Good piece and not a criticism but I was waiting for the eureka moment. In fact, how UC was turned round came down to common sense, starting small, continually adjusting approach, (always with an eye on the policy goal) and basing roll out on people's ACTUAL FUCKING needs.
Aaaaaaargh!
It's what everyone else calls customer focused delivery.
Thanks for highlighting the report and the approach - it really is an example of how agile state capacity can fix, change and deliver things. Test and learn as an approach is quite common over a number of public service areas, including in local government - the challenge has been how to grow it over time, and the capacity needed to move to new models while still managing the old. You might find this interesting, which is the Cabinet Office led approach to public sector reform, which is explicitly about test, learn and grow and has been working with local places on experiments
This is now being supplemented with an initial £100m for innovation in local government - not a lot and when local government is facing massive and existential challenges such as temporary accommodation costs - but it’s the beginning of a commitment, and a way of proving to e.g. treasury that this sort of thing can work and deliver real reform. https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-03-12/37802/
So system designers said: "This is how people OUGHT to use the system - they should lead straightforward lives which are easy to code, rather than messy lives which are hard to code". Same with health and social care and banking. We're complex. Deal with it and stop pretending it's our fault.
Government procurement is surely part of the problem. Or, rather, fixing procurement is part of the solution so that agile developments are easier to procure. I was only part of a small one but the stage-by-stage, function-by-function financial and technical approvals were painful.
Much of this rings true - I was told that project meetings for the original UC system were frequently dominated by big company contract lawyers shouting down anyone they felt to be impinging on their turf.
But there have been several serious flaws in the 'digital' system, including an error correction system that silently overwrote existing journal entries, making reconciliation and audit excruciatingly difficult for advisers and bewildering for claimants. The digital system also ignored some bits of the universal credit regulations, which is difficult to fogrive.
What Universal Credit doesn't do is support Parliament or press, thinktanks etc to hold the system to account. The statistics produced (later than previous systems) do not enable people to see what is going on, and critique it. It is part of the GDS way that the people supposed to hold Government to account are not users, and therefore should not be considered.
Meanwhile, UC is a digital panopticon prison that watches the poor.
There are always stories of how individual government projects changed their approach and successfully adopt an effective development strategy. And then they forget.
Yes, the approach for the technical fixing UC is really a great example of how to apply test and learn. Thanks for posting this interesting account and perspective. What I find interesting is that public sector services are more than the product design. The service is based around the interaction and value that the service defines as the right approach to take with people with complex needs. This is all tied in the original brief of UC and its intent as a 'product' as opposed to a service. In this regard, learning from UC is very different. And I am not sure if much of that has been learned by decision-makers.
The document 'Final Lessons Learned' focuses on the design of UC as a product, and completely ignores the wider systemic understanding of the real complex needs of those that are in difficulty in their lives.
There is a simpler system: universal basic income. The challenge with UBI is consistently nudging people to take paid work and therefore become taxpayers
Good piece and not a criticism but I was waiting for the eureka moment. In fact, how UC was turned round came down to common sense, starting small, continually adjusting approach, (always with an eye on the policy goal) and basing roll out on people's ACTUAL FUCKING needs.
Aaaaaaargh!
It's what everyone else calls customer focused delivery.
As you say, let's hope lessons have been learned.
Thanks for highlighting the report and the approach - it really is an example of how agile state capacity can fix, change and deliver things. Test and learn as an approach is quite common over a number of public service areas, including in local government - the challenge has been how to grow it over time, and the capacity needed to move to new models while still managing the old. You might find this interesting, which is the Cabinet Office led approach to public sector reform, which is explicitly about test, learn and grow and has been working with local places on experiments
https://www.local.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Public%20Service%20Reform%20webinar%20slides%20-%20complete%20pack%20-%2023%20Jan%202024%20%281%29.pdf
This is now being supplemented with an initial £100m for innovation in local government - not a lot and when local government is facing massive and existential challenges such as temporary accommodation costs - but it’s the beginning of a commitment, and a way of proving to e.g. treasury that this sort of thing can work and deliver real reform. https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-03-12/37802/
So system designers said: "This is how people OUGHT to use the system - they should lead straightforward lives which are easy to code, rather than messy lives which are hard to code". Same with health and social care and banking. We're complex. Deal with it and stop pretending it's our fault.
Government procurement is surely part of the problem. Or, rather, fixing procurement is part of the solution so that agile developments are easier to procure. I was only part of a small one but the stage-by-stage, function-by-function financial and technical approvals were painful.
Much of this rings true - I was told that project meetings for the original UC system were frequently dominated by big company contract lawyers shouting down anyone they felt to be impinging on their turf.
But there have been several serious flaws in the 'digital' system, including an error correction system that silently overwrote existing journal entries, making reconciliation and audit excruciatingly difficult for advisers and bewildering for claimants. The digital system also ignored some bits of the universal credit regulations, which is difficult to fogrive.
More on this at:
https://cpag.org.uk/news/digital-universal-credit-system-breaches-principles-law-and-stops-claimants-accessing-support
What Universal Credit doesn't do is support Parliament or press, thinktanks etc to hold the system to account. The statistics produced (later than previous systems) do not enable people to see what is going on, and critique it. It is part of the GDS way that the people supposed to hold Government to account are not users, and therefore should not be considered.
Meanwhile, UC is a digital panopticon prison that watches the poor.
There are always stories of how individual government projects changed their approach and successfully adopt an effective development strategy. And then they forget.
Yes, the approach for the technical fixing UC is really a great example of how to apply test and learn. Thanks for posting this interesting account and perspective. What I find interesting is that public sector services are more than the product design. The service is based around the interaction and value that the service defines as the right approach to take with people with complex needs. This is all tied in the original brief of UC and its intent as a 'product' as opposed to a service. In this regard, learning from UC is very different. And I am not sure if much of that has been learned by decision-makers.
The document 'Final Lessons Learned' focuses on the design of UC as a product, and completely ignores the wider systemic understanding of the real complex needs of those that are in difficulty in their lives.
There is a simpler system: universal basic income. The challenge with UBI is consistently nudging people to take paid work and therefore become taxpayers