A search engine; a portal; an aggregator of easy-to-digest content; a two-way interface; a repository of content to be pulled down by people; a place for messages to be pushed out to them… the list goes on.

Realistically, it must do some of these jobs in concert. Equally realistically it cannot (certainly in the incarnation of a single site) do them all at the same time – not without great confusion and scope creep, in any case. There are trade-offs to be made, and compromises to achieve.

The first common challenge is “should there be a Directgov site (as central government’s web delivery channel for some services) at all?” Although there is a cogent argument that opening up all the ‘data’ would allow anyone to create a better alternative presentation of information, this is countered by the evidence of a desire for single, authoritative and trusted presentation. Directgov at least fulfils some of this role. Should it encompass absolutely everything that government does? I would argue no. A failure to set a clear boundary on what Directgov does and does not cover is one of the weaknesses of the current arrangement. I will return to why this might be so later.

Should it be led by the needs of its users? The answer is less clear. Government is not a retailer. It does not bend according to the market it serves (at least not in the delivery of established services – there are nuances here about improvement and feedback on those services, and of course in the business of democratic exercise of choice – but to dig into these would make this response unreasonably long). Let us just accept that there are some services that central government delivers in the interests of society, rather than in the micro-interests of the individual. Taxes, licensing and “social guidance” are such examples. You can argue that government has no role telling people how to bring up their children and so on if you like, but that is a separate debate, and if one recognises that large areas of government policy are devoted to just such activities, then delivery through Directgov (where web delivery is beneficial) must be balanced alongside the services a customer might more arguably ‘choose’.

So Directgov is neither wholly customer-led, nor importantly, led by the needs of government departments. It must balance both. Even for straightforward ‘information-based’ areas of government activity this is difficult. In a service organisation the presentation of the service is the service in the eyes of its users. There is scant point arguing that a poor piece of content is the responsibility of the department that ‘owns’ it. This is meaningless to someone in the real world.

So one of the most important challenges is one of control. Who ‘owns’ content that is presented within Directgov? The current, sometimes uneasy, compromise between ‘central’ control (as in the operators of the main Directgov site) and departmental interests (in the integrity of content) doesn’t seem strategically sustainable. Doing really clever stuff (like putting a range of services together that are all relevant to the same person at the same time e.g. school and childcare locations) will never really take off under such constraints of ownership. We can pretend they will, eventually, but the evidence tells us otherwise.

We’ve been here before, of course. Those with long memories will recall that UK Online (a distant predecessor of Directgov) tried to bundle up related services into ‘life events’ – having a baby, moving house and so on. Granted, it never tried to achieve more than just offering related links to deeper content elsewhere. But the aspiration of actually delivering more intelligent ‘bundles’ of services to people should still remain. It just can’t be delivered if there is uncertainty over who is in charge of the content.

There is a case for change: the current operating model isn’t delivering transformation. I would argue that it was always talked up as having more of a transformational role than it was given power to deliver, and we shouldn’t judge the current organisation too harshly. But I suggest there is a strategic choice facing Directgov here: a real, difficult one. Reconstitute it as a ‘real’ central delivery arm of government, capable of ‘owning’ and being accountable for services – in line with ministerial policy within departments, of course – OR disestablish a central organisation and have departments responsible for their own services, but delivered to a common set of standards (of design, of user experience, of functionality etc.) There is no reason incidentally why the latter option couldn’t still be called ‘Directgov’ – it would just be a reading of ‘Directgov’ as a term referring to excellence in practice of user experience, rather than a single site.

Both options have drawbacks, of course. Both involve considerable change. This costs money and takes time. If the driving force emerges as being financial, the second option is more likely to emerge. If it is truly transformational service, the first will hold more sway. Tough choices, with long-term consequences. But if this review is serious about achieving transformational change, then these options should be explored in more detail.

Full disclosure: I was the interim head of Directgov’s strategic proposition from 2007 to 2009, and had some involvement with the life events design work of UK Online. Proposition here refers to the scope and nature of the services in the web and other digital channels. I have omitted any discussion of mobile and TV for reasons of brevity.

Directgov doesn’t currently put citizens in control. You could do this by letting visitors choose when, how and where they get government information and receive this automatically when new or updated information becomes available. Providing personalised automated alerts via the Directgov website, email, SMS, Social Media and text-to-voice services will make Directgov more “inclusive” even for those without direct or immediate access to the internet.

An example of this in action can be found on USA.gov (comparable with Directgov) which uses subscription services. Users are encouraged to register for topic based alerts based to information that interests them. Once registered, citizens are automatically alerted through email, social media, and/or SMS message whenever the content they are interested in changes or new content is added to the USA.gov website. The level of granularity on USA.gov provides far more relevant alerts that cater to specific citizen need rather than the current emphasis on basic news alerts or monthly newsletters that have historically been the focus of UK government attempts at proactive digital outreach.

· Subscription Services – http://www.usa.gov/Contact/E-mail-subscriptions.shtml
· Notifications Dashboard – http://notifications.usa.gov

Subscription drives engagement, offers inclusive access to government information and (where relevant) increases usage of other online content. Citizens who receive timely, accurate information are able to make more informed decisions and are more likely to return to Directgov seek other information on a more frequent basis.

A key success factor for USA.gov is that it offers collaboration through its subscriptions platform to many other US agencies – providing joined up government and greater access to information. Citizens who subscribe to information on USA.gov can easily subscribe to related information at other US agencies. This network has approaching 18 million US citizens who are now actively engaged with US government.

Similar systems are already in place in the UK. For example, DSA, Highways Agency and the Met Office have similar services linked via a collaborative subscription network. However, they lack the level of joining up that has been put in place in the U.S. via USA.gov. Directgov could play an exciting role in joining together proactive digital outreach across the entire UK government.

If Directgov must exist it should be little more than server and a styleguide. Departmental web teams should update it directly, without the huge layers of bureaucracy Directgov has created around itself as a form of massive, gold-plated, job security. A few people at Cabinet could take responsibility for keeping it going.

But I still don’t see why it must exist at all. It was dreamed up in the days when Google was in its infancy. These days Google accomplishes everything Directgov does, only better, faster and for free. You want a drivers licence form? You google it. You need a passport? You google it.

Google takes you directly to the government website that contains that information. Google IS Directgov.

Or Bing, if you prefer. But who does?

Here’s an actual example I faced earlier this week. (It’s not from Directgov, but it’s relevant if the portal is going to become the one Govt site to rule them all).

I’ve recently taken over the filing of my company’s annual return and so headed to the Companies House website.

The opening page (https://ewf.companieshouse.gov.uk) has a mountain of text to wade through. Not a good start.

Page 2 lets you sign up or login (why isn’t this on page 1?) and I tried logging on with my Government Gateway credentials. These didn’t work. For some reason no one’s thought to tie these two databases together, so I had to sign up again.

The sign up process isn’t the easiest in the world and near the end it dawns on you that you can’t complete the forms that day. You have to wait for HM Govt to post you something (in exactly the same way as you have to wait for Govt Gateway to post you something). I don’t mind waiting for the post once, but twice? Oh dear, v poor.

If government wants mass take up of online services then it needs to join up related services (tax, companies house, VAT, business advice is one example) and test them thoroughly to make the process seamless.

1. To save the Government and UK taxpayer money. (We don’t believe that this is in conflict with the four further aims that follow.)
2. To make it easier for citizens and others to interact with government when the wish to or are required to do so.
3. To drive simplification across government, central and local (this was an original aim for the Directgov site and something we believe may have got lost).
4. To support efficient and cost effective ways for user and government interaction.
5. To act as an exemplar of good practice for other providers of information and services in the public and private sectors.

The current system is currently indifferent but getting slowly better at 2 and 3, but remains poor at 1, 4 and 5. The current “objectives” all fall under 3 although there are elements of 4 in all of them. But “publishing content” etc. should not be objectives: instead the objectives should always be written with some element of “user pull” included in them. Thus “Making transactions between government and citizens, organisations and others easier, safer and more cost effective for all involved. ” Or “Ensuring citizens have access to the content they need along with data about government that is transparent.”

Suitably rewritten with a strong “user pull” component, the objectives should then be unpacked at a lower level to include such things as

under the second:
– acting as a trusted formal site for interaction (including financial interactions) with central government (HMRC, DVLA etc.)
– providing a mechanism for collecting structured views on proposed government actions (including but not restricted to policy)

under the fourth:
– publishing official public content and data
– providing government data that is joined up within itself and ..
– providing an access channel to wider content, not held by Directgov, but relevant to the user.

There is an increasing body of research on how e-government might be developed, and “A Citizen Oriented E-government Maturity Model” by Brunel University’s Hala Al-Khatib is but one recent paper that provides an interesting and relevant synthesis .

The emphasis in deciding priorities throughout should be driven by users, and we believe that “joined up”does not imply a monolithic system – see below.

This will require a structural rethink in the way that services are developed and delivered. Governments have continued to change organisation structures but they rarely ever redesign the way services are delivered. Digital Delivery requires this fundamental redesign so that services can be migrated onto the web in a citizen centric manner which will enable the kind of channel shift which the private sector has seen. At the same time it requires cross department thinking so no single department can do this on its own.

Directgov has a critical role to play to drive the departments to put their services on-line and to redesign them in this citizen centric manner which by definition requires cross department thinking. This kind of citizen centric design will accelerate the channel shift required to deliver the cost savings made possible through moving services on-line. Directgov has already enabled a radical reduction in the cost of government websites through the web rationalisation programme; it can do the same for digital delivery of services.