Government

Why France has so many 49-employee companies – Business Week, May 2012

[France] has 2.4 times as many companies with 49 employees as with 50. What difference does one employee make? Plenty, according to the French labor code. Once a company has at least 50 employees inside France, management must create three worker councils, introduce profit sharing, and submit restructuring plans to the councils if the company decides to fire workers for economic reasons.

French businesspeople often skirt these restraints by creating new companies rather than expanding existing ones. While polls show job creation and the economic crisis are the top issues for voters in the May 5 second-round vote for president, neither President Nicolas Sarkozy nor Socialist challenger François Hollande are focusing on Breton’s concern.

Olympic IT -BCS/Chartered Institute of IT, Apr 2012

The Met Police’s director of IT, Steve Whatson, explains how the force has prepared its IT infrastructure for this summer’s games.

Armed with Data, Fighting more than Crime – Tina Rosenberg, NYTimes Opinionater, May 12

Government accountability systems don’t usually become global superstars, but CompStat did. The key to CompStat is how the data gets used.  Maple’s four principles, are these:

• Accurate, timely intelligence
• Rapid deployment
• Effective tactics
• Relentless follow-up and assessment

In Baltimore, which pioneered the application of CompStat to other government business, mayors for the last decade have used a CompStat-style system to run the whole city.

CitiStat cost only about $20,000 to set up (instead of expensive custom software, it used  Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint) and about $350,000 to $400,000 to run each year — mainly the salaries of four analysts and an investigator.   The initial problem was data.  Unlike police departments, which collect data on how they’re doing every time they write up an arrest report, other agencies had no performance data.

At first, the agencies had only personnel records and their budgets.  But those proved useful.  Once analyzed, they showed a widespread pattern of abuse of overtime, rampant absenteeism and use of city cars for private purposes. The other early focus for CitiStat was on how the city handled complaints.

Every two weeks, each agency head would come to a CitiStat meeting, facing Enright, sometimes the Mayor, and the heads of the departments of finance, labor, legal and information technology.  Before the meeting, a CitiStat analyst went over the latest data from the agency, pulled out the important stuff and put it in graphic form.  The agency director stood at a podium, his senior staff seated behind him, and the information was  projected onto the wall.  The first questions were always follow-up: how are you doing on the last meeting’s projects?  Then there were questions about new issues.   When solutions were discussed, there was no need to schedule a meeting with the city’s solicitors or budget director, because they were in the room.   By 5 p.m. that day, the CitiStat analyst had written and circulated a short list of commitments the agency had made or information it needed to provide.  “We expected that when you come back in two weeks you will have answers to these questions,” said Enright.

By 2003, Baltimore had reduced overtime by 30 percent, and absenteeism was cut by half in the agencies where it had been attacked.  City services had been greatly improved — snow was removed and trash picked up, potholes filled, lead abatements performed.    By the end of 2006, O’Malley’s last year in office, Enright said the program had saved the city nearly half a billion dollars over his tenure.

Is this a bargain?  In terms of cash, certainly.  But the cost of CitiStat is actually quite high measured in terms of the time of the mayor and his senior staff.  Enright, for example, attended five 90-minute meetings every week.   CitiStat has to be run by senior staff, to get agency heads to take it seriously.  (The early firing of two nonperforming agency heads, the chiefs of parks and of water, was another clear message.)

Ten years later, the program has evolved, said Chad Kenney, a CitiStat analyst.  “It used to be a very agency-specific conversation — about getting agencies used to data, collecting data and making decisions based on data.  As that became ingrained we realized most things don’t just touch one agency.”

O’Malley is now governor of Maryland.   The StateStat tenets on its home page are exactly the same ones Jack Maple scrawled on his napkin at Elaine’s.  “It’s how he runs the state,” said Enright.  “I have yet to see a better way to manage vast bureaucracies than this system.”

Understand the base rate before deciding or acting – Daniel Finkenstein, Times UK, May 12 (subscription required)

Two big, fat overwhelming things are true about this [UK] Government.

First, the Prime Minister’s party does not have a parliamentary majority. To govern he needs to make a fresh deal every day with a political force very different from his own. And second, the Government has no money, the economy isn’t growing and the public are paying off debts and seeing their standard of living deteriorate.

That is the “base rate” for this Government and it is bad. A Prime Minister with no majority and no money has problems. The surprise is not that Mr Cameron is now in difficulty, but that it has taken him so long to be in difficulty. He has been extraordinarily good at projecting himself as the head of a strong, stable administration when he is, in fact, the head of a coalition governing a country in crisis.

Governing by themselves, the Conservatives would not have increased income tax allowances by such a large amount. The Liberal Democrats insisted on it. In better times it might have been possible to finance the higher allowances with a bit of judicious borrowing. But that isn’t possible now, hence the need for a tax rise for someone else to pay for it. When you take money away from people they don’t like it. And the coalition and the fiscal position made taking money away from people unavoidable.

This has been a remarkably bold administration. [Is it] sensible to act so strong when the basic position is so weak? When the need to reduce the deficit requires action, of course the Government must act. But it should always realise its base position, not overstretch itself and keep action to the essentials.

Draft principles for UK identity assurance programme – Jerry Fishenden Mar 12

Start the Week with Andrew Marr: Africa – Radio 4, Mar 12 (sort of transcript)

The end of the cold war in 1989 saw the West move into Eastern Europe and aid to Africa is cut to shreds. Africa is handed over to the World Bank which proposes structural adjustments. The prescription [from the West] was you’ve got to be democratic, you’ve got to have human rights and you’ve got to have the free market. Africa was abandoned for 10 years. There were at least 24 wars in the 90s in Africa as states fall apart.

Then Africa begins to turn around but not because of the original Western prescription of democracy. The reasons are 1: China moves in and pushes the price of raw materials up; 2. Mobile phones arrive, and 3:  a new (black) middle class rises in Africa. Those are the factors that turned Africa around. Yes there are ['democratic'] elections now but most presidents know how to manage an election if they’re good and they somehow get themselves reelected.

Mobile phones have changed Africa more than anywhere else in the world. Yes they now have instant communications, texting, tweeting, watching the Arab Spring and talking about it. But there has been a huge economic effect. [Dr] Mo Ibrahim, founded Celtel, (once the biggest mobile phone company in Africa), said he got it completely wrong. He thought the top 3% might want a mobile phone but it was the bottom of the pyramid who embraced them – market traders checking prices in other markets in real-time. It has transformed economic trade in Africa (today there are over 500 million mobile phones in Africa)

The reason the Chinese are liked in Africa is that they have no mission to change Africa, no mission to civilise or Christianise. They deal with Africa exactly as it is and that’s a big plus for African governments.  And the Chinese brought a huge amount of resources. They may be colonisers but they are certainly not imperialists. They’ve enabled Africa to push back against the demands of the West.  But the one great weakness is that you will never find an African boss over Chinese workers.

Rise of the black middle class – huge creativity and dynamism and not dependent on oil, it’s all manufacturing and trade. Yes there is violence and disruption and chaos but the dynamism is transforming places like Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.  And they don’t care much for government. They get on and do their own thing. (Hence the weakness in the Chinese colonisation model)

- Richard Dowden, Journalist, Director of the Royal African Society

Side note by Jack Mapanje, Malawian poet – Africans are charging mobile phones using batteries in rotting cars.

Africa’s mobile economic revolution – Killian Fox, Guardian, Jul 11

Half of Africa’s one billion population has a mobile phone – and not just for talking. n 1998, there were fewer than four million mobiles on the continent. Today, there are more than 500 million. In Africa, where a billion people use only 4% of the world’s electricity, many cannot afford to charge a computer, let alone buy one. This has led phone users and developers to be more resourceful… The most dramatic example of this is mobile banking.

First fines issued by ICO for Data Protection Breaches – Nov 10

The £100,000 fine for Hertfordshire [for two serious incidents involving council employees faxing highly sensitive personal information to the wrong people], together with a £60,000 penalty imposed on employment services company A4e for the loss of a laptop, are the first monetary penalties issued by the ICO

How government can engage young people online – May 10 – Alex Howard, O’Reilly Radar

Young people don’t want to be the government’s friend on Facebook. They aren’t likely to welcome an official dropping into an online conversation uninvited. And if you want to communicate with them where they live, you need to be on mobile. These are just a few of the insights danah boyd shared with me this week…

Consider the financial crisis, suggests boyd. “Some of the most screwed-over people are college students or recent graduates with student loans. The press covers it, but where are the politicians? This is a moment to engage students. If we don’t meet them on those terms, technology won’t make it magically happen.”

In digital combat, US finds no easy deterrent – NYTimes, Jan 2010

But in cyberattacks, the damage can range from the minor to the catastrophic… It is difficult to know if small attacks could escalate into bigger ones. So part of the problem is to calibrate a response to the severity of the attack.

Information is power and who’s controlling our information? – Gary Lyndaker, Jan 2010

Tight budgets and political forces are driving state governments toward operating in an emergency mode and we respond by privatizing more government work. As illustrated by the examples given here, an increasing number of the people performing IT work are not state employees

European governments can ignore social media… or not? – Andrea Di maio, Gartner blog, Nov 2009

They’ll certainly try… “Most feel comfortable in starting with tackling internal collaboration and – although they know very well that their employees are already using consumer social media – they’d rather ignore the impact that these media might have on internal collaboration goals”

Open Gov is a dialogue, not a monologue – John Geraci, O’Reilly Radar, Jul 2009

“There were some interesting apps in there, but overall they didn’t meet with the mayor’s agenda for the city.” A city that opens up its data but expects that people building on that data should follow the mayor’s agenda is going to fail miserably in its attempt at creating an open system.

Open gov is a dialogue between governments and constituents, not a monologue. Everyone gets to decide what gets talked about and what gets built, not just the people with the data.

The Government we deserve - Jeffrey Phillips, Thinking Faster, Jul 2009

Here we stand, still the best nation on earth in terms of quality of life, freedom of expression, and opportunity for any individual.

Yet, many of our freedoms are taken for granted, and our population is less involved and less enthusiastic about its governance than ever before.  Far too few people are aware of the impending legislation in their state and federal congresses, and are far too removed from the day to day governing.  We as a people have allowed a permanent political class to evolve that dictates what we do, how we live and how we interact.

Rethinking the use of IT in public services – Jerry Fishenden, former MS UK CTO, Jul 2009

…the UK’s spend on IT in the public sector is running at around 150% of what is spent annually on the NHS drugs budget. So citizens have a right to ensure that this spend is returning proportionate benefits to them in the way their public services are operated and delivered. At present, it is not clear that this is the case. Indeed, it is difficult to determine precisely where current IT spend is going and precisely how it is improving (assuming it is, of course) the quality and effectiveness of our public services.

…there is a more fundamental question about the effective configuration of government itself to be considered. After all, many of the UK’s administrative and functional structures are there by accident rather than design. So a review of the functions and capabilities required of government is a necessary precursor to deciding where IT fits and what budgets are most appropriate.

…Pivotal to this debate is consensus on the idea that the public sector needs an efficient, secure information architecture that recognises fulfilment is localised (not centralised), and which takes account of the reality of our digital age (most specifically the Internet and the World Wide Web).

In achieving this consensus, one of the largest problems currently being considered is the tendency (whether intentional or as a by-product of inadequate technological expertise) to misdirect IT towards some kind of UK digital uber-state, which, unlike the Internet and WWW, seems to be envisaged as a centrally imposed monolithic database state without citizen consent. To use technology to potentially set a democratic state against its own citizens seems not only expensive (politically, technologically and financially), but to be a significant missed opportunity. We need to rethink how IT becomes an ally of the citizen, and the UK’s best interests, rather than being seen as a negative.

What we are all seeking, I hope, is an approach to reform of public services where technology plays a positive role as a policy lever, helping renew the configuration of government and public services in a way that builds citizen trust and delivers better quality and more efficient services.

The ups and downs of digital Britain – Vikki Chowney, Jun 2009

Every man, woman, child and their dog has been talking about the Digital Britain report released by Lord Carter (Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting in the UK) this week. The aim of which is to act a guide for the future development of the digital media space in Britain. (downloadable PDF)

All things considered, I wonder whether the digital space really requires government intervention to make it work better and more effectively at all. So many parts of this space have done very well up till now with a bare minimum of government interference, thanks to the likes of a healthy start-up marketplace, some forward-thinking entrepreneurs and more importantly, a nation that has embraced new technology with gusto.

Precious little business investment is going forward worldwide. The only chance for the United States to recover is if we can capture most of this investment. How can we do that? We would have to convince businesses that this is the best country in the world in which to invest and operate.

We need to set a credible goal of reducing government spending to 30 percent of GDP within two years and 27 percent within five years. If we can’t count on vibrant economic growth, this will involve dramatic changes to government benefits.

How good a job would you do at your company if customers were required by law to buy your product? That’s the situation faced by public school management today. We keep slipping behind other countries in the subject areas that matter in the highest paying jobs

Mass transit is critical to business in the parts of our country where workers use public transit to get to work. Public transit unions should be eliminated because a strike at a mass transit system can shut down an entire city.

Gilberto Gil, Minister of Culture for Brazil – talking at Google Zeitgeist, May 2008

The 21st century technologies represent a huge challenge to regulations. The revolution generated by the convergence of digital technologies obliges us to reinvent the way we do almost everything. I believe that anybody with public responsibility should look into the digital distribution of Intellectual Property as the most direct and powerful way of democratizing knowledge in the history of mankind. But instead we see almost every formal institution insisting on bluntly calling the digital distribution “Piracy”.

More links

• Bright side of Government blog – Microsoft Government team