bmwelby's blog

Thoughts from the mind of Ben Welby

What ‘earned settlement’ tells us about belonging, character, and the country we are becoming

January 14, 2026 / / 0 Comments
A decorative doormat with the word "WELCOME" is positioned in front of an open doorway. The entrance leads into a softly lit hallway featuring wooden flooring and warm lighting. Greenery is visible near the entrance, contributing to a cozy atmosphere.

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”. Please engage with it. You might not agree with everything that follows but if any part of this unsettles you like it unsettled me then please share that with the government in the free text fields throughout.

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. Whether you get to the end of this post or not probably determines whether you think I should be capped at 200 words more often.

Because, I’m afraid this is a long one. But it’s about something that more than likely will, in my eyes, come to define the 2024 Labour government and its oversight of our nation.

What unsettled me most wasn’t really any single proposal (many have been trailed since the new Home Secretary took up her position), but what the exercise has to say about the UK’s default setting – what we’re becoming comfortable with, what we stand for and believe in. What exactly are those “British values” some people are getting so angry about defending and proud about conveying with a flag?

Because this wasn’t a consultation that began by asking what it might mean for people to feel at home here. It didn’t start from the simple, obvious good news: that of all the countries in the world, some people choose this one to build their lives – to work, to raise children, to contribute, to belong. 

No, it began somewhere else entirely.

From the very start, settlement is framed less as recognition that the UK is going to gain because someone is making their life here, and more that our welcome must be earned through a sustained demonstration of worthiness.

Character: a decade long trial dressed up as suitability

It opens with character. Not character as formation, repair, or the slow work of becoming dependable. Character as a filter of suitability. Something you can fail; something that can add years; something that cannot be weighed against time, contribution, or changed behaviour.

And it’s worth naming the irony: character is something we are all either developing or degrading in ourselves. We’re all on a journey. We all have chapters we wish didn’t define us. So when the state chooses to make “character” into a decade-long review, it isn’t just shaping their behaviour — it is training ours. It is teaching us what we are allowed to believe about people, and how long we are allowed to withhold trust.

The test for me is quite simple: would I accept this logic if it were applied to someone I know and love, someone I’d invite to my Christmas dinner table? Not because they’re exceptional, but because they are ordinary. They’re capable of mistakes, misunderstandings, instability, bad seasons, and regret.

The system the government is imagining has little room for ordinary lives. Failure is sticky. Redemption is slow, if not forever out of reach. “Earned settlement” is less like a destination you’re looking forward to celebrating and more like the relief-filled end of a very long and exhausting trial.

This image isn’t neighbours and good friends, it’s guests and strangers. Allowed to stay but never invited to belong.

And that matters, not just morally, but socially. A society that keeps people permanently on the edge makes its own fabric brittle. If you never quite belong, how do you feel at home? And if you never feel at home, why would you invest in the place you live — emotionally, relationally, civically? The proposals fear a lack of integration, but aren’t they a recipe for exactly the detachment they claim to be preventing?

Andy and I tried to write our take on what it looks like to think Christianly about asylum under the phrase Welcoming Well. And our conclusion is that welcome is the gospel-shaped starting point; that our approach to asylum can be firm without being cruel; that borders can exist without contempt. That got written in the lead up to 2024’s general election where the previous government’s time in office had had many immigration related low points: Windrush, the hostile environment, distorted statements about migration in pursuit of Brexit, “citizens of nowhere”, the immigration health surcharge, and so on.

I had hoped a change of government might bring a change in moral imagination too. That we might step back from where we seemed to be heading. 

Those hopes have not been realised.

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A graphic featuring the British flag as the background. In the foreground, a large golden key labeled "DWP" is positioned, with green upward arrows and leaves emerging from it. Below the key, the text reads: "Could DWP be the key to unlocking the growth mission?"

Could DWP be the key to unlocking the growth mission?

September 8, 2025 / / 0 Comments

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 suggests. Every time it is mentioned, the same assumptions surface: that it is about idleness, about people who could work but won’t. In truth, it is much more complicated. Large numbers are still poorly after the pandemic (either because of COVID or other difficulties or delays in accessing the healthcare they need, especially that associated with mental health). Young people are struggling to enter the labour market. Carers, students, and the early retired are all folded into the same “economic inactivity” bucket. A welfare system where health-related benefits are more generous than unemployment benefits. And beneath it all, an economy that has been stagnant for years, with R&D investment consistently behind our peers.

The cost of welfare is not a story of moral weakness. It is a story about the condition of the country.

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A man in a suit smiles next to a man with long hair and a beard, wearing a robe and a hood. They stand outdoors with historical buildings in the background. The text above them reads, "What if Robert Jenrick hung out with Jesus?"

What if Robert Jenrick hung out with Jesus?

September 7, 2025 / / 1 Comment

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 visas and foreign aid. It is a story of scarcity, suspicion and punishment. It doesn’t sound like justice, mercy, humility, love for neighbour, or hope for renewal. It doesn’t sound like good news.

And yet Jenrick makes a point of mentioning faith: “I do believe in God. But I’m not at church every Sunday. I take my children to church, my wife sometimes takes them to synagogue.” Faith here is less like the pearl of great price that Jesus spoke of, and more like a virtue signalling badge of pseudo-respectability.

What I don’t hear is a man who abides in the love of Christ.

But it left me thinking how extraordinary it might be if he did abide. If he found the treasure hidden in the field, if his politics and his life left people thinking about good news? Not out of some misguided Christian Nationalism and delight at the theocratic imposition of the ‘correct’ policies. No, because it would mean his own personal story would be of life lived to the full.

And why not have some better policy to go with it?

In previous posts on what makes us feel at home, on welcoming well and thinking Christianly about asylum policy, and on migration in Christian perspective, I have tried to sketch a different vision specifically when it comes to questions of immigration – one of hospitality, abundance and neighbourliness.

So I was minded to reimagine Jenrick’s words in the spirit of kingdœmocracy. You don’t need to have read the interview first but it might give you a frame of reference for the alternative. What would it sound like if a senior politician spoke not from fear but from faith? If his words reflected the overflow of love from his heart and were humbly shaped by joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (which is what we mean when we talk about being ‘guided by the Spirit’)?

Perhaps his interview might have sounded more like this:

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A digital illustration of a town scene featuring a red brick town hall with a clock tower, beside a bus stop with a bus waiting. To the left, buildings with the text "NHS" are shown. Above the town hall, there are large, stylized Wi-Fi signal icons indicating wireless connectivity. The background is a muted blue, suggesting a calm atmosphere.

Under our noses; in the air around us

August 26, 2025 / / 1 Comment

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 joy1 to visit a government building, open your device and instantly be connected. A simple initial sign up2, and your connectivity follows you around the government estate, without ever having to redo it on that device3.

Of all the building blocks in the platform foundations for more effective government this is a vital brick 4.

And it’s so good that I can’t be alone in wondering: what if the same model were made available to everyone?5

Imagine stepping into a hospital waiting room, a jobcentre, a library, or a family hub and being instantly connected. Extend that to courts and police stations, to council offices and leisure centres, to universities and classrooms. And then to trains, buses, and transport interchanges. A single, trusted, citizen-facing network, available wherever public money sustains the public realm – not just in civic buildings but in the places people live, work and play. That should include council housing and asylum accommodation, where digital connection is essential for the dignity, participation, and opportunity that help people to feel at home.

Isn’t it about time that we had a singular, national, network open to all, safe, and free at the point of use? Isn’t it about time for CivWifi6?

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A street scene featuring a storefront with large windows. Inside, two people are seated at a table. A sign outside lists services such as "Benefits," "Housing," "Jobs and careers," "Money and tax," and "Family support." The storefront is adorned with a crown logo above the windows. Pedestrians walk by on the sidewalk.

Pocket, Pavement, Platform: Government in the App Store and on the High Street – Part 5

July 10, 2025 / / 4 Comments
This entry is part 5 of 5 in the series Pocket, Pavement, Platform: Government in the App Store and on the High Street

This was one big post, and now it’s five smaller pieces thinking about what public service really means in a digital age, and the risks of mistaking convenience for coherence. I started by wondering about how far fitting government into our pockets offers real transformation. In the second post, the topic was the underlying plumbing that makes everything else possible. The third post was my take on AI agents and the implications of service-domain-less interactions. And you may have just come from reading about how we need to design for every doorway, and every channel.

This final post of the series is the longest of the five. But it brings us firmly into the real world: the bricks, the people, the kettle in the corner. What does trust look like when the state is tangible and physically present? How do 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 presence. Not necessarily a single uniform entity but wherever government is, it should be compatible and consistent. Concessions in a bigger whole. Not discretely branded fiefdoms, but clearly signposted services that feel like they belong together.

GOV.UK on the High Street (GOTHS)1 wouldn’t be a new competing department but a shared interface. Not just a domain name but a design system for physical delivery, co-created with the whole public sector. Not a new empire, but common infrastructure.

Picture a shared space. It might be in a library. A shopping centre. A co-located space in a school, a church hall, or a Family Hub. It might have a touchscreen and a kettle. It might be open late. It might have someone who knows your name.

A street scene featuring a storefront with large windows. Inside, two people are seated at a table. A sign outside lists services such as "Benefits," "Housing," "Jobs and careers," "Money and tax," and "Family support." The storefront is adorned with the GOV.UK crown logo above the windows. Pedestrians walk by on the pavement.

But the point isn’t the venue. It’s the coherence. It’s not House of Fraser with brand-specific sales teams, but John Lewis: partners invested in the outcome, knowledgeable across domains, enabled by technology to deliver a seamless experience. This shared space thrives when it’s rooted in the communities it serves, leveraging the expertise of those closest to people’s needs.

Which means it absolutely has to be rooted in local government. Not as an afterthought, but as the primary delivery layer. Because it’s local government that carries the burden of the state’s complexity. It’s where housing, education, social care (for adults and children), SEND, and early years intersect. It’s where people go when the other bits of the state don’t fit. And it’s often where the state still has human eyes, ears, and hearts.

GOTHS should be a platform for place: hosted by local authorities, resourcing their frontline ingenuity. Not empowering them in a paternalistic sense, but equipping them and always asking, how can the centre help teams better meet the needs of their users? It’s back to making Government as a Platform a reality by offering all the enabling tools and resources that help teams of excellent people to soar. National grid, not interior design. That’s how you support neighbourhood-level action without chaos. That’s how a shared physical interface can support coherent state action across the frontline.

Staff with tools to handle health, work, benefits, special educational needs, local services, under one roof, backed by shared data, flexible appointment booking, digital ID that works in-person too, and all the rest. Flexible configurations to adapt to local needs, but the logic is universal: one state, one journey. The evolution of GOV.UK, not so much as the brand on the door but as the reassuring infrastructure underneath it all.

Because this isn’t just about digital plumbing; it’s chairs, staff, kettles, and trust. ChileAtiende. Lojas do Cidadão. Service Canada. KEP. They show it’s possible; integrated physical and digital services woven into the state’s operating model. The UK’s world-class digital shopfront needs a physical twin. 

Local government has been left to patch things together but Britain needs a state that shows up wherever we are, with the tools to help, and the humility to listen.

Consistency is coherence

The early GOV.UK era got one thing very right: brand discipline for the whole of government. It actively removed departmental ego. It made a clear decision: citizens shouldn’t need to understand the structure of government to interact with it. There was one voice. One domain. One design system. It was award-winning but it was also, infamously, very much not flashy.

But that discipline is fraying. In some cases you might say it never held – for example, the Department for Education somehow has a load of things on education.gov.uk. But there’s also now a subdomain for business. New initiatives want their own presence on the internet, styled differently to GOV.UK. White papers turn into branding strategies. Speeches give birth to concepts that expect launches before the underlying services get a chance to be designed. And at the end of it all the public experiences a more disjointed experience. That’s just me in the corner gently muttering ‘user needs, not government needs’ to myself and wondering how good an idea it really was to move the digital centre into a department.

Brandlessness isn’t facelessness; it’s familiarity, simplicity, trust. In public services, design is infrastructure, and infrastructure works best when it’s shared. A state that puts the emphasis on apps over data flows or where the language of ‘digital by default’ returns (as I heard the other day) risks losing both coherence and kindness.

The centre that fades into the background

The very best things about digital government, anywhere in the world, come when the focus is not on performative initiatives and shiny technology, but on the team as the unit of delivery, and leaders doing everything to create environments that equip, support and resource them.

It never succeeds by commanding anything.

A mandate might get you adoption, but it rarely gets you success. But convening and setting standards and building capability and quietly solving apparently intractable problems for teams, and with teams, builds trust. Success in digital transformation comes from helping others to do their work. That was one of the joys of Government as a Platform – to shift gear into asking how do we help teams to focus on meeting the needs of their users?

The strength of any digital centre isn’t really about its branding. It’s visibility by being open, not by being marketed. The value of the centre doesn’t come from having all eyes on it for the sake of it, it comes from being reliable enough that people stop noticing it.

Platform thinking only works when the platform is useful, maintained, and trustworthy. And when it lets local teams, of every type and style, build what works for their communities. The centre isn’t the hero. But it is the foundation.

If we want a state that shows up with coherence, we need to re-invest in the things that make coherence possible: communities of practice, good registers, shared APIs, consistent playbooks, infrastructure, identity. The things nobody cheers at a press conference but everybody needs.

Presence over presentation

Can we hope for GOTHS as a physical experience? It seems highly unlikely, yet the NHS 10 Year Plan and the concurrent push to reimagine Jobcentres creates a rare window of opportunity to think boldly. Unfortunately, it seems inevitable, and frankly bananas, that the Neighbourhood Health Service will go in one direction, and a newly rebranded jobs and careers service in another even while we’re talking about mission-led government.

Brand wrangling is the last thing we need when public trust is amongst the lowest in the OECD and the state is so understrength. The government is battered on every front and is struggling to tell a story about a vision for the country that people believe in or even tolerate. The OECD’s trust framework isn’t wrong – you build trust by your values: having integrity, demonstrating openness and being fair; and in your competency: by being reliable and responsive in the services you provide.

None of that is rocket science.

The state can borrow the grammar of thumbnails, but it cannot shrink-wrap public duty into a 180-pixel square without risk. When a crisis lands, we need to be able to look up from our phones and know that something more concrete than an icon is there.

Britain needs a state that is nearby; that designs for lives, not silos; that knows every need doesn’t start with a tap or end in AI; that offers self-service when it’s wanted, and human service when it’s not.

That means plumbing that works, a centre content to fade into the background, and shared infrastructure sturdy enough to let local experiments take root, and when they do to scale those benefits for the system as a whole.

Above all, it means that when life gets tough the state is within reach, not just in your pocket.

  1. The Dot, the new branding associated with GOV.UK, is frankly very silly but perhaps instead of GOTHS maybe there is a role in the physical landscape for Saatchi’s grand idea of the ‘guiding hand, for life‘. Unfortunately though, only 2 of the 150 pages of that brand guidance talk about something offline (print) so clearly this isn’t what was in mind. And just to chalk up another disappointing thing about the whole rebranding exercise, how is it that GOV.UK’s brand guidelines are published as a 152MB PDF, and not HTML!? ↩︎

A pocket of denim jeans contains a red briefcase, a smartphone displaying app icons, and several small model houses labeled with business names. The arrangement suggests a theme of business and organization.

Pocket, Pavement, Platform: Government in the App Store and on the High Street – Part 4

July 10, 2025 / / 4 Comments
This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series Pocket, Pavement, Platform: Government in the App Store and on the High Street

This was one big post, and now it’s five smaller pieces thinking about what public service really means in a digital age, and the risks of mistaking convenience for coherence. I started by wondering about how far fitting government into our pockets offers real transformation. In the second post, the topic was the underlying plumbing that makes everything else possible. You might just have read my take on AI agents and the implications of service-domain-less interactions. And when you make it to the end then your reward is a piece that is all about Goths.

But real people, with real needs, still interact with real-world services. So this part 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 legacy concession; it’s the core strategy for a state that shows up. Unlike multichannel, where websites, apps, and call centres operate in silos, omnichannel means a single service journey that flexes across touchpoints with memory, continuity, and context done right, it’s integration, not options. Public services should work whether you tap, call, walk in, or rely on a friend. This only happens with shared logic and data that flows across government with active consent, not siloed in departments or stuck on a user’s device. Betting on apps as the future without fixing this plumbing risks entrenching exclusion, not solving it.

Omnichannel gives dignity to every route: an AI assistant, a call centre adviser, a library kiosk, a community worker with a tablet. All draw from the same well. It’s a design philosophy rooted in empathy, meeting people where they are. Because real life rarely fits a channel. People with disabilities, people in crisis, people balancing work, care and pain, they need services that move with them. That don’t punish the mode they choose.

But coherence doesn’t just happen, it depends on what you choose to optimise for and where you put your focus.

In 2023 GDS put its hopes firmly in the idea of growth. Not in the sense meant by the growth mission as a unifying ambition for the whole of government but with growth at the heart of GOV.UK. Not trust, not usability, not coherence but growth. As if GOV.UK were a startup chasing market share, not a public platform designed to serve everyone.

At the end of last year Ed Zitron wrote an unmissable reflection on the enshittification of the Internet that perfectly encapsulated my disquiet at that strategic approach. The shift from usefulness to capture is bad enough in our private sector experiences but when government follows this path — prioritising numbers going up over people’s needs and outcomes then it just feels like we’ve lost sight of the purpose of digital government. The job is not to drive traffic. The job is to help people get what they came for. The work isn’t to be famous, it’s to be the mortar that binds modern, twenty first century government together in the real world, as well as online.

Omnichannel is the only credible strategy to make sense of the future. In a way it’s also firmly about growth but I really do think it works best when it considers place as the platform.

Place, not pocket

The NHS 10-Year Plan, the better start in life strategy, and the evolution of jobs and careers support point to a shared truth: that services must meet people in places, not pockets, because most societal challenges don’t actually arrive in neat policy-shaped or departmentally boxes.

I found it really interesting that during the media round before the 10 Year Plan was published,  the Prime Minister talked a lot about something that wasn’t about technology: the Neighbourhood Health Service. Community-based, proactive, and under one roof. Not just a “doctor in your pocket,” but a support system round the corner. And less than a week later, that vision is taking concrete shape with the expectation that from September this help will be distributed into and throughout the places people already visit, making joined-up healthcare part of everyday settings.

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Similarly, DWP has long-recognised the barriers to employment are often tied up with life circumstances – housing, childcare, health, wellbeing and others that demand wrap-around care and holistic support. Realising the ambition to Get Britain Working means more than just job listings. It means being a personalised People Team, championing, supporting and guiding someone to a place where work is a fulfilling enabler for all of their life, not just a thing someone does to earn money. And while the services that help you get there might be ‘in your pocket’, our vision is for a service that’s digital where possible, human when needed.

These initiatives in health and employment are fundamental to the government’s mission-led plan for change: helping people back to health and into work. Yet despite this common agenda it feels inevitable that two different departments are going to lean into two different brands and two different locations to build separate interfaces to serve the same communities. If each service builds its own brand, stack, training, and footprint, we replicate the very fragmentation GOV.UK once solved online. We create postcode lotteries of support and institutional overhead just when our fraying society needs coherence most, and when physical presence matters more than ever.

You’re very close to the culmination of my five part series. In the final post we turn to the high street, and ask what it takes to rebuild trust and coherence in public services that are present, not just presented.

In case you missed earlier parts, and ploughed on regardless to get here, you might want to catch up on Part 1 where I interrogated the appeal of “government in your pocket” and whether it is more valuable than simply being a good soundbite. Part 2 went beneath that surface: to the plumbing that makes service delivery possible. And Part 3 thought about the future (which isn’t too far from being the present): where our interfaces melt away altogether.

A pocket of denim jeans contains a red briefcase, a smartphone displaying app icons, and several small model houses labeled with business names. The arrangement suggests a theme of business and organization.

Pocket, Pavement, Platform: Government in the App Store and on the High Street – Part 3

July 10, 2025 / / 4 Comments
This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Pocket, Pavement, Platform: Government in the App Store and on the High Street

This was one big post, and now it’s five smaller pieces thinking about what public service really means in a digital age, and the risks of mistaking convenience for coherence. I started by wondering about how far fitting government into our pockets offers real transformation. In the last post, the topic was the underlying plumbing that makes everything else possible. The next piece will argue for an omnichannel approach that designs for every doorway. And when you make it to the end then your reward is a piece that is all about Goths.

But now, in this third part, I want to you to think about the future (which isn’t too far from being the present): where 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 apps promise pocket government, AI now promises agentic government: services summoned through conversation, no forms or websites needed, just a natural interface that handles everything for you. It’s an appealing vision, and maybe not far off in some domains. But abstraction without foundation risks leaving people behind.

Apps, when done right, can be transformative. They can bring government closer, offering convenience and speed for those who want it. The GOV.UK App and the wider GOV.UK ecosystem could deliver that promise. Pick the most recent government service you interacted with and imagine its app-enabled future.

For me that’s renewing my driving licence: a push notification from the GOV.UK App, thumbprint authentication (GOV.UK One Login), reusing a passport photo (Home Office), paying via GOV.UK Pay, confirming via GOV.UK Notify and a renewed credential in my GOV.UK Wallet. A seamless journey in seconds, where the user barely notices the machinery – DVLA, Home Office, GDS, or otherwise – because the ecosystem just works. Apps shine for tasks like these – quick, personal, and always on hand; when the infrastructure supports them.

That’s also the transactional promise GOV.UK has offered since 2012: one platform, one ecosystem with one consistent user journey. And, in 2012 and still today, that vision demands simple, integrated, permissioned services: plumbing that works and data that flows. 

But without that plumbing then an app is just another channel, not a platform. Right now the GOV.UK App feels like it’s a solution in search of a problem. In being distinct from the GOV.UK website, for which 100% of government services are built it’s introducing friction – like requiring authentication to access a website that takes people to services using different ways to log in.

Back in 2013, GDS famously declared: “We’re not ‘appy. Not ‘appy at all.” The principle was clear: standalone apps must wait unless the core web service works as well on mobile, and even then, only by exception and driven by user need. Do not read my callback to that as an oversimplified holding to an outmoded point of view. A decade on, as user needs have evolved and so has technology, apps have a clear and valuable role.

But for government they should always be additive to the web experience. Digital inclusion is not a solved problem and while releasing early and failing fast has its merits, there is a deliberate decision to launch the GOV.UK app before the core web service meets that bar and with the open expectation that many features are going to be exclusive to the app creates a walled garden, not open doors. And for me that runs counter to what made GOV.UK a global exemplar in the first place.

AI amplifies this challenge. An AI-led bit of government in your pocket might navigate complex services but it can’t fix contradictory policies, confusing eligibility, or poor service design. I’ve learnt so much from my vibe coded experiments, one of which was to create an AI-led experience of jobs and careers support. But that example also clearly showed that the value lies not in the interface but in the underlying service.

Anthropomorphising AI is obviously not the right thing to do, but thinking about an AI agent like a person might be. It’s the work of service design – figuring out how to best help someone achieve an outcome. When you design for people whose interfaces onto the service might not be directly through a browser but indirectly via their children or a support worker then that delegated experience also reflects something of the experience for those whose interface of choice is AI.

Indeed, over time, some people will experience a disappearing interface. Entire service journeys will be handled by agents. But right now, no UK government service is designed with that in mind. They’re designed, and as long as the Service Manual and the Service Standard exist, will continue to be designed, to lower the barriers to entry and include everyone. They’re rightly not locked behind an app layer or forcing you to authenticate before you get to the content you need. That safeguards the state as service-shaped, interoperable, and testable, paving the way for an AI-mediated future without excluding anyone today.

Whether or not it’s what Martha Lane Fox had in mind, this is really the embodiment of what it means for government to go wholesale. After creating the digital centre, fixing publishing, and fixing services, the final task was to build the state as a platform: a network of capabilities, not a stack of destinations. Open APIs, shared infrastructure, and services that can flow into the places people already are. Useful then but now essential in this potentially agentic world of ours.

So AI definitely has a role. But it’s a layer, not a solution. A reflection of good service design, not a replacement for it. And any AI-led experience must be one of many. Because for all those who talk to bots, there are plenty who need a human to sit with them on the sofa over a cup of tea.

This is where transformed government shines: services designed for everyone. And that discipline must extend to every channel, digital or physical, to keep the state inclusive. A state built for everyone doesn’t retreat behind an app icon, or vanish into AI. It shows up: for real lives, in real time, across real channels.

You’ve made it past the half way point of my five part series. Next in Part 4, it’s all about the real world and exploring how public services must meet people where they are, not just through screens, but through every available entrance.

In Part 1 I interrogated the appeal of “government in your pocket” and whether it is more valuable than simply being a good soundbite. Part 2 went beneath that surface: to the plumbing that makes service delivery possible. And in the last part we’ll talk about putting GOV.UK on the High Street.

A pocket of denim jeans contains a red briefcase, a smartphone displaying app icons, and several small model houses labeled with business names. The arrangement suggests a theme of business and organization.

Pocket, Pavement, Platform: Government in the App Store and on the High Street – Part 2

July 10, 2025 / / 4 Comments
This entry is part 2 of 5 in the series Pocket, Pavement, Platform: Government in the App Store and on the High Street

This was one big post, and now it’s five smaller pieces thinking about what public service really means in a digital age, and the risks of mistaking convenience for coherence. In Part 1, I wondered about how far fitting government into our pockets offers real transformation, or just a sleeker surface. In the third the focus is on what does it mean for services to be completely AI-led. The fourth argues for an omnichannel approach that designs for every doorway. And the final piece is all about Goths.

But now in Part 2, I want to 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 standard for what pocket government could look like and undoubtedly an inspiration for governments wanting to make a statement about transformation. Diia works because of years of relentless infrastructure work: national ID, open APIs, robust data registers and long-term political will, sharpened by the focusing energies of being at war. Diia isn’t magic. It’s a lot of unsung hard work paying off in a crisis. It’s the product of infrastructure work that too often gets ignored in glossy launches elsewhere.

Similarly, Portugal have been doing transformative things, enabled by underlying infrastructure, since before GOV.UK existed. Back in 2010 they used integrated data to automatically enrol eligible people (7% of the population!) to access a special tariff to reduce their energy costs. In the UK we’re relying on Nationwide, EntitledTo and Turn2Us, to support people to receive up to £23bn of benefits that otherwise remains unclaimed.

The UK has remarkable teams and a superb toolkit for building world-class services. But the pipes leak. Data is patchy, open government data has been abandoned1, and for all the enthusiasm about the latest approach to digital identity2 we remain out of step with our international peers. Services remain siloed, stitched together at the front-end but not the back. An app that forces OneLogin onto you in order to browse a website, through which you’ll still have to use other authentication methods isn’t solving this – it’s just adding friction. People without smartphones, or confidence, or connectivity, are pushed further out.

Focusing on the interface, whether that’s an app or a website, without fixing the underlying data flows or service design risks building on sand. A truly joined-up state requires shared data infrastructure that enables seamless services, whether accessed via a tap, a call, or a walk-in. Without it, digital promises remain just that: promises.

None of this is to deny the value of good apps. They do reduce friction and make things easier and more convenient – there are things you can’t do with the web that you can do more readily in something with persistent state and hooked into a wider, more personalised interface. But apps are only ever as good as the foundations beneath them, foundations that benefit all those who are not persuaded by the idea of installing an app for an occasional, ‘once and done’, need.

With strong plumbing, user-centred design, and joined-up infrastructure, an app can be a joy. But if that doesn’t exist, it’s just a Potemkin interface: a facade that crumbles when pressed.

This was quite a short piece in my five part series so read on to Part 3 to ask what happens when the facade disappears altogether. When AI agents replace screens, can they carry the weight of transformation, or just hide its absence?

In Part 1 I interrogated the appeal of “government in your pocket” and whether it is more valuable than simply being a good soundbite. Part 4 returns to one of my soapboxes in arguing for an omnichannel approach. And in the last part we’ll talk about putting GOV.UK on the High Street.

  1. The OECD’s OURdata Index helpfully tracks the ebbing away from being a leader to lagging behind in just six years. ↩︎
  2. Consider how the BlueSky community has got into a frenzy about identity verification due to some not brilliant legislation which leaves the platform having to scrabble around rather than the burden being carried by an effective, trusted and whole of society approach to proving that you are who you say you are have the attributes you claim to have on the Internet as well as in person.  ↩︎
A pocket of denim jeans contains a red briefcase, a smartphone displaying app icons, and several small model houses labeled with business names. The arrangement suggests a theme of business and organization.

Pocket, Pavement, Platform: Government in the App Store and on the High Street – Part 1

July 10, 2025 / / 6 Comments
This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series Pocket, Pavement, Platform: Government in the App Store and on the High Street

This was one big post, and now it’s five smaller pieces thinking about what public service really means in a digital age, and the risks of mistaking convenience for coherence. The second in the series thinks about the underlying plumbing we still don’t have. The third about what it means for services to be completely AI-led. The fourth argues for an omnichannel approach that designs for every doorway. And the final piece is all about Goths. But first, I interrogate the appeal of “government in your pocket” and why that metaphor may sell us short.

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 services in your pocket”, the Health Secretary hail the NHS app as the “doctor in your pocket”, and, back in November, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pitch the “jobcentre in your pocket” in launching the Get Britain Working White Paper.

Convenience makes a cracking soundbite.

But between screen and street there’s a stubborn gap. Three decades of first e-government and then digital government have certainly moved things online, and in many cases brought about genuine transformation. The Blueprint for Modern Digital Government sets out a vision for services designed around citizens’ needs, not government silos, emphasising accessibility for all. Yet digital exclusion persists. Every day, people rely on library PCs, borrowed phones, neighbours’ Wi-Fi, or using AI to decipher government’s Nietzsche-esque content.

Those gaps aren’t only socio-economic. They’re structural. Creating a single government domain gave us a whole-of-government1 web presence, a single digital front door. But the same logic has never been applied to the state’s physical estate. Austerity has hollowed out council services, libraries, SureStart Centres, and community hubs, leaving Jobcentre Plus as the last nationwide, vertically integrated, walk-in presence of central government.

When we developed the OECD service design and delivery framework, we included bricks alongside pixels because closing a counter doesn’t eliminate demand – it displaces it. Support shifts to schools, GP surgeries, Citizens Advice, food banks, police stations, faith venues. They’re fragmented proxies for the state people wish they could reach directly.

What if we applied the same design discipline that built GOV.UK to the built environment? Imagine GOV.UK on the High Street (yes, of course I’m going to use the acronym GOTHS2) as a physical twin to the digital front door: one roof, all life circumstances, staffed by people with the tools to help. Canada, Chile3, Greece, and Portugal4, among others, have been blending web and bricks for years to deliver services where people are. As the European Union researches what it means to go beyond the screens we risk falling behind by betting on apps alone. The real need isn’t for more digital products but better omnichannel services – channels that cooperate, not compete.

The question isn’t just what fits in your pocket? It’s how should government show up where people already are?

The idea of pocket government is seductive. If the BBC fits in your pocket, why not government? It’s tidy, mobile, modern – all the promise of the frictionless state. It’s an easy shorthand for ambition, especially when pitching to digital-native generations.

But reducing transformation to a form factor is a dangerous simplification. It collapses structural change into a UI trick. It trades hidden infrastructure for showy presentation. And it distracts from what actually makes services usable, inclusive, and effective.

In the next post in my series (which is a nice short one), the focus is on what’s happening behind the scenes: the pipes, the data, and the infrastructure that makes, or breaks, the promise of digital government.

In Part 3, I want to engage with the questions thrown up by AI and what it means when our services disappear into chat. Part 4 returns to one of my soapboxes in arguing for an omnichannel approach. And in the last part we talk GOV.UK on the High Street.

  1. Centrally at least. And for England. Though sometimes Wales. So it is a bit of a stretch to say ‘whole-of-government’ but there’s at least a strategic clarity. ↩︎
  2. This would have been immeasurably better if the colour scheme was still black and white ↩︎
  3. Explored in some detail in the OECD’s report on Digital Government in Chile – Improving Public Service Design and Delivery ↩︎
  4. And an important element in their human rights based approach to public services that is looked at in the OECD’s Civic Space Review of Portugal ↩︎
Illustration with the title “Beyond the Screens: Can an Omnichannel Approach Make Digital Public Services More Human?” A red line connects a smartphone, a laptop, a woman wearing a headset at a desktop computer, and a public building with a GOV.UK crown logo. The image represents seamless public service delivery across multiple channels.

Beyond the screens: Can an omnichannel approach make digital public services more human?

June 11, 2025 / / 3 Comments

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 and Delivery that was developed during this research in Chile, summarised in this Going Digital Toolkit Note and further embedded into the OECD’s Good Practice Principles for Public Service Design and Delivery in the Digital Age. That work laid the groundwork for the OECD Recommendation on Human-Centred Public Administrative Services. I didn’t work directly on the Recommendation itself (it kicked off in earnest after I left) but those earlier pieces helped to shape the foundations it builds on. Bruno shared the definition from the Recommendation.

Omni-channel refers to the approach to managing service delivery channels in an integrated, interoperable way to enable users to access the service they want seamlessly and with consistent quality across channels (such as websites, physical offices, self-service kiosks, video-calls, call centres, etc.), as opposed to a ‘multi-channel’ approach that refers to the ability of the user to access services through different entry points, often operating independently of each other.



OECD Recommendation on Human Centred Public Administrative Services (2024)

Now, through my work with DWP on the jobs and careers service, it’s great to be revisiting those ideas afresh, and in concrete terms. Part of our vision is to design a service that is ‘digital where possible; human when needed’. As an organisation with a national footprint of Jobcentres and a wide range of services that can (and should) be delivered online, we’re asking: how can we bring the best of in-person services into people’s palms and pockets, while at the same time bringing the best of digital into those frontline conversations for both staff and our users?

From tailored CV advice online, to guidance offered face-to-face, to the potential of personalised prompts and nudges through an agentic interface in the future, our aim is to meet people where they are, in the mode that works for them.. And for that, we need to be focused and ambitious in pursuing an omni-channel approach.

All of which is to say: thoughts, I’ve got a few. I wanted to write up the post it notes I stuck on the Miro board – it’s not a formal report, just an open reflection. If you’d been in that call, here’s what you’d have heard me say – but what would you have added (or objected to)?

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