Services Week 2026 Wrap Up

This year's Services Week saw an incredible 4,000 attendees across 80 sessions, delivered by over 30 different govern...

Local digital collaboration in the age of devolution

The new model of government outlined in Rewiring the State opens the door for the public sector to rethink how it wor...

Week 34

This week was mainly occupied by the first phase of my farewell to NDL|GDS tour – spending three days (ish) in Whitec...

The Colander

We started the alpha about four weeks ago, but almost all of that time has been devoted to getting set up and prepari...

Week 33

I was back at work this week but it has felt pretty odd if I am honest. Having two weeks off then returning for just ...

A lovely time by the sea

Light blogging recently – partly due to starting a new contract, and partly due to the fact that I am just back from ...

Open ended?

One of the (many) things that makes me feel like a dinosaur at work is my stubborn commitment to the principle of ‘ma...

Two more collaboration contracts

Working at LocalGov Drupal and Open Digital Planning, I’ve seen first hand how collaboration changes the game. It inc...

The Regatta

Busy one last week. These weeknotes coming to you late as I had fun sailing boats all weekend. We did more things th...

Weeks 31/32

I’ve been off work on a true ‘staycation’ the last couple of weeks. Stayed in Bristol, mainly stayed at home. Relaxed...

[Almost] Open for Business

I’m writing this to hold myself accountable as much as anything. To stop me taking the path of least resistance and t...

GDS: delivering a better GOV.UK experience for business 

GDS and BIST are supporting UK businesses to operate and grow by collaborating across government to improve online ad...

Coined a new (to me!) phrase today: “performative project management”. Can see myself using it a lot from now on!

I love stories like this. Luton’s Hazel Lunn shares the low down on her career in local government, from working in t...

From the frontline to the future: my 23-year journey through local government and technology

DDaT Luton's Assistant Director of Technology and Infrastructure, Hazel Lunn, has been with us for 23 years, in an ev...

Turning ambition into action in complex systems

Transforming complex public services starts with action, not perfection. Learn how HM Land Registry used rapid testin...

Know Your Agent: Why you should act now, to avoid playing catch-up later

[Edit 5th Aug 2026: A friend kindly pointed out that modern LLMs are now getting very good at using your PC for you, ...

This looks quite interesting: London Productivity Library. A productivity tool from LOTI, for any organisation to dep...

The Ancient Farm

The last couple of weeks looking at helping users do more with their test results have been good, and we’ve made dece...

Transformation needs deliberately designed teams: here's how we're building them differently

How talent shapes transformation.

Another great update on the low code platform rollout at Luton, from Kev Rowe: A key principle of our low code platfo...

Sucharitha Revanuru from the Essex Digital Service team writes From Bananas to Better Outcomes: Taking Product Thinki...

I don’t know why I enjoy aggressively sceptical posts about AI so much, but I do. Here’s a doozy: AI Mania Is Eviscer...

KYC, KYB and their wild new cousin, KYA

Earlier this year I blogged about the idea for a Creative Commons-style legal framework to help services respond to r...

Sprints 6 and 7: platform development update

Alongside preparation for an Organisational Change Assessment (OCA) for DDaT, the Digital Development team has contin...

Matt Cain – The Architecture of Effective Digital Government Centres: Over the last eighteen months a distinct cohort...

Ronan Fitzgerald on the Justice Digital, Data and Science blog writes How user research transformed GOV.UK guidance f...

TPX Impact have published a “Market-shaping playbook for policymakers”: Market-shaping is the practice of designing a...

Credit where it is due corner

Sometimes it is important to give people their flowers – especially when (a) they do something that makes your life e...

Lutonians in tech inspiring the next generation

Our DDaT Director was recently invited to Luton’s first AI hackathon. Organised by three local teenagers, the event p...

Week 30 / 2026

Well gosh that was quite the week wasn’t it? Oh my. The dissolution of DSIT didn’t come completely out of the blue – ...

What I learned about the double disadvantage 

I've been working on digital accessibility for around 9 years now and, more recently, digital inclusion. So, to come ...

London Prompt & Productivity Library: Copy, paste, tweak

Vindy Hansra, Digital & Data Transformation Lead, at Croydon Council, shares the journey from Croydon's prompt librar...

Staying curious at SXSW 2026

Sadie and Irene from the LOTI team share their personal experiences and highlights attending SXSW 2026 in London. Th...

Why you should never use “click here” for links

Alison from the LOTI team shares four critical reasons why it’s time to retire the phrase for good, along with an inc...

A day in the life as…a Service Designer

Paulina Villalon shares what it is like to work as a Service Designer in the Data Science, Insight and Performance Te...

Keeping the Phones Ringing While Everything Else Changed

One of the less visible challenges of Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) was what to do about customer telephony a...

On waiting, digital and where the state chooses to operate - an extended version of the preface to Platformland

Below is a slightly longer version of what became the preface to my book Platformland. I started writing before the b...

From Pioneers to Town Planners

I finished working at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government after six-and-a-half years. I’ve writ...

A Hopeful Hiring Handbook?

A while ago I mentioned that I was having a chat about whether I had an idea for a book with a genuine, real life pub...

Deckchair shuffling is for the unserious

The FT and Guardian report that the new PM will disband the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSIT), ...

How [Public Service Product] People Work

I was recently a ‘guest’ on Dan Hon’s new online event type thing – How People Work…LIVE!. The session is on Youtube ...

The Beetroots

Haven’t written a weeknote in almost a month, but a lot has been going on. A quick summary on what we’ve been up to f...

Week 29/2026

I think sometime this week was 100 working days in this role (if you remove all of my sick days). Usually I’d try and...

Show and Tell: Building Cumberland's Tour de France subsite in just a few days

When people visit a website, they usually only see the finished product. What they don't see is the work that happens...

LOTI at 7

Eddie shares highlights of LOTI’s work from July 2025 to June 2026 across our four core pillars: People, Technology, ...

Five fixes for public sector software

Following on from Matt Wood-Hill’s excellent guide to market shaping techniques in government, I thought I’d add a fe...

LLM eval suites are vital. And perilous.

If you’re making an AI-powered thing for real, then start by creating a comprehensive suite of evaluation test cases ...

Is testing and learning a methodology or a core skill?

Today I was chatting with Irina and Trilly about implementing the skills framework for product managers at NHS Englan...

Prompt injection and the perils of leaving it to AI to handle AI

I’ve written recently about how citizens’ adoption of AI is putting stress on public services that rely on friction t...

Sprint 5: getting complaints ready for release 

A slightly shorter update from me this time, as I’ve been away for a long weekend at Love Supreme festival. It’s the ...

Exploration sprints: testing whether a different approach is actually viable

Could a two-week sprint transform a public service? Discover how CustomerFirst tests ideas, uncovers barriers and bui...

Introducing James Coleman – Senior Digital Developer

James is the lastest DDaT recruit. He's DDaT Luton's new Senior Digital Developer, immediately focusing on building a...

Evolving the Service Standard for the future of public services

We’re evolving the Service Standard from a one-off test into a living standard for modern, end-to-end public services...

GOV.UK app: One year of easier, faster services in your pocket 

Today, the GOV.UK app turns one. And, like all first birthdays, it’s a bit of a special moment - a time to celebrate ...

Technology market shaping: A practical guide

Early in 2025 my programme director asked: if money and resources were no object, how should we modernise the technol...

The Relay Race

For the last couple of weeks we’ve been drafting and re-drafting our discovery playback deck, straightening up the st...

Weeknotes w/e 26 June 2026

This week, we've welcomed new starters but said goodbye to people who have had a big effect on our DDaT journey. M...

Launching our Digital Champions programme

We want to make sure our services understand the new capabilities and applications in the Microsoft 365 suite, as wel...

Registration Certificate Ordering Project - From Build to Better

Collaborative project with the Registration Service.

Weeknotes w/e 19 June 2026

Updates from DDaT Luton projects including OneDrive user adoption, low code platform, frontline and regulatory servic...

Platformlanding with DEFRA and e-synergy today

Connecting digital inclusion and health through behavioural systems mapping in one hour

Lara from DG:Cities shares her experience of connecting digital inclusion and health through behavioural systems mapp...

Why is GovTechTokyo focusing on Digital Public Goods?

Ikuo Koboku, Manager of the Co-creation in Public Services Division at GovTechTokyo, shares their approach to Digital...

In conversation with Angelina Namiba: Unlocking digital inclusion for women living with HIV

Madeleine from Good Things Foundation shares her discussion about digital inclusion with Angela Namiba, co-founder of...

Empowering local government teams through apprenticeships

Alison from the LOTI Team discusses why apprenticeships are the perfect way to address talent gaps and adapt to the c...

LOTI Data Networks: Unlocking London’s Data

Jay from the LOTI Team shares a window into how London Borough Data Teams are sharing knowledge via LOTI networks. Th...

Baselining, the key to unlocking value in local government using AI

Sarbjit from the LOTI team shares his thoughts on how understanding the cost of delivery it helps strategic planning ...

Sprint 4: a complaint, a compliment and a comment walk into a bar…

Low code sprint 4 update: dad jokes, not just a Luton problem and building our first app.

One month in… NSDC LGD and a solid partnership

Launching our new Newark and Sherwood District Council website By Sian Motley – Project Manager It’s now been a month...

Update from the GDS Responsible AI Advisory Panel   

How is government using AI responsibly? Insights, challenges and next steps from the GDS’s Responsible AI Advisory Pa...

What is Test, Learn and Grow? 

The history of the Test, Learn and Grow programme to date and what we've learned so far.

Why we write

Kara introduces the Test, Learn and Grow blog - why we want to work in the open and how to be involved.

AI-powered planning: for good and for ill.

I just read an excellent article by James O’Malley looking under the bonnet of the UK Government’s recent work using ...

As someone who failed GCSE English (and got a full grant) this is mildly triggering: https://www.theguardian.com/educ...

Published today with @kinship.works NHS Operating Patterns - Ways to do good work together, in a decentralised system

Open Digital Planning: Growing a transformation network

This post covers how the Open Digital Planning network developed over the course of 7 years, and reflects on lessons ...

The Broad Bean

The previous weeknote was all about the need for a community of teams to change the experience of the NHS App collect...

From Awareness to Ownership: Our Cyber Journey Since 2023

In 2023, I wrote about how local government can lead the way in cyber security – drawing on Newark and Sherwood Distr...

What we learned from the Prime Minister’s AI Exemplars programme – and how it is shaping the next phase 

Find out how the first 10 months of the AI Exemplars programme has gone.

Show and Tell: AI categorisation and distribution of shared mailbox email

In our latest Intelligent Automation team Show and Tell, Ian walked through something most teams will recognise strai...

The Base Comes First

This week was good. Frankie joined us along with Jamie. We got the chance to hang out in a team day. We got a better ...

LGRcamping

Local gov camp parked its bus at Newark during May to deliver an interactive and insightful day to all that attended....

Data maturity: the foundation for AI ready public sector data

Good AI starts with good data. We partnered with The National Archives to explore how data maturity can prepare legal...

Supporting the Unreasonable Customer Policy

Helping the Complaints team apply the Unreasonable Customer Conduct (UCP) policy consistently and manage cases clearly.

The Curry House Storm

Last week was the end of my second full working week on the Innovation & Analysis team in Digital Prevention Services...

Elderflower lemonade

Speculating into the future by design

Genta from the LOTI team discusses using speculative design methodology to explore the London Health Mission. The po...

The Bach Wen

Last week was the end of my first full working week on the Innovation & Analysis team in Digital Prevention Services ...

Co-designing better housing services

How we brought content, service design and housing expertise together to create a simpler, more joined-up experience ...

What have drawings of peas got to do with prototyping digital services? www.platformland.xyz/ways-of-d…

Co-designing digital planning products at scale

MHCLG’s Digital Planning Programme has championed a new approach to public sector technology development. We put the ...

The Pembroke Dock

New week, new work. This week I joined the Innovation & Analysis team in Digital Prevention Services at NHS England....

Why it’s important to thinking of public sector super apps from the viewpoint of ‘the system’, not just ‘the citizen’...

Lobster pots, complexity and starting small in the right way Or the case against use-cases https://www.platformland.x...

I can’t tell isn’t was just a late 80s early 90s blip (or age induced nostalgia), but it seemed when I was younger qu...

Elections and the Community Fund

I’ve mentioned the LocalGov Drupal Community Fund a few times now, so here’s more info on how it works and what we’ve...

In 2018 (ish) at Harvard Kennedy School I saw a talk about cyber (my poor filing system means I can’t find the notes)...

Discussing Practical AI for Projects

In March, I had the pleasure of attending one of my favourite conferences – Housing Technology. A notable development...

Popped in to see Larry