am pleased that the Cabinet office is intending bringing up to 20 senior civil servants to Anthropy this year, to bring them into conversations they otherwise would not have. The technical skills you talk about are vital, as is, in my view, the wider experience and understanding which roles outside the civil service can also create. An agenda item in its own right undoubtedly.
Your point about skills within the Service is well made. No doubt much is being done to address this, although I'm not sure which specific qualifications are preferred. Business analysis? Systems analysis? Coding? Computer science degrees? AI? Cyber security? In general, such qualifications are less valuable than multiple years of work experience.
The Civil Service needs time-served specialists. Experience before qualifications.
One of the greatest hurdles is the pay scale. Social media users regularly mock the Civil Service by posting its job adverts for digital roles. These are usually offered at ludicrously low salaries. I quickly Googled this topic and here was the first result:
The problem is that senior civil servants can't bear the idea of paying true market rates to younger people, sometimes with what are seen as 'inferior' educational achievements. It's a form of snobbery which has to be addressed. Until that happens, the Civil Service will continue to fail in digital procurement, implementation, and operation. The nation's data will remain at risk, and public confidence will be low.
Glad to have stumbled across you on here Martha, and pleased to see you’re making use of your privileged position in Whitehall to fly the flag for more intelligent use of data!
But I was wondering, could you not set your sights even higher and encourage a couple of things that could be really transformational?…
We have an electoral system that is crying out for modernisation. I’m not suggesting that you pitch for PR again, as no one in the ‘turkeys will never vote for Xmas’ parties are likely to agree to it so leave that for now. But here’s two areas that technology - harnessing digital tools and the vast amount of data they must now have - that could change the way we govern…
Here’s a start for you to work on. I’ve called them ‘MARTHA’S MANDATES’. Let’s go Big!
MARTHA’s MANDATE #1: ONLINE PERFORMANCE REPORTING OF ALL KEY GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES
Online reporting - direct to the public - of hard data on government progress towards targets that cannot be obfuscated by manoeuvring ministers. No hiding place for lies or avoidance of true facts.
MARTHA”S MANDATE #2: REGULAR “SENTIMENT” POLLING OF PUBLIC REACTION TO KEY ISSUES OF THE DAY
If we’d handled this better pre-Brexit the public might have made a more informed judgement before changing the lives of generations! We don’t need to have a full vote for everything, but we do need to capture public opinion and then deliver to them better factual information to aid decision making prior to the big votes that matter.
Once the public starts to release the usefulness of tech combined with more trustworthy data, and their fears over security and hacking by bad agents is quashed, then we might be able to persuade them of the need to adopt Proportional Representation - or something fairer than First Past The Post.
am pleased that the Cabinet office is intending bringing up to 20 senior civil servants to Anthropy this year, to bring them into conversations they otherwise would not have. The technical skills you talk about are vital, as is, in my view, the wider experience and understanding which roles outside the civil service can also create. An agenda item in its own right undoubtedly.
Your point about skills within the Service is well made. No doubt much is being done to address this, although I'm not sure which specific qualifications are preferred. Business analysis? Systems analysis? Coding? Computer science degrees? AI? Cyber security? In general, such qualifications are less valuable than multiple years of work experience.
The Civil Service needs time-served specialists. Experience before qualifications.
One of the greatest hurdles is the pay scale. Social media users regularly mock the Civil Service by posting its job adverts for digital roles. These are usually offered at ludicrously low salaries. I quickly Googled this topic and here was the first result:
https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?jcode=1931570
For a more senior role, this London salary is a joke:
https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?jcode=1931402
The problem is that senior civil servants can't bear the idea of paying true market rates to younger people, sometimes with what are seen as 'inferior' educational achievements. It's a form of snobbery which has to be addressed. Until that happens, the Civil Service will continue to fail in digital procurement, implementation, and operation. The nation's data will remain at risk, and public confidence will be low.
Yes i totally understand that tension. Points well made
Glad to have stumbled across you on here Martha, and pleased to see you’re making use of your privileged position in Whitehall to fly the flag for more intelligent use of data!
But I was wondering, could you not set your sights even higher and encourage a couple of things that could be really transformational?…
We have an electoral system that is crying out for modernisation. I’m not suggesting that you pitch for PR again, as no one in the ‘turkeys will never vote for Xmas’ parties are likely to agree to it so leave that for now. But here’s two areas that technology - harnessing digital tools and the vast amount of data they must now have - that could change the way we govern…
Here’s a start for you to work on. I’ve called them ‘MARTHA’S MANDATES’. Let’s go Big!
MARTHA’s MANDATE #1: ONLINE PERFORMANCE REPORTING OF ALL KEY GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES
Online reporting - direct to the public - of hard data on government progress towards targets that cannot be obfuscated by manoeuvring ministers. No hiding place for lies or avoidance of true facts.
MARTHA”S MANDATE #2: REGULAR “SENTIMENT” POLLING OF PUBLIC REACTION TO KEY ISSUES OF THE DAY
If we’d handled this better pre-Brexit the public might have made a more informed judgement before changing the lives of generations! We don’t need to have a full vote for everything, but we do need to capture public opinion and then deliver to them better factual information to aid decision making prior to the big votes that matter.
Once the public starts to release the usefulness of tech combined with more trustworthy data, and their fears over security and hacking by bad agents is quashed, then we might be able to persuade them of the need to adopt Proportional Representation - or something fairer than First Past The Post.
Go to it Martha - please!
Alan
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