Comments on: How many things does government do?

By: Tim Manning

Tim Manning — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:31:39 +0000

Very much agree with your observations and expands on my brief comment against the Economist article:

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21569716-new-attempt-reform-public-services-through-data-efficiency-transparency?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/efficiency_by_transparency

Hopefully the “Transaction Explorer” will eventually explore the hidden depths, where the true insight resides!

By: Public Strategist

Public Strategist — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 10:29:17 +0000

To be fair to GDS, I think there’s quite a lot of evidence that they are much more systematically user centred than their predecssors, but there’s still a long way to go, particularly on more transactional services.

By: BrianSJ

BrianSJ — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 10:12:32 +0000

Thank you for the link to the National Archive. You correctly point out the design principles as the place to start. However, the Quality Framework in the archives from 10 years ago said substantially the same things. Why should anyone believe things will be more user-centred this time round? http://collection.europarchive.org/tna/20040722012352/http://cabinetoffice.gov.uk/e-government/resources/quality-framework.asp

By: It is essential that we understand government transactions and how people interact with them if we are to improve services | British Politics and Policy at LSE

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:30:56 +0000

[...] This article was originally published on the Public Strategist website. [...]

By: Alex

Alex — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 11:27:21 +0000

The GDS tool seems a very welcome start, and I presume it is part of a longer term plan.

It will be powerful if it can help identify where citizens could contribute to service design.

Some of the airline companies, banks and other financial services companies have managed to make me spend hours on-line that I would rather not, but the outcome is a ticket to somewhere I wish to go or another service whose value exceeds the “cost”.

It may need more people with experience of these industries to overcome a reluctance to change government processes.