William Heath (052)
William Heath of Ideal Government talks about new opportunities for a solving the big challenges of our age.
Transcript:
A. Are we going now. Yes.
I think that empowered consumers are easy to serve better if you are a company and I think people are happy to spend money on what they really want and I think that is no bad thing and I also think empowered citizens, or agents of public services, are easier to give good public services to. If people really know what they want out of education, if people really know what they want from their healthcare, it is much easier to provide effective education and healthcare. I think the danger of unleashing these new technologies on the existing model we have in public services and government is that people providing public services look at them and say these technologies will re-enforce and improve the way in which we do things now -- conceiving and devising (or conceding and dividing?) public services at the centre and doing them for people, and the danger of that approach is that you miss what is coming up on the blind side and what is coming up on the blind side is that there are collaborative ways of working and doing things which deliver the public service outcome far better than the old model, even the empowered old model.
So we are looking at vastly centralised old records, a wholly centralised system of identity management across government -- which then operates outside government as well -- we are looking at huge databases of not just vulnerable children but of all children with the intention of improving child welfare, not just child protection but him having a generally better outcome and these hugely centralised approaches have got huge dangers and I think they overlook the fact people are naturally collaborative and cooperative and that different versions of the technologies are now available to everybody so people can work together in ways that ask a deeper question about the role of government.
Q. If you could just does it mean is it a gift for companies being able to tell us what to do instead of us being able to tell companies what to do?
A. (2.25) Yes, I think there was a change with things like the Consumers' Association, which provided better consumer orientated data and if you think about something like house insurance, when you have to make your choice about house insurance the essential thing to know is is this company going to pay out and the only thing you know is what its price is. You can not really read everyone's terms and conditions and do competitive comparisons on stuff, or, if you are downloading new software you don't really look at the end users licence agreement and evaluate all the terms and conditions and think 'there is something in clause 36 you are not quite happy with -- I will try and renegotiate that or perhaps I will switch and use a different package instead because their clause 72 is less unattractive to this company's clause 36. You just think, hang on, I will go for it anyway. I think broadly empowered consumers could argue for better terms and conditions and they could flag. I mean if we shared our experience like who does pay out with -- in the case of house insurance -- then we could all makes better decisions. It is like the feed back you get on travel services, a service like patient opinion which allows you to feed back the quality of NHS services.
Q. Could you just describe in a sentence that shift in the relationship because I think that is the big thing. We are giving examples of different things?
A. Yes. We will still need large companies to provide us with products and services but the consumers will be better informed and more articulate and better able to to ask for what they want.
Q. And so companies are will change to be fundamentally better.
A. Well, it is a good thing to change because if you can -- if the customers can have an voice and say what they want, then there is competitive advantage in being the company that gives the customers what they want.
Q. And so they compete for to be more than more what we want rather than be more and more money making?
A. Well here is hoping. We will have to see how it plays out.
Q. We were looking at STKPWHRAOP you know the bank and how they make money what happens is customers put in a lot of work?
A. Yes yes yes yes yes yes.
Q. And Zopa makes less money is that the sort of model you think will be extended?
A. I do not know. I mean, I think Zopa is very interesting and it is very interesting to see how it will behave going through a credit crunch, when it is much harder to get loans anyway, and whether a mutual collaborative process of people lending directly to each other survives that better. I suspect there will be a lot of people wanting to borrow money, there will be a higher risk to lending money. Liquid capital will be at a real premium. Zopa is different so the next two years is going to be very interesting test of Zopa's ability.
Q. It seems to be doing very well from what it is a thing based on people reading the other person's life history REU and?
A. Yes.
Q. And it does sound nice?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay, so what are you working towards do you think you have obviously got quite an clear idea of a improved investigation of government what are the problems and what are you trying to do?
A. Okay, when we started Ideal Government, which is this conversation online about what we want from the enabled government, the participants came up with the broad concept very, very quickly. There is loads of quick wins. The contemporary internet means that there is lots of things that government is trying to do which you can just nick from the internet already. I mean brilliant search is out there already. Lots of feedback tools like that already. Lots surveys like Flickr and YouTube are out there. Don't reinvent them, just use them. So there is lots of quick wins. The second thing is this whole area which designers would call co-creation, which is about inviting the beneficiaries of the service or people on the front line to help design and sketch out and make decisions and participate and feedback about services, because that is how you deliver services which are really sensitive and empathetic to people who get them and the contemporary internet offers fantastic opportunities to do it. You know, if filling out your tax return is difficult, why not have an forum that says, 'Well, I have trouble with that paragraph as well, here is what I did.' If you want to do that about your health or education services it is a fantastic free tool. The third general principle is that, in implementing these new systems which will completely rebuild the relationships between the individual and the state, we are going to need to dig much deeper to create a foundation of trust. I think government and those providing public services don't yet realise how deep they are willing to dig. They are creating these systems which will implement the rules according to which we will either get services or we will not -- this is what will make the computer say no -- and it is -- the way we are doing that suggests we are going to have a kafkaesque outcome, that people will be denied access to things they are entitled (to) towards the services and they won't really know why. It will be impossible unravel where it went wrong, where did my data get put into, you know. One department shared it with another and something went wrong somewhere -- how do I trace this back to the source and how do I rectify. So those are the three principles that the online community said we wanted from the ideal E-enabled government are: use quick wins that are there, which we are used to; apply a principle of co-creation and lets dig deeper to build this new set of services on a foundation of trust.
So that was three and a half years ago. Those lessons still apply. The government has done its power of information review which is based on how -- what is the optimal use of government's data assets and how can we get the most social benefit out of them? Probably out of setting them free and letting people use them rather than charging them as much money as possible for them at point of release.
Q. Could you just explain as simply as you can because I think that is very important what you say?
A. The government has done a power of information review by Ed May and Tom Steinberg. This focuses particularly on government data assets, the maps, the statistics, the numbers. All the information which government sits on which tax payers have paid for already. Trading fund -- pieces of government that have an obligation to make a financial return have to sell their information to meet their target but probably there is a social benefit in giving that information away, selling it very cheaply so the rest of us can build businesses and recreate it and mash it up and add value to all that is there. So this power of information policy which is now being pursued by the present Cabnet Office Minister Tom Watson could lead to really interesting changes in how government data is used for general benefit. There is then the whole question of how government should treat personal data and the trend there is for government to hoover up as much personal data as it can and now to try and share it across departmental boundaries. So you have huge amounts have data which is often quite inaccurate which will be pooled together across departments creating a sort of toxic soup in which we are the victims. You have a transformational government policy which purports to be personalised but there is nothing personal about it. It is about acquiring a huge data set. It is about the subject of the data. There will be a file on you but no one really knows who you are or treats you seriously as a person and I think that (10.49) approach needs to be turned on its head. We need to remember that people are individuals and different and have dignity and government is there to serve them, but, as far as possible, people and their carers want to be responsible for their own lives and they are entitled to that from government. They ought to get the right thing accurately quickly and efficiently but without any more bureaucratic intrusion than the minimum necessary. So I think that means turning this transformational government on its head.
Q. You talked about co-creation, as in getting more involved in government and policy development or whatever.
A. Yes.
Q. Why would people bother with things like people don't seem to care that much about application anyway why would what you are advocated result in anyone bothering to get involved?
A. Oh Ivo, that is a load of old tosh and you know it. I mean you know the fact that people don't vote doesn't mean that they are not engaged in politics. I think research for the BBC would suggest that, even though there is a generation which doesn't vote or watch political programming, they are actually more engaged and involved in digging through those issues than in any previous generations anyone has looked at. So Rohan Williams used the interesting term in one of his books: he talked about people who get an education, not an citizens or customers, but as agents. He used the word agent because it implies a more active participation. Education is not something which people do to you. They open up certain possibilities but in fact you have to educate yourself. You have to do the home work, you have to study, you have to follow, pursue and learn and remember and write the essay and suddenly with healthcare, you know, there is a huge amount of looking after people's health they do themselves -- people decide what to eat and how to live their lives and what exercise to take so the same appies to law and order, really. Yes, the police have a job to keep the streets of Lewisham safe but the people who really keep the streets of Lewisham safe are the people that live in Lewisham. They don't beat beat each other up or they look out for each other or they create an environment in which people feel safe and the police can help with that and work with it but you can not say that it is entirely, solely, the police's job to make Lewisham a safe place. I think it is in people's nature that they care about themselves and their families and each other -- I mean they care much more about people very close to them than they do about people in other parts of the country or people in government -- but if they can see that their active participation makes a difference, I think it is very motivating.
Q. I am playing devils advocate here but --
A. Yes I can see that.
Q. -- the government already asks people what it thinks doesn't it we already have government SKAULGSings and stuff and people don't bother to turn up and you get the same old people why should we be bored we have politicians?
A. Yes I think in an world where we are all equipped with a beautiful feedback mechanism phony consultations will stick out like a saw thumb. If consultations don't ask the real question or if they speak down to people or if, when you feedback, it is not taken into account, it is going to be painfully obvious. So I think the process of discussion has to be done well. I think government has a huge amount to learn about that.
Q. Still if you ask people what why don't they just make a decision and then give them responsibility to make a decision wont they just make decisions that are very good for them and bad for the population or bad for?
A. Yes.
A. I do not know, really. This is the sort of 'shall we hang all paedophiles' democracy question. Um, just because the internet would make complete direct democracy theoretically possible, doesn't mean it is a good idea.
Q. What is your definition of the opportunity that we have now I mean there is a lot of annoying questions how far this will go et cetera using the engineer of improve government what is the option?
A. (16.04) Well, I think the contemporary internet and the tools that make it up gives us an immense opportunity to RE organise almost any aspect of our lives which are about the gathering and disseminating of dissemination of information and money and anything digitalisable. What is hard to take into account is that applies at any level. So the Prime Minister could sit there thinking 'I could have a fat computer under my desk that runs the whole world' but, equally, you or I could have a fat computer under our desks which gives us a window on to the whole world and it makes us a publisher, film-maker, musician, novelist, a poet or a whatever we want. So I think everyone has a tendency to see this change from their own perspective and what we are all going to have to realise is that it is happening from everyone's perspective. So we are going to need to relearn the question of how we inter-relate and communicate with each other and perhaps those of us who are naturally collaborative and cooperative will find that quite easy and those who are accustomed to having very one-sided relationships, or being in a position of power, will find it harder.
Q. So what are you looking to gain what are you working towards? It is a broad set of PRALS what do you get out of it what do you make out of it WHALD improve government?
A. (17.59) Adam Smith's toast is to peace and low taxes. So we could work towards that. At the other end, we could just sort out our own lives. We could have the information we need to run our own lives and to attract and to maintain our relationships with other people under much better control and management and I suppose everything in between is possible as well.
Q. What does that mean are you talking about different type of what is the change in government you want to see?
A. I do not know whether the existence of the contemporary internet means we have to agitate for a different strucure of government. You know, the Queen seems quite good value, parliament is a nice building, that all seems to work quite well. I do not think the fact that we can all communicate infinitely with each other means that structure needs to be changed. Maybe it does, but I do not see a case that it does. I think it would be good for government in its present form to learn to listen better. These technologies offer a fantastic opportunity for it to get feedback but if they don't want to listen to it, it will not do any good.
Q. And if they do listen how does it prove what improve what they do?
A. Then you have the challenge of moderating the feedback and deciding what to do about nutters. Do you politely listen to them? Do you you increase the numbers so that you are having a representive proportion of sane people feeding back as well? But I think it involves changing from a relationship of speaking to impose control which is what you do if you are frightened of operating in a more trusting manner, which is what you do if you see the real potential, in that there are ideas in everyone.
Q. That is quite a shift though isn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. It is a that is not something?
A. (20.27) It is a shift but I think there is ample evidence that there is a shift to make. I mean you could say 7th July bombings are the only things that tell us what society is like and therefore we should tap everyone's telephones and give everyone ID cards and keep tabs on people as far as is humanly possible so we can spot the next person who is going to do a bad thing and, if that is the only perspective informing your decision, you are going to create a pretty horrid world but there is lots of evidence that the government is looking at the power of social networks. They are very inspired by the the work of My Society. The political effect of the petitions, the opening up of Hansard under They Work For You, things like netmums that you mentioned: they can see that there are places where people are coming together and helping themselves and they are starting to ask the question 'How can we go with that process without destroying it?' It is possible to destroy it. There is a excellent NHS feedback service called Patient Opinion and because it is working, it would seem, the government at the moment is proposing to commission, at great expense, a different service which will not be as good and which will destroy the market for existing service that is there. That is obviously a dumb thing to do so -- but I am hopeful that government will increasingly learn that is it is helpful to recognise what is working well and to work with it.
Q. I mean we have all shifted to share have an share in the world think about those opinions they work for you is a very useful service are we not starting to provide SOFPL the services that government might TRAGS HREU?
A. (22.26) Yes, well the people who have reacted most quickly to this change possibilities are unconstrained thinkers. They are NGOs. It doesn't require huge amounts of resources to get this right so it is not surprising that the best examples have sprung out of another effectively and, if government had to devise these and then commission only a few of them, well I mean there is a long history of that and it doesn't work as well. Just where that point of balance will end up is hard to predict. I personally think that independent services for things like feedback are always going to be more trusted and effective than officially run services where you always feel that the spin doctors could get hold of it and only produce the information that favours their point of view or something.
Q. What is the relationship between government and citizen?
A. I do not know. I think one of the things that Tony Blair got absolutely right was he came into power and he said we are the servants not the masters, we should always remember that. I think he got the words right and I hope that the reality will work towards those words.
Q. Do you think it will? The PREGS of the markets I can not hear again?
A. Well know I mean in politics, once every five years you can get booted out, which effectively is a one-bit decision is it not? It is a 0 or a 1. It is once every five years and all our feelings about everything about the economy and Iraq and unemployment and drugs laws and speeding cameras and MPs expenses all get condensed into that that kind of one-bit. It is the sort of ultimate achievement of digitisation but, of course, people have always been able to express themselves in different ways. Parliament had millions of signatures delivered to it on petitions in the late 19th century for the abolition of the slave trade and now we can deliver huge numbers of signatures much more quickly, efficiently and conveniently. Downing Street has found out already, as parliament will find out when it goes through with the implementation of petitions straight to parliament.
Q. Is that a good thing do you want people to have a more active role?
A. Yes. I am all in favour of the full richness of human self-expression. A lot of it will be rubbish of course but lets have it and pick and choose and edit our way through that rather than shut people up.
Q. What does that mean what will that look like the full freedom of human compression if that is is in some way what sort of system are you proposing?
A. (25.20) I am not proposing a system. It will just be chaos. It will be insane videos on YouTube, a tiny fraction of a percentage of which will become very popular and it will be -- I am very taken by the Insitute of Creative Technologies which De Montford University, Leicester, which is run by a composer who on his course I believe had four fellow students composing with him. He is now running this department with 225 composers on it, all of whom are also computer programmers and film-makers. So there is a sort of breaking down of a barrier between creative talents and expressive talents and people will express themselves in ways that -- I do not know, whether it is through blogs or movies or like Brian Haw, who is the most improbable political champion of the early 20th century.
Q. What sort of world is it are we looking at KPW*FPLT or specific KPWO*FPLT what is it?
A. I do not know you have to dig very deep to get answers. Kevin Kelly, who is a very devout blue state Christian, takes the view that the internet is incontrovertibly part of the unfolding devine will and that we all have a moral duty to use it to the best of our ability. I do not know, people who use language like that with you late in the bar at night. It sort of strikes the chord and seems a bit odd at the same time but in the years since he said that I think that is absolutely right and I think that is the way to see it. There is some sort of marvelous unfolding happening with us. It is exposing all sorts of shortcomings in human social behaviour and casting a light on them and we need to take delight in what is now possible which was not possible before and use it to the best of our abilities for the things we think are most important and, where we see glitches and problems and shortcomings and this being used to bad ends, we will just have to resist and stop it but the novelty of it some people find unsettling. I find it delightful and really exciting and inspiring.
Q. What about being getting old and the world running out of oil and global warming?
A. (28.09) Blimey, it is a big question. My view on that is, yes, it is the nature of the human condition but we will call back in at some stage and I think it is very sanitary to contemplate that and not be freaked out by it but I think with the very big global problems that we face, like our continued addiction to the arms trade and global warming, I think that in the internet we may have invented, just in time, the tool that can help us get through that because of the ability to find out what is really going on and communicate it, which we could not do before. To mobilise large numbers of people very quickly in ways we could not do before and so, if it is within the human power to find -- to coorporate and find ways of attacking these huge problems, which are largely man made, then I think the internet will be the tool that helps us do it.
Q. They do believe in some sort of something you describe it as KHAOFS?
A. Some people are frightened of chaos but I think this is chaotic and the fact that it is chaotic is great and it means that the answers are not prebaked and preprepared and it has a random quality which keeps us on our toes, which is great.
Q. But choose is global problems and what not et cetera et cetera it is not good really it is not very complicated HR*EPBGS something about organisation instruct which anyone can do anything?
A. (30.13) I do not really know Ivo but I think it is pretty clear that personal computing plus the level of inter-connection we have with the contemporary internet is fertile ground for a huge outpouring of human creativity and it is also a fantastic infrastructure for collective action. So if you have a problem which can only be solved by the UN, the internet doesn't correct the UN or make it a better place -- the UN is suddenly operating in an environment in which people can do online petitions or protests or information or analysis or whatever it is so it changes the environment in which these human institutions are working, perhaps for the good. Perhaps it causes them unforeseen difficulties, you know, which suddenly they are so preoccupied trying to sort of run parliament in an environment where everyone is scrutinising MPs expenses and that is the only news story -- I mean it causes them such short term difficulties that it is harder to solve problems but I guess I believe really strongly that that outpouring of human creativity and that opportunity for human interconnectedness will make us better able to solve the sorts of life problems to which you refer.
Q. One last question is now a important time for it to work?
A. Now is the only time so it is always really important and what has just changed is that we have all got access to a massive knowledge machine and we can all communicate with each other more or less for free so that is a huge change. It is and I am sure it will take decades for the implications of what we have already invented to play out but, you know, in those decades we will be inventing more stuff.
Is that okay does that help you are going to have a nightmare he hadding that that I think you really our because you are going to have to watch through hours and hours of I am not sure whether each are you running okay end end end end
