Platformland

The aim of most public sector digitization programmes is the status quo, delivered more cheaply. Rather than saving the public from bureaucracy, digital has created new administrative burdens. The public are engaged as consumers in a way that misunderstands the nature of what makes public services public. Instead of digital being recognised as critical to the operation of a modern state, it is too often an afterthought. It's time to share the benefits of digital with the public more fully. This book describes the types of interaction we should expect from the next generation of public services, the digital platforms and infrastructure they will be built with, and the public sector design values needed to make them a reality. It includes thirty illustrated design patterns, ten strategic interventions, and global examples of emerging patterns in digital government. It also highlights some foundational ideas in computer science, design and public policy to show how the challenges posed by the digital state are neither novel nor new. The book will enable more policy professionals to think like technologists and designers, and it will help more technologists and designers to think about public policy.

Richard Pope was part of the founding team of the UK Government Digital Service and the first product manager for GOV.UK. He created many of the initial design concepts for both GOV.UK and the digital account for Universal Credit (the UK's social security service). He was a senior fellow at Harvard in 2018/2019, researching and lecturing on 'Government as a Platform'.