It seems strange that the Gubbins perspective is so different from that clever GDS team down there in Whitehall. I think spending some time in our call centre would do GDS a world of good. And if it turns out we're just yokels who don't understand their vision, they could use the time to talk us round.
The Tom and Martha show
Tom Loosemore of GDS and Martha Lane Fox appeared on BBC news to talk through the launch of GOV.UK. The interview starts with defending the supersite principle and moves through familiar themes - the government has too many websites (920 by Fox's reckoning back in August 2010); rationalising them all into one will reduce costs, drive people online, and improve the usability of government transactions.
By 5.07 Fox is talking about government's long term IT commitments, where the government signs long term contracts for 'hundreds of millions of pounds for services that are substandard'. In contrast, for GDS:
This is completely new way of developing. This has been a team of people, very small, very cost-effective, doing things iteratively, releasing things as they go, getting feedback; never saying, "this is what we're going to build, it's going to take us five years and it's going to cost us hundreds of millions" - quite the reverse - treating it a bit like a start-up but a start-up with the appropriate level of credibility and … gold-standard security.
It's a seductive argument. However, we're talking about the entire public sector web here. I think some kind of plan is in order, with costs and timescales. No-one else in the public sector web has the luxury of providing services without a plan. The GDS revolution is in danger of producing more years of malaise.
The thing about 'revolutions' is that they only take place in countries with poor infrastructure and no free elections, where only a minority have a stake in the government. A revolution usually involves replacing one unelected cartel with another. Our previous regime didn't do much apart from shut down our websites.
Martha and Tom's week at Gubbins
I think a week answering the phones in our call centre would do Tom and Martha a world of good. The warriors of GDS really need to spend some time with the enemy. The people who work in actual public sector offices are likely to have a different perspective from London consultants who have a vested interest in a centralised public sector web. A 'smart answer' on GOV.UK seems just that - until you've spent days fielding calls from people who tried to find their answer and couldn't.
People in our call centres answer telephone queries which are both complicated and repetitive. Government information is demanding. Unfortunately, Gubbins use Directgov rather than a website designed around our users. Our online service is run by editors and consultants in London who have never visited our offices. GOV.UK has even less content than Directgov and no contextual pictures or branding, third-person content, and very little navigation to differentiate our service from anyone else's. So people are likely to go on phoning us rather than trying to find their answer online.
Gubbins staff have a lot of negativity and cynicism towards that bloody awful Directgov website. No-one's told them there's a revolution going on. In between calls, Tom and Martha could show them a bit of GOV.UK and try to talk them around. It's not exactly BBC news, but Martha could even help address the digital divide, in case any of them are still using bits of paper to renew their car tax.
Serious offer. Do get in touch.
