Shelley Heckman shares an update on the Open Referral standard, and particularly the validator tool, on LinkedIn: The...

Building for the future: Making change simple on GOV.UK Pay 

GOV.UK Pay has a new provider for non-Crown card payments and pay by bank. Find out what this means for public sector...

Am trialling Aeronaut – a nice, native desktop app for Bluesky on MacOS. So far, so good.

Doug Belshaw is doing something interesting with Substrate – a sort of public everything bucket as blog thing.

Huh, this “using GenAI checklist” is pretty brutal, but thought-provoking: By using GenAI: ☐ I accept the models were...

Have added a ‘Hire me’ page to the blog, to remind people (and occasionally myself) what I do for a living! It’s at h...

May Days [04]

The cognitive dance I am doing day in, day out continues to be pretty exhausting.  Am I fatigued because of the heat ...

Phil Rumens writes a thoughtful piece on the use of open source software in local government: When open-source is dis...

James Plunkett – Could the NHS leapfrog the rest on public sector digital work?: I want to argue, however, for a more...

Made an update to DIgitalGovNews – adding a filter to the top so users can decide which feeds should appear on the pa...

Putting customers first:  DVLA and  CustomerFirst  partnering to improve Drivers Medical service

CustomerFirst, a new unit in the Government Digital Service, is working with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency ...

Elderflower lemonade

Speculating into the future by design

Genta from the LOTI team discusses using speculative design methodology to explore the London Health Mission. The po...

The cost of building fell…but the cost of deciding hasn’t

Dwain Nicely, Continuous Innovation Manager at Barking and Dagenham, shares his thoughts on the cost of deciding in l...

Small actions, shared value — Seocho Coin

Polly from the LOTI Team sits down with Seocho-gu, South Korea to discuss their innovative Seocho Coin initiative and...

Are your role profiles a problem?

Alison from the LOTI Team shares some tips on how to modernise your role profile and attract a wider pool of talent. ...

Legacy technology Inertia: Why things don’t change

Sarbjit from the LOTI Team examines systematic and non-technical forces contributing to legacy technology inertia and...

Weeknotes w/c 26 May 2026

Skills, work experience and graduates were a focus for our director this week, along with potential plans for a mayor...

AI = Ain’t Inclined

Originally I titled this post ‘AI = Not Interested’ but I realised that is not really my state of mind. I am somewhat...

May Days [03] 

I’ve been back at work for 10 days and today should have been my 100th (working) day in this role. I actually think I...

What have drawings of peas got to do with prototyping digital services? www.platformland.xyz/ways-of-d…

Building a platform that supports Luton 2040

Find out how our new digital platform supports our Luton 2040 vision - that Luton will be a healthy, fair and sustain...

Weeknotes 18 May 2026

Another week of exciting updates for DDaT Luton, from a bid to be the UK's first Civica AI infrastructure site to mor...

100 novels (of limited literary value)

My inevitable response to The Guardian’s click-bait list is this list of a randomised 100 novels I have purchased onl...

Succession

With 25 emails left until I reach 500 the end is nigh for the Internet of Public Service Jobs newsletter. Even before...

May Days [02]

Second week back – first attempt at my new 22.5 hour ‘week’. Honestly it is going to take a bit of getting used to. T...

Answers in seconds, 24/7: GOV.UK Chat launches in the GOV.UK app

Find the information you need, quickly and easily, through the AI-powered chat system for GOV.UK.

Why it’s important to thinking of public sector super apps from the viewpoint of ‘the system’, not just ‘the citizen’...

Lobster pots, complexity and starting small in the right way Or the case against use-cases https://www.platformland.x...

I can’t tell isn’t was just a late 80s early 90s blip (or age induced nostalgia), but it seemed when I was younger qu...

Elections and the Community Fund

I’ve mentioned the LocalGov Drupal Community Fund a few times now, so here’s more info on how it works and what we’ve...

[What is it you actually do?] 10 years later

A decade ago this month I started a series called ‘What is it you actually do?’ Blogpost ‘interviews’ that asked inte...

May days [01] – back in an office chair and Camp(Digital)ing 

So after six weeks of ‘fit’ notes and various health shenanigans that came close to closing the book on your author I...

End of Sprint 1: bringing Liberty Create to life for Luton’s CRM and digital services

A month ago, we were laying the rails by agreeing patterns, shaping standards, and getting ready for delivery. Now th...

In 2018 (ish) at Harvard Kennedy School I saw a talk about cyber (my poor filing system means I can’t find the notes)...

Join us for Services Week 2026 

Services Week 2026 will run from 29 June to 3 July. Learn about this year's theme and how to get involved.

Weeknotes 5 May 2026

Awesome overall customer satisfaction score of 94.44% in April!! Plus weeknotes from our director and all DDaT projec...

Putting in place the enabling conditions for AI

Eddie Copeland explores what conditions and behaviours councils need to cultivate in order to achieve value from usin...

Discussing Practical AI for Projects

In March, I had the pleasure of attending one of my favourite conferences – Housing Technology. A notable development...

Popped in to see Larry

Testing a different way to improve complex public services

Read to find out about how the CustomerFirst Team is exploring NewCo as a way of working.

How DDAT supports inspections through DUCKS

When a Children’s Ofsted inspection lands, the pressure is immediate. While frontline practice takes centre stage, th...

Another update from my armchair

These two updates from my armchair are going to retroactively become my ‘monthnote’ for April. So what have I done si...

GOV.UK One Login for HMRC: how we made it happen and what comes next

Find out how GDS and HMRC joined forces to bring GOV.UK One Login to millions and what comes next for simpler access ...

Given generative AI is all about predicting next words, when do I get a better spell check!? (I regularly have to Goo...

Good thoughts from @edent.tel on closing open-source repos because Mythos: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/04/does-myth...

Weeknotes 27 April 2026

On top of the usual action, DDaT received inspiring feedback this week! "We are changing the culture and services are...

From the Digital desk: we went live (and what it really took)

March summary – deeper dive edition If you missed it, here’s the moment the new Luton Council website launched: ‘We a...

Keep coming back to this video in the context of AI-based public services: [www.youtube.com/watch If mentalizing / ep...

Solving local government issues through collaboration with external digital talent in Tokyo

GovTechTokyo shares their experience in collaborating with external digital talent on large scale projects such as di...

Is your job ad accidentally ghosting your best candidates?

Alison from the LOTI team shares tips on how to make your digital, data, and technology (DDaT) professional job ad st...

Weeknotes w/c 20 April 2026

A summary of all the action from Luton's DDaT service last week.

The Palintir mini manifesto at least makes it clear that if you buy their software you are buying it to a transnation...

Armchair update 01

The month started with me in hospital with a ‘life threatening’ case of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) – I’m told if I h...

Making a socially transformative impact in Tohoku, Japan  

How does social impact and economic value go hand in hand? Yuma Kawahara from Sendai City shares their work on suppor...

What drives risk-averse procurement?

Radical thinking doesn’t happen unless the culture in a borough can support it. Sarbjit from the LOTI team discusses ...

Playing with open weight LLMs.

Checking back in on the state of open weight LLMs after a couple of months away and the best are much better than in ...

Kickstarting collaboration during LGR

Earlier this month I attended LGR Camp in London, a get together of councils and suppliers who’re going through Local...

GDS Local: building the foundations for digital collaboration

GDS Local shares the latest developments on how the initiative is supporting digital transformation in councils.

This is beginning to feel like an inevitability: Davey says war bonds would help to speed up UK defence spending

Kingsdown, Kent

Building the foundations for Luton’s CRM and our new digital services

Luton’s DDaT service has chosen Netcall as our low-code development platform provider. Liberty Create is the developm...

Stop searching for AI ‘use-cases’. Design AI into services… https://www.platformland.xyz/ways-of-doing/stop-searching...

From Front Rooms to Future Tools: Exploring AI Transcription and Summarisation in Social Work Practice

From Front Rooms to Future Tools: Exploring AI Transcription and Summarisation in Social Work Practice Bianca Cole Fr...

How to have a whip round

For international readers, a whip round is “an informal British phrase for collecting money from a group of people, o...

It’s all about the question

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how to help people get started with AI. Not the technical side — there are pl...

A new flatpack collaborative model for the public sector

Following on from my post about software partnerships, I wanted to share a few findings from work finished late last ...

CustomerFirst: how we’re transforming services together

CustomerFirst is a new unit in GDS, set up to explore fresh ways of working in government and modernise public servic...

At the British Academy for a day long policy lab Noted on the way in: the dedicated Champaign cork recycling box

Celebrating London’s digital inclusion changemakers: Melissa, Founder of Bridge the Gap

Good Things Foundation spoke with Melissa Francis, the CEO and founder of Bridge the Gap Ending Digital Poverty C.I.C...

A day in the life as…a Data Scientist

Sean Pedrick-Case shares what it is like to work as a Data Scientist at the London Borough of Lambeth.  The post A da...

Positioning AI https://www.rpp.works/ways-of-doing/positioning-ai/

Introducing ‘software partnerships’

NEW: Entries for VIPER and Society Works Collaboration is so hot right now. In almost 20 years in the public sector, ...

Introducing OverBanded.com, a total nonsense made with AI

I got the Eurostar back from Paris yesterday. So I made a new thing. This time I’ve combined data from the excellent ...

Captcha aesthetics are getting weird

User research in libraries: finding the voices between the bookshelves

User research in libraries: finding the voices between the bookshelves James Green Tue, 03/17/2026 - 09:35 ...

Building Services That Last: How Architecture & Design Helps ECC Make Better Decisions

Building Services That Last: How Architecture & Design Helps ECC Make Better Decisions James Green Tue, 03/17/2026 - ...

What a Warehouse in Rugby Taught Us About the Future of Our Digital Services

What a Warehouse in Rugby Taught Us About the Future of Our Digital Services James Green Tue, 03/17/2026 - 09:24 ...

Beaten by the bins

I’m beaten. Me and my LLMs have been beaten by the bins. I’ve spent a bunch of time and tokens failing to create a we...

How GDS and DWP worked together to improve GOV.UK One Login

Natalie Jones OBE and Cheryl Stevens MBE explain how their teams are joining up to make proving your identity online ...

‘Demand Management’ is doomed. Here’s how to get over it.

Anyone responsible for a public service needs to start modelling how to adapt their policies and processes for the sc...

More of this ministers showing prototypes please https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62d1ql5w0vo

In the search for calm things to play while kids are having breakfast, I stumbled across David Bowie doing Peter and ...

I have literally no idea if I have verified my identity with Companies House or how to check. I thought I had done it...

How to be a better collaborator

The internet is awash with articles about improving your collaboration skills. Have a look. We need to communicate cl...

Letting the Agents run wild – seamless Public Services?

A few days ago I shared a video of an AI Agent hosting a benefit entitlement interview. The AI Agent intuits a lot in...

The House of Commons Library on the concept on impeachment* Impeachment is considered obsolete, as it has been super...

Help National Conversations fill the bookshelves of newly elected members of the Senedd and Scottish Parliament with ...

Getting a grip - designing social objects for AI and humans, and the end of the end-to-end journey https://www.rpp.wo...

OpenClaw MCP-enabled benefits entitlement interview

Here’s a video of a benefit entitlement conversation hosted by an AI Agent (OpenClaw Opus4.5) using my new MissingBen...

This is really welcome from Manish Srivastava on how to do verifiable decisions/appeals in an unbundled state in the ...

Stereolab on The Word: youtu.be/Ttq4RLTsz… This track still does odd things to my brain, too many contradictions. Whe...

In the future, our AI Agent overlords will all speak MCP

I got the train back from St Ives to London yesterday, so I bashed out an MCP server for MissingBenefit.com, the UK b...

AI agents will join up government before government does

AI agents will join up government before government joins up government. This will be a mixed blessing for citizens, ...

The dream of joined up government.

Back in 2012, a printout of the page above was stuck on a wall next to the team making GOV.UK. It captured the team’s...

Lessons from making Benefit Chatbots

I got the slow train from Totnes to St Ives on Saturday. To close off my recent vibe coding interlude, I used the Mis...

Learning from LocalGov Drupal

As far as I know, LocalGov Drupal is the only Local Digital Fund project that has achieved financial sustainability. ...