pubstr.at
Blogging less than the olden days. Still working to make public services better, now in healthcare regulation.
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It's just five bullet points, apparently
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Back in the crazy times, most things didn't come with plugs - you bought that separately. Wiring a plug still feels like a normal activity to me, but I can't remember when I last needed to.
It occurs to me to wonder whether there were a lot more house fires in those days.
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Top Ukraine metaphoring
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Just? it needs to be created before it can be fixed.
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[reply some]
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The one really impressive part of what enables DOGE is being able to send a single email with the confidence that it will be received by the entire civil service. Absolutely nobody in Westminster has the awesome power to do that.
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I didn't know at the time that I was the tiniest of cogs in a CIA funded operation, but it's not a surprising discovery.
That was back in the bad old days when Russian malevolence dominated central Europe. They are days to which we must not return.
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The only hairy moment was when the East German frontier guard started to take an interest at the crossing into Poland - and I realised that she spoke Polish. But it turned out that fraternal socialism did not require her to contribute to the Polish censorship system, so all was well.
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Giedroyć was a friend of my father and published poetry and essays by him. And so it was that I remember crossing into Poland with tiny books and journals tucked into the corners of my luggage, knowing that they would be found in any serious search, but optimistic of getting through.
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Not sure I'd call Cegłowski's style inaccessible, but the book does look interesting
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No, but there is no shortage of people who have mistreated Beethoven
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However, despite the 1990s look and feel and the bizarre index-based search, it is then unexpectedly efficient in providing the copies.
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And finally: a digital workplace is only as good as the culture around it.
No technology will fix a broken organisation.
No chatbot will make up for poor leadership.
No intranet will compensate for a lack of trust.
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The stupid do need support, but the supporters of the stupid could do better than almost immediately criticising HMG for not doing more to get them out of a problem entirely of their own making
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The theme of the voyage was circumnavigation
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Skateboarding? That's just for amateurs.
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I suggested a solution to one version of this problem many years ago, but sadly I am still waiting for somebody to make it happen.
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Perhaps permission should come first, but in its absence, confidence and capability can be the means of gaining it.
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Affirmative, I would hope
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It is a particular irony that government can't even remember and build on the work it has done to improve how it remembers and builds on the work it does.
www.gov.uk/government/p...
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Your comment on that day ten years ago is one I treasured then and treasure still - thank you
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If bears took up residence in Battersea
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That's why the orange groves of Lancashire are famous the world over.
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"Coco recommends in Brum" is a remarkably useful service. That's breakfast sorted for next time, to join the now well-established lunchtime sandwich from Anderson & Hill.
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And yes, the UK system is at the opposite extreme from the US, but the underlying problem of balancing stability, dynamism and legitimacy doesn't fundamentally different
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There is a useful rule of thumb that if any normal person can name any member of your supreme/constitutional court, your political system is stressed close to breaking point.
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For sure (and it was a political bodge in the first place even for 13 states), but although it is extreme, the wider point remains that the position adopted by past voters should not overly constrain current or future voters - and most constitutions have some version of that problem
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Having a written constitution and an agreed process to change it can very easily become its worst feature. The existence of Trump is arguably a consequence of a constitution where that is very broken.
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I managed to write this while I was still a civil servant, so I don't think the conversation is completely constrained - but that's not to say that it's easy or that the need for it is widely recognised.
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Meanwhile, in today's up to the minute transport news:
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Agents, not affects
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Ultimately, civil servants are individual moral affects and can't duck those questions (though they certainly can duck admitting that and acting on it).
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I don't know @smithsam.bsky.social's purpose, but I think there is value in reflecting on what civil servants in GDS (or anywhere else in government) would do or should do if instructed to do DOGE-like activities for DOGE-like reasons.
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I don't disagree, but there are ways of (entirely properly) describing GDS which makes it sound very much like DOGE, and there are other (equally proper) ways which make them sound like total opposites.
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The purpose of GDS is to implement the policies of the government of the day. If a future government has different policies, it will do different things or will cease to exist
It has no intrinsic or independent purpose beyond that.
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A blog post from the past. How apt.
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And all to easy to envision scenarios where somebody who has done very serious harm by operating a motor vehicle is banned (if at all) for considerably less time than somebody who the government thinks owes it money.
Let the punishment fit the crime, and all that.
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Given what they find it possible to ignore already, I think you must be right - this JR judgment from just last week shows just how very badly wrong it can go.
www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWH...