Author: admin

OneTeamGov North was one of the first communities set up outside of London, and we’re now on a mission specifically to grow OneTeamGov Manchester.

In 2023 we started to host a regular monthly-ish breakfast session, lean coffee style, to help people re-establish connections after the pandemic. But we recognise that not everyone loves a breakfast meet up, and that an hour of great conversation is never really enough. So we’re now offering a breakfast session with added extra all day co-working! This gives you the chance to keep chatting to people you want to, or to ask that extra question or get advice.

Upcoming Events

Visit our luma page to see and register for upcoming events. We usually meet on the 3rd Tuesday of every month. You will need to provide your email address to show which organisation you work for.

Past events

Tuesday 20th August 2026

We discussed:

• How does your department explore innovation?

• How do I get a conflict-averse leader to support my project?

• What can we do that’s radically different?

• Should Product Ops be integrated into GDS Roles / does anyone have any experience implementing?

• Automating Cybersecurity in the post autonomous agent cyber attack world

Tuesday 21st July 2026

Represented organisations:

• Cabinet Office

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Education

• Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

• Government Digital Service

• Department for Science, Innovation & Technology

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

We discussed:

• Number 10 North

• Future of digital identity and cyber

• How to create a culture where code reviews are valued

• Managing the period between discovery and alpha

Tuesday 16th June 2026

Represented organisations:

• Cabinet Office

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Education

• Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

• Government Digital Service

• Department for Science, Innovation & Technology

• Home Office

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

We discussed:

• Which DDaT/GDaD professions need expansion most – in general and in Manchester specifically?

• How are people implementing AI into their workflows?

• How can we reduce the risk of AI potentially telling people to do the wrong thing?

• What does government need from small and medium sized suppliers?

• Effective leadership communication and getting senior people to advocate for you

Tuesday 19th May 2026

Represented organisations:

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Culture, Media and Sport

• Department for Education

• Department for Science, Innovation & Technology

• Department for Work and Pensions

• HM Revenue & Customs

• Home Office

• Insolvency Service

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

We discussed:

• Multiple departments delivering one outcome together… how to do this?

• Does ethics get in the way of innovation in government?

• Recognition and reward in government

• Magenta Book updates and the new ‘Test and Learn’ approach

Tuesday 21st April 2026

Represented organisations:

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Education

• Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

• Government Digital Service

• Home Office

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

• The Pension Regulator

We discussed:

• Improving cross-government collaboration tools

• AI assurance

• Systems thinking in ALBs

• Preparing for national security threats

Tuesday 17th March 2026

Represented organisations:

• Cabinet Office

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Education

• Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

• Department for Work and Pensions

• Health and Safety Executive

• Home Office

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

We discussed:

• Really strong local command and collaboration

• Anyone getting something exciting funded in business planning?

• Any advice on how to measure impact of improved content? Just analytics data or anything else?

• Authentication with backing proof

Tuesday 17th February 2026

Represented organisations:

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Education

• Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

• Department for Work and Pensions

• Health and Safety Executive

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

We discussed:

• Collaboration Zones

• What keeps you coming back to OneTeamGov North?

• Anyone want to facilitate a session?

• Sharing AI use across departments

• What’s good right now?

• So small teams building AI products need “UX designers”?

Tuesday 20th January 2026

Represented organisations:

• Cabinet Office

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Education

• Department for Work and Pensions

• Home Office

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

• The Pensions Regulator

We discussed:

• How might we get better at sharing insights across departments

• How to get stakeholders to be more user focused

• What’s good right now

• Making discovery useful

• How can we utilise AI prompts and agents better across gov?

(Historic Eventbrite page)

Tuesday 16th December 2025

Represented organisations:

• Cabinet Office

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Education

• Department for Work and Pensions

• Health and Safety Executive

• Home Office

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

• The Pensions Regulator

We discussed:

• what’s happening that’s good?

• what can we merge or delete, rather than create?

• how might we change how we work to make services “AI ready”?

• best practice for AI prompts

Tuesday 18th November 2025

Represented organisations:

• Cabinet Office

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Education

• Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

• Government Digital Service

• HM Courts & Tribunals Service

• HM Revenue & Customs

• Home Office

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

• The Pensions Regulator

We discussed:

• Working with Local Authorities

• How data ethics can be used when creating or using AI

• Is there a simple way to access cross governmental data for initiatives?

• Any experience of MOG (machinery of government) changes and dealing with uncertainty?

Tuesday 21st October 2025

Represented organisations:

• Cabinet Office

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Education

• Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

• Department for Work and Pensions

• Government Digital Service

• HM Revenue & Customs

• Home Office

• Information Commissioner’s Office

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

• The Pensions Regulator

We discussed:

• Poor services

• One Big Thing 2025 – AI for All

• Collecting user feedback

Tuesday 16th September 2025

Represented organisations:

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

• Department for Education

• Government Digital Service

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

We discussed:

• What are your top tips or resources for getting a promotion in the civil service? (contributing to a talk for EOs, HEOs, SEOs)

• Recruitment obstacles

• NEETs (young people who were not in education, employment or training)

• Machinery of Government changes

Tuesday 19th August 2025

Represented organisations:

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

• Department for Education

• Government Digital Service

• HM Courts & Tribunals Service

• Home Office

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

• UK Health Security Agency

We discussed:

• Examples / opportunities for x-gov networking

• Experiences of implementing AI in digital projects

• Tips for actually working in the open

• Merits and challenges of in-person research vs online research

Tuesday 15th July 2025

Represented organisations:

• Cabinet Office

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Education

• Government Digital Service

• Home Office

• Information Commissioner’s Office

We discussed:

• promoting One Team Gov events

• is the new “digital centre” of government taking too long?

• is “low code” the answer?

Tuesday 17 June 2025

Represented organisations:

• GDS

• MHCLG

• DBT

• OFSTED

• CO Digital

• ICO

• DWP

• DFE

We discussed:

• Practical uses of AI to improve government services

• Things we wish we’d known before starting work in government

Tuesday 20 May 2025

Represented organisations:

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Education

• Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

• Government Digital Service

• HM Courts & Tribunals Service

• Information Commissioner’s Office

We discussed:

• Getting internal buy in for service assessments

• How data breaches affect businesses and the public sector

• Using AI for productivity

• The role of contact centres in delivering public services

Tuesday 15 April 2025

Represented organisations:

• Cabinet Office

• CDPS

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Education

• Department for Science, Innovation and Technology

• Government Digital Service

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

• Student Loans Company

We discussed:

• sharing data for services that cross organisational boundaries

• how do we share multi-department responsibilities for missions?

TUESDAY 18 MARCH 2025

This session was a broad conversation on policy and digital, and how they work together. Discussion covered:

There are different things we call policy – ‘big P’ policy is the government position or intent on an issue, including manifesto commitments. Small ‘p’ policy includes civil service processes.

Policy and digital have different approaches and vocabularies – but they often have the same aims, and they’re often talking about the same thing.

Digital can potentially help government move from designing policy on paper to something more dynamic.

But we don’t always get things right in digital. For example – we haven’t always worked hard enough to involve operational delivery colleagues. ‘Change fatigue’ is a real thing.

There’s a place for digital interventions which deliver fast improvements by helping to solve problems for the operational people who are delivering a service. Once you’ve built trust, you can be more ambitious.

TUESDAY 18 FEBRUARY 2025

Represented organisations:

• Department for Business and Trade

• DWP

• GDS (DSIT)

• Cabinet Office

• ICO

• Defra

• MHCLG

We discussed:

• What if AI improves citizens’ lives but makes people redundant?

• How can we break down silos that exist internally?

• Government Growth Agenda and narrative

• Standards – how standard are they?

Tuesday 21 January 2025

Represented organisations:

• Defra

• DWP

• DfT

• Welsh Government

• GDS

• i.AI

• DfE

• MHCLG

• Home office

We discussed:

• challenges and opportunities to delivery in 2025

• what’s stopping us from working in the open

• what would have to change so that policy and delivery can be the same thing

• what new platforms do we need (services that help you build services in gov)

Tuesday 17 December 2024

Social event

Tuesday 19 November 2024

~20 attendees plus 3 OTG volunteers

Topics covered:

• Avoid silo building

• How to create good communities of practice

• Stage Gates and Service Assessments

• Any good innovations to share? (One Big Thing)

• How to stay positive when working in a challenging social media environment

Proposed topics not covered this time:

• Topic 1: Accessibility. How to encourage service owners to prioritise fixes and articulate risks.

• Topic 2: The ethics of using AI in government.

• Topic 3: How to increase / create trust in government services.

• Topic 4: Tips for maintaining effective comms between strategic and operational teams.

• Topic 5: Service journeys across more than one department. How to support users across the divide.

• Topic 6: Better cross-gov collaboration. For example, data handling, DPIA examples, How do we make it happen?

• Topic 7: How to push for UCD when challenged with budget and time.

• Topic 8: Has anyone got experience with appointing SROs? (Internally, MVP, rather than GMPPP scale)

Represented organisations:

• Centre for Digital Public Services Wales

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

• Department for Work and Pensions

• Environment Agency

• Government Digital Service

• HM Courts & Tribunals Service

• Home Office

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Tuesday 15 October 2024

Small but perfectly formed session, 6 attendees plus 4 OTG volunteers

Today we had an action learning set from Kate Bruckshaw on hacks to help policy and digital teams work together. We covered:

• Agile Methods – removing the language barriers and working together in the right way

• User Needs – speaking to users, and making sure you are capturing needs rather than solutions

• Marketing – demonstrating the value and telling the story of your work, with empathy

Represented organisations:

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Education

• Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

• Department for Work and Pensions

• Government Digital Service DSIT

• HMRC

• MHCLG (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government)

tuesday 17 September 2024

~24 attendees plus 5 OTG volunteers

Topics:

• Can we create more opportunities for cross-department loans and shadowing schemes?

• How can people in different departments learn from each other more effectively?

• How can we address challenges with office space for meetings?

• What have we learned from this spending review round?

Represented organisations:

• Department for Business and Trade

• Department for Education

• Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

• Department for Work and Pensions

• Government Digital Service DSIT

• HMRC

• HSE

• Home Office

• Information Commissioners Office

• MHCLG

• OFCOM

TUESDAY 20 AUGUST 2024

~21 attendees plus 3 OTG volunteers

Topics:

• What’s the role of GDS/CDDO in future?

• ‘One big thing’ ideas

• What changes have we seen since the change of government?

Represented organisations:

• Cabinet Office

• CDDO

• Centre for Digital Public Services Wales

• Defra

• DfE

• DWP

• GDS

• GSG

• HMRC

• MCHLG

• Ofsted

Tuesday 16 JuLY 2024

~11 attendees, plus 4 OTG volunteers

Topics:

• Building relationships with cross gov networks

• Checking accessibility post service assessment

• AI and legitimate expectations

• GDS/CDDO/i.AI into DSIT – what changes will that bring?

• Staff Reduction – is this still a priority for the new government?

Represented organisations:

• Centre for Digital Public Services Wales

• Defra

• DfE

• DSIT

• GDS

• GSG

• HMRC

Useful links:

• https://www.security.gov.uk/guidance/govassure/

• https://cddo.blog.gov.uk/2024/05/14/understanding-the-new-digital-and-technology-spend-controls/

Tuesday 18 June 2024

~15 attendees, plus 3 OTG volunteers

Topics:

• how might life change in departments after the general election

• how to resolve data sharing challenges across gov

• tips for a better workplace

Represented organisations:

• CDPS Wales

• CO

• DBT

• Defra

• DfE

• DLUHC

• DSIT

• DWP

• GDS

• HMRC

• HO

• ICO

Tuesday 21 May 2024

~10 attendees, plus 5 OTG volunteers

Topics:

• Delivering during an election – any tips?

• Chatbots: gimmick or actually good?

• Identity as a Civil Servant… do you feel part of a big org or your own org?

Represented organisations:

• DBT

• DfE

• DLUHC

• GDS

• GSG

• HMRC

• HO

• ICO

Tuesday 16 April 2024

~15 attendees, plus 5 OTG volunteers

Topics:

• Shared office space – how do we make it happen?

• Running Service Assessments well

• Agile vs Waterfall assurance

• Good practice with a “JFDI”

Represented organisations:

• CDPS Wales

• DBT

• Defra

• DfE

• DLUHC

• DWP

• GDS

• GSG

• HMRC

• HO

• ICO

Tuesday 19 March 2024

~10 attendees, plus 4 OTG volunteers

Topics:

• Which services are translated into Welsh (and other languages)?

• Establishing user centred design in a organisation that’s new to it

• Dealing with headcount freezes

Read more on LinkedIn.

Represented organisations:

• CDPS Wales

• DBT

• Defra

• DfE

• DWP

• GDS

• HMRC

Tuesday 27 February 2024

~21 attendees, plus 4 OTG volunteers

Topics:

• Making “return to the office” work

• Recruitment / Promotion / Retention / Pay

• Joining up government departments “to be one”

Represented organisations:

• DBT

• Defra

• DfE

• DWP

• GDS

• HMRC

OneTeamGov North 2018 Unconference

The OneTeamGovNorth event and unconference was held in Manchester on 22 March. We brought together people with influence and interest from all levels of central and local government, third sector and private sector organisations who deliver or improve services for citizens.

The themes were:

• How can we collaborate and share to deliver services that improve citizens’ lives?

• How can we design services that represent an inclusive society?

Summary of the day

Deborah Blanchard and Maxine Paintain from DWP Digital hosted the day, which was very fitting as they had the original idea to bring OneTeamGov to the north. They set delegates the question ‘Why are we here today?’. It was great to see the range of opinions in the room and that ‘To collaborate wildly’ came out on top.

Vimla Appadoo (FutureGov) summed up why OneTeamGov is needed, because we need to start seeing ourselves as one government, understanding the relationship between what local and central government can do, the role that third parties play in delivering government services and what we can do to create seamless services for citizens.

Tim Haworth and Joanne Gartland from DWP Greater Manchester District Operations brought to life the reasons for joining up services for citizens across central and local government. They shared their enthusiasm for working in the Civil Service, and the importance of collaboration. Tim summed it up by saying

Molly Watt (Molly Watt Talks) and Chris Bush (Sigma) brilliantly explained the importance of accessible and inclusive technology. Molly described her own experience of Usher syndrome, the barriers she has faced and the opportunities that inclusively designed technology can bring. Chris emphasised the need to include users of differing abilities in usability sessions.

Fritz von Runte organised the unconference, encouraging people to pitch and making it a warm and fun experience for everyone. We had 18 unconference topics, which fitted neatly into the grid for three rounds of unconconference.

After the unconference, Holly Rae and Emma Collingridge from Stockport Council shared their approach to service design in local government. They had wise words for everyone who is delivering or improving services for citizens: ‘We need to be brave, respect experience and expertise, and create space so that we join up services for citizens.’

Feedback on the day

We asked delegates if the day had helped them to better understand inclusive design. It was good to see that 41% of respondents said that it had, or that it was a good start (39%).

Delegates also gave a view on whether OneTeamGovNorth would help us to join up public services in the north. There was a split of two-thirds of respondents believing that it would, and one-third not sure, which is a fair result given that this is the first OneTeamGov event in the north.

We also had really useful, constructive feedback on the design of the day itself. Some delegates would have liked more of an overview of OneTeamGov to set the context, more structure and themes, and less of a focus on central government, all of which is fair feedback. We’ll pass these on to future OneTeamGov events.

Practical actions

Matt Turner offered help: ‘Breaking big work into microactions is brill – starting them all at the same is still the big piece of work. Prioritising & sequencing is key. I can help.’

Celine McLoughlin asked: ‘Is anyone from Newcastle here today and interested in getting together to form a Newcastle chapter?’

Dinah Turner asked ‘Is anyone here interested in connecting on education challenges – if I’ve not met you already!’

Blogposts

People who were part of OneTeamGovNorth have shared blog posts about their experience.

Debbie Blanchard shared her role as one of the founders of OneTeamGovNorth.

Joanne Rewcastle shared the role of digital engagement in bringing OneTeamGov to the north.

What next?

Follow OneTeamGov on Twitter. Join OneTeamGov on Slack.

Be inspired by the MicroActions. Create your own and share with OneTeamGov.

Share the practical actions you took from OneTeamGovNorth through blog posts and we’ll share them here.

Keep in touch with #OneTeamGovGlobal, taking place in London on 16 July.

MicroActions

People at OneTeamGovNorth shared their MicroActions:

• I will keep calling out when people differentiate between ‘small’ change and ‘transformational’ change – small changes can be transformational too!

• I’m going to challenge myself and my colleagues to think about inclusion and accessibility when recruiting participants in user research and service design work

• Make issues tangible, make problems visual and visible for people to see

• Contact local schools/organisations working with young people to see how I can work with them to encourage young people to aspire to work in digital public sector

• Recruit based on attributes and not abilities to shield teams from future changes in the methods and technologies required for inclusive service design

• Reassure that automation is about removing the boring and repetitive parts of people’s work and not the job itself

• Ask ‘who will this exclude?’ in your decision making processes to avoid a less effective re-inclusion phase

• Keep speaking up when things go wrong. Don’t shy away from the bad stuff

• I will start the ball rolling getting a community volunteer day arranged for those that signed up from session 2 table A discussion! Yay!

• I’ll invite and share our research with other departments with who we have overlapping services

• I’m going to continue investing in the community that’s been created today, carry on the conversation, identify more MicroActions to make change happen!

• I will keep in touch with people here today and keep the conversations going. I will keep on being curious and will wear my OTG lanyard with pride!

• I will stop using acronyms and digital language that doesn’t make sense to everyone

• I will run a co-design session

• I will stop talking about doing it and just do it