UK govt digi-chief confirms he is standing down after ... 9 months Stephen Foreshew-Cain, the head of the UK's Government Digital Service, has stepped down from his position after just nine months in the role – amid rumours that GDS is for the chop. In a blog post Foreshew-Cain confirmed that he had handed in his notice to civil service head John Manzoni. "I’ve been fortunate to work with …
One source said getting rid of GDS altogether would amount to throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
He said: "There's been longstanding frustration in a lot of the departments about being lectured by GDS but without them having the knowledge and expertise to help.
Can't quite get the meaning here. OK, I take it that GDS could be likened to a very very young baby born into a no hope household, but that is the only way they are dumping the baby in favour of the much needed bathwater (if analogous to essential services)?
GDS had the opportunity to do more, better and cheaper. See blog post from earlier this year.
I for one will be quite happy to see the back of GDS. No single organisation has caused more damage to UK.gov IT for years. They had a particular talent for strolling into a project, telling everyone they'd done it all wrong, forcing the Cabinet Office to push the reset button and fucking off to leave everyone else to pick up the pieces while they swanned about writing blogs on the right way to manage your sticky notes.
Wonderful idea, terrible execution.
I know that the GDS is arrogant, but they've done a lot of good. They're amazing at structuring content that solves problems (and testing it). Granted, they're not so hot on the larger technical projects and deserve to be reigned in on those.
Parts of our government's digital output is world class (although most countries are behind Estonia, weirdly), and that's thanks to the GDS.
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