The UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS) launched a Beta version of its gov.uk app recently.

The app is intended to provide another way to access public services alongside other places like job centres, town halls, schools, telephone call centres and the gov.uk website.

Ideally people will be able to choose what route to use based on what works for them, the friends and family they help to access public services, and the particular services they need at the time they need them.

In the circles I work in there’s been lots of discussion of the app

One thing I’ve not seen mentioned is that the app tries to avoid legal responsibility for providing a decent public service to people. It even recommends that people take separate professional advice rather than relying on the services and information provided by the GOV.UK app.

It would improve public services across the sector if the app took more responsibility and encouraged other public services to do the same.

Responsibility by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images

The disclaimer section reads like a commercial service, not a public service

The app has a set of terms and conditions that reads like something you’d see in a commercial service, not a public service.

The disclaimer section says:

we do not provide any express or implied guarantees, conditions or warranties that the information available via the GOV.UK app will be:

+ suitable for your individual requirements 
+ available 
+ current
+ accurate

So, the government is unwilling to say that public service information provided by the government is accurate?

We do not publish advice on the GOV.UK app. You should get professional or specialist advice before doing anything on the basis of the content [published on the app].

So, if I used the app to look for government advice on how to get a UK driving licence then I should also speak with a lawyer before applying to the government? 

we’re not liable for any loss or damage that may come from using the GOV.UK app. This includes, but is not limited to, the loss of your:

+ income or revenue
+ salary, benefits or other payments
+ business
..[there’s more]

So, if I used the app to sort out something to do with my parent’s pension, there was a mistake in the app and my parent lost their pension then the government would not help me or them out?

Seriously?

How do things like this happen?

There’s a few things that could have led to this kind of disclaimer being added to the app. For example:

GDS might worry about taking responsibility for other public sector organisations. Even in its beta stage the app includes bits of public services provided by multiple public sector organisations. Perhaps GDS didn’t want to be held responsible for other organisation’s mistakes? Or even to be responsible for working out who is responsible? But part of the app’s job is to help people understand and deal with the many public sector organisations within it. Not to try to shift responsibility around and leave it to the public to work out how to hold organisations who fail them accountable for those failures.

Traditionally gov.uk has focussed on information. The proposition says that gov.uk does not offer advice on what the user should do, unless users need advice in order to complete their task. The app is due to have a chatbot, called GOV.UK Chat, added to it and chatbots can both add more complex supply chains and provide information in ways that more users will experience as advice. GDS may also be nervous about AI chatbots’ susceptibility to technical malfunctions, like ‘hallucinations’. But, let’s be honest, the point when information becomes advice has never been a clear one and as GDS’s AI playbook says “Ultimately, responsibility for any output or decision made or supported by an AI system always rests with the public organisation”. Sound advice.

When does information become advice?

GDS aren’t used to delivering apps and apps often have terms and conditions. GDS’s One Login app has a similarly strong disclaimer and says there is no liability for “loss or damage arising from an inability to access or use GOV.UK One Login“. Hardly a reassuring statement when millions of people will need to use One Login to get access to things like tax payments, state pensions, disability and unemployment benefits. One Login has already had at least one serious security vulnerability. Who will be liable if, or when, a hacker takes advantage of the next one?

Lawyers gonna be lawyers. It’s easy to imagine some lawyers recommending these kinds of terms and conditions, and people managing the app deciding they need to follow that advice rather than challenge it. If you look then you find that since 2013 gov.uk has also had a set of terms and conditions that don’t guarantee the government will provide accurate information and tell people to read the terms and conditions of all the public services they access through gov.uk. It’s important to support people to understand how public services work, but you can’t do that in a set of legal terms and conditions. Yuck.

The app should encourage the public sector to take more responsibility

GDS is not providing a commercial service that can hide behind contracts and lengthy terms and conditions. In the private sector you find backstop compensation schemes – like the Financial Services Compensation Scheme – when organisations fail. There is no equivalent for public services and, to put it politely, the UK government does not have a great record of running compensation schemes for its failures.

Instead the backstop for responsibility is ultimately things like administrative law and politics.

Would the app’s Ministers really want to stand up in Parliament and say that the app does not provide accurate information? That people should pay for professional advice after reading advice provided by the government? That the government isn’t liable for its own mistakes?

Not quite the vision being sold by Peter Kyle, and DSIT’s blueprint for a modern government, of more public services that work across institutional boundaries and do the hard work to make things simpler for people.

So, if government lawyers are the ones recommending contractual terms and conditions then both GDS team and its Ministers should say no.

By taking clear, legal responsibility at the app level, and tidying up responsibility on gov.uk too…, GDS can encourage other public sector organisations and their suppliers to take responsibility for providing better public services by making clear their actual legal and democratic responsibilities and ensuring they have clear liability before their services are made available.

The GOV.UK app can shape an ecosystem of other services and suppliers to take responsibility for providing better public services to people.

Given the government’s push on using more automation and technology clear responsibilities and liabilities will only become more important. It might reduce the chance of the government having to create more compensation schemes that can cost billions of pounds. 

A culture of responsibility across the public sector would mean that more public services work for people, and fewer public services that fail the people they serve.