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Comment by rmason | Hacker News Reader

I've been involved with the open data movement here in Michigan for a dozen years. A lot of us have been inspired by what happened in Britain in 2010 when a change in government allowed them to reimagine Britain's digital footprint.

Here's a video by their chief architect detailing the changes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvB6BqYs2T0

I know there's an O'Reilly video about this guy's boss but I can't find it. Sadly another government change was to end all this development. But in the end near as i can figure though a lot of the bosses left the changes have continued but at a slower rate.

No government website in America begins to compare to the clearness and simplicity that exists in Britain nearly a dozen years later.

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Interesting that GDS was born out of the shift to a Conservative government. 14 years later the Tories aren't exactly associated with openness, forward thinking or investment in public services.

It was a coalition government.

Sure, but Francis Maude, the minister credited in the video with enabling the project, was a Conservative.

Shows that things are not as black and white :)

The conservative party of 2010 was very different to that of today

Back then it had hardliners like John Redwood and Bill Cash, but also pragmatic moderates such as William Hague, Ken Clarke and Rory Stewart.

Brexit destroyed the party from within. Over time as it became more and more difficult to defend in any non-ideological way and the party leadership became more and more autocratic in ever more desperate attempts to force it to a conclusion, they all either left politics, switched allegiance or were expelled from the party. What was left were the hardliners, the truly crazy and those willing to say anything at all in return for power.

Speaking as a Brit, it amazes me that Gov.uk somehow managed to avoid getting purged under various administrations from 2010-24. No doubt slowing things down and flying under the radar helped, otherwise it would have probably gotten the chop via some asinine HM Treasury spending review.

The Government Digital Service (GDS) was recently moved from the Cabinet Office (pretty close to the centre of power) to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. It will be interesting to see if the GDS and Gov.uk can retain the same clout and effectiveness after the move.

I remember hearing a talk in around 2014 where one of the leads from GDS said that Frances Maud made it his business to ensure that no one and nothing interfered with what they were doing. I’m surprised that lasted through the May/Johnson/Truss/Sunak years though.

The GDS had "teeth". Forcing the reset of Universal Credit for instance:

https://beeckcenter.georgetown.edu/lessons-uk-universal-cred...

that can't have been an easy decision to take.

https://public.digital/about-pd/our-people is a consultancy formed by a number of the senior folks involved in getting the Government Digital Service (GDS) off the ground back in the 2010's.

Hey, fellow resident here. Is https://data.michigan.gov/ the focal point for open data in Michigan, or are there other sources worth knowing about?

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