iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 22/06/2026

it would be quite funny if Burnham finally liberated the PAF and it then turned out there really were all sorts of unintended consequences that meant it had been kept under lock and key for a good reason. data nerds’ monkey paw moment.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 20/02/2026

Thanks! So (recognising the comparison would likely complicate things!) we have a low premium compounded by an extra hit to post-tax (or post-payroll) income for those who *did* translate a degree into a higher-paying job.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 20/02/2026

@jburnmurdoch.ft.com is the underlying data based on pre- or post-tax income, and if the latter, would it account for student loan repayments? In other words, is repayment contributing to the reduction in the premium, or does that come on top? It would't change the top line but curious to know.

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James O'Malley @jamesomalley.co.uk · 09/02/2026

New YIMBY Pod! 🥴 @mjrobbins.com asks: Does AI make you stupid? 📗 Does the new Green Book make trains value for money now? 🤖 And we speak to @iosad.fyi and @eleniarzoglou.bsky.social on how to rebuild government for the AI era. Listen/subscribe! www.abundancepod.com/p/does-ai-ma...

abundancepod.com

Does AI make you stupid?

Plus why northern trains might be considered value for money now

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 12/06/2025

Those “invest in Poland or regret it” ads in the late early 2010s turned out to be right on the money…

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 11/05/2025

And I am sorry to play to type on this, but the only sensible version of this is one that is consistent across visa categories, and enforceable with as little friction as possible – and the best way to achieve this *is* a digital ID (see, playing to type).

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 11/05/2025

As far as I can tell, the only announcement on student visas from the HO so far has been on tightening controls on overstayers. Which could be sensible! (eg we don’t even know how many there are) – if done well; or could just end up an extra admin burden on HEIs not equipped to deal with it.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 25/02/2025

CityAM apparently covered the paper as a government announcement, so clearly lots of attribution struggles going on here.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 25/02/2025

Think of the job losses!

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 25/02/2025

One of our hypotheses is that a more coordinated and consistently embedded support structure would improve the use of existing assets in the short term, helping build momentum for broader change.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 25/02/2025

And to accompany the publication of our NDL paper, something of a bucket list item for me with a guest post for @jamesomalley.co.uk. You also have the opportunity to ask burning questions/hurl questionable fruit at me tonight at our long-planned in-conversation about AI in govt – info in the post.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 25/02/2025

I also want to recognise that the NDL has been a collective interest of so many, including @stianwestlake.bsky.social, @wellcometrust.bsky.social, @connectedbydata.org, @odihq.bsky.social & even @jamesomalley.co.uk. A swell of enthusiasm that shows the NDL’s promise & why it’s key to get right 9/9

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 25/02/2025

I’m really happy that these ideas are endorsed by some of the sharpest people with experience in government, research & industry, including three former ministers. The NDL is a chance for the UK to become the first nation to get AI-era data right. We should take it! 8/

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 25/02/2025

In all, we have 40+ recommendations all mapped out to each phase. Some personal favourites: 👩‍🏫 A network of National Data Librarians in every department 🪪 A Reader Pass system with a data offenders register to share risks between controllers & users 🧫 Data Biomes for joined-up work on novel ideas 7/

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 25/02/2025

To reach its full potential and not get bogged down, the NDL should be built in phases: 1. Governance & support to use existing infrastructure like the ONS IDS better and faster 2. A secure and scalable access mechanism & sustainable model 3. Full statutory footing and integration of novel data 6/

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 25/02/2025

The NDL is vital enabling infrastructure for better: • Policy: helping connect the dots across departments quickly • Research: running more clinical trials with faster results • Growth: spawning new AI-led industries • Services: spotting people at risk & reaching them quickly 5/

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 25/02/2025

The NDL is uniquely placed to do a few very important things well: 🚀 Accelerate and simplify how we link and use data 👍 Streamline data-sharing bureaucracy 🔋 Help government bodies to share data responsibly 💥 Deliver real-world impact for citizens, researchers and industry 4/

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 25/02/2025

The NDL is a manifesto commitment and has become something of a shorthand for data-related things in government – with 29 mentions in Parliament,* not to mention at least five references policy papers including the AI Action Plan and the Digital Blueprint 3/ * could be more – they keep coming!

Priority reforms
The new digital centre will catalyse change across the public sector. It will:
• Create the National Data Library, making it easier to find and reuse data across public sector organisations; this supports better prevention, intervention and detection, and opens up data to industry, the voluntary sector, start-ups and academics to accelerate Al-driven innovation and boost growth.

We should seek to responsibly unlock both public and private data sets to enable innovation by UK startups and researchers and to attract international talent and capital. As part of this, government needs to develop a more sophisticated
understanding of the value of the data it holds, how this value can be responsibly realised, and how to ensure the preservation of public trust across all its work to unlock its data assets.
The creation of the National Data Library
(NDL) presents an enormous opportunity.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 25/02/2025

To avoid committing one of those cardinal policy sins of saying “Govt is doing this… and we agree”, we had to get into the detail of what the NDL could most usefully do and what it would take to get there. This meant taking an approach that was vision-led, not technology-led – ends over means 2/

open.substack.com

Death by a thousand roundtables

Most policy work is pointless. It doesn’t need to be.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 25/02/2025

Joining forces today with @anastasiabekt.bsky.social at The Entrepreneurs Network and TBI colleagues to map out the road to the National Data Library. Instead of pointing to a gap in policy and saying “do this”, we share our take on how to help an exciting govt initiative succeed: bit.ly/3XgHjLQ 1/

bit.ly

Governing in the Age of AI: Building Britain’s National Data Library

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 25/02/2025

One of (many) key insights for me from this was how important Treasury buy-in was for most transformations – not even funding but the whole “does this give us new ways to embed our POV across government” story is fascinating. Plus: computers in making their way into government use in 1920s already!

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 13/01/2025

It just so happens that funding and time are the two scarcest resources in government. AI is not free but for many (not all) things, per task it is *much, much* cheaper than any alternative and as good or better quality-wise.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 13/01/2025

Gave it a shot. Think we might need to have that conversation with @jamesomalley.co.uk after all. And you’re all invited to join in!

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 13/01/2025

We mean a lot more than ChatGPT!

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 02/01/2025

I would say it matters massively, for exactly the reason you put in the first post: government is about trade-offs, and without a coherent strategy (a small set of commonly understood & clearly articulated priorities) those decisions won’t be made quickly, or well, or at all.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 02/01/2025

In fact, “not a good look” is just another facet of “consultation nation”, except without even a semblance of due process. As @duncanrobinson.bsky.social writes, it leads to bad policy. And bad policy *is* bad politics.

The appeal of the phrase is obvious. MPs who rely on it can hide behind an imagined voter, rather than exercising their own judgment, reducing themselves to one-person parliamentary focus groups.
For analysts, it offers a crutch of faux objectivity. Saying that a policy is wrong or immoral is banned for supposedly objective observers. So say it is a bad look to maintain your credentials as a shrewd political operative. Such an attitude breeds a cynical indifference to the consequences of politics. Whether things are actually important comes second to whether voters notice. If people found New Labour's mantra in the 1990s that
"What matters is what works" a dismal philosophy, then "What matters is what plays well" is even worse.
If looking shrewd is the intention, the effect is often the opposite. A focus on appearances leads to naive analysis.

“For government the equivalent reads: policy first, politics second. In other words, decide the right policy to solve the problem and then fashion the right politics around it; don't decide the politics and then form a policy to suit.
In general terms, and contrary to much received political wisdom, the best politics usually derives from the best policy.”
From *On Leadership*, by Tony Blair

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 02/01/2025

An excellent piece if you’ve not read it yet. It’s a British dysfunction, but I’m sure arguments from optics alone are increasingly common elsewhere, too; & it’s not a left-right issue either. It’s also bad politics; voters care about substance more than looks, except when there’s no substance.

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Duncan Robinson @duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Wrote about “not a good look”, the worst phrase in British politics www.economist.com/britain/2025...

economist.com

The four worst words in British politics

Saying “not a good look” is not a good look

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 31/12/2024

I am very much in the camp of “people overworry about screens” (in fact I’m sure humanity in every country and at every age reads much, much more than ever, even if not on paper any more). But enjoyment of reading does matter & being too focused on reading for tests can (imo) be a factor here!

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 26/12/2024

One time in Moscow, heading home at 9am on Jan 1 after celebrating NY at a friend’s, I spent 20 minutes inside a locked trolleybus – the badly hungover driver nipped out to the corner shop for a hair of the dog & didn’t realise I was still on board. (But no transport on Christmas Day is still odd).

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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Not going to call out names of people on this app, but I see what @deanwb.bsky.social is seeing a lot in policy circles.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 15/12/2024

A system of multiple numbers (the “number” is a red herring imo but let’s roll with it) is more open to a different set of bad outcomes. So now we’re in the world of politics, where choices need to be made – great! I think you and I disagree on the value of different trade-offs, but that’s normal!

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 15/12/2024

It is not a panacea, it is hard, it is imo more likely than people think to become near-universal. It makes the join-up easier but is just one part of a broader system required for it. (That system can be delivered without a dID but that would be even harder, less effective and more expensive).

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 15/12/2024

OneLogin is the most likely route under the current circumstances. We now also have a legal framework going through Parliament for certification & revocation of privately-run dIDs (I agree personally that a publicly-run one is better, and there’s lots of evidence more people would trust it).

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 15/12/2024

We are not talking about ID cards here. At least I’m not. The two get conflated a lot, sure, which is one of the ways in which this debate in the UK is different from pretty much the rest of the world.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 15/12/2024

dID is a way to provide proof that you are who you say are & that certain things about you are true. We do this a lot from day to day, with a lot of faff, & already run numerous “ID channels”; dID cuts the faff for those who want to use it & simplifies lots of things on the service delivery side.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 15/12/2024

Fair! (Won’t quibble on the PM point). I also think there is a meaningful distinction among advocates of tech in public services between those who only trust in tech & those who also believe in the possibility of good government (tech-solutionism vs tech-optimism?). I’m very much in the latter camp.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 15/12/2024

I do. So, I assume, does the FT, who I am quoting here with this specific turn of phrase.

A British e-ID could supercharge public service reform - helping, for example, to integrate personal health records and patient data and streamline welfare payments.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 15/12/2024

Is “less eff govt, and freedom” not the habit of mind most associated with that particular party? More broadly, “let’s forego opportunities to make government work better because the next democratically elected lot might do X” strikes me as a recipe for continued decline of public services.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 15/12/2024

What is it about the British state specifically that would compel it to take that path, in contrast to others around the world?

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 15/12/2024

Eminently sensible @financialtimes.com leader today: “A British e-ID could supercharge public service reform.” Yes, it could! Is this, too, banging on about ID cards?..

A UK e-ID would require debate and consultation. It would not be easy. But if Britain truly wants a modern state, it is an idea whose moment has come.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 12/12/2024

We do have a “glorious past”, and not *so* distant, to reference – after all, much of the pre-Beveridge social and physical infrastructure came out of local/municipal charity and government. But probably don’t have decades to wait like we had done back then – so need to learn to scale much quicker.

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Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Eg on both mainline trains and on London Underground there are more and more signs that say you must have a charged phone for your ticket to be valid. Something has gone a bit wrong here in the digital delivery of tickets and payments: a digital transaction should have a mark on a ledger somewhere

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 12/12/2024

Not the point but: 1. TfL won’t recognise a physical card and a Apple/Google Wallet one as the same, because the latter, for privacy reasons, have unique id’s. 2. Modern iPhones (Android likely too but not definitely) shut off a little before losing all charge, so you can eg pay with a dead phone.

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 12/12/2024

Really enjoyed this. As always with trust, there’s an element of chicken-and-egg in citizen involvement, in that competence builds trust but as you point out without that trust competent government is at risk. Bridging the local-national scale gap is another challenge (one that tech helps with).

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Ian @ianpatterson.com · 11/12/2024

Syrian events just amaze. FT journalists in Damascus say it took just 15 mins to be accredited by the new govt. one of the HTS leaders in Damascus from Idlib points out they introduced an ID card system there that takes just 5 mins for a digital Id. Coming soon to Damascus. on.ft.com/3OPwSKI

on.ft.com

The department of flags: Syrian rebels lay bare Assad’s corrupt state

Transitional authorities grapple with bureaucracy filled with phantom jobs, pervasive graft and culture of obedience

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 11/12/2024

Write an editorial criticising a speech by a government minister, devote 90% of the piece on the previous government’s policies and all of three sentences to the speech itself 🤷‍♂️

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 10/12/2024

As he’s from Singapore, the two available options are I suspect “anonymous scientist escaping their past in the depth of American academia” or “frighteningly efficient technocrat with job security like you wouldn’t believe”

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Alexander Iosad @iosad.fyi · 10/12/2024

That was very enjoyable.

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