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Technology and innovation
Technology and innovation report
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Securing our Public Service in an Evolving Cyber Threat Landscape
In the past 12 months, cross-industry security executives surveyed by Accenture in Ireland for our State of Cyber Resilience research1 reported 258 targeted cyber-attacks, with 35 successful security breaches. Nearly two thirds (62 per cent) of Irish respondents experienced loss of IT services as a result of a cyber breach and nearly half (42 per cent) suffered loss of operational services as a result. Four in 10 respondents reported suffering financial loss following a security breach and six in 10 reported remediation taking more than 30 days. This all demonstrates the level of challenge faced by government, citizens and businesses in securing the digital world today.
Costs to the public service are rising
Learning from the success of government agencies and companies achieving high levels of security is an important step towards reforming cyber security defence mechanisms. In the private sector, the scale and scope of recent breaches mean cyber security continues to be a primary concern for CSuite executives and board members. According to Accenture’s ninth annual Cost of Cybercrime Study of the public service published with the Ponemon2 Institute, public service organisations are spending more than ever to deal with the costs and consequences of increasingly sophisticated attacks. In 2018, the average cost of cybercrime for a public service organisation globally was $7.9 million, up from $6.6 million in 2017 and an increase of 17 per cent.
Every government agency operates with a unique mission – often with a constrained budget and limited resources. In the face of those realities, how can government effectively and efficiently safeguard systems and data? Success lies not only in investing in the latest security technology but in developing a proactive and practical approach to cyber resilience and the ability to recover from the inevitable. This involves assessing the risks and building an organisational strategy to deal with these risks. In Ireland we are anticipating the release of a new national Cyber Security strategy in 2019 which will provide guidance on this.3
Cyber security concerns continue to evolve rapidly, with new threats emerging every day. Cyber actors range widely from individuals, hacktivists and activists, to criminal groups, nation states and terrorists. Although these cyber actors each have their own motives and intentions, they share a common objective to exploit trust in the target, be that human or computer, writes Jacky Fox, Managing Director of Accenture Security and vice-chair of Cyber Ireland.
Security breaches can come from numerous sources inside and outside an organisation, and threats are nothing if not diverse and dynamic. Just when an organisation believes it can successfully defend against one type of attack, another attack technique or vector emerges.
Hybrid motives in ransomware
Ransomware attacks, for example, can cause serious disruption to business operations and can be costly, even if the data has been backed up properly and is securely stored offline. The attacks involving the Goga ransomware earlier this year – where unknown actors gained access to several organisations and infected networks with Goga ransomware – have reportedly cost victim organisations at least US$40 million in the first quarter of 20194. While the motives behind attacks may appear to be financial, targeted ransomware attacks may at times serve hybrid motives, whether financial, ideological, or political. Regardless of motive, while the ransomware threat remains, organisations must ensure they take adequate measures to prepare, prevent, detect and respond to a ransomware attack.
Average cost of cybercrime is rising in Public Service globally
Average annual cost of cybercrime per public service organisation, Accenture Cost of Cybercrime Study 2019
Technologies introduce risk, and so do humans
Whether by accident or intent, many employees are often the root cause of successful cyberattacks. Often a person is the easiest target to infiltrate an
National Broadband Plan work to begin
After many delays, the Cabinet has signed the contract for the implementation of the National Broadband Plan with the consortium National Broadband Ireland. The signing means that meaningful work to connect 540,000 rural homes and businesses to high-speed internet will begin in 2020.
The signing of the contract will come as a great relief to those rural residents not covered by the private companies who have until now been the only option to access high-speed internet in Ireland. First announced in 2012, the signing of this contract has been seven years in the making.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar called the signing a national solution to a national problem once the ink had dried on the contract. He said that the National Broadband Plan was done with the objective of ensuring that nobody was left behind in Ireland when it came to jobs and services. Referencing the delays and cost that had caused much consternation throughout the tendering process, the Taoiseach said that the opposition had had five months to come up with a cheaper and better alternative broadband plan but had failed to do so.
The Taoiseach also stated that had the contract not been signed in November as it had been, the process would have been delayed a further five years. He also predicted that the overall cost of the implementation of the plan would eventually come in under the €3 billion budget it has been allocated.
Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment Richard Bruton TD said that the average rural customer who avails of the broadband offered by National Broadband Ireland will pay the same on average as an urban area customer would pay to a private company. “A controlled price of €100 will be paid to National Broadband Ireland from the retailer,” Bruton said in a radio interview after the signing. The Minister added that it is National Broadband Ireland who assumes the risk if uptake turns out to be lower than expected, but that the Government will reclaim 60 per cent of the profits if uptake is higher than expected.
Work is to begin on the rollout of the plan in January, with the initial focus on connecting 300 hubs around the country to make broadband accessible locally to as many rural communities as possible. While total rollout could take up to seven years to complete, these hubs — GAA clubs, community centres and local libraries — will act as community amenities in the meantime.
The 300 areas have been identified and made public, with areas such as Carrigaline in county Cork covered. It is also notable the density of hub points in Gaeltacht areas, such as Leitir Mealláin, Bearna and Carna in Galway and Árd na gCeapairí and Toraigh in Donegal.
It is expected that 130,000 premises, approximately one quarter of the overall plan, will be connected by the end of the year 2021, with 40 per cent to be connected by the end of 2022. With 95 per cent of the 540,000 premises to be connected by the end of 2025, the hopes of rural Ireland rely on the implementation process being smoother than the planning process.
the growing political interest in digital. Liam Maxwell, Government Chief Technology Officer moved to Amazon and Nick Clegg went to Facebook. Any of us in the public sector who can remember trying to educate our politicians on digital and technology for years know that a leading politician becoming part of a tech company is very interesting,” Lowry says.
“We also had the sinister side to technology such as the Mueller Report and the attempts to use technology to influence the most important election in the western world, the election of the President of the United States. Then there is the UK’s decision to leave the EU. We know all the areas where this is going to be a challenge to Ireland: trade, security, agriculture, etc. But technology is also an area where there is going to be a significant impact.”
This impact, Lowry reasons, will not so much relate to the actual technology, but more of the challenge where the UK’s exit from the EU will leave Ireland without the member state which is not only closest but whose culture is the most comparable to our own. “One of the areas where the government officials who spend time in Europe do feel concern is that, with the UK away, Ireland could be peripatetic, not just geographically, but culturally,” he says.
“There was only two parts of the EU using Common Law and who didn’t have a national identity card scheme: Ireland and the UK. Culturally, we are very different from mainland Europe, and I notice it when they’re talking about things like open source software and the digital gateway. They don’t quite understand how agreed approaches might impact on Ireland differently. Culture is going to be one of the biggest challenges over the next few years. You can see that being played out in the newspapers with the ongoing discussions about data sharing across government. We need to use our digital strategy to be more active in Europe and make sure we are assimilated with what’s happening in Europe, because they are so focused on the goal of panEuropean digital government which underpins a single digital market.” on Ireland’s end. With gov.ie now up and running, and gaining “positive feedback from the users and the press”, he is quick to point to the “encouraging rise” in uptake of MyGovID, the single account that enables users to access services across various governmental departments. Having had 10,000 verified accounts two years ago, the programme now boasts over 410,000 verified accounts.
“It is becoming very clear that the public not only understands but supports the direction of travel” he says. “A survey carried out last year by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection found that nearly nine out of 10 people wanted the extension of the use of MyGovID into other areas. We’re now even seeing the public ask why they can’t use their government credentials in banking, insurance and other areas. This is quite common in other parts of Europe and I think it will be an important area of public debate which we will see develop over the next year or two.” Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s principle of “userdriven digital services”, meaning that the Irish Government has been liaising with both users and governmental departments in order to better understand the user’s experience of the Government’s digital offering and make improvements accordingly.
“We are looking at how AI can help people with learning and visual disabilities. We are trying to make the best of cutting-edge technology and use it in government,” he explains. “The digital post box is now being developed. The idea behind this is that a citizen can choose for any important document to be encrypted and copies held in their own personal post box, which means that if one needs to provide them, then they simply provide access via their post box.”
High up on Lowry’s to-do list has been the implementation of both the Government’s Public Service Data Strategy and the Data Sharing and Governance Act. The Act, passed into law in March 2019, was designed in
“Culture is going to be one of the biggest challenges over the next few years... We need to use our digital strategy to be more active in Europe and make sure we are assimilated with what’s happening in Europe, because they are so focused on the goal of panEuropean digital government which underpins a single digital market.”
Irish Smart Society progress 2012-2017
Benchmark - 2016 - 2017 Ireland - 2012 - 2013 Ireland - 2016 - 2017
Talent Development Global Connectedness
Economic Robustness
Talent Base Entrepreneurship
Inclusivity Innovation
Environment & Quality of Life Freedoms
Public Services
Safety & Security Trust
Source: Digital Planet, The Fletcher School at Tufts University, May 2018
order to make the delivery of services by public bodies more efficient and cost effective by providing a clear legal basis for the sharing of personal data in certain circumstances. The goal for the Act is to reduce the burden placed on the citizen to provide multiple copies of the same information when they come into contact with various governmental departments.
“Our data strategy was approved by government last Christmas and we had a really good workshop recently building out the implementation plan for it and the Data Sharing and Governance Act. We’ve now got a strong legal basis for doing more with our data, which when aligned with GDPR, will enable us to improve services”.
With regard to talent and capability, government has a number of streams of activity in place, including developing a new career structure for staff. “We also now have 34 people in government going through ICT apprenticeships, the first batch of many and we are delighted with that,” Lowry adds. not only central government but the sectors: justice, health, education and local government, are setting up digital leadership groups. We are doing that to ensure that everybody in the public service is working together on a common vision and theme which we’ve created together.”
An important aspect of that unified public approach will be GovTech, the process described by Ben Leich, GovTech Lead for the UK Government, as “applying emerging technologies (such as artificial intelligence, advanced sensing, blockchain, advanced data processing, etc.) to improve the delivery of public services through increasing efficiency and lowering costs”. Lowry pays tribute to Minister of State for Public Procurement, Open Government and eGovernment, Patrick O’Donovan TD for his willingness to explore the process.
“One of the great things to happen in the spring was that Minister of State O’Donovan wanted to explore whether the GovTech concept would work in Ireland,” he says. “GovTech is the idea that you bring together government needs, academia and funding, you can create something very agile and powerful for quickly taking new technologies and using them in areas of government need.
“We were interested to see if there was an opportunity for doing this in Ireland and ran a session in June where we invited a very broad audience to debate the topic and how it would look. It was great to see such a diverse group of people in a room together trying to develop a common vision. What we ended up with was a GovTech Ireland ambition: for Ireland to be the best place in Europe to transact digitally with government and for Ireland to be the best place in Europe to start a tech start-up.”
“The report of the day will publish shortly and the Minister will be reporting back to Government before Christmas.”
Lowry concludes by outlining the steps that need to be taken in order for that vision to be reached: “We need to figure out a system whereby we can use government challenges to stimulate the start-up system. The view in the room was that there is enough government funding available, but that it’s more about finding out how you get access to that funding and creating easy playbooks to follow. A more cohesive digital talent development model was also asked for, and that meant for everybody in the country. The view is that a lot of the things that would help GovTech are available within the EU Procurement Framework, we just need to make sure that we are using them properly.
“It’s more about developing guidance for how to procure differently for those involved in procurement rather than dramatically changing the rules. Government has to be an exemplar and set the way in terms of our own services. GovTech is a real opportunity for inclusivity, it doesn’t need to be a Dublin-based model. It’s something that everyone in Ireland can use from their place of habitation of choice. We need to get everyone involved in this. We’re all stakeholders in this and everybody wants to drive it forward. People want to say that their company is a GovTech company, which is really encouraging,” he states.
including reducing the administrative burden on both the private and public sectors through the automation of processing and workflows. There are also the significant environmental benefits that transforming from paper to digital can enable, which go hand-inhand with the growing focus by Governments world-wide on the climate and the green agenda. In addition to this, there’s the value of the data itself. The true value of transparent data is yet to be fully realised, as explained by Roberto Viola, European Commission Director General, DG Connect: “This future will be built on data and is increasingly becoming the foundation of our economy. The European data economy, can bring us benefits in terms of the development of new technologies and the emergence of ecosystems around data.”
The invoice links data in every step of the procure-to-pay lifecycle. eInvoicing allows access to this data in a standardised, structured and digital format. Connecting the data between business processes can help to transform how things are done. The ability to analyse and better understand such data enables public bodies to make more informed decisions with regard to expenditure, to deliver better outcomes for businesses and the public.
The second stage, on the journey to digital transformation, for Central and Sub-Central Government and the shared services and co-ordinating facilities who are already receiving eInvoices, is to raise awareness among suppliers that this digital option is available when doing business with the public sector. Encouraging suppliers to issue eInvoices will support eInvoicing in becoming the main method of invoice processing in public procurement. eInvoicing Ireland supports the promotion of supplier eInvoicing adoption, in accordance with the eInvoicing Directive and national eInvoicing approach, so as to realise the associated benefits.
T: +353 76 100 8000 E: declan.mccormack@ogp.gov.ie W: www.ogp.gov.ie
Becoming eInvoicing enabled
In order to become eInvoicing enabled and reach compliance with the eInvoicing Directive by 18 April 2020, Sub-Central Government bodies should follow six steps:
1.Conduct an internal analysis of the organisation’s current invoice processing environment including invoice volumes, supplier profiles and the systems involved – eInvoicing Ireland have developed preparatory worksheets to support public bodies in undertaking this exercise, available at www.ogp.gov.ie/einvoicing
2.Identify the internal people/teams involved in invoice processing including the Finance, ICT and procurement teams
3.Develop the organisation’s eInvoicing strategy/approach, identifying whether basic compliance or fully integrated eInvoicing services/solutions are required for the organisation
4.Access the eInvoicing Framework through the Buyers Zone at ogp.gov.ie
5.The relevant lot for Sub-Central Government bodies is Lot 3, be sure to read the Framework documentation for Lot 3 carefully and follow the process to engage with the eInvoicing service providers on the Framework.
6.Once engaged, work with the eInvoicing service provider to implement eInvoicing across the organisation’s processes and systems, and with the relevant people.
10 things every Irish Government body needs to understand about the eInvoicing Directive
1.The European Directive 2014/55/EU on electronic invoicing in public procurement* applies to all Government bodies (all contracting authorities and contracting entities).
2.The eInvoicing Directive obliges all Government bodies to be able to receive and process electronic invoices in accordance with the European Standard for eInvoicing (EN-16931).**
3.The deadline for Central Government bodies to be compliant with the eInvoicing Directive was April 2019.
4.The deadline for Sub-Central Government bodies to be compliant with the Directive is April 2020.
5.The Directive applies to all invoices relating to Government contracts above EU thresholds.
It is recommended that where Government bodies are receiving eInvoices relating to contracts above threshold they do not differentiate in terms of accepting eInvoices.
6.There is an exception for contracts declared to be secret/accompanied by special security measures.
7.The eInvoicing Directive does not prescribe how eInvoices should be sent, the Irish
Government has chosen the Peppol eDelivery network for transmission of eInvoices in accordance with the European Standard.
8.The OGP eInvoicing Framework allows Government bodies access services and solutions which comply with the eInvoicing Directive and the national eInvoicing approach. To access this Framework log onto the Buyer zone on www.ogp.gov.ie and search for PEPPOL.
9.eInvoicing Ireland is supporting Government bodies to reach compliance with the eInvoicing
Directive, for more information log onto www.ogp.gov.ie/eInvoicing and to join the eInvoicing community email einvoicing@ogp.gov.ie
10.Beyond basic compliance with the eInvoicing Directive, solutions and services which integrate into the accounts payable/invoicing systems offer a better opportunity to realise the eInvoicing benefits and real digital transformation.
* To access the Directive: S.I. No. 258/2019 - European Union (Electronic Invoicing in Public Procurement) Regulations 2019 http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2019/si/258/made/en/print?q=electronic&years=2019
**To access the European Standard on eInvoicing the I.S. EN 16931-1:2017 and S.R. CEN/TS 16931-2:2017 free of charge through the NSAIhttps://shop.standards.ie/en-ie/Standards/I-S-EN-16931-1-2017-80591_SAIG_NSAI_NSAI_2092009/
human and organisations go through a similar process, jumping through very vertical stages of growth. Vertical learning allows for an increase in capability but horizontal learning is about applying capability to many organisational situations.”
de Brí highlights the strikingly similar eight stages of development for public and private sector organisations with the only difference being at stage one. For a private organisation, this usually occurs through product development, compared to a public organisation whereby stage one usually relates to legislative capability.
Outlining the eight stage of growth, he says: “Each stage, when learned, can be used over and over and each has the potential to bring about disruption. Depending on the stage an organisation is at will determine if a disruptive technology can be adopted. It would be wrong to assume that every organisation needs to strive towards or reach the final stage.”
Stage one (legislative capability or product development), de Brí highlights, can bring about market disruption on its own. “This is happening all of the time. Organisations have been doing it with product differentiation, service differentiation, price etc. This disrupts the market and it’s not done through technology.”
Stage two centres on the organisation structure and business process capability. Organisations can capitalise on market disruption through doing this well. Ryanair, for example, have optimised this process to present as a low-cost airline. “We’re not even talking about IT here,” he says, emphasising an organisation’s capability to disrupt without that disruption being driven by technology.
ICT and business process engineering capability is stage three and a stage pinpointed by de Brí as one where many organisations, especially within the public sector, currently find themselves. This stage centres on automation of services, such as government services being available online or the services offered by the likes of Amazon, Uber or Spotify. “This isn’t a disruptive measure. There’s no disruptive technology such as AI or big data involved in the automation process. It’s just automation, but automation can be really disruptive,” he states.
de Brí outlines the need to understand the opportunities for individual organisations within each stage and to utilise their abilities for maximum outcome. “Technology shouldn’t be the driving force for organisational development but should be used in conjunction with capability and growth ambition.” and business process capability is about taking stage five capability and targeting mass sections of the economy. “Not many organisations are doing this but it is possible through real analytics.” This also forms the basis for the later stages of large scale operational project and portfolio capability (stage seven) and capability dynamics and coordination (stage eight).
Highlighting once more that most
Stage four of development, master data management and customer data integration capability, represents a move to “significantly drag down silos within an organisation”. de Brí believes that this is the point at where real value in analytics is optimised.
Analytics and business intelligence capability, which is stage five, is built upon this integrated data. Using the likes of Paddy Power, YouTube and Netflix as examples, de Brí says that the ability to build business processes around analytical opportunities is majorly advantageous for organisations who hold such capability.
Stage six, flexible case management organisations will not need to reach these later stages, at least not while the disruptive technologies currently available do not suit their development process. de Brí says: “Disruptive technologies are not always appropriate for an organisation and an organisation’s stage of development will determine if certain technologies are appropriate for adoption.
“There are many opportunities for organisations to disrupt, with each stage of development offering many unique opportunities. Disruption is less about the technologies and more about the organisation and its stage of development, alongside its ability to create new disruptive changes.”
From time to time, disputes arise in relation to domain registrations. There have always been formal processes for managing disputes in relation to .ie domain name registration. The two options were to initiate formal legal proceedings or to engage with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), which mediates global domain name disputes. Both can be costly and time-consuming.
Our new Alternative Dispute Resolution Process, introduced following a policy development process by stakeholders within its Policy Advisory Committee, now gives individuals and organisations, particularly SMEs, an easier, faster and more affordable way to dispute the registration or the use of a .ie domain.
The process accommodates a wide variety of dispute types, including online impersonation, domain disputes between competing businesses, website contentscraping, defamation, rights-based complaints, and others.
It’s important that Irish citizens, businesses and organisations have access to a dispute resolution process that is transparent, affordable and straightforward.
Who operates the process?
The process is independently operated by Net Neutrals EU, an accredited dispute resolution body under the European Union (Alternative Dispute Resolution for Consumer Disputes) Regulations 2015. Net Neutrals EU was selected as the Alternative Dispute Resolution Service Provider by the Policy Advisory Committee, a stakeholder body set up by the board of IE Domain Registry in 2014. A formal selection and tendering process with potential operators was used.
The Complainant and the Registrant (current holder of the domain) can work to resolve the dispute by communicating via the platform provided by Net Neutrals (currently the online forum, accessible to both parties and their advisers), www.netneutrals.eu.
IE Domain Registry, the company that manages Ireland’s country domain name, introduced a new dispute resolution process for contested .ie domains on 1 July 2019. This new process has been built on core principles: fair play and a fair hearing, the use of industry best practice, a right of appeal and an independent, neutral service provider, explains David Curtin, Chief Executive of IE Domain Registry.
Who is the process for?
The Alternative Dispute Resolution Process is for anyone who meets the criteria for submitting a complaint and who can prove:
1.They would ordinarily be eligible to register the domain name in question if it was not already registered by the
Registrant;
2.They have rights in the domain name or in marks or identifiers very similar to it, or that their rights have been negatively impacted by the registration; or
3.The registration of the domain should be revoked as it has been registered or used abusively or in bad faith.
The process may be particularly beneficial for small and micro businesses due to its simplicity and reduced costs associated with opening a dispute.
What services are available?
Mediation: A trained independent Mediator will help the complainant and the Registrant find a fair, amicable resolution. The Mediator will help keep discussions constructive, so the dispute can be resolved quickly.
Decision: A decision on a dispute is made by a qualified Domain Dispute Specialist at Net Neutrals. A decision can result in the .ie domain registration being transferred to the Complainant, or the deletion of the domain, or no action being taken at all (if the dispute is refused).
Opinion: A Complainant can ask a qualified Domain Dispute Specialist for a non-binding opinion on the dispute subject matter. This may be helpful prior to requesting a decision on the dispute through the Alternative Dispute Resolution Process or where the matter may become the subject of court proceedings.
Note that no action is taken against the domain registration in this instance.
Complaints made against a .ie domain — what to do
If notice is received about a complaint submitted against a .ie domain registration, it’s important that a response is made. This ensures that the Registrant’s (current holder of the domain) view will be considered by the Domain Specialist.
The burden of proof is on the Complainant who needs to prove that they meet the complaint submission criteria. This is because the Registrant has already shown evidence of their compliance with the .ie Registration and Naming Policy when the .ie domain was registered.
Building a smarter police force
Head of Digital Services and Innovation for An Garda Síochána, Tim Willoughby, outlines how mobile policing is enabling a faster and more interactive service, while easing the oversight process.
“Civilianisation is progressing at pace in An Garda Síochána. We used to have two superintendents in ICT, one in operations and the other telecoms. As part of the civilianisation of An Garda Siochána both have been moved into operational policing roles, so, along with my innovation role, I now cover the other roles,” Willoughby explains, detailing his role at the forefront of the push to digitalise and modernise policing in Ireland.
While the challenge was one that arose from technological need, the approach Willoughby piloted was one with a focus on the organisation and its frontline. “New methods have to be adopted to make change. It’s not good enough to just talk about it,” he explains. “The first thing was speeding up how we work. We needed feedback loops and frontline engagement. The first thing I did with David Sheehan, who is now Assistant Commissioner, was to take four members of the frontline Garda team one day a week, every week, for the first six months. They need to own the service. It’s not good developing something for them and the backend people telling them what they’re going to get; they need to engage. Those four are turning into 70 Gardaí. Each division is producing two champions and we’re going to introduce them to what we’re doing and what the rest of Europe is doing so they can see we’re on the right trajectory.”
It was in Europe that Willoughby learned an important personnel lesson. Attending a hackathon in Sweden led to him understand the importance of UX (user experience design). At a time when Gardaí had no UX experts employed, Swedish forces had four. Following the hiring of three UX experts, Willoughby says that they are now “spending their time in the frontline, getting the experience and getting the technology onto the side of the road using real situations”.
“If you want to change an organisation the size of An Garda Síochána, you start with making changes with the 14,000 frontline where even a small change will make a massive difference at the backend, whereas, with 200 senior people will only give you incremental change. Our challenge in the past has been enterprise resource planning, big systems and the senior people knowing what the frontline is doing, but now the focus is on giving the frontline the tools for the job and a by-product of that is
that the senior people will get the dashboards to see what’s happening.”
Willoughby portrays a digital journey that was enabled as much by his “getting out of the way” as it was by his leadership: “Part of this is the power structure in the organisation. Looking at where the power sits and how you manage your own power; it has to flow and be enabled. You have to step out of the way and let things happen. If everything has to go through you, then nothing will happen.
“As people in government, we have to be responsible. There is a democratic duty to do things and fear trumps getting actions done. Moving into an agile world, we need to think and engage differently. We came up with the slogan, ‘from failsafe to safe fail’. So, if something’s not working, pull the plug. Move on rather than trying to continuously invest in something that’s not working.”
One small change in working methods encapsulated the attempts to be constantly progressing for Willoughby: “We went away from proof of concept, where you’re not really proving anything and went to minimum viable product. That means you’re putting the bones of the thing together and doing the least amount of work possible to show people that it works. Proofs of concept, typically you throw it away and start back from where you were, but minimum viable products mean you are moving and starting a trajectory. It was a mindset and language change to implement that.”
Reform in An Garda Síochána, digital or otherwise, has been happening under the umbrella of the report A Policing Service for the Future, which carried with it 10 principles and 50 key recommendations, the last of the principles being that the force must be “adaptive, innovative and cost effective”. Recommendations under that principle include the complete overhaul of the digital aspect of the force and the wearing of body cameras by officers. The plan also mandates the acquisition of 2,000 devices by the force before the end of 2019.
“The strategy has endless mentions of where mobile fits in and sets out very clearly the direction we need to go in,” Willoughby says. “Our ICT strategy sets out a vision for mobility and it again puts the Garda at the centre. It’s about the Garda being better connected to have whatever they need and that’s something that’s different for the organisation. If we’re giving a tool to a Garda, a rule we have is that everything that they have to do can be ‘Once and Done’ and finished. There’s no paperwork afterwards, the members don’t have to back to the station, if they’re doing something on a mobile app.”
Willoughby then moves on to the technicalities of the activities Gardaí can now undertake on the app: “Looking at frontline engagement, we’ve given them the ability to scan things. The way we have written apps is that each app has micro capabilities. For example, we have a service for authentication, so if we decide in the future that we want to change that process, we only have one micro capability to change and all the other apps use that. We have a passport App that not only scans the Machine Readable Zone on the passport, but also unlocks the biometric chip, reads the data and can validate the passport we have in our hands.
“A year ago, we had 50 small stations that weren’t yet networked with traditional broadband, because we have small stations in places that haven’t yet been covered by the National Broadband Plan. What we have been able to do is use smart technology to put boosted internet signal into those places and use the power of the mobile device to connect the member to the back end. By the end of the year, all of the sites will have connectivity. We have also just closed a tender where the speed gun will work with the app. When it gets a hit, it will automatically connect to the phone, using Bluetooth, and the phone will present the full details of the car and the speed. We have pushed our portal into an app now which means that Gardaí don’t have to go into their stations in the morning and will still receive bulletins. We have developed a series of smart cars and what we’ve done is put WiFi in the car with a dual sim router, so wherever the car is in the country, it’s connected, and the range is within 150 metres of the car. “
Change is afoot in An Garda Síochána and Willoughby sounds confident and assured as he concludes by looking to the future: “We want 1,000 devices to go out per month next year. We are building dashboards for senior people to see what’s happening on a daily basis. We are changing the way we do things.”
for people to work in. The academy is part of the way the Government are addressing this in the UK. It’s not the only solution, we still have things like Civil Service Learning that we can go to, or job shadowing and on the job training. The GDS Academy is one arm.
“When the digital specialists started coming into Government around 2012, the thought was that we could upskill all these great civil servants to do some of the digital, data and technology (DDAT) roles. The UK Government decided to embed digital skills throughout government, make sure that digital experts who come in actually understand government, make sure that civil servants of other professions understand digital, strengthen the leadership skills of agile project management and establish a better way to develop policy and deliver services in tandem.”
The history of the GDS Academy begins in 2014, and it has delivered to over 10,000 students. It was created in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which wanted to build its own internal digital capability. The academy was set up with the idea to grow digitally equipped talent internally. The DWP digital academy started in a job centre in Fulham, London, with an eight-week the essence of digital and cover everything necessary. We were delivering this foundation course in London and Leeds and also started running one-day awareness courses. It became obvious there was a need for courses for training teams and leaders who want to work in this way. People in other departments started hearing about the academy and expressing interest in sending some of their teams to these courses.”
The academy won the Civil Service Building Capability and Skills Award 2015. When Kevin Cunnington, to that point the Business Transformation Director, left DWP for Cabinet Office in 2017, the academy was transformed into a cross-government academy, which now also helps local government and has helped other international governments set up their own academies.
“All our offerings are currently in the classroom. We’re exploring other mediums, piloting online self-managed blended learning, putting some of our offerings online. Our unique selling point is the fact that we’re talking about working in an agile way from a government perspective,” Smith explains. “At the moment, most of our offerings are
foundation course in digital learning.
“We got lots of feedback, most crucially that eight weeks is too long and too difficult for those trying to scale up,” Smith says. “If you’re running an organisation, you probably can’t let a member of your team go for eight weeks. We cut down some face to face content and changed the way we delivered some of the training. The course is now 10 working days and we still feel we capture in the digital part of DDAT but we will start to move into areas such as data and technology. We also offer coaching in organisations after their training and have previously delivered academic masterclasses.
“What makes it different is that it’s not all about sitting at desks and being told how to do things and working through a workbook. It’s experiential learning where we try things out for ourselves. We do this usually in groups of about 15 people. We have to create a very safe environment where people are able to relax and try things without fear of repercussions. They have a go, fail fast and try a different way. This is learning by doing and it’s all about consolidating very quickly on something you’ve learned. We encourage everybody to leave their grades at the door, which is important so that everybody can work on the same level.”
With 10 facilitators across four hubs in London, Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle, Smith says that the academy is constantly iterating content, gathering feedback and evaluations in order to tailor their offerings to the changing needs of the students. “We have short feedback loops, so we quite often change courses from week to week. That helps our users to make sure they’re getting the best possible, but it also keeps our facilitators on top of their game,” she says.
The academy also covers digital in government, user centred design and other digital tools. Their “bread and butter” are courses aimed at different levels of capability, with the strategic aim of building expert capability in the DDAT professions and their leaders and appropriate expertise in the ways of working with digital for non-DDAT leaders.
They are aided in their work by the DDAT Profession Capability Framework, which identifies 37 roles in government, working in a digital way. There are an estimated 17,000 civil servants in the UK working in DDAT roles. The framework splits down the roles and details requirements, skills needed, possible career paths, courses that can be undertaken and information needed in order to swap roles in the course of a career.
“You don’t get any qualifications or certificates when you’ve been on one of our courses. They have recently all been revamped and we will be looking into official accreditation in the future. Senior leaders are telling us that they don’t have three days to go on a course, so we are working on a one-day model for them. We run many day long awareness events because we get some attendees who come along on these courses fully expecting digital to mean they will be upskilled in IT skills like Excel — there is still a real need for general awareness” Smith concludes.
The glacial pace of the Brexit negotiations has led to the feasibility of a technological solution to the Irish border issue being suggested on more than one occasion. With Brexit set to return to centre stage after the UK’s general election, eolas examines how smart borders actually work.
The border between Norway and Sweden has frequently been cited as one of the world’s more technologically advanced borders. Given its status as a functioning land border between an EU member state and a non-EU member state, it is commonly looked to as an example for those who wish to push the idea of a technological solution to border negotiations.
Cars cross the Swedish-Norwegian border through unstaffed border posts that are equipped with cameras using automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology. Every entry into either country is logged within the system.
A complex computer system allows goods to be declared to customs before they have left their warehouses, but lorries are still required to stop at staffed crossing points where their goods are physically checked. While the technological system allows for the process to be streamlined, checks take on average 20 minutes and there are approximately 1,300 checks per day by the Norwegian authorities at Svinesund, the busiest of the border crossings. Given that there are roughly 13,000 crossings of the Irish border by heavy goods vehicles per day, even the relative speed of a 20 minute customs check could cause extensive delays. speedy border process is something beyond the technological. Norway may not be a member of the EU, but it is still a member of the single market, meaning that goods and product standards are aligned, creating a trust across the 1,000 miles of border between the two countries. The confusion over the future status of the UK, and Northern Ireland in particular, mean that neither trust nor the alignment of product standards are certain across Ireland’s comparatively small border of 310 miles. Sabine Weyand, at the time EU Deputy Chief Negotiator for the Brexit process and now EU Director General for Trade, has already said that existing technology will not be the solution to issue at the border.
Lars Karlsson, the President of KGH Border Services, former Director of World Customs Organisation and Deputy Director General of Swedish Customs, has speculated that a new, but expensive, technology could be the solution to the issue. Karlsson has proposed the idea of a satellite system linked to the phones of drivers of HGVs could automatically register crossings as they happen. Again, the issue of trust comes into play for such a proposal to become feasible even before the technology is developed.
In a report for the European Parliament on what he termed “Smart Border 2.0”, Karlsson called for the establishment of free movement lanes for those covered by the Common Travel Area agreement, a cooperative approach between all concerned parties, enhanced driver’s licenses and the use of radio frequency identification technology as well as ANPR.
To conclude his report Karlsson listed what he believed to be required for the implementation of a Smart Border 2.0:
•A bilateral EU-UK agreement regulating advanced customs cooperation;
•Mutual recognition of authorised economic operators;
•A customs-to-customs technical agreement on exchange of risk data;
•Pre-registration of operators and people;
•Identification system by the border;
•A single window with one-stop-shopelements;
•A unique consignment reference number;
•Simplified customs declaration system (100 per cent electronic) with re-use of export data for imports;
•Mobile control and inspection units; and
•Technical surveillance of the border (CCTV, ANPR etc).
