End of last year I published Foundations of the Digital State - my independent report for Scottish Government.
But an end is also a beginning. Turning the evidence-led recommendations of 2024 into action is the task for 2025.
Fixing old mistakes
The state and its servants were held in dignity, once. But market fundamentalism eroded that. The private sector had the nimbus of grace: dynamic, innovative, productive and progressive. Public service was for losers and deadbeats.
Once public institutions had their own general staff, experts thinking strategically about state operations. Better to have a market of ideas with competition, was the theory. In practice independent thinktanks were simply bought by the highest bidder - using dead man walking sectors like ciggies and coal. The policy wheel of fortune would be spun and always land on lower taxes and less regulation. Not all parts of the state went the same way tho, defence kept is RUSI and Chatham House and all.
Back to the future
Experience shows that for digital transformation of the state, only them that has wrestled with the doing of it have a bloody clue. Paid-for opinions ain’t worth a tuppeny damn.
So how do we build a general staff of digital public service and engage with the political class? There will be no transformation without it. (This is the subject of my Working Paper 0 The locus of change.)
I have thoughts for Scotland, working with party orgs, the small thinktank scene (too small to be worth buying), colleagues from the private sector working in Econ Dev around the Logan Report, some pavement pounding, maybe something Chatham House, and some bog standard public affairs at Holyrood.
But I am keen to talk to colleages at UKGovCamp about it on the 18th January.
Also yeah, the year of public affairs starts with talking - so your podcasts, your events, HMU, I give good chat!