Posts tagged "Personal"

A few weeks ago was my fifth anniversary at the Government Digital Service.

I’ve had the opportunity to work on a huge number of important projects in various roles including software developer, technical lead, product owner, delivery manager, troubleshooter and technical architect.

From building GOV.UK to travelling to DVLA in Swansea every week creating new digital services. From rebuilding a service that takes billions of pounds in payments in just a few weeks to bringing IT back in house after 30 years of outsourcing. From sitting on the technology spend control board to hiring hundreds of skilled people into government.

It’s been a fortnight of big announcements.

Mike has announced he’s leaving. Leisa is going home. Tom, Ben & Russell have decided to move on. We’ve also said goodbye to some others – Andy, Lindsey, Sam and Mark.

There’s been lots of noise about what this means for GDS, for ongoing digital transformation, for the future of IT in government.

If I said this hasn’t all been unnerving and concerning, I’d be lying. I’ve spent a lot of time this week wondering what this means for me. Is it time for me to move on – do something new?

As many of my friends and colleagues will confirm, I spent a large portion of the last 18 months commuting to work. Initially from Cardiff to London, then from Abergavenny to London. Both journeys over 2 hours in each direction.

It wasn’t really practical to do this on a daily basis, either from a time or cost perspective (4+ hours a day travelling in addition to a normal working day and a monthly season ticket of than £1000). So I travelled down on a Monday morning, stayed in a hotel* (and a friend’s sofa) during the week then travelled back on a Friday evening.

I’m disappointed. Over the past few months a concerted media campaign against public sector workers has been building. We are continually portrayed as being lazy and overpaid, not only by the ‘old’ media (by which I mean the traditional print media in general) but also by MPs and our ‘bosses’ in Government. An image has been created of thousands of staff sat around twiddling their thumbs while earning footballer-style fat salaries, not to mention huge benefits, fabulous working conditions and cushy pensions to boot – all at the taxpayer’s expense.

Unless it escaped your attention, Gordon Brown called the much anticipated UK General Election yesterday. It will take place on May 6th 2010.

In line with guidelines for civil service and other public sector employees, I will be curtailing my blogging and tweeting activities until after the election. If I do post anything, it won’t be about work.

You can view copies of the guidelines on the Cabinet Office website.

To find out more about the UK General Election and the voting process, take a look at the Electoral Commission and Parliament websites.

Just over a year ago I joined CF Labs as one of the developers working on innovation and making data publicly available. When I started, Consumer Focus was a pretty new organisation still getting to grips with its role and getting everything into place so it could undertake its duties properly. In the middle of all of this fun, the three man CF Labs team was put together to experiment with a new way of doing things.