In the final podcast episode of the year, we look back at what has happened over the past 12 months at GDS in 2019.
The transcript of the episode follows:
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Sarah Stewart:
Hello and welcome to the GDS Podcast. I’m Sarah Stewart. Today’s podcast, the final one of 2019, is a special one, it’s GDS’s Year in Review. Last year, Angus and I went through the year very methodically picking out our highlights. It was quite fun. It’s my last podcast, so I wanted to do something better than quite fun. And what’s better than quite fun? A quiz! I’m going to host a quiz!
So I’m going to be asking 24 questions about GDS, 2 for each month. Obviously, the person with the most points will win. Producer Emily is going to keep score. So let’s meet our contestants.
Contestant number one, what’s your name, what do you do and where are you from?
Laura Stevens:
So my name is Laura Stevens. I’m a writer here at GDS. And I’m from a small village in Surrey called Tadworth.
Sarah Stewart:
What’s Tadworth known for?
Laura Stevens:
So it’s not known for very much, so I had to look this up before I came on the podcast. But it was referenced in the ‘Doomsday Book’ so it’s very old. In the ‘Doomsday Book’ it was known as having woodland worth 4 hogs. So you know, I don’t really know like what --
Sarah Stewart:
What a sum!
Laura Stevens:
Yeah, like I don’t really know what that equates to but I thought it was quite a fun fact.
Sarah Stewart:
You don’t see hogs very much anymore.
Angus Montgomery:
How many trees per hog?
Sarah Stewart:
And what kind of tree?
Laura Stevens:
Yeah, and what kind of hog? I mean...
Angus Montgomery:
All good questions.
Sarah Stewart:
And Laura, what is your specialist subject at GDS would you say?
Laura Stevens:
So I would say my specialist subject would be design here at GDS. But I am wary of saying that because I know that Angus is also very into design and I feel like he may you know, show me up in this quiz and take all the design answers.
Sarah Stewart:
Which is a good segue into asking contestant number two, what’s your name and where do you come from?
Angus Montgomery:
Hello. I’m Angus Montgomery. I’m a Strategy Advisor and I live in Woodbridge in Suffolk.
Sarah Stewart:
Woodbridge. Isn’t that where the celebrities live?
Angus Montgomery:
Yeah. Well, it depends on your definition of celebrity, I suppose. So Woodbridge’s most famous son was Thomas Seckford, who was an advisor to Elizabeth I. More contemporary famous sons include Brian Eno and Charlie from Busted.
Sarah Stewart:
Oh my gosh.
Laura Stevens:
Is Charlie the one with the eyebrows?
Angus Montgomery:
I think so, yeah. The handsome one. He did a solo career.
Sarah Stewart:
Yes. Fightstar.
Angus Montgomery:
That’s it, yeah.
Laura Stevens:
That’s excellent Busted knowledge.
Sarah Stewart:
So Angus, what’s your specialist subject at GDS?
Angus Montgomery:
I don’t know, it sounds a bit creepy if I’m going to say it out loud but the people at GDS. Like I think that’s the thing that I’m most interested in, is all the people who work here and the things that they do.
Sarah Stewart:
So it’s good to meet you contestants.
Angus Montgomery:
Good to be here.
Sarah Stewart:
I need you to press the buzzer when you have the correct answer.
Cue the tense intro music Emily, Producer Emily. Let’s do this.
In January, we recorded a podcast with the Global Digital Marketplace team. They are helping to tackle corruption – a $2.6 trillion problem. The team visited 5 countries, talking to people at state and local level. Can you name all 5 countries? Laura.
Laura Stevens:
Okay. I think I’ve got this: South Africa, Malaysia, Colombia, Indonesia… I’m going to fall down on the last one!
Angus Montgomery:
I think I know the last one.
Laura Stevens:
What’s the last one?
Sarah Stewart:
No no no no, we can’t do that.
Angus Montgomery:
Oh.
Laura Stevens:
Oh so do I just..?
Sarah Stewart:
You’re compromising the integrity of the quiz.
Laura Stevens:
Do I get a hint or do I just…?
Sarah Stewart:
Here’s your clue. Its name also features in the name of its capital city. Massive clue...
The answer was Mexico.
Laura Stevens:
That’s really annoying.
Sarah Stewart:
Mexico City. Okay. So, I’m afraid no one can take a point from that.
Okay, next question. The first ever Services Week took place from 28th January to 1st February. It was a nationwide, cross-government event that explored how people could work together to deliver end-to-end user-focused services. Now, one of the workshops during Services Week was designed to improve online forms. It was a sell-out workshop but what was the name of that workshop? Angus.
Angus Montgomery:
Was it called Formapalooza?
Sarah Stewart:
Correct! One point to Angus.
Angus Montgomery:
Boom.
Laura Stevens:
First one on the scoreboard, you know.
Angus Montgomery:
Yeah.
Sarah Stewart:
Okay, moving onto February now. In February, the GDS Academy turned 5 and launched a new course – Introduction to Artificial Intelligence [AI] in Government. Can you name an example of where AI is already being used in government? Laura.
Laura Stevens:
Aren’t we using it here at GDS to do supervised machine learning on GOV.UK?
Sarah Stewart:
Excellent, Laura. One point.
Laura Stevens:
Yes! Back in the game.
Sarah Stewart:
Next question. GovWifi is a common component that we all know and love. It provides free, secure wifi in public sector buildings. It’s used 2 million times a month. We noticed that it was also being accessed through which surprising device?
Laura Stevens:
Is it a device you would find in a home?
Sarah Stewart:
Yes, perhaps in the home of a teenager.
Laura Stevens:
PlayStation.
Sarah Stewart:
Correct answer. And actually, there were 6 PlayStations that were recorded.
Angus Montgomery:
Who’s brought a PlayStation in?
Sarah Stewart:
I don’t know. It could be in any public sector building.
Next question. The 11th competition for the GovTech Catalyst opened in March. Technology firms were invited to apply to develop innovative solutions for a challenge submitted by Oxfordshire County Council but what was that challenge?
Laura Stevens:
Was it something to do with the traffic system?
Sarah Stewart:
Yes.
Laura Stevens:
And driverless cars..?
Sarah Stewart:
Yes! Yes! Well done. Next question.
A team, a new team was created for GOV.UK to maintain and operate the GOV.UK platform. What was the new team called? Laura.
Laura Stevens:
Is it the Platform Health team?
Sarah Stewart:
Correct.
Sprint is GDS’s flagship conference. In April, we announced the agenda and that we would travel to 5 locations across the UK to discuss the impact of digital transformation on public services. Name those cities. Angus.
Angus Montgomery:
In order: Edinburgh, Cardiff, Leeds, Belfast and London.
Sarah Stewart:
One point to Angus. I almost said Laura then.
Laura Stevens:
Give me all the points.
Angus Montgomery:
Shall we have a check in on the scores?
Sarah Stewart:
Yeah, let’s check in on the scores. Wow. Okay. Laura’s ahead.
In April, there was an Unconference at GDS. People were invited to pitch and present on topics of their choosing. Richard Towers held a discussion on making coding more accessible to people at GDS. Which of the following is a programming language that we do not use at GDS? Ruby, Python, Node.js, Go, Java, C#, Scala. Angus.
Angus Montgomery:
C#?
Sarah Stewart:
Correct!
Laura Stevens:
Did you know that?
Angus Montgomery:
I don’t know that much about programming languages. But I’ve heard people talking about the other ones.
Sarah Stewart:
Okay. Well just to say, there was a trick answer in there as well. So for those people who really know their programming, we don’t use Scala anymore but there is an old project that’s still is in Scala but it’s not maintained.
Laura Stevens:
Ooh I like that, a trick question.
Sarah Stewart:
Okay so this is May. GOV.UK Pay – a free and secure online payment service for government and public sector organisations – took its first payment for a service in a language other than English. For half a point, what was that language? And, for the full point, how do you say seamless integration in that language? Laura.
Laura Stevens:
Welsh. I’m just going for the half point. I don’t, I don’t have the other half of it.
Angus Montgomery:
Not confident?
Laura Stevens:
I’m not confident. I’ve never spoken Welsh so I wouldn’t want to offend anybody. Do you have, do you know it?
Angus Montgomery:
No.
Laura Stevens:
I don’t know. You knew about programming languages, so I thought you might also have-
Angus Montgomery:
Welsh knowledge?
Laura:
Yeah, Welsh knowledge..
Angus Montgomery:
The two don’t always go together.
Sarah Stewart:
Okay. Well, I’ve got it written down here and I don’t want to offend anyone either. It’s been quite a good year for common components, has it not?
Angus Montgomery:
It has. So, I mean, as well as GOV.UK Pay, you’ve got GOV.UK Notify, which is a great success and is used by more than half the local authorities across the UK.
Laura Stevens:
Yeah. It helps them do things like sending letters, which can be really time-consuming and where mistakes can be made.
Sarah Stewart:
Okay. With changing regulations affecting public sector accessibility requirements, we advised how to publish an accessibility statement but where can you find that? Angus.
Angus Montgomery:
GOV.UK.
Sarah Stewart:
Yes! In June, we’re halfway through.
Laura Stevens:
Yeah!
Sarah Stewart:
How fun.
In June, a strategy and a guide were published. What was the name of that strategy and what was the name of the guide? I need the official names, please.
Laura Stevens:
I think the first one is the Government Technology Innovation Strategy then it’s ‘A Guide to Using AI in the Public Sector’?
Sarah Stewart:
Correct. Laura has got the full point.
In June, Kevin Cunnington, GDS’s Director General stepped down after 3 years leading the organisation. He took a new role on, at the International Government Service, and Alison Pritchard was named as Interim DG [Director General]. Can you tell me where in the world she was when she was offered the job? Angus.
Angus Montgomery:
I think she was near Madagascar, wasn’t she, in the Indian Ocean?
Sarah Stewart:
I...I don’t think I can accept that.
Angus Montgomery:
Oh. She was on a boat in in, at sea.
Sarah Stewart:
And well it...I’m going to accept Indian Ocean because she was sailing on a boat somewhere between Darwin and Christmas Island. So I would have accepted Timor Sea or the Indian Ocean.
Okay, so technically this happened in June, July was a little bit quiet.
So GDS’s step by step work on GOV.UK won a D&AD Award for Service Design. Please can you name my favourite step by step journey on GOV.UK? Angus.
Angus Montgomery:
Is it Reporting Found Treasure?
Sarah Stewart:
Correct!
Laura Stevens:
I mean, even if I’d got in first, I would have actually been wrong. I thought it was actually Bring Your Pet to the UK.
Sarah Stewart:
Where would I be bringing it from?
Laura Stevens:
I don’t know. You might have bought your pet abroad.
Sarah Stewart:
Oh yeah. I actually did look into dog rescue in Greece.
Laura Stevens:
So you know, clearly I could have been right. But alas, it was more finding treasure.
Sarah Stewart:
So what’s so good about step by step?
Laura Stevens:
Well, there are now 47 live, and obviously, it’s really good that they are winning awards and everything but also they’re being, they’re really helping people. They are also helping the other parts of GOV.UK like our voice assistant work. So now you can ask your Alexa or Google Home if you want to learn to drive a car. And yeah, it's helping people where they need it.
And it’s quite like, when I spoke to Kate [Ivey-Williams] and Sam [Dub] about it, Kate was saying what motivated her is that ease to make government like, as invisible as possible. So say you’re dealing with a very distressing situation, like somebody has passed away, you don’t want to be like dealing with any government admin at that point. And so if the step by step can just give you the answers that you need and tell you very clearly, that’s a really helpful thing to do for users.
Sarah Stewart:
What is your favourite step by step journey, Laura?
Laura Stevens:
My favourite step by step journey is quite a boring one but I like it because I’m on the video for it. It’s How to Drive a Car. I feature saying it into a phone. Then it got screened at Sprint 18.
Sarah Stewart:
Wow.
Laura Stevens:
So you know, me in this jumper, it’s quite an old jumper. I didn’t really expect to be used in filming that day. It’s been immortalised.
Sarah Stewart:
So if you want to have a visual picture of Laura, if you want to connect the voice to the face, watch that journey. It’s on YouTube.
In July we released, oh this is, actually, this next question could be in Laura’s advantage, just given your specialist subject for design. In July, we released new updates to the colours and font on GOV.UK. The GOV.UK colour palette is made up of 7 colours – grey, black, blue, red, yellow, green and white. Which 2 colours weren’t updated? Angus.
Angus Montgomery:
Black and white?
Sarah Stewart:
Correct!
Laura Stevens:
That is great knowledge.
Sarah Stewart:
Angus is in the lead.
Angus Montgomery:
Yes!
Sarah Stewart:
Wow.
Laura Stevens:
Oh so I need to make a comeback?
Angus Montgomery:
Yeah, Laura needs to make a comeback.
Laura Stevens:
Is that because he’s got lots of half points? Trying hard but...
Sarah Stewart:
He’s not committing.
Angus Montgomery:
What’s that meant to mean?
Sarah Stewart:
In August we talked about work we had to do following July’s reshuffle. When there is a reshuffle, GOV.UK needs to update the information as quickly as possible. True or false – the GOV.UK team knows this information before the public?
Laura Stevens:
False.
Sarah Stewart:
Correct. They find out at the same time as everyone else.
Laura Stevens:
Yeah July...during the reshuffle in July, because it was quite like a big change and the changes were coming quite like quickly, the team really had to step up. And so that’s working late nights, making sure that GOV.UK is always like the canonical source of information.
Sarah Stewart:
Yeah.
Laura Stevens:
So they had to make updates to 100 individual ministers’ GOV.UK roles. They had to update ministers’ biographies. They had to add profiles to GOV.UK for people who hadn’t worked for Government before. They had to reorder the list of ministers on 22 department pages. And they had to reorder the Government Ministers page. And obviously there’s a lot of eyes on GDS, well on GOV.UK and GDS’s team, GDS’s work through that. So yeah, they did really well.
Sarah Stewart:
Go team. Ok, next question.
Alison took up the role of DG [Director General] at GDS and wrote an introductory blog post sharing a little bit about her past. It’s incredibly well written. Alison has a fantastic background in public service but what was her very first job serving the public?
Angus Montgomery:
I feel like I know this.
Sarah Stewart:
It was in the blog post, if you read it.
Angus Montgomery:
I don’t know if it was her very first job but she was Minister Responsible for Cage Fighting at one stage, wasn’t she?
Laura Stevens:
That’s quite a high entry as your first job. Minister for Cage Fighting.
Angus Montgomery:
Not Minister, obviously. She was a senior civil servant responsible for cage fighting in some capacity.
Laura Stevens:
She was pulling pints…?
Sarah Stewart:
You can’t give them clues.
Angus Montgomery:
I thought you said first job in the civil service.
Sarah Stewart:
No.
Angus Montgomery:
Oh, first job.
Laura Stevens:
No. It was first job serving the public.
Angus Montgomery:
Oh so serving the public.
Laura Stevens:
Is this a pun?
Sarah Stewart:
Yes.
Laura Stevens:
Oh!
Angus Montgomery:
You’re operating on a level that I’m not!
Sarah Stewart:
Yes! She was a barmaid when she was eight.
Laura Stevens:
Oh. Is that...
Angus Montgomery:
Is that legal?
Laura Stevens:
Do we need to check in on that?
Sarah Stewart:
It was…
Angus Montgomery:
Do we need to check on the legality of that claim?
Laura Stevens:
You need to investigate some pub wherever she grew up.
Sarah Stewart:
It was her family pub and she just served soft drinks.
Sarah Stewart:
Ok, so September. Plans for a new permanent secretary level Government Chief Digital Information Officer (GCDIO) were announced at Sprint. Alison said that GCDIO was a bit of a mouthful, so what was the title shortened to? Angus.
Angus Montgomery:
She calls them ‘The Big G’.
Sarah Stewart:
Correct. Adding that it incorporates a sense of scale and seniority for that particular post.
Mark Hurrell, the former Head of Design for GOV.UK and the Head of Graphic Design at GDS wrote the most popular blog post in Design in Government blog history. What was it about? Laura.
Laura Stevens:
So I feel like I need to claw this back after Angus took my specialist subject earlier. Is it the post about the design principles posters?
Sarah Stewart:
Correct. Yes, well done.
Laura Stevens:
There was also a very nice… we can plug the Instagram here as well, because I believe Roger Valentine did a very nice animation about those posts as well.
Sarah Stewart:
Oh.
Laura Stevens:
Yeah.
Sarah Stewart:
Great. In October, 2 members of the Sustainability Network – Emily Labram and Will Pearson – estimated the maximum amount of CO2 that GDS produces. How many tonnes of CO2 did they estimate we produced? Laura.
Laura Stevens:
Was it 4,000?
Sarah Stewart:
Correct!
Laura Stevens:
Ah! That’s so much.
Sarah Stewart:
That’s a lot but it’s an important piece of work. It’s good to know exactly what your impact is.
Laura Stevens:
And is it on the blog post?
Sarah Stewart:
It is. All of the details are on the blog post and how they calculated it as well.
Angus Montgomery:
And where does that come from, the CO2?
Sarah Stewart:
It’s things like data centres that are consuming lots of energy. Like and whether that energy is, I mean the question is whether you can have renewable energy sources to keep things like data centres up and running and...
Laura Stevens:
Yeah and I think also, that blog post got a lot of comments, as well. So I think it’s something that other government departments or like arm’s length bodies, or whatever are looking into.
Sarah Stewart:
Yeah cause you, yeah, I guess you think that the big culprits are fashion, oil and gas industries. Actually, everyone is sort of-
Laura Stevens:
Yeah, everyone is responsible.
Sarah Stewart:
Yes.
In October, GOV.UK turned 7. Tell me, what was notable about the desks that the team worked on when GOV.UK was launched? Laura.
Laura Stevens:
Is this from an article you wrote?
Sarah Stewart:
Me? Or Secretary of State?
Laura Stevens:
Sorry, sorry, the ghostwriting that doesn’t exist.
Sarah Stewart:
Yeah, yeah.
Laura Stevens:
Is it that they were cardboard boxes?
Sarah Stewart:
Correct. Thank you for reading that by the way.
I’m going to read a quote from a GDS figure. Please can you identify the speaker, their job title and tell me what they are talking about. The quote starts, “Unlike many publishers or commercial organisations, we’re not incentivised by statistics like page views or the number of visitors. Our interest is in making sure we are where the user is,” end quote. Angus.
Angus Montgomery:
That is Jen Allum, who is Head of GOV.UK, talking about, well I guess the sort of success metrics for GOV.UK. And it’s interesting what she’s saying about that, that obviously we’re not a commercial organisation, we’re an organisation that’s here to serve user needs. So the traditional kind of understanding of people, you know you want to increase the number of people coming to your site, like that’s not how we operate.
I mean it’s good to know those figures obviously. And it’s good to know who’s coming and what they are looking at and what’s getting a lot of traffic and stuff. But that’s not ultimately what motivates people and that’s not what motivates their future vision for GOV.UK, which is about serving users, helping them to do whatever it is that they need to do, regardless of whether that’s a simple thing or a complex life event.
Sarah Stewart:
Perfect answer. One point.
November saw the creation of another community at GDS. GDS has got so many lovely communities. What was that community? Laura.
Laura Stevens:
Was it Muslims at GDS?
Sarah Stewart:
Correct! Networks are a nice thing, aren’t they?
Laura Stevens:
They are.
Sarah Stewart:
What’s your favourite network? What networks are you part of?
Laura Stevens:
So at GDS I’m part of the Women’s Network. I’ve also recently joined the Mental Health Network because I interviewed Ben on the podcast, Ben Carpenter on the podcast last month. What about you Angus?
Angus Montgomery:
I’m not a member, although I probably ought to be. But I go to quite a lot of the Women’s Network events, which are really good. I think it’s great obviously not being a woman and being able to go to these things and being part of that community.
But no, I think the good thing about the networks is, even if you are not a member, they are really visible so I’ve been to quite a few events that the LGBT Network have done as well. I just think it’s really good that, yeah they’re so active and there is so much going on.
Laura Stevens:
Yeah, I think that part about being open to all is really nice. Because often you can just join them by joining the Slack channel, and that’s very, you can just be there. So if you’re joining GDS as a person who’s not been in government before or anything, you can just be like, “here’s a few friendly faces” and you don’t have to...you can be kind of as active or as inactive as you want to be as part of the network.
So what networks are you part of?
Sarah Stewart:
I dip my toes into a few pools. Does that work? I mean not physiologically. Metaphorically. I’m really interested in the work that the Women’s Group do, particularly around negotiating pay rises and public speaking. But also the Mental Health Network is really valuable because it’s such an everyday thing here. Well it’s becoming more of an everyday thing here to talk about how you are feeling. And I think that in other organisations, that’s not the case. I think there is a real push to normalise talking about it, which is ultimately very healthy.
Laura Stevens:
And it’s really nice that GDS can take like a leading role in that then, in setting a precedent on how that’s a good thing.
Sarah Stewart:
Yeah. Okay, we’ve only got 2 questions left. We’re almost at the end. So can you tell me how many types of chocolate were tried by GDS Chocolate Club in 2019? And I should add that GDS Chocolate Club is funded by its members and is an out of hours club.
Angus Montgomery:
6.
Sarah Stewart:
Laura.
Laura Stevens:
I’m going to go much higher. I’m going to go like 24.
Sarah Stewart:
Well you’ve both fallen short. 65 chocolates were tasted in 2019.
Angus Montgomery:
Woah.
Laura Stevens:
Is this the final question?
Sarah Stewart:
This is the final question of the quiz. Name every person in the Creative Team who made the GDS Podcast series possible this year.
Angus Montgomery:
Laura.
Laura Stevens:
Angus.
Angus Montgomery:
Sarah.
Sarah Stewart:
Thank you.
Laura Stevens:
Producer Emily.
Angus Montgomery:
To give her her full title. Animator and photographer, Roger.
Laura Stevens:
And we’ve got filmmaker Graham. Producer Megan Painter.
Sarah Stewart:
Yeah.
Laura Stevens:
Designer Charlotte.
Angus Montgomery:
Couldn’t possibly forget Alastair Mogford, who not only set up this podcast but documented how we do it and wrote down a very long description which we’ve all been using now because we all forget like what the set-up is and stuff. So thank you, Alastair.
Laura Stevens:
Shout out to Alastair.
And also we’ve got to shoutout to our social media star, Lou Mullan.
Angus Montgomery:
And thanks obviously to Chris Watson.
Sarah Stewart:
Oh wait. How do we attribute points to this?
Angus Montgomery:
Everyone gets points for that.
Laura Stevens:
Because it’s a team effort.
Angus Montgomery:
Yes.
Sarah Stewart:
Aw that’s nice. That’s the spirit, isn’t it?
Laura Stevens:
Well, well done team though, because we’ve done 14 podcasts!
Angus Montgomery:
Yeah!
Laura Stevens:
Thanks to everyone there.
Sarah Stewart:
And thank you so much to all of our listeners for your loyal support over the past year.
Ok so Emily, can you tell us, can you hand me the final scores. I’m going to announce who the winner is-
Angus Montgomery:
Ah!
Laura Stevens:
Drumroll.
Sarah Stewart:
After I announce who the runner-up is.
Angus Montgomery:
Oh.
Sarah Stewart:
It was Angus.
Angus Montgomery:
Yay!
Sarah Stewart:
Well done.
Laura Stevens:
Well done Angus.
Sarah Stewart:
But today’s winner is Laura Stevens. So, your prize is 3 chocolate bars wrapped up inside a civil service lanyard.
Laura Stevens:
Oh that’s very kind of you, thank you.
Sarah Stewart:
So claps for..
Laura Stevens:
Aww! Well, but there’s 3 so you know we can divide amongst…
Angus Montgomery:
Oh, well how convenient. Apart from Producer Emily.
Laura Stevens:
I tried to do that really nicely.
Angus Montgomery:
There, there are actually 4 of us in the room.
Laura Stevens:
I will share that out amongst all of us here.
Sarah Stewart:
That’s very magnanimous of you.
Laura Stevens:
Aww.
Sarah Stewart:
Aww, good winner. Ok so that brings us to the end of the last podcast of 2019. How did you think it went?
Angus Montgomery:
It was very challenging.
Sarah Stewart:
It doesn’t sound...
Laura Stevens:
But I did come out as a winner, so I mean..
Angus Montgomery:
Yeah.
Laura Stevens:
I feel like-
Angus Montgomery:
I mean obviously I came out as a runner up, so it was more challenging for me.
Sarah Stewart:
2019 has been quite a year, hasn’t it?
Laura Stevens:
Yes.
Angus Montgomery:
Uh huh.
Sarah Stewart:
What have your highlights been?
Angus Montgomery:
Well I moved team. So I’m now on the Strategy Team, which explains why I’m not as involved in the podcasts as I was before. So yeah, that’s a highlight. But obviously being on the Creative Team was also a highlight.
Laura Stevens:
Aww.
Sarah Stewart:
That’s sweet. Laura, what’s your highlight been?
Laura Stevens:
I’ve really liked actually getting more involved in the podcasts, which is quite an appropriate thing to say in this podcast episode.
Angus Montgomery:
On the podcast..
Laura Stevens:
But no I’ve spoken to really interesting people, like Kate Ivy-Williams and Sam Dub. Yeah, lots of other people as well, on the podcast.
Sarah Stewart:
Great. Okay.
Laura Stevens:
But what about you? What was your highlights for the year?
Sarah Stewart:
Well I helped Alison with the presentation that she delivered at the Women into Leadership Conference. And we made a spoof book about Alison. It’s called ‘Alison by Alison Pritchard’.
Laura Stevens:
Yeah.
Sarah Stewart:
Because we were talking about like stories from her life and someone thought it was real.
Laura Stevens:
Yes. I believe also, I’m quite surprised by this because you actually wrote in fake reviews, I believe.
Sarah Stewart:
Yeah, I did reviews from ‘People’s Friend’ and ‘Time Magazine’. That was really funny, and it was a really good event as well.
So thank you to all of our listeners over 2019. It’s been quite the year in the world of the GDS Podcast, we’ve covered lots of topics. So thank you for your loyal support and lending us your ears.
Laura Stevens:
And please keep listening.
Sarah Stewart:
You can listen to all the episodes of the Government Digital Service Podcast on Apple Music, Spotify and all other major podcast platforms. You can read the transcripts on Podbean. Bye.
Angus Montgomery:
Bye.
Laura Stevens:
Bye 2019.
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