In September, I hosted a webinar with Siteimprove on a long-standing interest of mine, "Web Governance for Government Websites".

For instance, back in 2009 I wrote that many governments would be far better off spending web budgets "on newspaper ads, on door-to-door visits, on sky writing aeroplanes, on anything" – just not another unsupported website!

The reason is that creating a web presence has become little more than a box-ticking exercise - characterized by poorly understood goals and inadequate support.

Of course, I am not the only person who thinks so.

“It’s Groundhog Day. Hundreds of millions of dollars, large-scale IT enterprise technology, no real user testing, no real focus on users, all done behind a black box.” 

These are the words of Mike Bracken describing his dismay at the problems experienced by Healthcare.gov last year. And there are some excellent reasons to listen to Mike.

As Executive Director of Digital for the UK government he has led the greatest transformation yet seen in how state services are delivered online.

In my presentation you'll find out just what Mike and his team have been able to achieve.

Download the slides below, or click here to watch a recording of the webinar.