What was unique about GOV.UK is that it wasn’t done by a consultancy.
They managed to build an in-house, central resource (GDS/Government Digital Service) and pioneered a lot of public service design practices which are the template for USDS and others.
However, my understanding is that the GDS team is greatly diminished these days and the consultants are back across separate government departments again.
> However, my understanding is that the GDS team is greatly diminished these days and the consultants are back across separate government departments again.
That just seems to be the natural cycle of life. Some (somewhat independent) part of the government does something good and admirable, all of the self-interested politicians and other functionaries see that success and want to have a part of it, insert themselves and their interests into the thing, and in the process end up ruining it because they had no idea what they were talking about and should instead have left that work to the domain-experts which managed to make it successful in the first place.
They managed to build an in-house, central resource (GDS/Government Digital Service) and pioneered a lot of public service design practices which are the template for USDS and others.
However, my understanding is that the GDS team is greatly diminished these days and the consultants are back across separate government departments again.