This is not a weeknote, this week. That’s because this is no ordinary week. It’s the last working week before Christmas, so this is a year note; a quick look back at a very, very busy 2024.
The day job
This year has been a marathon effort at work.
We’ve launched the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes in October. With Graham, I got us a blog and we’ve been furiously blogging.
I secured formal “recognition” for our certification scheme with UKAS in April; and then again in July and December. That proves not only can we create a high quality scheme, but also continually improve it. We rounded out the year by getting the pre-release of the gamma trust framework and the next version of the certification scheme out the door too.
Our market insight study has borne its first fruit; with a new interim report published, shining a light on the ÂŁ2 billion industry supported by our programme.
We got our Bill back into Parliament – after a brief hiatus due to the election – and spruced it up a bit, with several new clauses spearheaded by yours truly. And we’ve announced we will be opening up new use cases once the Bill has passed.
I led our new digital service and team through a successful alpha and private beta service assessment. The private beta has been a bit rocky, but we got “green” on all but one area at the service assessment, and “amber” on the remaining one. Apparently that means it’s “amber” overall, I think we’re in a better position than that implies.
I’ve survived leading the Spending Review and business planning process; largely with my sanity and my business case intact.
I’ve expanded my team to meet the demands of the work we’re doing. (Naturally, it’d be great if managing that larger team came with a promotion or more money; but I have at least got a new job title.)
I’ve met dozens of our stakeholders to discuss our work – service providers, conformity assessment bodies, civil society and industry groups – and the team has met hundreds more.
I’ve trailed and scaled the use of roadmaps across all my teams; which has gone so well we’re going to do try the same thing across the whole organisation next year.
And I’ve learnt a lot about my own leadership style this year; how to give my teams more confidence to deliver by radiating intent; how comfortable I am or am not with decision-making; how my tolerance for corporate process is at an all time low.
Whilst all of that has been thrilling and rewarding in equal measure, it’s also been challenging and, if I’m honest, completely exhausting. In 2025, I need to find a better work-life balance.
Mentoring
Aside from the day job, I’ve single-handedly delivered the third round of the Civil Service LGBT+ mentoring programme again this year.
326 mentors and 595 mentees took part in the programme this year, resulting in 934 mentoring matches being made. The software package developed jointly by Jonathan and I did the whole job in two minutes and three seconds. That means we’re somewhere in the region of 2,500 people having taken part over the past 3 years. Not bad for a programme being delivered at zero-marginal cost to the taxpayer!
I’ve also continued to be a mentor for a younger LGBT+ person in the early stage of their career, via Just Like Us. I feel like my mentor and I are gelling really well this year. I’m getting much more out of the experience and I think they are too (or at least I hope so).