Benjamin Welby

Benjamin Welby

@bm.wel.by

Following Jesus, husbanding and dadding, supporting #bcafc. Displaced Yorkshireman in Croydon. Governor @minsterinfants.bsky.social. Digital government, public service, hope. TBI; formerly DWP, NHS, GDS, OECD. These views are mine. https://bm.wel.by/

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Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

I thought I'd finished writing about GOV.UK on the High Street. Then a couple of visits before the end of my time at DWP made me wonder whether I'd been asking too small a question. A rather long (and overdue) post about government, regeneration, belonging, and the places where things can begin.

bm.wel.byImagining a somewhere to be: for people to belong, and to begin - bmwelby's blogFrom GOV.UK to Glasgow and Grahame Park: an essay about the visible state, regeneration, civic space and places where people can belong and begin.

Benjamin Welby reposted

steve
@visitmy.website

If you’re a lead or head working on a digital service, you’re going to be held to account by more than GDS’s guidance. And it doesn’t all live in the same place. My favourite governance nerd, Oli Lovell, has pulled together a compass. Have a peek. publicdigital-delivery-compass.netlify.app/trial/

publicdigital-delivery-compass.netlify.appGov Delivery Library: try it for a month843,253 words of UK government delivery guidance, searchable from your AI assistant. Open for a month, 3 November to 3 December 2026.
Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

Someone has run up $45 worth of OpenAI usage with one of my API keys stored in Railway. Which shouldn't really have happened given what monthly spend limits are on my OpenAI account. As well of course as the issue of Railway being hacked into...

Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

Lucky in many ways that I revoked the key when it got to 45 because apparently a limit in OpenAI is only a limit when it's called a hard limit. And if the limit isn't set as a hard limit then apparently I can spend 5000.

Benjamin Welby reposted

Gavin Freeguard
@gavinfreeguard.com

A reminder that: - The Cab Sec doesn't want you to know who is advising her on the review into the civil service medium.com/state-of-the... - The review risks starting in the wrong place (AI-driven headcount reduction), and is it as 'fundamental' as it needs to be? medium.com/state-of-the...

medium.comExclusive: the government doesn’t want you to know who’s advising it on civil service reformThe short version
Lucy Fisher@lucyfisher.ft.com

She’s been tasked with overhauling Britain’s bureaucracy. Can Antonia Romeo succeed? The high-profile cabinet secretary is pushing for radical reform amid growing pressure to shrink and improve the civil service… My read in FT www.ft.com/content/9d29...

ft.comShe’s been tasked with overhauling Britain’s bureaucracy. Can Antonia Romeo succeed?The high-profile cabinet secretary is pushing for radical reform amid growing pressure to shrink the civil service
Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

Half term holiday in the sun. During the kids mini disco they just played an Italian version of the Birdie Song and now I'm down a Wikipedia rabbit hole puzzling over how 1981/2 saw a 1957 piece of Swiss accordion music, unsuccessfully lyricised in the 70s spread memetically into multiple languages.

share.googleChicken Dance - Wikipedia
Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

If you discover your suitcase has a crack in it when you're already on your way to the airport and you patch it with some Gorilla Tape. Then don't put the roll in your carry on luggage. This is obvious, obviously, and yet it escaped me this morning.

Benjamin Welby reposted

Simon Morgan-Wilson
@officeofwilson.com

Closing things off is as valuable as starting. My team at NHS England got "stood down" recently. Used some time this week to reflect for an unofficial follow-up to our first design history. Not exhaustive. Good to acknowledge the team's hard work. www.officeofwilson.com/getting-all-...

officeofwilson.comGetting all NHS appointments into the App: where we got toFrom January to September 2026 I was product lead for a small multidisciplinary team at NHS England. Our mission: work out how people could see and manage all of their NHS appointments in the NHS App,...
Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

Today's archeological recreations triggered by an off-hand conversation in the office: Need-o-tron and Maslow. need-o-tron-demo-demo.up.railway.app maslow-demo-demo.up.railway.app

Benjamin Welby@bm.wel.by

I'm still marvelling at this. Not just how quickly it was done in a chat interface but also the wonderful thing about the GOV.UK codebase being on Github meaning that even ideas that were tried and are now abandoned can just be brought back from the dead to have a noodle with.

Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

I'm still marvelling at this. Not just how quickly it was done in a chat interface but also the wonderful thing about the GOV.UK codebase being on Github meaning that even ideas that were tried and are now abandoned can just be brought back from the dead to have a noodle with.

Benjamin Welby@bm.wel.by

So I asked ChatGPT. Just chat (not work or codex) if it could find the code in the alphagov repos and restore it to life to illustrate how it worked. 45 minutes later: licence-finder-web-demo.up.railway.app

licence-finder-web-demo.up.railway.appFind licences — historical demo – Licence Finder historical demo
Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

It is such a joy to use HMG services built with the design system, seamlessly handing over to a single payments journey and providing on the moment updates by text message (even if I have also been logging in to check the status tracking site knowing it won't change without those notifications).

Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

There is a wrinkle I shall write about assuming that this time next week we are on our holidays and the one week emergency passport service has done what we need it to before Sunday morning (this message prompted by a Notify message saying it is printed and ready to send so all signs are positive)

Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

Good to praise things when they work well (wrinkle notwithstanding) but from holiday in peril to peril averted inside 7 days is a marvellous feat. Good job His Majesty's Passport Office.

Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

ICYMI yesterday's blog post building on something I did for my church on 'Being human in an age of AI' here it is as an AI experiment of turning a longform post into an Insta-native essay. Quite a few false starts along the way but I quite like where it ended up bm.wel.by/2026/10/08/b...

Benjamin Welby@bm.wel.by

My pastors at Croydon Vineyard recently asked me to think about how Christians might respond to some of the recent scary AI headlines. So these reflections are obviously written for my siblings in Christ, but maybe there are things in here you’d find encouraging too.

bm.wel.byBeing human in an age of AI - bmwelby's blogWhat does AI ask us to remember about being human? A Christian reflection on dignity, embodiment, relationships, responsibility, formation and hope.
Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

The DfE Teaching Vacancies platform is a jobs board with an ATS. And it's open sourced - github.com/DFE-Digital/.... AI refactored that from Ruby to Java for me so I have my own apparently pretty functional ATS (plus other imagined bells and whistles mentioned in here bm.wel.by/2026/08/17/a...).

UK Gov Comms (NON GOVERNMENT ACCOUNT)@ukgovcomms.bsky.social

In 2026 this is absolutely outrageous. For over 20 years now we've lived in an environment where funding an ongoing to team to create a small-scale MVP based on user needs and then scaling functionality and use has been the proven way to achieve goals. www.civilserviceworld.com/news/article...

civilserviceworld.comCabinet Office writes off £7.7m on abandoned jobs platformDepartment says lessons from scrapped Applicant Tracking System programme will result in a future online recruitment offer that is “cost effective”
Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

First words from the cockpit were an apology and an explanation that the brakes needed fixing which I think we can all agree is a pretty sound reason.

Benjamin Welby@bm.wel.by

Are gate crews trained to ignore the circumstances around them? Welcome to this flight. No word of an apology for being 7 hours late. Maybe they'll be more apologetic on board.

Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

Are gate crews trained to ignore the circumstances around them? Welcome to this flight. No word of an apology for being 7 hours late. Maybe they'll be more apologetic on board.

Benjamin Welby@bm.wel.by

Just found out that the people in the air on the inbound flight still have 6 hours of their flight to go and were supposed to take off at 2125 on Friday night but didn't take off until 1412 today. So their delay was almost SEVENTEEN hours. Sheesh.

Benjamin Welby reposted

Otto English
@ottoenglish.bsky.social

A man builds an IED. He sets it off in a busy public street. Shrapnel flies about hitting cars, homes and a child's bedroom. It's a miracle nobody is injured. And Reform MP Sarah Pochin calls his imprisonment "disproportionate" and "two tier justice."

Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

Just found out that the people in the air on the inbound flight still have 6 hours of their flight to go and were supposed to take off at 2125 on Friday night but didn't take off until 1412 today. So their delay was almost SEVENTEEN hours. Sheesh.

Benjamin Welby@bm.wel.by

Oh, Swiipr won't even work so no £8 for me.

Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

A new voucher from BA. That one is worth 70 ZAR. So apparently the going rate is £1 per hour of delay.

Benjamin Welby@bm.wel.by

They will not come through. Still that has occupied me for an hour and a half so just 9.5 hours until my flight.

Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

They will not come through. Still that has occupied me for an hour and a half so just 9.5 hours until my flight.

Benjamin Welby@bm.wel.by

Gate crew aren't the most sympathetic or friendly. No idea how I'd otherwise have got onto standby but seems very sad if there's an empty seat on that plane flying back to London when I (or no doubt several others) would happily occupy it. BA live chat hasn't denied me yet so might come through...

Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

Gate crew aren't the most sympathetic or friendly. No idea how I'd otherwise have got onto standby but seems very sad if there's an empty seat on that plane flying back to London when I (or no doubt several others) would happily occupy it. BA live chat hasn't denied me yet so might come through...

Benjamin Welby@bm.wel.by

Just about to say goodbye to Mozambique and BA update departure time to 0400 and email with their complementary voucher for food and drink waiting through an 8 hour delay. It is worth £5.66 (130 ZAR).

Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

Just about to say goodbye to Mozambique and BA update departure time to 0400 and email with their complementary voucher for food and drink waiting through an 8 hour delay. It is worth £5.66 (130 ZAR).

Benjamin Welby@bm.wel.by

Frustration compounded by having checked in last night which meant I had to be deplaned before paying £10 to swap to the not delayed earlier flight and while that was happening someone else nabbed it. At least I have a Priority Pass before leaving Maputo in 2 hours for Leg 1.

Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

Frustration compounded by having checked in last night which meant I had to be deplaned before paying £10 to swap to the not delayed earlier flight and while that was happening someone else nabbed it. At least I have a Priority Pass before leaving Maputo in 2 hours for Leg 1.

Benjamin Welby@bm.wel.by

When you have an 11 hour flight ahead of you, which in itself is after a 5 hour layover and you get a message saying that instead of departing at 2115 it is departing at 0334.

Benjamin Welby
@bm.wel.by

When you have an 11 hour flight ahead of you, which in itself is after a 5 hour layover and you get a message saying that instead of departing at 2115 it is departing at 0334.