RebootBritain

This week sees the Independent begin its serialisation of the essays commissioned for Reboot Britain by a series of leading voices.  Monday saw Lee Bryant talk about how People power can reboot Britain and today Paul Miller talks about Weary giants and new technology.  As they continue to come through this week and next, here is leading economist Diane Coyle's introuction to the set:

The essays in this collection were commissioned as ‘provocations’. They have lived up to that challenge. The areas covered include education, entrepreneurship, healthcare, climate change, democracy – in fact the whole terrain of politics and public policy.

The breadth of the subject matter is combined with a sentiment common to all of these provocations: that we have gone very much off course. Taken as a whole, they create a  strong sense that Britain is at a fork in the road. And that the more time passes without a change of direction, the gloomier our prospects in the UK. In each case the author conveys a sense of urgency about the need to reimagine, re-invest, re-invigorate our economy and society.

This is not surprising, perhaps, given the context in 2009. Climate change is becoming more of a reality than a distant threat, and people are slowly coming to terms with the implications. The geopolitical context is one of increasing instability, with new nuclear threats as well as the heightened threat of terrorism. We have a uniquely serious financial crisis and the most severe recession for decades. At the time these essays were written, Britain was also in the midst of an extraordinary political crisis, with the popular disgust about some MPs’ expenses habits followed by a government implosion.

Reading the contributions by these original minds against this disordered background brought to my mind Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy. Writing in the late 1940s and 50s, in a postwar, post-empire, austerity Britain, Peake evoked a disintegrating Gothic state unable to change and so doomed to crumble. As its heir, Titus Groan, abdicates and abandons his ancestral home: “He cannot know, wherever he may be, that through the worm-pocked doors and fractured walls, through windows bursted, gaping, soft with rot, a storm is pouring into Gormenghast.”

A melodramatic image, no doubt. Yet each one of the provocations here makes a strong case that the structures and behaviours in place
now are not delivering for Britain and simply cannot last. What kinds of significant change are needed? Placing people at the centre of a more innovative and more agile public sector is Lee Bryant’s priority, to enable ‘smart’ government – ‘big’ in its inclusiveness, ‘small’ in its bureaucracy. Fewer initiatives, more open data, and more feedback from users are required to deliver this.

Paul Miller hopes that an ecology of private start-ups, social entrepreneurs and government investment can be created to deliver services that are better and more effectively targeted. The digital world is not about content, but about organisation, he argues; cyberspace is not a world apart but rather a tool for re-imagining and re-creating the real world.

Andy Hobsbawm reminds us that socially motivated activity is an intrinsic part of life and celebrates how this is already being organised and aggregated online in powerful ways. New ways of contributing together with the highly visible ways in which the impact of that participation can be seen hold the potential for an unprecedented level of global action and global understanding.

Micah L. Sifry takes from President Obama’s campaigning and early months in government the lesson that open and collaborativegovernment with many, many citizens involved is feasible and powerful; and notes that this embrace of online power is ‘inherently disruptive’: “What happens when those numbers climb into the millions, and people who have been invited to have a voice now expect to be listened to?”

Tom Steinberg assesses where the culture of transparency enabled by the internet can powerfully be applied to parliamentary processes in a
way that is truly transformative. This is much more of a challenge than simply becoming competent in the latest tools and technologies, but
instead requires a deep level of understanding of the capabilities of the internet together with an appetite for radical openness.

Paul Hodgkin wisely puts the promise of technology in its social context and argues that managers in healthcare must build productive
technology-mediated relationships with patients. If they do, they will learn much from the empowered and passionate citizenry.

Jon Watts notes the opportunities the digital world offers new businesses but sounds a warning about the limits, too, for British companies lacking the scale needed to compete effectively in increasingly crowded media markets. He offers some proposals that focus on the needs of emerging UK innovators and, most importantly, on what he describes as: “The collective, collaborative efforts of the people we used to refer to as the audience.”

Julie Meyer would also like to see less of the wrong kind of government. She argues that despite a significant cultural shift, Britain is a long way from reaching the destination of ‘Entrepreneur Country’, and amongst her many recommendations is simply less cash being taken out of new businesses in taxes.

Daniel Heaf wants to ensure Britain controls its own digital destiny by properly directed investment, using public value as a guiding light for
private businesses as well as public organisations – and all the more so as taxpayer money is supporting so much new technology investment.

There are common themes in these individual contributions. Three stand out.

The first is the promise offered by new technologies. This varies according to context. It might be the opportunities for green entrepreneurs, or the scope to run services more efficiently, or the democratic promise of connected participation. In each case, though, there is a sense that technology holds out tremendous potential.

The second is the shared diagnosis that existing decision-making and governance structures militate against capitalising on these various opportunities. There is a striking sense of – almost despair – about the inability of Britain’s existing policy frameworks to serve people well in the face of both the various threats to wellbeing and the range of opportunities available to address them. Indeed, a number of contributors simply state that people will have to work around government to take advantage of the opportunities.

The third is the need to engage people widely and directly in delivering solutions. This is an inevitable feature of using new technologies effectively. The promise of extremely low-cost access to information and communications can only be realised if everybody is permitted to use them.  High-cost information makes hierarchies efficient, just as hub-and-spoke arrangements are the most efficient structure in the world of physical transportation. Conversely, cheap information makes flat networks efficient. The technologies have had a dramatic effect on organisation and processes in business and much of the non-profit world during the past 20 years, and almost none in the public sector. That transformation surely has to happen in government in the next decade or two.

Ultimately, the underlying message of these essays is optimistic, however. Each of them points to future potential emerging from current problems. Perhaps readers will be duly provoked into action.

Essay set overview written by Diane Coyle economist and writer