Hello and good luck, to Lisa Barrett – the newly appointed director of digital identity at the Government Digital Service (GDS). She’s taken on what many people outside GDS see as something of a poisoned chalice. You might think it strange, that this job has been created for the first time barely 12 months before GDS hands its digital identity system, Gov.uk Verify, to the private sector and government ceases further funding. But Barrett’s introductory blog is full of positivity, as you would expect. There will be no shortage of people wishing her success in her goals. For there’s one thing GDS has never quite grasped – that the growing band of Verify critics generally have one thing in common, that they want Verify (or something like it) to succeed, and have done so all along. Their criticisms often come from frustration at what they see as such a critical project, struggling as a result of poor decision-making in GDS.
