After last week (https://blangry.medium.com/weeknote-7th-may-the-prelude-253a8d05b4a2) I thought I’d come back here.
I’ve been doing a lot of immersion meetings. There’s tonnes to take in, especially around trying to break my brain out of going “just use the service manual” or “just use the design system” and remembering that this is all really contextual and I’m coming somewhere new where government patterns are less appropriate as a canonical source and other sources are available to use. It also means some things need litigating from the start. There’s obvious work to be done on improving discovery process and making sure that research is prioritised in the right ways. I’ve been thinking a lot about how research libraries will be a good way to build institutional memory on this, and I’ve been pleased that so far, every time I push against a door, I’ve found it to be open. There have been a couple of exceptions, and one is the word “portal” which seems to be pretty baked in to a few projects. At least the team stickers can then be Glados based.
I’ve been to a couple of the meetings already. I’m… worried about it. It’s hard as civil society to be as co-ordinated as government, especially when everyone also has day jobs. I’m thinking a lot about what the response to this NAP round should be, but I rather suspect it will need to involve an organisation that can sponsor/manage the secretariat on the civil society side. Too much time is being taken up on admin rather than co-ordinating the response.
I’m going to be keeping it vague as a lot of discussions are pseudonymised in the minutes, but I’m also frustrated with myself that I wasn’t able to get contacts that broadened out open government processes. There is an irony that open gov is often closed. You need to be able to speak the lingo. But there are definitely groups who would not class themselves as “open government” who should be pushing on this government policy setting opportunity, especially in open justice and open health spaces where campaigning organisations rarely get a sniff of power. I wish I knew how to find the right ones, who would be interested. It feels so nerdy, when I describe the scope, a lot of people’s eyes glaze over.
I’m trying to stitch different vignettes together in the chapter. Playfully incorporating the time an MP PQ’d the team I worked in’s salaries to make us feel insecure about our jobs after he didn’t get the feature request he wanted (https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm120625/text/120625w0001.htm) as an aside about what can happen with the power differentials that neutrality is trying to protect you from. I’ve also been reading the Guardian articles about the Home Office. My wife and brother in law both have had dehumanising interactions with the UK border people. There was a letter in the paper in repsonse to the Perm Sec’s rebuttal pointing out that civil servants should not be taking joy or championing the government’s policies as policies (“we are proud to have deported x foreigners” etc) as it calls the system of neutrality into question. It’s interesting. I don’t know if I’ll quote it, but it’s brought some questions into focus about the limits of comparison between civil society and civil servants.
I still haven’t written enough and time is ticking on.
He’s fine.