Jerry Fishenden

“The failure to use digital technologies and practices as a catalyst for public sector reform doesn’t just hinder government’s policymaking, operational efficiency, and effectiveness. It also weakens and jeopardises democratic legitimacy.”

A screenshot from the Crapita Civil Service Pension website. It shows the response after filling in full contact details ... although it acknowledges "We've sent your enquiry" it then says "Your reference number is NOT FOUND". The website has been like this since it launched, unable to let members re-register and then when they fill in the contact form, failing again.

... and a month or more later, nothing has been fixed.

‘Fracture’ serialisation part 6: The Backstory (conclusion) This is the sixth instalment in a series of articles based on the Second Edition of my book Fracture: The collision between technology and democracy—and how we fix it. You can read the earlier Part…

Ta-da! The finale of 'The Backstory':

Lesson 8—Legacy: starting with "legacy tech" starts in entirely the wrong place

Lesson 9—A Self-Inflicted Crisis: the 30+ year failure to rewire government leaves it struggling to tackle social, economic, and geopolitical challenges

‘Fracture’ serialisation part 5: The Backstory (continued) This is the fifth instalment in a series of articles based on the Second Edition of my book Fracture: The collision between technology and democracy—and how we fix it. You can read the earlier Part…

Here’s the 5th part, covering:

Lesson 6—Personal Data: “data sharing” is an insecure legacy from the era of filing cabinets & typewriters, better options exist

Lesson 7—Digitised Paper Versus Cross-Cutting Action: govt websites should be in rapid decline if govt's becoming truly digital...

‘Fracture’ serialisation part 4: The Backstory (continued) This is the fourth instalment in a series of articles based on the Second Edition of my book Fracture: The collision between technology and democracy—and how we fix it. You can read the earlier Par…

And here’s part 4:

Lesson 4—Identity: government’s eternal challenge to get digital identity “right” as an essential element of public sector reform

Lesson 5—Public Data: government’s failure to deliver its open data ambitions have left it working in the dark

YouTube video by Promote Shetland Live from Lerwick, Shetland: Up Helly Aa 2026 torchlit procession and Viking galley burning.

Up Helly Aa is live … hope to be back there next year :)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2Vb...

‘Fracture’ serialisation part 3: The Backstory (continued) This is the third instalment in a series of articles based on the Second Edition of my book Fracture: The collision between technology and democracy—and how we fix it. You can read the earlier Part…

And here’s part 3:

Lesson 2—Rethinking Government: re-organising the public sector, joined-up policymaking, citizens’ life events

Lesson 3—Digital Standards, Platforms, and Amnesia: using platforms and a digital backbone to join-up policy independent of its departmental boundaries

Electoral Commission responds to potential election postponements We are concerned by the possibility of some council elections in May being postponed, and even more by any further postponement to those which already had been deferred from 2025.

“As a matter of principle, we do not think that capacity constraints are a legitimate reason for delaying long planned elections. Extending existing mandates risks affecting the legitimacy of local decision making and damaging public confidence.”

‘Fracture’ serialisation part 2: The Backstory The second instalment in a series of articles based on the Second Edition of my book Fracture: The collision between technology and democracy—and how we fix it. You can read the earlier Part 1 here…

And here’s part 2.

It introduces:

The Backstory, which analyses three decades of UK government digital initiative to identify reasons for the lack of progress.

Lesson 1—The Vision, which explores why repeated ambitions to renew and rewire government have yet to be achieved.

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The UK government has begun testing of a digital driving licence – the highest profile official document so far to be digitised as part of the roll-out of the Gov.uk digital wallet....
👉 [read]

‘Fracture’ serialisation part 1 The first in a series of articles based on the Second Edition of my book Fracture: The collision between technology and democracy—and how we fix it. “You would think that governments would pl…

Here's the first in a series of instalments from my book ‘Fracture' in which I'm going to explore:

— why decades of digital initiatives have failed to deliver the desired modernisation of government

— what a modern, adaptive democracy could look like

— what changes are needed to get us there

A pie graph showing the sources of current energy supply in the UK - with gas accounting for over 44%

Gridwatch is such a good app to track the reality of the UK’s live energy metrics …

Review: ‘How AI Destroys Institutions’ Here’s my short take on the recent paper How AI Destroys Institutions by Woodrow Hartzog and Jessica M Silbey, Boston University School of Law. Every few years, a ‘new’ technology…

... and here's my initial take/summary ... might update it when I've had a bit more time to reflect.

ntouk.wordpress.com/2026/01/18/r...

Ha, he was also a keen backer of digital ID too back in the day of course … web.archive.org/web/20020124...

… low point of my “career” :)

An AI analysis of the Tony Blair Institute’s “Public Service Reform in the Age of AI” I thought it might be useful, or at least entertaining, to see what an AI tool made of the new paper from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change on Public-Service Reform in the Age of AI. So I …

I thought it might be entertaining to see what Microsoft Copilot makes of the new paper "Public-Service Reform in the Age of AI" from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

Here's its analysis—benchmarked against 3 decades of similar proposals curated in the Digital Govt Archives.

well, this looks like some suitable weekend reading ...

"AI systems are built to function in ways that degrade and are likely to destroy our crucial civic institutions."

"How AI Destroys Institutions"

Labour MP Josh Simons to lead digital ID scheme | Computer Weekly Cabinet Office parliamentary secretary Josh Simons to become digital ID minister as government prepares to launch public consultation on the scheme.

“Labour MP Josh Simons to lead digital ID scheme”

Digital Government and e-Government Archives This is a living, curated list of documents and links related to UK Government e-government and digital government initiatives since the early 1990s. More will be added as and when time allows. Wherev...

Here's my regular reminder about the 'Digital Government and e-Government Archives' — my attempt to curate the major digital government initiatives of the past three or so decades ... all ideas for additions and improvements always welcome

The recent “blueprint for modern digital govt" includes a “Digital Backbone” for the integration & orchestration needed to share capabilities & build true end-to-end journeys—sounds like a commitment to restore the sort of functionality available back in 2001+? Interested to see how that develops

Digital Government and e-Government Archives This is a living, curated list of documents and links related to UK Government e-government and digital government initiatives since the 1990s. More will be added as and when time allows. Wherever …

ps. the archives are here

A table setting out the state of digital government in 2001. It covers the pan-government website UKonline; identification, authentication, and single sign-on; cross-sector connectivity; e-Signatures; and data interoperability

I'm going to replace a few graphics like this (from the digital government archives) with better (HTML) equivalents in the New Year.

Apart from correcting a few obvious typos, anything else I should update/improve on this one while I'm at it?

Digital Government at the Crossroads The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art has published my article Digital Government at the Crossroads. It explores the need for a radical rethink and reset to ‘digital government’ initiativ…

Digital Government at the Crossroads (2025)

Decades of digital government initiatives have left governments ill-placed in an increasingly challenging & volatile world. It’s time to use technology to help democracies learn smarter, react faster, & adapt better

As others have found, re-registering an account doesn’t work. Five attempts so far …

A snapshot of the Civil Service pension website showing that “due to a technical issue” they are currently unable to access records and the contact centre cannot answer any queries …

Capita really have excelled themselves taking over the Civil Service pension scheme …

The war we’re in We’re at war whether we know it or not. Hybrid warfare surrounds us, hiding in plain sight. But I’m not sure anyone wants to hear that as we emerge from the shadow of Covid. Perhaps the …

The war we’re in (2021)

We're in a hybrid war blending cyberattacks, disinformation, election interference & propaganda to erode democracy. It’s another reason why govt digital strategies need a major reset—to help democracies improve their ability to learn smarter, react faster, and adapt better

London Suite – Fourth Movement. A wander thru historic City alleys (noises off from angry traffic) 'London Suite' comprises four movements for solo piano, inspired by London moods, memories, people and places. The full names of these movements are shown below (Soundcloud has an arbitrary 100 chara

…. and here’s a musical bonus, my most played composition on Soundcloud. In 2026, I’ll be posting my occasional efforts at learning jazz piano.

“Nice/great.”

You have been warned :)

** Christmas Bonus Extra! ***

But of course the most popular page on my technology policy site is … the digital government archives!

Digital Government at the Crossroads The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art has published my article Digital Government at the Crossroads. It explores the need for a radical rethink and reset to ‘digital government’ initiativ…

Digital Government at the Crossroads (2025)

Decades of digital government initiatives have left governments ill-placed in an increasingly challenging & volatile world. It’s time to use technology to help democracies learn smarter, react faster, & adapt better

The jagged frontiers of “artificial intelligence” … and government reform No wonder so many people find claims about artificial intelligence (AI) difficult to comprehend. On the one hand, we have the enthusiasts telling us it’s getting better all the time and chang…

The jagged frontiers of artificial intelligence … and government reform (2024)

AI models excel at some tasks while failing unpredictably at similar ones. Is it about to distract us from the hard work required to make government work better by becoming the latest “digital veneer” over broken govt?