4 ms·

They're pretty forthcoming for what I assume to be an government agency. I wonder why the gov.uk team are getting so much publicity(?) In the last few years.

They're pretty forthcoming for what I assume to be an government agency. I wonder why the gov.uk team are getting so much publicity(?) In the last few years. As much as I love the aesthetic, I'm developing a fear that they'll soon spin off into a startup with some kind of paid model, and that government websites will regress. Irrational fear, I know, but I cant shake off the startup-vibes I'm getting when I read such posts about what is essentially a public service.

fallingsquirrel 2y ago
fwiw this isn't an official gov.uk blog post. I mistook it for one at first too... I only double checked once I stumbled over the "advertising people being bastards" line.
adw 2y ago
> As much as I love the aesthetic, I'm developing a fear that they'll soon spin off into a startup with some kind of paid model, and that government websites will regress. gov.uk got started, in part, because the 2009 financial meltdown left a lot of good startup designers and engineers with not enough to do (and made civil service jobs more attractive for a bit!)
caseyy 2y ago
Compared to many other countries, UK has a computer science culture that's very open about how technology is used in every day lives, and it invites public participation in new tech. This shows a lot in the government as well as its services like BBC and NHS, and the academia. It's a very broad topic to cover so I'll be terse with evidence/examples only. UK government provides a lot of open data and APIs for the country [0], [1]. They are free and pretty much not throttled. They have a license [2] for a lot of this data which is formal but nearly as free as John Carmack's legendary hacker-friendly "have fun" license [3]. There is also a lot of historical Ordnance Survey data and historical legislation data from the National Archives. And of course, you can see the openness in how they have built gov.uk, as blog articles appear on HN about it quite often. There is also a lot of government infrastructure provided to local governments, such as gov.uk Notify [4] or a freely available NHS website CMS (which is why many NHS websites work the same). There is a guide [5] mostly intended for government services but free for others to use on building accessible, secure and quite good-looking websites. Most other governments I lived under are either technically behind UK or they have very advanced tech capabilities in certain branches of the government only (such as the armed forces) but keep it out of the public eye. Ultimately, I think it is the culture of welcoming everyone's participation in technology that makes UK gov so forthcoming and open with their tech and data. Doing this is seen as kind and civilised, which is how governments want to be seen. Of course, there are still areas of improvement in how UK gov provides data, as there always are in everything. Finally, I should mention you can find many BBC technology outreach programmes from the early days of home computing. They are all over YouTube if you search for "BCC home computing". There was and continues to be a lot of techno-optimism in the country. It is one of the admittedly not many things that persist from the pre-austerity times. [0] https://www.data.gov.uk https://www.data.gov.uk [1] https://www.api.gov.uk/index/#index https://www.api.gov.uk/index/#index [2] https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-lice... [3] https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM/blob/master/README.TXT https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM/blob/master/README.TXT (before GPL became popular, id software code was distributed with this readme that said "Have fun") [4] https://www.notifications.service.gov.uk https://www.notifications.service.gov.uk [5] https://frontend.design-system.service.gov.uk https://frontend.design-system.service.gov.uk
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > This shows a lot in the government as well as its services like BBC and NHS, and the academia Salaries play a significant role. Unlike a lot of other countries, private sector salaries for SWEs suck in much of the UK, and gov.uk (in reality part of the Civil Service), GCHQ+MoD, and BBC can pay fairly competitively and give a fairly decent pension compared to private sector gigs. That said, I'd disagree with NHS IT - it's almost entirely outsourced to regional MSPs who suck (and I say this as a former vendor who's helped sell products those guys use in NHS environments)
- ascorbic 2y ago
  This isn't really an example of UK culture. 15 years ago, UK gov sites were as bad as everywhere else. Some of the small number of good things that I can credit the Cameron government were a few of these changes, including the establishment of the Government Digital Service and changing "IT" education from learning how to use Word, to actually teaching all kids coding, starting in primary school.
  - caseyy 2y ago
    It is culture. The government doesn’t just provide these APIs, people use them. End even if you compare Harvard’s CS50 vs CS courses in the UK, you will see that it’s a lot more oriented around computing in every day life. The BBC home computing shows and their success itself is a bit of a unique phenomenon in the UK. Many other countries had these shows but they never went mainstream, most only attracted viewership of enthusiasts. There is a strong cultural element.
nyanpasu64 2y ago
I got to the furry art at the bottom of the page before realizing this was a frontend developer's blog and not the government agency itself.
- hollerith 2y ago
  Ah, so you detected differences from the official British governmental furry art. Smart
scott_w 2y ago
They’ve done this since the head of the Cabinet Office around 2010 set up a team to improve digital government services. There’s a lot of information published as to their methodologies and their teams present technical topics at conferences. It’s likely part of their efforts to be more transparent, work with other governments and better support departments without having to be in 50 places at once. It’ll also help with recruitment.
tsimionescu 2y ago
> when I read such posts about what is essentially a public service. Doesn't it make a lot of sense to be open about how a public service is built and delivered, maybe much more so than any for-pay service in fact?
ascorbic 2y ago
This is all thanks to the GDS, which was formed in 2011 specifically to bring that kind of startup vibe to government. It's even based in Shoreditch, with the startups. A lot of alumni from GDS have gone on to consult with other governments, many of which have launched similar departments. The US equivalent is 18F, which involved collaboration with GDS. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digital-service https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digit... https://18f.gsa.gov/ https://18f.gsa.gov/ https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2015/01/20/gds-usds/ https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2015/01/20/gds-usds/
rsynnott 2y ago
> As much as I love the aesthetic, I'm developing a fear that they'll soon spin off into a startup with some kind of paid model I mean, unless the next PM is Zombie Thatcher, this seems like an excessive level of privatisation.

fallingsquirrel 2y ago

fwiw this isn't an official gov.uk blog post. I mistook it for one at first too... I only double checked once I stumbled over the "advertising people being bastards" line.

adw 2y ago

> As much as I love the aesthetic, I'm developing a fear that they'll soon spin off into a startup with some kind of paid model, and that government websites will regress. gov.uk got started, in part, because the 2009 financial meltdown left a lot of good startup designers and engineers with not enough to do (and made civil service jobs more attractive for a bit!)

caseyy 2y ago

Compared to many other countries, UK has a computer science culture that's very open about how technology is used in every day lives, and it invites public participation in new tech. This shows a lot in the government as well as its services like BBC and NHS, and the academia. It's a very broad topic to cover so I'll be terse with evidence/examples only. UK government provides a lot of open data and APIs for the country [0], [1]. They are free and pretty much not throttled. They have a license [2] for a lot of this data which is formal but nearly as free as John Carmack's legendary hacker-friendly "have fun" license [3]. There is also a lot of historical Ordnance Survey data and historical legislation data from the National Archives. And of course, you can see the openness in how they have built gov.uk, as blog articles appear on HN about it quite often. There is also a lot of government infrastructure provided to local governments, such as gov.uk Notify [4] or a freely available NHS website CMS (which is why many NHS websites work the same). There is a guide [5] mostly intended for government services but free for others to use on building accessible, secure and quite good-looking websites. Most other governments I lived under are either technically behind UK or they have very advanced tech capabilities in certain branches of the government only (such as the armed forces) but keep it out of the public eye. Ultimately, I think it is the culture of welcoming everyone's participation in technology that makes UK gov so forthcoming and open with their tech and data. Doing this is seen as kind and civilised, which is how governments want to be seen. Of course, there are still areas of improvement in how UK gov provides data, as there always are in everything. Finally, I should mention you can find many BBC technology outreach programmes from the early days of home computing. They are all over YouTube if you search for "BCC home computing". There was and continues to be a lot of techno-optimism in the country. It is one of the admittedly not many things that persist from the pre-austerity times. [0] https://www.data.gov.uk https://www.data.gov.uk [1] https://www.api.gov.uk/index/#index https://www.api.gov.uk/index/#index [2] https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-lice... [3] https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM/blob/master/README.TXT https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM/blob/master/README.TXT (before GPL became popular, id software code was distributed with this readme that said "Have fun") [4] https://www.notifications.service.gov.uk https://www.notifications.service.gov.uk [5] https://frontend.design-system.service.gov.uk https://frontend.design-system.service.gov.uk

alephnerd 2y ago
> This shows a lot in the government as well as its services like BBC and NHS, and the academia Salaries play a significant role. Unlike a lot of other countries, private sector salaries for SWEs suck in much of the UK, and gov.uk (in reality part of the Civil Service), GCHQ+MoD, and BBC can pay fairly competitively and give a fairly decent pension compared to private sector gigs. That said, I'd disagree with NHS IT - it's almost entirely outsourced to regional MSPs who suck (and I say this as a former vendor who's helped sell products those guys use in NHS environments)
ascorbic 2y ago
This isn't really an example of UK culture. 15 years ago, UK gov sites were as bad as everywhere else. Some of the small number of good things that I can credit the Cameron government were a few of these changes, including the establishment of the Government Digital Service and changing "IT" education from learning how to use Word, to actually teaching all kids coding, starting in primary school.
- caseyy 2y ago
  It is culture. The government doesn’t just provide these APIs, people use them. End even if you compare Harvard’s CS50 vs CS courses in the UK, you will see that it’s a lot more oriented around computing in every day life. The BBC home computing shows and their success itself is a bit of a unique phenomenon in the UK. Many other countries had these shows but they never went mainstream, most only attracted viewership of enthusiasts. There is a strong cultural element.

nyanpasu64 2y ago

I got to the furry art at the bottom of the page before realizing this was a frontend developer's blog and not the government agency itself.

hollerith 2y ago
Ah, so you detected differences from the official British governmental furry art. Smart

scott_w 2y ago

They’ve done this since the head of the Cabinet Office around 2010 set up a team to improve digital government services. There’s a lot of information published as to their methodologies and their teams present technical topics at conferences. It’s likely part of their efforts to be more transparent, work with other governments and better support departments without having to be in 50 places at once. It’ll also help with recruitment.

tsimionescu 2y ago

> when I read such posts about what is essentially a public service. Doesn't it make a lot of sense to be open about how a public service is built and delivered, maybe much more so than any for-pay service in fact?

ascorbic 2y ago

This is all thanks to the GDS, which was formed in 2011 specifically to bring that kind of startup vibe to government. It's even based in Shoreditch, with the startups. A lot of alumni from GDS have gone on to consult with other governments, many of which have launched similar departments. The US equivalent is 18F, which involved collaboration with GDS. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digital-service https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digit... https://18f.gsa.gov/ https://18f.gsa.gov/ https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2015/01/20/gds-usds/ https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2015/01/20/gds-usds/

rsynnott 2y ago

> As much as I love the aesthetic, I'm developing a fear that they'll soon spin off into a startup with some kind of paid model I mean, unless the next PM is Zombie Thatcher, this seems like an excessive level of privatisation.