How government can truly embrace technology
The third episode of the Government Transformed 2.0 podcast series focuses on the potential for digital engagement, collaboration, and transparency – and how government can make the most of technology for citizens’ benefit.
In this conversation, Richard Johnstone, executive editor at Global Government Forum, Australian economist Nicholas Gruen, and expert guest Dan Corry, an economist and public policy expert who has worked at the heart of the UK government, discuss how governments can embrace technology more fully to increase transparency, as well as governments’ role as “policemen” in the regulation of tech.
Gruen and Corry highlight the potential for technology – and tech-facilitated communication methods such as blogging – to better share ideas across the public sector.
Gruen and Corry also discuss the challenge governments face with sharing data effectively when citizen privacy concerns abound, and about the need for transparency when using AI in decision-making processes and how this will place a premium on getting data sharing right.
Gruen acknowledged that “governments have an obligation to protect people’s privacy”, but said that a lot of “privacy politics” is often solved in the private sector, and that governments’ default mindset can hinder progress.
Corry agreed, but added that the bigger challenge is governments’ ability to join up data.
“Every now and then, we have some horrific child abuse story, and people say: ‘Why didn’t anybody notice this?’ And it turns out that about four or five different agencies all had red flags going, but they didn’t share the data,” he said.
The conversation also touched on how governments can make the most of data sharing for the benefit of citizens, with Gruen sharing the frequent frustration of having to fill in the same information every time he engages with a government department.
“Surely you guys can make this easier for me? I’m not here as a service provider to you,” he said.
Listen to this conversation to find out how government can more firmly embrace technological transparency and joined-up services.
The series will be published on GGF’s Government Transformed podcast feed. Subscribe to Government Transformed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Acast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
About Jack Aldane
Jack is a British journalist, cartoonist and podcaster. He graduated from Heythrop College London in 2009 with a BA in philosophy, before living and working in China for three years as a freelance reporter. After training in financial journalism at City University from 2013 to 2014, Jack worked at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters before moving into editing magazines on global trade and development finance. Shortly after editing opinion writing for UnHerd, he joined the independent think tank ResPublica, where he led a media campaign to change the health and safety requirements around asbestos in UK public buildings. As host and producer of The Booking Club podcast – a conversation series featuring prominent authors and commentators at their favourite restaurants – Jack continues to engage today’s most distinguished thinkers on the biggest problems pertaining to ideology and power in the 21st century. He joined Global Government Forum as its Senior Staff Writer and Community Co-ordinator in 2021.
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