Liam Maxwell to leave UK government CTO role - too divisive for the new, softer GDS?
- Summary:
- Liam Maxwell has been fundamental in implementing the government’s technology strategy and has played a crucial role. But has he burnt one too many bridges?
The move will come as a surprise to many, given that a couple of years ago Maxwell committed to staying in his CTO post until 2018. At a time when the Government Digital Service appeared to be shedding some of it’s most important figure heads, the announcement was considered a big achievement for then executive director Mike Bracken.
However, despite what we’ve been told via press release, it’s worth noting that this shift in role reflects a more fundamental change in approach to digital disruption in Whitehall.
I’ve interviewed Liam Maxwell many times over the years and have always found his honesty and frankness rather refreshing. Maxwell was fundamental in creating and implementing the government’s technology strategy in the early days of GDS, alongside the likes of Bracken and then Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude, and he has been resilient in his endeavours to make it a success.
However, his approach to disruption is to go in hard, draw clear lines and, well, just generally be rather disruptive. And whilst that’s great for us journalists, according to my sources, it hasn’t sat well with a lot of people. It was completely necessary in the early days of Whitehall’s digital transformation, when people needed a reality check, but it is thought that it is now proving a bit divisive at this stage of the game.
And so, despite what has been put out thus far by the Cabinet Office and other media outlets, it’s worth noting that this move - which isn’t a bad one for Maxwell, by any means - is one that reflects the changing times at GDS. It’s a move that points to a more conciliatory approach to transformation and one that requires personalities that are more collaborative, than combative.
A new digital tzar
Let’s first deal with what has been officially released. As the UK’s new National Technology Adviser, Maxwell will be charged with ‘driving forward the government’s work on emerging technologies and harnessing leading industry expertise through a new council of experts’.
According to the press release, this will “give the UK access to a global network of expertise which will attract investors and promote export opportunities”. Maxwell will also promote British interests overseas and enhance the UK’s links with the word’s “best digital governments”.
His role will be cross government and is aimed at creating the right environment for digital enterprises to flourish. Maxwell said:
Four years ago I was asked to come in to government and reshape the technology landscape. To move from silos to common technology, to introduce the concept of common infrastructure and open standards, and to save money.
We’ve injected a huge amount of talent into the tech leadership of government – the government is now one of the most exciting places to work in tech. With a strong team, and a great deputy in place, the work of fixing the problem is well underway. And we’ve saved £3.5 billion, money that has gone from admin costs into the delivery of frontline services.
I’m really excited by this new challenge and the opportunity to further embed the work that is making the UK the number one place to invest in Europe. We have the skills, the infrastructure and the know-how to make our economy the most connected, the most attractive and the most digital in the world. I’m excited to be a part of it.
As I said earlier, there is no denying some of the great work Maxwell has carried out in government. Some of the most notable examples include hugely simplifying technology governance, developing the Digital Marketplace, creating the Common Technology Services team and doing an excellent job of resetting the commercial priorities in government.
But most importantly he worked hard to introduce the idea of ‘What is the user need?’ when designing digital services. Something that had been lacking for too many years.
Deputy CTO Andy Beale will take over from Maxwell for the time being, but there will be a formal competition for the role.
Thanking him for his service, current GDS director Stephen Foreshew-Cain said:
On behalf of everyone at GDS, I want to say very clearly: thank you Liam. You've worked extremely hard to make a difference, armed with your constant refrain of "Yes, but what is the user need?"
That's the question all civil servants should be asking, all the time. You lead by example.
Less combative
When Foreshew-Cain took to the stage at GDS’s annual Sprint event a few months ago, he stood
with a huge message behind him that said “We’ve got your back”. He has since altered this message to say “the reverse is true: everyone else, all the departments and suppliers we deal with every day -- they've got our back too”.This is a far cry from the early days of GDS, where Maxwell, along with Maude and Bracken, spent their time beating up suppliers and the ‘old school’ way of doing things.
As I said, this was necessary to ruffle feathers and put digital disruption on the agenda. But it has been convincingly argued that this approach doesn’t make sense for long-term, collaborative relationships and complex digital change.
A few years ago it was all about ‘red lines’ and bashing the oligopoly, whereas the new guard at GDS have adopted a far softer approach.
And as we saw recently with Maxwell’s experience building a new rural payments system with the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, a combative approach can quickly get you into trouble and lead to results that aren’t in the interests of the user.
Maxwell and the leaders from the department were singled out for embarrassing rows that led the project astray.
The influential Public Accounts Committee said that it was “frankly embarrassing to learn of senior and highly paid civil servants arguing to the detriment of hard-pressed farmers”. It added in its report:
Neither the government’s Chief Technology Officer (Maxwell) nor the Chief Executive of the RPA was able to provide us with an acceptable explanation for their behaviour. The Department’s efforts to resolve issues, such as weekly meetings with the main protagonists, failed, and the Cabinet Office also did not halt the disruptive behaviour. Highly paid public servants need to get the job done and such behaviour is unacceptable.
Equally, we have seen a change in approach to the hard lines that Maxwell’s guard drew out in the early days.
For example, it was said under the previous cohort, of which Maxwell was the last man standing, that it would be extremely rare for one of the multi-year, expensive outsourcing deals to be renewed, given that this isn’t how government approaches technology anymore.
However, we have seen quite a few examples of outsourcing deals being renewed and there is suspicion that more may be following. Foreshew-Cain said at a recent event that a “pragmatic approach” to these outsourcing deals will be taken, rather than a hard line. Starting to see what I mean?
Equally, we have been told for years that the interests of the big suppliers - or as they became fondly known, ‘the Oligopoly’ - were irrelevant in the government’s new approach. The message was very anti big IT supplier and there was a big push for SMEs and internal development.
Those things are still true, but we have also heard Foreshew-Cain recently talk about a more collaborative approach with the private sector and suppliers. No mention of the Oligopoly anywhere. He said at the recent Think Cloud for Digital Government event:
If the unit of delivery is the team, and the Digital Marketplace is changing how we procure, then it feels to me that the next logical step is to treat suppliers as part of that team too. Government-as-a-Platform is if nothing else about building an interconnected network of components. Well, third party providers provide us with some of those components.
The Marketplace of suppliers is therefor itself a component of Government-as-a-Platform, so just as collaboration within government is a mutually beneficial two-way relationship, so too should collaboration and those organisations that provide services to us. That means we need suppliers that value what we value. We need suppliers that will believe what we believe.
My take
I can’t emphasise enough the role that Maxwell played in the early days of setting up GDS and the government’s new technology strategy. He was dogged in his approach and he took no prisoners. And it was hugely welcomed, following the years of failing projects and a persistent desire in Whitehall to keep the status quo - despite all the evidence that this was not working.However, as the digital strategies have begun to embed and as there is a realisation from those across government that digital isn’t a fad, Maxwell’s combative approach isn’t thought to be entirely conducive to sustainable change. Maxwell failed to realise that he needed to move from shocking the system, to then working with it.
I’ve heard from sources that Maxwell just burnt a few too many bridges.
But that doesn’t mean his role wasn’t fundamental and that he should be criticised for his approach. It was necessary at the time, he’s incredibly smart and he’s done a lot of good work. But as is the way with disruption, things have changed.
Maxwell’s approach just doesn’t sit well with the new, collaborative Government Digital Service.