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Category: Government

Centralised vs. Decentralised Decision Making

Centralised vs. Decentralised Decision Making

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The UK Government’s failure to achieve its target of 25,000 tests per day for Covid-19 provides an excellent case study on the differences and impact of centralised vs. decentralised working and decision making. Whilst accepting there might be a problem with the sourcing of reagent chemicals for the DNA testing, according to a former director of the World Health Organisation we are not making the most of the opportunities currently available to us. Public Health England (PHE) want to control…

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Government launches public sector app store

Government launches public sector app store

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I came across this artcle on the BBC website today. For those who remember my involvement with the early design and business requirements for the Knowledge Hub, the Khub App store was one of the main features of the new platform. Regretably it got lost in the budget cuts (or was de-priotised?), and hence an opportunity lost.  As can be seen from the announcement, this could have been a net revenue stream for LGA as opposed to being perceived as adding to…

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Bonfire of the Quangos

Bonfire of the Quangos

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The promised axe is coming down hard today on 192 quangos that will be abolished, with another 289 being radically overhauled. 380 quangos are staying. As one insightful blogger noted: The regular hoeing to keep the soil clean has rather been neglected these last few years. Hence the need now for the Round-up and flame-thrower approach. It’s brutal, but it’s cleansing. With the rubbish cleared, the productive can be nurtured. Any bets on when the first new quango of this…

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The Lean Machine

The Lean Machine

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Much has been written about ‘Lean‘, and what a ‘lean’ organisation looks like. ‘Lean’ quite simply means creating more value with fewer resources. A popular misconception is that ‘lean’ only applies to manufacturing industries, but in fact it can be applied to any business process, including within service industries. Clearly it it is a concept that should be concentrating the minds of Government and Local Government in these austere times, though whether an intelligent and disciplined approach is being made…

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Communities of Practice Case Studies

Communities of Practice Case Studies

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Just picked up from Nick Milton’s blog, the Kuwait Petroleum Company have published a series of case studies from the communities of practice his company  helped them to launch and build over the last year.  Some of thee case studies include early-stage estimates of value generated. All of them are interesting studies of young communities, in the Middle Eastern culture, beginning to deliver value through new ways of working.

Communities of Practice wins e-Gov National Award

Communities of Practice wins e-Gov National Award

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The IDeA Communities of Practice platform (CoPs) won first prize in its category at the National e-Government Awards in the prestigious setting of  at the Guildhall, London on Tuesday 20th January. The e-Government awards are supported by the Cabinet Office, SOCITM and SOLACE, and recognise excellence in public sector IT and transformational e-Govt projects. See also John’s IDeA Blog for photos of John Hayes, Michael Norton, Lawrence Hall and me picking up the award. CoPs was short-listed as finalist in…

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Communities of Practice initiatives in the public sector

Communities of Practice initiatives in the public sector

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I thought I would post a couple of examples of how communities of practice (CoPs) are becoming increasingly mainstream in developing policy and seeding innovation in the public sector – an area of work I continue to support through my involvement with the Improvement and Develpment Agency. News from the Cabinet Office on how the Social Exclusion Task Force has set up a Socially Excluded Adults Community of Practice as a spin off from work that the IDeA have been…

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Digital Inclusion Reports and Consultation

Digital Inclusion Reports and Consultation

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A number or reports and one consultation document on the topic of Digital Inclusion were published on Friday 24th October 2008 by the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG). There is also a  discussion forum to discuss the main themes of the Digital Inclusion Action Plan. Links are on the CLG website but replicated here for convenience: Digital Inclusion Research Digital Inclusion Resources Delivering Digital Inclusion: An Action Plan for Consultation Delivering Digital Inclusion Annex: Public Sector Use of…

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Social Media Guidelines for Civil Servants

Social Media Guidelines for Civil Servants

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The Civil Service have published a set of guidelines for on-line participation by civil servants (blogging etc.). As Whitehall Webby Jeremy Gould notes, this is a much slimmed-down version of a weightier tome that has been in production behind the scenes, and which may appear as a set of more detailed operational guidelines for using social media/Web 2.0 tools. The initiative is to be applauded, and I particularly like the succinctness of the guidelines, which is most un-civil service-like, but…

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Can Government ever be agile?

Can Government ever be agile?

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Paul Canning writes about the changing and shifting priorities of central government in relation to ‘eDemocracy’, and specifically the possible demise of the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE), which  is – or was – a government funded ‘National Project‘.  I believe Paul’s point is that this is not so much a case of government being particularly capricious in this instance as being devoid of any real understanding of what is happening in the egov world.  I’d agree…

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