Transforming public services through digital engagement

Andrew Stott

Director for Digital Engagement

3 Components to my role:

� Embed the use of digital techniques and online channels into the way we (UK Civil Service) operate in public policy development and service delivery

‒ Moving how we interact with the public from communicating to collaborating to enthusing

� Freeing up “public data” – non-personal non-sensitive data collected as part of government operations – in order to:

‒ increase transparency

‒ improve public services

‒ release new economic and social value and growth

‒ make UK a global hub of skills in the future of the Web

� Champion modern digital tools and methods within government to break down our traditional silos and so to allow us to share knowledge and information and collaborate effectively with each other

Communication to Collaboration through “social media”

� Social Media:

‒ Uses online technologies to share opinions and information, promote discussion and build relationships.

‒ Uses a variety of different formats, for example text, pictures,video and audio.

‒ Allows citizens to create, connect and share more easily

� Dramatically reduces the “barriers to interaction”

� Intrinsically peer-to-peer and two-way

� It is “social” as in society, not as in leisure - does not mean spending all day throwing sheep at people

Power of Information Taskforce

26 recommendations;4 key themes

� Open information. To have an effective voice, people need to be able to understand what is going on in their public services…

� Open innovation. We will promote innovation in online public services to respond to changing expectations…

� Open discussion. We will promote greater engagement with the public through more interactive online consultation and collaboration…

� Open feedback. We will give the public a fair say about their services, and listen to what they say

Open Information

� Citizen as consumer

‒ Information rich public services -'data mashing'

‒ Choice in public services –information asymmetry

� Citizen as shareholder

‒ Openness and transparency -Information to hold services to account and drive change

“So that Government information is accessible and useful for the widest possible group of people, I have asked Sir Tim Berners-Lee who led the creation of the World Wide Web, to help us drive the opening up of access to Government data in the web over the coming months".

Prime Minister, 10 June 2009

7

“Mash-ups”, Victorian & Modern

Choleracases Bicycling traffic

accidents

Within 24 hours of release of data

Open Innovation:

Show Us a Better Way:

� Over 450 entries with topics ranging from curry to

CCTV

� 14 winners

Free

Open Innovation: Fostering and learning

from innovation – the Innovators Council

� In May – the Public Service Reform Group in the Cabinet Office launched the Innovators Council and invited the public and thosedelivering public services to send in ideas for public service reform.

� By end of June – the Innovators Council had received over 300 ideas.

To keep up to date on developments please go to: http://www.hmg.gov.uk/innovation.aspx

� The website is still very active so take a look and continue to submit your ideas: www.publicexperience.com

� The Innovators Council meets regularly to consider the list of ideas and identified four areas to be taken forward for rapid development and testing.

Open Discussion

� promote greater engagement with the public through more interactive online consultation and collaboration

Social Media in Communications : RAF Campaign

Engaging and enthusing

Engagement and conversing

Open ConsultationAlready published some commentable reports:

Innovation Nation, DIUS : http://interactive.dius.gov.uk/innovationnation/

Power of Information Taskforce Report:

http://poit.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/poit/

Working Together Cabinet Office:

http://www.hmg.gov.uk/workingtogether.aspx

Don’t forget there are discussions

elsewhere

Open Feedback

Open Feedback

Open Feedback

UserVoice : http://digitalengagement.uservoice.com/pages/12758-ideas

Using social media ourselves:

If we’re using it to talk to customers why not each other?

Civil Service is enormous;

� Who is the right person to talk to?

� Who else is working on this? Who has worked on

this before?

� Lots of information – but where is it?

� How can we get the right information to the right people at the right time?

� How can we create communities to share knowledge and work together?

The greater the organisational distance, the harder it is

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Difference between percentage of respondents stating that collaboration is 'very' or 'quite' important and those stating that collaboration is working 'very' or 'quite' well at the level of:

Email alone is not the answer

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Difference in the number of respondents stating that they use each tool 'a lot' and that the tool is 'very helpful'

•Knowledge-dependent, geographically disparate organisations have established

intranet-based knowledge sharing networks. IBM estimate this has saved

them £100m p.a.

•US Intelligence community have created a knowledge sharing e-based network. “If

you’re not on it, you don’t know anything, or your boss thinks you don’t know

anything”. (Chairman, NIC)

Other People have the same problem, and have used technology to help

US National Intelligence: “Intellipedia”� Open Source tools

‒ Including Wikipedia software

� Tool-box ‒ Different standard services without

constrained workflow‒ Blogs, Directories, RSS, Social

Bookmarking

‒ Open-ended� Runs at SECRET

& TOP SECRET‒ Security issues

must be solvable!

� Social stickiness

Our Approach

� Small, innovative, quick steps

� Basic start, then improvement

� Don’t solve difficult problems until you need to

� Work together across departments

� Zero-footprint – use standard browser

� Find out what works

� “Steal with pride"

� Avoid “big IT project”culture

A family of different tools for different needs, like the internet but private to the civil service

Civil Pages

� A “Rich Directory” for personal and job profiles� Collaborative working communities – both “open”

and “closed”

‒ Documents‒ Discussions

‒ Comments‒ Diary of events

� Social stickiness

� within a secureenvironment

Civil Wiki

� A knowledge sharing and collaboration tool for all civil servants

� Entirely within GSI

� Same software as Wikipedia/Intellipedia

� Content generated and moderated by users

� http://wiki.gsi.gov.uk

� Micro blogging and instant messaging system for

all civil servants

� Enables users to post 140-character comments,

interesting links or updates to followers

� Entirely within GSI

� http://talk.gsi.gov.uk

Civil Talk

Success!

Benefits

� Saves time

� Targeted, shared, consistent systems across the civil service

� Easier to see the bigger picture� Easier to do our jobs and find the information we need

� More joined up working and knowledge sharing

� Better re-use of information = better policy and delivery outcomes

� Communities – within and across departmental boundaries – which work together to achieve results

� Cost-effective – shared, open source tools

� Displaces use of insecure public systems

Follow me:

� On Twitter:

‒ @DirDigEng

‒ http://twitter.com/dirdigeng

� On the blog:

‒ http://blogs.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/digitalen

gagement/