Windows PCs. The logical choice is to write a .NET app that does it.
GDS chose to write the USB interop code in Java, wrap that up in a Windows Service, install a web server on the PC, write an HTML/CSS/JavaScript app that runs in the web server, which calls the Windows Service and talks to the USB device.
That sort of thing (the above is not an isolated example) happens at GDS for a number of reasons - one is what the Register alluded to: they're good at webs sites, so they try to shoe-horn everything into the browser. Another is that they're despotically obsessive about "user need", so don't understand that user needs need to be balanced with business needs (reduce call centre costs), system needs (we've invested x in Windows, for better or worse), and operational needs (supporting a single, self-configuring .NET .exe on 2,000 desktops through WSUS is a lot cheaper and easier than installing, configuring and maintaining a Windows service, a web server and an HTML application on 2,000 desktops).
Erm no. One GDS project requires end users to connect to a number of devices over USB from their Windows PCs. The logical choice is to write a .NET app that does it.
GDS chose to write the USB interop code in Java, wrap that up in a Windows Service, install a web server on the PC, write an HTML/CSS/JavaScript app that runs in the web server, which calls the Windows Service and talks to the USB device.
That sort of thing (the above is not an isolated example) happens at GDS for a number of reasons - one is what the Register alluded to: they're good at webs sites, so they try to shoe-horn everything into the browser. Another is that they're despotically obsessive about "user need", so don't understand that user needs need to be balanced with business needs (reduce call centre costs), system needs (we've invested x in Windows, for better or worse), and operational needs (supporting a single, self-configuring .NET .exe on 2,000 desktops through WSUS is a lot cheaper and easier than installing, configuring and maintaining a Windows service, a web server and an HTML application on 2,000 desktops).
A little off topic but I wonder if there could be a middle ground for this kind of app. Run the actual UI on a web server and give users a central URL to go to. Then have a service installed on the local machine that has an API exposed with CORS.
You certainly can. But when things go wrong you go from one to three places in which you have to look for the problem - the service, the network, and the server. Also, instead of a single package containing a single .exe you're now deploying to all desktops, and to a server.
This in the context of developers finish the system, leave, and ops don't have the skills to fix a Ruby/node/whatever tech issue.
While none of the options that work are technically wrong, it might be worth considering the differences between the best solution design, and a successful one.
This in the context of developers finish the system, leave, and ops don't have the skills to fix a Ruby/node/whatever tech issue.
While none of the options that work are technically wrong, it might be worth considering the differences between the best solution design, and a successful one.
...or use Chrome's USB connector, if you must use USB.
Your post is not really much of of a response to my point about not using AJAX or CSS, but anyway: I image they'd rather not re-do a separate UI for a single platform. You can deploy a single MSI for a local web app just as easily as you can a .net app, and doing so isn't entirely uncommon.
The article seems to mirror my experience: simple and common tasks are streamlined, but anything less common can be an exercise in frustration.
In particular, looking for information (say, on immigration rules) can be almost impossible: between the seemingly random "see also" links, overuse of pdfs (and pdf landing pages) and lack of coherent indexing, I've wasted a lot of time trying to find what I needed.
In particular, looking for information (say, on immigration rules) can be almost impossible: between the seemingly random "see also" links, overuse of pdfs (and pdf landing pages) and lack of coherent indexing, I've wasted a lot of time trying to find what I needed.
End user here. In general, I've found GOV.UK to be an improvement on what went before. There are still 'old' sites that I have to use - HMRC, for example - which are diabolical in their usability and function. I love that some stuff is more findable from a search engine than it used to be.
There are certainly aspects of the new sites which need improvement from my perspective. GDS seem to be weak on taxonomies/organising large amounts of information, for example: https://www.gov.uk/business-finance-support-finder/search - even their drop-down filters can be unwieldy.
Likewise, the users who are unhappy are the wonks, the experts, the niche users etc (certainly including a select few who have the advantage of their own platform to amplify their disdain) and they certainly need catering for. But there's nothing to indicate that their needs won't be satisfied. Are they the highest priority when the 'Digital by Default' policy is also borne in mind? Some of those users will be unnecessary casualties and care should have been taken to recognise their user needs, but it wouldn't be the first time in history that someone screwed up by not doing so.
I'm anticipating continuous improvement of these sites, rather than the "this is going to be the website for the next ten years" approach. There's a realistic chance that things will gradually improve. The piece seems to imply that the job is done on these sites, when the likelihood is that the job will never be 'done'.
Some points to bear in mind about the piece itself. One, it's Andrew Orlowski. I like him and I tend to go to his stuff when I want to read a divergent opinion, but I bear in mind that he's not much of a fan of things that occurred after the turn of the millennium. Two, it's not hard to find people in Whitehall and out in the country who have their own agendas and/or empires, and are well-connected with sympathetic hacks (who might also have their own agenda). Some of them might even live in glass houses.
There are certainly aspects of the new sites which need improvement from my perspective. GDS seem to be weak on taxonomies/organising large amounts of information, for example: https://www.gov.uk/business-finance-support-finder/search - even their drop-down filters can be unwieldy.
Likewise, the users who are unhappy are the wonks, the experts, the niche users etc (certainly including a select few who have the advantage of their own platform to amplify their disdain) and they certainly need catering for. But there's nothing to indicate that their needs won't be satisfied. Are they the highest priority when the 'Digital by Default' policy is also borne in mind? Some of those users will be unnecessary casualties and care should have been taken to recognise their user needs, but it wouldn't be the first time in history that someone screwed up by not doing so.
I'm anticipating continuous improvement of these sites, rather than the "this is going to be the website for the next ten years" approach. There's a realistic chance that things will gradually improve. The piece seems to imply that the job is done on these sites, when the likelihood is that the job will never be 'done'.
Some points to bear in mind about the piece itself. One, it's Andrew Orlowski. I like him and I tend to go to his stuff when I want to read a divergent opinion, but I bear in mind that he's not much of a fan of things that occurred after the turn of the millennium. Two, it's not hard to find people in Whitehall and out in the country who have their own agendas and/or empires, and are well-connected with sympathetic hacks (who might also have their own agenda). Some of them might even live in glass houses.
Well if you're going to downvote my contribution, at least offer a half-decent reason for doing so.
Generally speaking I'm pretty happy with the new gov.uk; for commonly-used queries it's really much easier to find the right information, although there are some problems where the new bits meet the old bits.
It's telling that HMRC is held up as some paragon of design and user-friendliness. The Self Assessment website has barely changed in several years, and that's a bad thing as it's always been extremely confusing to use - particularly for new users.
It's telling that HMRC is held up as some paragon of design and user-friendliness. The Self Assessment website has barely changed in several years, and that's a bad thing as it's always been extremely confusing to use - particularly for new users.
Orlowski bollocks.
I've found a similar picture to that described by others- some stuff is much better, and others much worse.
(Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.)
The GDS was created because a Government minister (Maude), who was enthusiastic about digitising the interactions between the government and its citizens (an entirely laudable goal), was sold a pig in a poke by people who saw the opportunity to advance or enrich themselves.
Martha Lane Fox is an ex-consultant, whose sole achievement of note was to have been the co-founder of Lastminute.com, which was lucky enough to IPO right at the very peak of the dot-com bubble. Since then, she's sat on on the boards of various companies and charities. Fortunately for her, everyone seems to have forgotten that Lastminute.com was never profitable and was eventually acquired for less than half its IPO valuation, so she was able to buy enough positive PR to convince the government to make her the "Champion for Digital Inclusion", during which time she commissioned a report from some consultants - http://www.go-on.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/pwc_report... - which claimed that the government could save £900m if the "digitally excluded" got online.
Mike Bracken had zero experience in government or the public sector before being appointed as head of the GDS. His previous role was as "Director of Digital Development" for the Guardian, so his expertise is in running websites (and the infrastructure supporting apps) for a newspaper.
The GDS started off by creating the Alphagov prototype, which was essentially a pretty-looking static-HTML portal with zero functionality (all the links went back to the original websites). They then presented it to the powers that be, saying "Look, we can digitise the whole of government and make it look like this, AND save hundreds of millions of pounds!" (pointing to Martha's report as supporting evidence).
Francis Maude believed them and gave them the budget to recruit hundreds of Nathan Barley types (with more than a little cronyism and jobs-for-mates), with puffed-up CVs and a vocabulary full of buzzwords, and gave them grand titles (and grander salaries - Mike Bracken's base salary is over £150,000). Their few unqualified successes have been very low-hanging fruit. Most of what they've delivered has been worse than what was there previously, and in a few cases (e.g. trying to apply Agile methodology to the Universal Credit project at the DWP), they've screwed up massively and ended up wasting millions.
If there was ever a proper independent review of what GDS has delivered, there would be front page headlines about how much money has been wasted. Unfortunately, the public sector has always been bad at admitting to mistakes or underdelivery, and the GDS, in particular, is one big gravy train. Any suggestion that things aren't going well is hushed up and brushed under the carpet, so that those at the top can hang on to their little empire and their well-paid jobs. Needless to say, any dissension from within the ranks has the potential to be severely "career-limiting", so those further down the foodchain who have any sense have either left or decided to keep the gravy flowing for as long as possible by keeping their mouths shut and their heads down.
Meanwhile, Martha Lane Fox was made a Baroness, and Mike Bracken was given a CBE.
The GDS was created because a Government minister (Maude), who was enthusiastic about digitising the interactions between the government and its citizens (an entirely laudable goal), was sold a pig in a poke by people who saw the opportunity to advance or enrich themselves.
Martha Lane Fox is an ex-consultant, whose sole achievement of note was to have been the co-founder of Lastminute.com, which was lucky enough to IPO right at the very peak of the dot-com bubble. Since then, she's sat on on the boards of various companies and charities. Fortunately for her, everyone seems to have forgotten that Lastminute.com was never profitable and was eventually acquired for less than half its IPO valuation, so she was able to buy enough positive PR to convince the government to make her the "Champion for Digital Inclusion", during which time she commissioned a report from some consultants - http://www.go-on.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/pwc_report... - which claimed that the government could save £900m if the "digitally excluded" got online.
Mike Bracken had zero experience in government or the public sector before being appointed as head of the GDS. His previous role was as "Director of Digital Development" for the Guardian, so his expertise is in running websites (and the infrastructure supporting apps) for a newspaper.
The GDS started off by creating the Alphagov prototype, which was essentially a pretty-looking static-HTML portal with zero functionality (all the links went back to the original websites). They then presented it to the powers that be, saying "Look, we can digitise the whole of government and make it look like this, AND save hundreds of millions of pounds!" (pointing to Martha's report as supporting evidence).
Francis Maude believed them and gave them the budget to recruit hundreds of Nathan Barley types (with more than a little cronyism and jobs-for-mates), with puffed-up CVs and a vocabulary full of buzzwords, and gave them grand titles (and grander salaries - Mike Bracken's base salary is over £150,000). Their few unqualified successes have been very low-hanging fruit. Most of what they've delivered has been worse than what was there previously, and in a few cases (e.g. trying to apply Agile methodology to the Universal Credit project at the DWP), they've screwed up massively and ended up wasting millions.
If there was ever a proper independent review of what GDS has delivered, there would be front page headlines about how much money has been wasted. Unfortunately, the public sector has always been bad at admitting to mistakes or underdelivery, and the GDS, in particular, is one big gravy train. Any suggestion that things aren't going well is hushed up and brushed under the carpet, so that those at the top can hang on to their little empire and their well-paid jobs. Needless to say, any dissension from within the ranks has the potential to be severely "career-limiting", so those further down the foodchain who have any sense have either left or decided to keep the gravy flowing for as long as possible by keeping their mouths shut and their heads down.
Meanwhile, Martha Lane Fox was made a Baroness, and Mike Bracken was given a CBE.
But what is certainly true is that that's a far better result than the typical government IT project. Give me the gov.uk "debacle" (which it ain't) any day over the DWP or the NHS PfIT...
You can't make things better without making choices. Much like Apple products, that's bound to piss off some people. But once you have something that's actually good at something, instead of just being mediocre all around, it's perhaps possible to over time grow that into something that's good at multiple things.
All other experiences of government websites show sites that are just universally meh or bad. Gov.uk has been the first government website where I thought "wow, that's neat."