GovCamp: Let’s Talk about Government
Fieldnotes by Alex Vince
Editorial note: This is a guest contribution post from Alex Vince, a long-time political technologist bringing fresh takes on the UK government.
Are you interested in the craft of governing well? When we discuss government, we usually talk about the politics behind government - elections, policy, news, and ideology. These are crucial and rightfully dominate public discourse, but this focus often leaves little room to discuss the mechanics of government: how it functions day-to-day and how those functions might be improved.
GovCamp is one of those opportunities where those within the public sector can gather across organisational boundaries to discuss the how of government. Attendees come from across the public sector, including the 24 ministerial departments, the 20 non-ministerial, the 423 arms-length bodies, those working within the 1.5 million workforce that makes up our NHS, the 317 local authorities, or any of the other organisations. At least, those willing to spend a cold Saturday in January doing so.
GovCamp is free to attend, and it operates in a unique space - organised by volunteers, yet belonging to no one. This ethos shapes the event itself, which follows an "unconference" format. There’s no pre-set agenda; instead, attendees propose topics at the start of the day, gauge audience interest, and sessions are assigned rooms accordingly. Similar topics are grouped, ensuring a diverse range of discussions at any given moment. You won’t know the exact schedule in advance, but you can expect popular themes like cross-organisational collaboration, citizen engagement, public sector culture, and digital advancements.
That last topic - digital government - is particularly notable. While GovCamp is open to anyone interested in government, its ethos, free-flowing structure, and core audience have deep roots in the government's (both local and national) digital arms. These arms are robust - The Government Digital Service (GDS) was set up in 2011 - transparency, collaboration and open sourcing are some of their most important values, and my ability to link a truncated history of the project as written by themselves shows what it looks like in practice. GovCamp is not GDS, but the lineage is clear.
And yes, in 2025, as you’d expect at any digital-leaning event, AI was a major topic of discussion.
So, what gets talked about?
You can often hear fragments from such a gathering from the perspective of one or two attendees - but GovCamp prides itself on being as open as possible - so you can browse the session grid and subsequent notes yourself here. A mix of the technical and the personal, broad-ranging discussions and the very focused. And that, therein, lies one of the core challenges behind such an enterprise.
But how do you ensure that a gathering of 200–500 people from vastly different corners of the public sector leads to productive conversations in 45-minute chunks? Some topics are universally accessible, such as AI, leadership and collaboration. Others, like system architecture, require attendees to first establish a shared understanding of what the term even means. Some of the toughest miscommunications arise when people think they’re speaking the same language, only to realise their definitions don’t align.
This isn’t a flaw—it’s part of the value. The more work we do to bridge these communication gaps, the stronger the relationships we build and the easier future collaboration becomes. In the public sector, relationships are often at the heart of getting things done, and relationships take time to build. A large percentage of some sessions is devoted to somewhat accidental Sensemaking - the process of collectively figuring out aligning terms and building that common understanding. However, this can be a barrier for younger professionals or those new to public sector culture, who may struggle to navigate its deeply embedded language and norms.
From the outside, the government can appear monolithic. The core Civil Service alone is nearly half a million strong, and public sector jargon mutates rapidly. Some use this complexity as a gatekeeping tool - an inscrutable lexicon can obscure whether a topic is genuinely complex or just dressed up to appear so. Because GovCamp discussions often lack experienced facilitators (discussions are instead led by whoever suggested them), groups sometimes get tangled in these language webs, leading to frustration. This creates a great opportunity for those who might not be technical specialists to still help the conversation along if they can help a group navigate the challenge.
Community, Access, and the Future
At its heart, GovCamp is a community - one that connects people working on public sector reform, service delivery, and collaboration. But like any community, it has its hierarchies, quirks, and unspoken rules. Every year, there’s a tension between GovCamp as a space for insiders reconnecting with familiar faces and as a welcoming space for newcomers. The event’s values encourage the latter, but its informal structure can reinforce the former. You’ll get a warm greeting at the door, but once inside, it’s on you to jump into discussions, make your voice heard, and navigate the culture.
This balance is crucial. Once past the initial hurdle, you’ll find plenty of supportive people, but a more structured introduction for first-time attendees could go a long way in sustaining fresh perspectives. This is particularly important as we stand on the edge of a significant technological shift. New organisations like the AI Security Institute (formerly AI Safety Institute) are bringing a new generation of political technologists into government. So far, this hasn’t significantly filtered into the GovCamp community—bridging that gap may require intentional effort from both sides.
Is this a relevant space for a Political Technologist?
If you’re reading this, you’re probably interested in the intersection of politics and technology but may not be working in the public sector itself. So, does any of this matter to you?
Yes. Understanding the public sector means understanding the people within it. GovCamp attendees are self-selecting (not everyone wants to talk about work on a Saturday), but the wealth of experience and knowledge shared is invaluable. If you’re working at the cutting edge of citizen participation, collective decision-making, or other tech-driven governance ideas, this is an ideal space to test concepts, meet collaborators, and make an impact.
To sum it up: GovCamp is one of the most governmenty spaces a political technologist can engage with—without actually working in government. It’s free to attend, shaped by its participants, and serves as a melting pot of public sector and digital communities. If you’re new, consider bringing a fellow political technologist—it’s easier to break into a culture not quite designed for you when you’re not alone. But if you care about bridging the gap between technology and governance, there’s real value in showing up.
Still interested, but want to hear other views? You can read another couple of history blogs on GovCamp here: