A while back Historic England asked for my opinion on which was the oldest pub in London. The result is a new online article that outlines the variables, busts some myths, and points to a couple of genuinely ancient pubs in and around the city... heritagecalling.com/2025/09/25/w...

A personal project of decades of long gestation is nearing fruition. I have finally designed and written a megagame! www.tickettailor.com/events/truen... Inspired by the Expanse, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly and Star Trek this is a game about what happens when humans take to the stars!

Received some meeples from an eBay seller today in the most wonderful envelope

I started a new role today. Still with CO, but in another part of the organisation. Looking at other ways we can change the system to make it better.

Good to see @pjtheeconomist.bsky.social address an issue that successive govt’s have chosen to ignore. Pay in the civil service is uncompetitive across the spectrum of grades, roles and locations. (1/3) www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

You might not know: There used to be a hidden page for many services on GOV.UK, which would display the underlying user need through a user story and its alignment with the platform proposition. You just had to insert /info to any service landing page’s URL. I still think it’s brilliant.

Current view

UK Parliament Week 2025 is just around the corner 🎉 Sign up for free, unbox your kit, and learn how Parliament works step-by-step.

Govt innovation nerds may be interested in this "Scan > Pilot > Scale" approach to some keystone public sector AI projects that are being flagged as the "Prime Minister's AI Exemplars" gds.blog.gov.uk/2025/08/18/t... and which appears to be a diff methodology to Test and Learn

I have been organising a series of events for public servants in Scotland. First event is on 2 Sept in Edinburgh where I'll be sharing how to do inclusive workshops using liberating structures. Book via www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/facilitati...

Looking for some of the old #OneTeamGovCan folks. Where you at. #oneteamgov #gcdigital

We are hiring two content designers to join Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). We mostly work remotely, with our team members spread across multiple locations. Apply by 10am on Monday 14 July: www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi...

Am just clearing through loads of stuff before going on holiday. I'm organising some workshops on using Liberating Structures in Edinburgh and Glasgow in September for civil servants (SG, UK depts & ALBs). PM me if interested and I will send details when I'm back from holiday

Good vibes, kilts and planning at today’s GovCamp Scotland at Edinburgh Futures Institute #GovCampScotland

Sort of vaguely still here, but lost the spark for social media for some reason. Will no doubt get back on with it in the fullness of time....

"The triumph of joy over hatred". We should all aspire to this.

Made a resolution to walk in the hills at least one day a month. Almost missed it in Feb. About to go up Càrn Liath near Blair Atholl

Played Clans of Caledonia 2 times on 2025-01-23 boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/21... #bggplay via @boardgamegeek.com

Correct. If the birthdate field contains corrupt or mismatched data, it defaults to 1875-05-20, which serves as a flag. May 20, 1875, is the day the international standards and metrics treaty was signed. Everything is a conspiracy when you don’t know how anything works.

Did some backwoods cooking with my explorers the other night. I reprised the "egg on a stick" and took more photos this time!

Apropos of nothing in particular: I know some people prefer videos, but if you must do a video guide to <thing>, please also do a written piece so that those of us who don't want to sit through a long video can scan the written piece for the bits we need. Thank you.

Not just this talk - a large number of presentations at Public Sector AI Week look excellent. Confusingly they're not all about AI - which is great.

I find it truly remarkable the number of intelligent, knowledgeable people who have been bamboozled by LLM-based chatbots. Just a total inability to believe any scholarly evidence to the contrary, and total investment in their own emotional fallibility as truth.

The weekly One Team Gov breakfast is starting back up 🥳 Initially it'll be virtual only, from 0830 to 0930 every Wednesday. We'll use leancoffeetable.com to facilitate the discussion. The videoconference will be on Microsoft Teams. Q: Would you like to run 1 of them, please?

With pleasure! Wanna hear more about citizen participation in policymaking? Wanna hear more about the new era of government digital? Of course you do! Sign up for this 👇🏽, it'll be awsm

Once a month on a Monday, we want to offer the data community some motivating words! Here's ours for today: Data architecture is the blueprint for achieving business goals with data. This means that everything you are doing MATTERS as it underpins the success of everything else!

The Ordnance Survey map app is currently half price – £17.50 for a full year, giving you access to every map, at every level of detail, plus nifty route planning tools. You can also download maps to use offline. Way better for walking than Google Maps. shop.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/maps/os-maps...

Today I've mostly been prepping a workshop on innovation for tomorrow to talk through some of the tools I've used. It's been fun going back over notes on previous projects. Not sure how I'm going to cram it down and have time for a proper discussion. Mostly I want people to be inspired to try.

If you want an introduction to some of the govt AI tools being discussed today, @andreasthinks.me gave a great overview of i.AI's work at the first @transformgovtalks.bsky.social And - also topically - @jenitennison.com shared her thoughts on the digital centre medium.com/@transformgo...

💥 Doctors 💥 Are you intending to submit evidence to the Leng Review? I haven't come across DHSC or NHSE explaining publicly how to do so. It's via this email: [email protected] PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR CONTRIBUTION ASAP. Please share. www.gov.uk/government/p...

Steam Real-Time Strategy Fest is moving in, with discounts and demos galore from now until next Monday, January 27th. Get your thinking caps on - strategically consider the catalog of options available, but move fast to grab the discounts before they're gone! store.steampowered.com/category/str...

Another round of "It'll be easier and more productive if we meet up in person" is kicking off and, no, not for me it won't, because I'll have to set off at the crack of dawn to get there; pretend to be a normal person all day, which is exhausting; and then we'll have 400 sticky notes to type up.

Start your own website. Run your own blog. Use decentralized and open-sourced platforms @ghost.org is a great open-sourced blogging platform and website builder Pixelfed is doing great work for images and runs on the social web Support open social projects so your homes on the web don't fall apart

Hello. Someone has “copied me” over at bsky.app/profile/offi... So don’t do them favours. Maybe report them too. Amazingly they’ve used a different frame from the same film scene in the profile header, which is a decent skill. Feel like I’ve joined a cool club now though. 😊

Still feeling the buzz from #ukgovcamp25 and want to keep the good times rolling? Or did you miss it and are feeling FOMO? Fear not! Alex Vince and @edsaperia.bsky.social have organised an awesome social this Friday at Newspeak. More info here: lu.ma/hcczmq0a?tk=...

An important article to remind the 6.3m people with child trust funds that they exist. However, not a single mention it was Labour who introduced them for people born after 2002, nor that it was the Tories who scrapped them for people born after 2011! The full facts matter.

Beware #imposters, although the first duplicate was deleted, there are more clones of this account out there. I only have this account with these details (there's a completely differently named non-work account), and there are no numbers in my username.

Tomorrow we will be hosting Government 2025, our annual conference which will bring together influential speakers and experts to explore the key questions for government in 2025. From panel discussions to keynote speeches, here's a rundown of what we have lined up. 🗓️📺

With the correct link to the podcast: knowledge.insead.edu/leadership-o.... Thanks Annabav.bsky.social for alerting me!

The root cause of this is the idea that huge numbers of devolved organisations like hospitals, GPs and individual police forces can procure IT with the same level of skill as they do their core work. Centralised services, iteratively built in-house by long-term supported government dev teams.

Interesting update at Euston, the giant advertising screen is now showing the train times again … so it’s pretty much back to where we started - no one looking at the smaller ‘new’ departure boards anymore #trains

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... If you get sent one then use it. Bowel cancer is not a pleasant experience at all. But if found early enough then there is a clear and effective set of treatments. One year on after major surgery and 9 months of chemotherapy I can personally attest to that :)

Today we’ve published Whitehall Monitor, the IfG’s annual report looking at the shape and size of the civil service As well as incisive analysis on how the civil service is performing, it also contains loads of great data viz. A short thread on some of my highlights 🧵

Trying to help an organisation change? Coming up with the "right" answer is the easy bit, be that strategy, org design or whatnot. Taking the organisation with you. That's the work.

Took my explorers out to find RNAS Aldbar in Montreathmont Forest this evening. They set off in three groups five minutes apart and all of them got lost... Thankfully I gave them all a radio and after an hour got them back onto the road and back to the start point so we had time for a debrief.

Typing a blog post with @imhuyorks.bsky.social for @ukgovcamp.bsky.social 2025 (#ukgc25) about the sad passing of @vickytnz.bsky.social. Reminded of 2018 when we lost David Pearson and used the hashtag #RIPDavidTheP. Q: Who else from our community has passed since #UKGCXL in January 2024, pls?

I've written this thread up as a blog post with some more details: Why some DVLA digital services don't work at night dafyddvaughan.uk/blog/2025/wh...

Inspired by @jacattell.bsky.social (thx, James!), I have formulated the 3 core #principles that I strive for when I design, develop, maintain or apply something. In my experience, these 3 bring us significantly closer to realising #good results and effects. Not in one go (🤡!), but continuosly.

It always comes down to trust in the end. Honesty, safety and a healthy culture. Servant leadership 101. Great piece by @daverog.bsky.social