Who do you trust more to deliver digital services?

In the last few weeks, the Financial Times has started using 'mn' as its standard abbreviation for 'million'. So you start to read eg "￡6mn" in the paper and on the website. A minor change, which in a couple of weeks I've stopped noticing.

It has been excellently explained both in the paper, and by individual journalists both in writing and online. Sometimes with pride, sometimes with mild exasperation and sometimes humour. But always clear, consistent and unapologetic - and entirely professional.

The reason is to allow the FT to better cater for readers who use voice-assisted digital services, to avoid confusion with the abbreviations for 'metre' or 'mile'. That makes lots of sense and shows sensitivity to a group of users and their particular needs.

Now I enjoy my FT subscription and would recommend it to anybody. But reading the FT every day is only a pastime, and I want to contrast its approach to digital communication with something much more important, and much less impressive: the Ministry of Justice.

Last week I sadly had to attend a Mental Health Tribunal for a close relative; just the latest chapter in a long and very difficult set of circumstances for my family. This was held online and brought together the unstoppable forces of Judicial decision-making, long-term psychiatric illness, medical judgement and complex emotional issues for all involved.

I know that the Government is very proud of its GOV.UK website and tries very hard to deliver services online. But this was an event which represented one of the most important interactions that any citizen can have with the state; a world away from looking up statistical releases, reading the Levelling Up White Paper or doing my tax return.

And yet, it was as if the last 10 years of digital innovation and change had never happened. The experience was alienating, bureaucratic, and transactional. And in digital terms, embarrassingly amateurish. But if we are going to transition fully to effective digital services we need to call this out and challenge. So my advice to the MOJ is:

• please explain clearly to participants why serious business like this is being conducted online, especially when Cabinet Ministers are saying continuously that Government business is 'returning to normal'.
• use email and electronic appointments to set up an effective digital meeting. It is not acceptable to organise an online meeting with hard-copy letters, and a telephone-based helpline which is not able to give any further information.
• train the professional participants in the meeting to use digital backgrounds. I really don't want to see inside a Judge's chaotic spare bedroom when discussing important issues of personal liberty.
• if you will use your own secure meeting platform, please make sure it works - that people don't fall off the call and that administration staff know how to send invites to external participants in less than 15 minutes.
• Ask for feedback, and mean it.

Digital transformation means that any service or product needs to evolve to benefit its users, to be constantly challenged about its relevance in the digital world, and to be aware of its ability to resonate with the people who use it.

It cannot be acceptable that organisations in the public sector which are responsible for some of the biggest decisions in our lives operate at a significantly lower level than industry norms. In cannot be right that I trust the FT more than I trust the Ministry of Justice.