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When the first briefings appeared over the weekend about abolishing the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), I decided to wait. Machinery of Government changes have an awkward period in which the headline is certain but most of the consequential detail is not. Which teams are going where? Who owns the budgets, controls and responsibilities? Which minister is accountable? What…
On Thursday 9th July 2026 I sat in the audience for the launch of Mind’s Mental Health in the Age of AI Commission . Here are some thoughts provoked by that evening. On the face of it, “AI and mental health” sounds like it fits neatly around a panel and a commission. In practice, it spills out of health care into a messy overlap of consumer protection, online safety, public-service design, and the…
There are some jobs you leave because the evening has ended. The plates are cleared. The conversation has run its course. Someone is stacking chairs. It was good, perhaps even brilliant, but it’s clearly time to go home. Leaving DWP has not felt like that. The image I ve had has been of walking out of a busy kitchen in the middle of service. Everything simmering away nicely on the stove. The…
About a year ago I wrote about Vibe Coding, Fireworks and the Mortar of Government , back when I was first getting excited by the new art of the possible. Since then I ve had a lot of fun with these toys, at home and at work, while learning a lot along the way. That fun left me thinking about what it all might mean for public sector product management and how we organise our work . I’m not going…
A report that should arrest us This morning Alan Milburn launched the Young people and work interim report . I tuned in to hear his speech and the follow-up Q&A , and I d recommend you find the time not only to read the report but to listen to him speak to it. It is arresting stuff. Not only because of the scale of the crisis being described, though the scale is staggering, and not only because of…
I am sorry about the title. Not very sorry, obviously. But sorry enough to acknowledge that “one weird trick” belongs more naturally beside adverts for miraculous belly-fat solutions, obscure pension loopholes, and things dentists apparently hate. And that it is not usually the hook into a conversation about democratic renewal. Still, I think there is this weird trick available to Keir Starmer. It…
Last June I wrote a reflection on how vibe coding had made it possible to create some fireworks that helped bring our vision for the future of public employment support to life. In the months since, those fireworks have become a portfolio of provocatypes, and a lot of learning and a cascading number of new ideas. And it all has the feeling of standing close to fast machinery. You ll know what I…
Over the weekend I spent some time responding to the Home Office consultation (it closes in mid-February) on proposed changes to settlement and what it calls “earned residence”. I didn’t rush it. I did use ChatGPT though, not because I didn’t know what I thought, but because the free-text boxes are capped at 200 words, and I needed help saying the thing plainly, without my usual meandering.…
One of the first headlines I saw after Friday’s reshuffle came with a familiar and unsurprising tone. Starmer signals plan to slash benefits with tough new welfare chief . It’s probably pretty accurate. The size of the welfare budget is a serious question for any Chancellor, and it’s one that will always be a priority for the Secretary of State. But I’m not sure the bill is what the caricature…
So much of the current public discourse leaves me with a heavy heart, and Robert Jenrick’s recent interview with The Spectator is another depressing contribution. It might be worth reading the full thing because it provides important context for what follows but in short it tells a harsh story about deportations, “rudimentary prison” camps for asylum seekers, net emigration, and suspending both…
Sometimes the best ideas are under our noses, just waiting to be noticed. And I think GovWifi is one such idea. For years now, civil servants, contractors and visitors have enjoyed the ease of registering once and connecting seamlessly to secure Wi-Fi in government buildings across the country. It is not flashy, nor particularly well known, but I find it works perfectly, every time. It s a joy 1…
In this final post of the series, we arrive in the real world. The bricks, the people, the kettle in the corner. We explore what trust looks like when the state is tangible and physically present, and how design, infrastructure and humility combine to make that possible. To me, it seems pretty clear that someone somewhere in government should be thinking about how to create a shared platform for…
In Part 3 , we looked at AI agents and the disappearing interface. But real people, with real needs, still interact with real-world services. So Part 4 is about omnichannel: what it means to design public services that flex across tap, call, or walk-in. This isn’t about fallback channels. It’s about making every route dignified, seamless and human. Designing for every doorway Omnichannel isn’t a…
Part 2 took us underground, to the infrastructure that props up public services. In Part 3, we think about a world where the interface melts away altogether. What happens when services are no longer tapped, but summoned? As AI agents emerge, does that realise the dream of transformation, or is it just that it keeps complexity out of sight? Disappearing interfaces don t disappear the problem If…
In Part 1 , we questioned whether fitting government into our pockets offers real transformation, or just a sleeker surface. Now in Part 2, we look beneath that surface, to the plumbing that makes service delivery possible. Because no matter how beautiful the interface, it’s only as strong as the data, infrastructure and coherence behind it. Pipes before Pixels Ukraine’s Diia app is the gold…
The illusion of pocket-sized government Life in 2025 is mediated by thumbnails. The Family Group Chat, social media, mortgages, season tickets, commute planning, music, telly, groceries, takeaways you name it and it ll be sat behind a colourful little square. Little wonder that ministers want to compress their red boxes into that same form factor. Last week we had the GOV.UK App promise “ public…
The European Commission s Joint Research Centre (JRC) is currently doing a piece of work to develop an omnichannel framework for public services across the EU. A week ago I joined a workshop alongside people from the OECD, Portugal, Sweden and Denmark. It s a topic close to my heart. Beyond my years learning from the best at GDS I was fortunate in shaping the OECD s Framework for Service Design…
A few days ago, I lit the fuse on a working prototype of a government service. No team, no procurement cycle, no waiting for approval. Just me, a few prompts, and a handful of AI tools. And honestly? Fireworks. Vibe coding (or vibecoding) is an approach to producing software by using artificial intelligence (AI), where a person describes a problem in a few sentences as a prompt to a large language…
During church this weekend past we sang the worship song Goodness of God All my life You have been faithful, All my life You have been so, so good… With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God And in the middle of worship I found myself wondering whether anyone could ever sing the same about public institutions. A ll my life, the state has been faithful A ll my life, public…
In the past week speeches from Keir Starmer , Pat Mcfadden and Georgia Gould 1 have painted a bold vision for the work of government. The Plan for Change is ambitious, rooted in missions designed to tackle the nation’s most pressing issues—from housing and NHS waiting lists to economic inactivity. It is really good to hear our government talk up a positive, attractive narrative about the future…