Publications

Latest

• Digital Government at the Crossroads. The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art. 8 July 2025.
• Book: Fracture. The collision between technology and democracy—and how we fix it. (Second Edition). March 2025.
• Can AI rescue the public sector? Computer Weekly. 17 January 2025.
• Digital transformation – the missing government mission? Computer Weekly. 18 June 2024.
• Digital government: problems on the horizon. Computer Weekly, 18 March 2024.
• Resetting digital government. Computer Weekly, 6 February 2024. (With Philip Sinclair and Paul Waller).
• Fracture. The collision between technology and democracy—and we fix it. BOOK. February 2023.
• Rebooting digital government to (finally) bring it into the 21st century. Computer Weekly, February 2023.
• Fracture: A taster or IT guru Jerry Fishenden’s plan to fix state IT. The Stack, February 2023.
• Digital policy veteran Jerry Fishenden: We need our “digital mojo” back. The Stack, February 2023.
• Renewing ambition for government’s digital transformation. UK Authority, February 2023.

General

• Back to the past with government identity. Computer Weekly, November 2021.
• Fixing government digital transformation — lessons from the early days of GDS. Computer Weekly, February 2021
• Government Gateway at 20 – looking back at the UK’s most successful digital identity system. Computer Weekly, January 2021
• Federated Identity for Access to UK Public Services: 1997-2020 (PDF), June 2020. An historic overview of the UK Government’s approach to federated identity over the past 23 years
• Implementing a 21st century approach to digital identity. Computer Weekly, January 2020
• The creation of a London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI). Co-author. March 2018 (final report).
• Gov.uk Verify and identity assurance – it’s time for a rethink. Computer Weekly, May 2017
• Escaping waterfall government and the myth of ‘digital transformation’ Computer Weekly, March 2017
• Digital Economy Bill: About this data sharing plan… where are the safeguards? Ars Technica, 25 November 2016
• Whose personal data is it anyway? The Digital Economy Bill will move control of personal data away from citizens to the state. UK Authority, 17 November 2016
• CIO column. Some examples include:
  • Making a success of digital government (Oct 2016)
  • Trusting Brexit Britain (Sep 2016)
  • Technology we can trust (Aug 2016)
  • Technology’s role in the future economic and social wellbeing of the UK (July 2016)
• Rewiring Government for a Digitised World, IDG Connect, December 2014
• November and December 2014: a series of extracts from our book, Digitizing Government, serialised in Computer Weekly:
  • Revolutionising digital public service delivery
  • Toward digital government – what’s new?
  • Exploring new business models for digital public service delivery
  • Balancing agility and efficiency: Open architecture and platforms in government
• “A Tale of Two Countries: The Digital Disruption of Government“, with Marie Johnson, CAPAM (Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management), October 2014.
• “The great deverticalisation” series of articles written with Mark Thompson, Computer Weekly, January 2013 onwards
• “The implications of identity assurance for public services“, Computer Weekly, April 2012
• “Farewell then NPfIT across the health service. But without learning longer-term lessons, will locally-orientated IT development in the NHS just be going back to the future?“, London School of Economics, 23rd November 2011.
• “One site to rule them all“, Holyrood, September 2011
• “Back to the future with government ID plans“, Computer Weekly, June 2011
• “Can the UK have its identity strategy back, Mr President?“, The Register, 17 November 2009
• “So what we do when ID Cards 1.0 finally dies?“, The Register, 19 June 2009
• “towards a digITal state“, March 2009 (based on earlier work on a ‘manifesto for technology’ when I was at Microsoft)
• “New models of security and privacy“, Financial Times, 12 Sept 2008
• “Identity assurance for the UK“, Computer Weekly, 30th June 2008
• “How technology can transform healthcare“, Health Service Journal, 9 April 2008
• The New World of Government Work. Transforming the Business of Government with the Power of Information Technology (PDF), Microsoft Public Services and eGovernment Strategy: Discussion Paper Series, March 2006. Written with Marie Johnson, Kim Nelson, Gilles Polin, Gabe Rijpma and Pascal Stolz
• “Beyond the blame game“, Computer Weekly, November 2005
• “Risks of poor design means huge potential security problems“, The Scotsman, 19 October 2005
• “The Adaptive State“, IMIS Journal Vol 14 Issue 3, 2004. A summary of the UK Government’s Government Gateway – a platform for authentication, authorisation, single sign-on and secure transactions and messaging.
• The Foundation for Electronic Government Services. Jerry Fishenden and Oliver Bell. April 2002. Published at the Government Leaders Conference.
• “Whitehall’s new agenda”. Government Computing, July-August, 1999
• “LAN about the House“, IDPM Journal Vol 5 Issue 4, 1995. A look at Parliament’s new data and video network
• “Vital Statistics“, Parallelogram Issue 14, May 1989. A review of the Health Education Authority’s use of parallel processing to support work aimed at improving the health of the UK

Academic

• Federated Identity for Access to UK Public Services: 1997-2020 (PDF), June 2020. An historic overview of the UK Government’s approach to federated identity over the past 23 years. Ongoing research.
• “Appraising the impact and role of platform models and Government as a Platform (GaaP) in UK Government public service reform: towards a Platform Assessment Framework (PAF)” Brown, A., Fishenden, J., Thompson, M., Venters, W. Government Information Quarterly, available online 18 May 2017
• “Sounds of Time and Place“, Leonardo, Volume 50 Issue 1 February 2017, p.12-19
• “Measuring Brain Signals to Evaluate the Role of Creativity in Interceptive Human Movement”, Devanka Pathak, Hongji Yang, Tin-Kai Chen, Jerry Fishenden, Alison Lee, IEEE Symposium on Service-Oriented System Engineering (SOSE), 2016
• “‘London Streets’ app prototyping and the user experience“, International Journal of Creative Computing, Inderscience, 2016
• “Traces: Plankton on the Move”, Cynthia Beth Rubin, Susanne Menden-Deuer, Elizabeth Harvey, Jerry Fishenden. Leonardo, July 2013
• “Interactive Palimpsests”, IEEE ISCC, 2014
• “Human-Computer Interaction with Palimpsests” (PDF). Centre for Creative Computing, Bath Spa University. October 2013
• “Digital Government, Open Architecture, and Innovation: Why Public Sector IT Will Never Be The Same Again“, with Mark Thompson, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART), September 6, 2012.
• “The Creativity-Innovation Elapse (CIE): Creative Innovation, Technological Acceleration and Economic Growth“, with Andrew Hugill, Centre for Creative Computing, Bath Spa University, October 2011
• “Interactive Computer Visualisations of Time and Place”, Proceedings of the 2011 Theory and Practice of Computer Graphics, (pp. 69-70), 2011
• “Palimpsests of Time and Place”, with Andrew Hugill, COMPSAC, IEEE 35th Annual Computer Software and Applications Conference, (pp. 336-345), 2011
• “eID: Identity Management in an Online World“, Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on e-Government (ECEG 2005), 2005
• “Managing intranets to improve business process“, Aslib Proceedings, April 1997 (Publication of a paper from the Aslib conference of 26th and 27th September 1996)

Books

• Fracture. The collision between technology and democracy—and how we fix it. (Second Edition). March 2025. (First Edition published February 2023)
• Tales of the Riverbank. A Novel. April 2021
• Our Future State. In ‘After Shock: The World’s Foremost Futurists Reflect on 50 Years of Future Shock-and Look Ahead to the Next 50‘. John Schroeter (Ed). 2020.
• Digitizing Government: Understanding and Implementing New Digital Business Models, with Alan Brown and Mark Thompson, 2014, Palgrave Macmillan.
• “Better for Less“, with Liam Maxwell and others, Network for the Post Bureaucratic Age, September 2010 [first published 2009].
• “Towards more healthy living“. In “Geographic Information 1991: The Yearbook of the Association of Geographic Information”, ed. J. Cadoux-Hudson and I. Heywood, 126-127. London: Taylor & Francis.

Parliament

• Written Evidence to the Public Accounts Committee inquiry into ‘Challenges in implementing digital change’, 23 September 2021. With Mark Thompson and Will Venters.
• “Digital Government” (PDF), House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, Eighteenth Report, 3 July 2019 (Specialist Adviser)
• Oral Evidence to the Canadian House of Commons to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. March 2018.
• Written Evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (PDF), August 2017.
• Oral Evidence on Part 5 of the Digital Economy Bill, October 2016.
• Written Evidence on Part 5 of the Digital Economy Bill: “Digital Government” (PDF), October 2016.
• “Government and IT – ‘A Recipe For Rip-Offs’: Time For A New Approach” (PDF), House of Commons Public Administration Committee, Twelfth Report, July 2011 (Specialist Adviser)
• Oral Evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, January 2007 [whilst National Technology Officer for Microsoft UK]
• Written Memorandum to the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, January 2007 [whilst National Technology Officer for Microsoft UK]
• First Report from the Information Committee, Session 1993–94: The Provision of a Parliamentary Data and Video Network HMSO HC237 [whilst Network Planning Officer / Officer of the House of Commons]

National Audit Office (NAO)

I have provided specialist technical expertise to various NAO studies and reports. They include:

• Government’s approach to technology suppliers. 16 January 2025.
• The UK border: Implementing an effective trade border. 20 May 2024
• Supporting mobile connectivity. 22 February 2024
• A digital BBC. 14 December 2022
• Digital Services at the Border. 9 December 2020
• Digital transformation in government. 30 March 2017

Radio plays

• Traveller. A winning play in the 1993 New London Radio Playwrights Festival. Originally broadcast on LBC Radio in 1993
• Baby Sitting Rachel. A winning play in the 1993 New London Radio Playwrights Festival
• Tank Attack. A winning play in the 1991 New London Radio Playwrights Festival. Originally broadcast on LBC Radio in 1991. It subsequently received significant recognition at the world radio oscars in New York in 1992, winning a finalist award for Best Writing as part of a compilation.
• The Jazz Age. Shortlisted in the 1990 New London Radio Playwrights Festival