Going a bit Elton John, me
Just one more farewell tour, just one more last ever...
Yeah, it is a farewell tour honest. I am finished as a Research Fellow at Scottish Government. The interviewees have all had their chance to comment and I have made any corrections. My report and all its recommendations are wending their way through a production and publication process.
Monday November 18th is the big day (woo! woo!). The launch will be hybrid at the Bayes Centre in Edinburgh Yooni and online - tickets available soon (as I can get all the admin done…)
But between now and then, lets play all the old hits - and today is Working Paper 10 Immediate Hygienic Measures.
There is lots of chat about public sector reform and using AI and fundamental transformation of the state and using technology and stuff. And its all very nice, but gonnae fix the basics right now, eh?
When looking at how the state creates services that depend on digital systems I brought to bear a lot of experience in software, quite a lot of politics and a little policy. Deffo my weakest point. So I went on the Bill training that Scottish civil servants do, and read the Parliament and Legislation Unit’s Bill Handbook - and the Cabinet Office’s Guide to Making Legislation and the Senedd’s Legislation Handbook.
(Well I didn’t read the Welsh one, I just keyword searched it, but come on, read 3 separate 400+ page handbooks on creating legislation? - I might be a saint but I’m no a martyr…)
You pass a law and you get a computer system, but you’d never know from our official processes.
If you don’t train policy people to ask the questions about how policy will be implemented in technology, if you don’t put in place mechanisms to help them understand what data and systems they might be able to leverage, if you don’t ensure engagement between the policy teams and the technical and in-service teams you ain’t going to get good systems. JFDI - Just Do It.
And if you don’t include the answers to those questions in the Explanatory Notes to the Bill that are part of the Bill Pack how do you expect Parliamentarians to follow-up those issues? They’re not mind readers.
So todays greatest hit is all about just do the basics, read the full working paper below.
