The leading independent publisher of public sector technology news
03/2/2012ITU Live Webinar: SMEs, Agile and the Public Sector in this Age of Austerity
Is the public sector serious about working with SMEs? Is it serious about Agile? What are the benefits SMEs could deliver? And how successful has the drive to get SMEs involved been?

03/2/2012Calls for government ID to help fight phishers and spammers
The identity assurance system used to access some online government services could be expanded to help people check other individuals' identities online

03/2/2012Scotland hits the digital high road
As the debate about independence gathers heat, the Scottish government has drawn up a plan which is says will bring a digital revolution to the country

03/2/2012Government defends online blue badge system
Claims that the new online application system for the disabled 'blue badge' parking permit is "riddled with technical problems" have been dismissed by ministers

02/2/2012York runs fibre rings round telecoms elephants
York City council has become the enabler for a local 'fibre ring' carrying superfast broadband, in a move which could leapfrog the city to the forefront of UK technological innovation

01/2/2012Gov.uk is up - and welcoming critics
The beta version of the single government domain has gone live, with a new url

01/2/2012Public sector 'better than private' when it comes to being flexible
Public sector managers and workforces are working more flexibly than the private sector, both in terms of setting work policies and in the communications tools they use, according to a communications technology firm

31/1/2012Second coming for cloud store - before the first
A second version of the new government 'cloud store' is being planned to allow new software and services to be offered continuously, offering savings of up to 90% on current prices, G-Cloud programme director Chris Chant told the Government ICT conference today

30/1/2012Privacy worries dog open data consultation
Concerns about personal privacy appeared in a 'significant' number of responses to the government's consultation on transparency and open data, the Cabinet Office revealed today.

30/1/2012Another council hit for repeated data protection breaches
Midlothian Council has to pay £140,000 for releasing details of vulnerable children to the wrong people

30/1/2012Broadband funding crisis looms for three regions
Ministers are to meet council leaders in areas where broadband strategies have been given the red light

27/1/2012Vive la campagne présidentielle en ligne
With the French Presidential campaign getting into full swing ahead of elections on 22 April, candidates are embracing the internet with observers predicting the online campaign could have a significant effect.

26/1/2012Whitehall refusing to probe cartel claims, say MPs
The Public Administration Select Committee's follow-up report says not enough is being done to reform government IT procurement

26/1/2012Academic study sounds alarm on criminal justice reform
Government ambitions to impose top-down change on the criminal justice system may be doomed, according to an international study

25/1/2012VIDEO REPORT: SMEs, innovation and e-learning
SMEs were invited last year to pitch their business proposals to government for products and services to deliver better value for money for the public sector. Three hundred and fifty one proposals were submitted. Nine were invited to pitch to the government's Innovation Launch Pad Product Surgery. Learning Pool director, Paul McElvaney, was one of those who made it through. He talks to UKauthorITy.tv about the Innovation experience, e-learning in the public sector and the savings available from collaboration.

25/1/2012Get behind broadband projects or lose funding, councils urged
With more than £530m on offer from the government to get broadband to the parts of the country where other technology cannot reach, Socitm is urging councils to sign contracts soon or risk losing the funding.

23/1/2012Justice CIO gets the whole government portfolio
Andy Nelson, in charge of one of the government's most radical IT-based reform programmes at the Ministry of Justice, has been named as the government's chief information officer.

23/1/2012Benefits reform is mission impossible, says IT firm
A leaked email from Capita - read out in Parliament - lays bare growing concerns over the timetable for little-known changes to council tax benefit

23/1/2012We want online services that are quick to forget
People want online public services 'that allow us to get on with the rest of our lives', according to a manifesto for the future of online public services from Consumer Focus

19/1/2012Fining public sector staff for data breaches 'will not work'
An online security firm says staff fines for data breaches will have a negative effect on the public sector.

19/1/2012Bring your own goes mainstream in local government IT
Attitudes to BYO technology in local government, have gone from 'over my dead body' to overwhelming support in two years, according to the authors of an authoritative annual survey

18/1/2012Largest supplier pledges to help government minnows
HP announces a 'robust plan' in the spirit of government policy on SMEs

18/1/2012Libraries promise digital access
Librarians from across the UK say they will continue to act as community digital resources

18/1/2012Mountain to climb before government goes digital by default
An overwhelming majority of Britons believe important government issues are best communicated by post rather than email, according to a survey by an interested party

16/1/2012Should staff, not the taxpayer, pay fines for public sector data breaches?
Senior managers in the public sector should personally be fined if the organisation they work for breach data regulations, claims a pressure group.

13/1/2012Don't just scrap ICT teaching, Gove urged
A clear framework for schools to improve the teaching of computing and the introduction of classes for kids as young as nine are among measures now needed to back up the government's announcement it is to scrap the current ICT curriculum

12/1/2012Tell Us Once back on the backburner
The Public Accounts Committee says a change-of-circumstances service could play a vital role in benefits reform

10/1/2012VIDEO REPORT: Playing games with e-learning to save money
Keith Quinn, senior education and workforce development advisor at the Scottish Social Services Council, is developing mobile delivery of interactive learning to train Scotland's entire social service workforce. He is getting impressive results from trialling some novel delivery platforms - including PlayStation Portable game consoles. He tells UKAtv's Helen Olsen that the cost of just one day's 'traditional' face to face training was enough to invest in technology that could be rolled out to all employees whenever needed.

10/1/2012Smart cities harbour horsemen of the ICT apocalypse
After 20 years of planning the smart city has arrived, thanks to the four riders of the ICT apocalypse - cloud, net, consumerisation and economic collapse.

10/1/2012£500 disclosure rule fails to staunch FoI requests
Requiring councils to be transparent was supposed to cut the burden of handling freedom of information inquiries. It hasn't happened yet, says a major study

08/1/2012Central London to gain free Wi-Fi - possibly, eventually
Westminster City council and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea have agreed with network operator O2 to provide free outdoor wireless access to across their entire areas - over time

06/1/2012Netherlands goes Dutch with postcodes
A court case strikes a blow for open data

05/1/2012Schools' laptop funding failure 'scandal in the making'
Schools are failing to ensure all pupils, including those from deprived backgrounds, have access to their own learning technology devices such as laptops at home and at school

04/1/2012Government promises more will use assistive technology
Health minister Paul Burstow says he wants electronic assistive technology to be available to more people after a successful large scale trial of telehealth and telecare

03/1/2012VIDEO REPORT: Are we ready for this? The public sector ICT profession needs new skills for a new technology age
Across the public sector in-house 'ICT Capabilities' are seen as the foundation for delivering both local and national ICT strategies and better government for less. Andy Nelson, CIO At the Ministry for Justice and SRO for the Government ICT Capabilities Programme, wants public sector ICT professionals to be seen as both essential and trusted advisors to the business of government.

03/1/2012Security 'misunderstandings' remain open source barrier
Cultural barriers and misunderstanding of security risks remain the biggest blocks to the public sector's wider implementation of open source, Robin Pape, the civil servant tasked with boosting open source has told UKAuthority.com

02/1/2012Assirati and Derrick honoured in new year list
The new year honours list includes three familiar names from the e-government scene

30/12/2011Summit urges better data sharing for community health
Councils and health bodies in England must collaborate more closely to improve the health and wellbeing of local communities even before the NHS reforms come in to effect, according to a report published this month

29/12/2011A year of strategic scene-setting: 2011 in review
For public sector IT, 2011 was a year of strategic promises, deadline-setting and institution-building. For the outcomes, we shall have to wait.

28/12/2011New year, new way to save the world
A global environmental data visualisation project is seeking UK public bodies to help build maps and problem-solving tools in the run-up to Rio+20, a UN sustainable development summit to be held next June on the 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro

27/12/2011Patient access to records backed by policy forum
The NHS Future Forum has backed government plans to make patients' records available to them online

23/12/2011VIDEO REPORT: CLG - mentoring digital innovation
Chris Haynes, senior civil servant at the Department for Work and Pensions, has been helping Communities and Local Government with digital strategy and mentoring innovative local authority digital projects.

23/12/2011Councils still hiding their spending data, says MP
Much local spending data is so poorly presented that it would take a master detective to find it, Parliament has been told

22/12/2011VIDEO REPORT: The Unstoppable Cloud - A challenge for both the public sector and its suppliers
Andy Nelson, CIO, Ministry of Justice, talks to UKAtv about the Government Cloud strategy that he leads, about partnering with Warwickshire County Council to test the Cloud concept, and putting the building blocks in place for wider adoption across the public sector. We ask him how suppliers are reacting to a strategy that is so disruptive to their business model - a shift from big, long term infrastructure contracts to short, agile, pay as you go type flexible contracts, in a market now flooding with SMEs.

22/12/2011Business transformation hopes driving Hillingdon's ascent to cloud
More details emerged this week of the London borough's plan to shift around 3,500 staff onto Google Business Applications, first reported by UKauthorITy.com in November

21/12/2011VIDEO REPORT: Professionalism and Women in Public Sector ICT
Socitm vice president, Nadira Hussain, aims to jump start interest in public sector ICT among women. The project manager for Future Sourcing at Tower Hamlets has ambitions to create opportunities for young women in Tower Hamlets to experience both public sector and supplier sides of technology before they decide on future careers - and Socitm's plan is to roll this pilot out if successful.

21/12/2011So far, so good - NAO on Whitehall's ICT strategy
A preliminary audit of the government's ICT strategy - just nine months after publication - has already found areas of concern.

20/12/2011How many council staff does it take to change a website?
Huge variations in the number of staff assigned to develop council websites have been found by the first national survey of council web teams.

20/12/2011VIDEO REPORT: Socitm, Scotland and a model for engaging the wider public sector
Kay Brown, head of ICT at Lanarkshire Council, will be Socitm president from next April. She has been active in leading pan-public sector ICT engagement in Scotland and believes that this successful model of regional engagement on key technology issues could be replicated across the UK.

20/12/2011May presses on with scheme for PoliceIT.co.uk
Plans to create a national police IT company - sprung on a surprised audience of chief constables last summer, are on track, according to the Home Secretary

19/12/2011VIDEO REPORT: Solihull, Shared Services and the PSN
Steve Halliday, head of ICT at Solihull MBC and Socitm vice president, talks to UKAtv about shared services, a cost saving DIY upgrade to core Oracle systems, and shared Public Service Network ambitions.

19/12/2011Councils on deadline for superfast broadband plans
The culture secretary has warned that councils missing the February deadline will lose their superfast broadband money

19/12/2011Back-office framework deal points to wider strategy


16/12/2011Social media save money, says communications chief
Devolving part of a council's communications function to front-line staff through greater use of social media can save money and improve citizen engagement, one local authority communications chief said this week.

16/12/2011Councils should jump into new digital arena, before they are pushed
Local authorities should move now towards implementing the new unified design concepts for government digital services launched last week or risk being forced to do so at a future date, according to the local government Society of IT Management (Socitm).

15/12/2011Apps to tackle youth disengagement in riot-torn cities
A smartphone app to help young unemployed people find job and training opportunities is to be launched in the North London communities at the heart of this summer's rioting and unrest.

14/12/2011Comment: auditors set the bar for central government web team
By the standards of inquiries into government IT programmes, the National Audit Office's report on Directgov, Business.gov and Government Gateway is highly complimentary. But the new Government Digital Service cannot afford to relax.

12/12/2011Counties propose IT tie-up
Hampshire and Oxfordshire county councils and planning to share back-office IT systems in an ambitious partnership

12/12/2011Superfast broadband fail to reach rural Britain, claims pressure group
The government's rollout of superfast broadband to hard-to-reach rural areas has stalled as local authorities are struggling to turn Whitehall's promises of digital inclusion into reality, according to a pressure group.

12/12/2011EC promises open data goldmine
New open data rules could be worth 140 billion euros a year, the commission says.

11/12/2011No one is counting the benefits of central web sites
The government has not measured the benefits of its central internet services Directgov and Business.gov and the infrastructure service Government Gateway, the National Audit Office finds

09/12/2011Socitm 2011: Government Digital Service - what, why, where
Mike Bracken, executive director of digital at Cabinet Office, talks to UKAtv's Helen Olsen about why, and how, the Government Digital Service intends to change how citizens and business interact with government and enable the public sector to deliver on 'digital by default' services.

09/12/2011Government Digital Service goes live
The minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, has officially launched the Government Digital Service - the team charged with revolutionising the way citizens and business interact with government and delivering digital by default services.

09/12/2011Councils must end turf wars over digital inclusion
Local authorities are uniquely placed to tackle digital exclusion but their activity must be co-ordinated between departments to avoid wasting resources

07/12/2011Joined-up approach key to tackling fraud, and credit agencies can help
Central government, local government, housing bodies and private sector credit reference agencies (CRAs) must work together to combat tax and benefit fraud

07/12/2011Apathy or sympathy? Council websites join the strike
The reasons for a lack of public information on many council websites about service disruption due to public sector strikes are hard to determine, according to the author of a new report.

06/12/2011Minister promises to end social housing digital apartheid
Council tenants will today be promised an end to the "digital apartheid" that shuts them out of online savings enjoyed by others. Hosting a 'Digital by Default' summit, housing minister Grant Shapps will describe internet access as a necessity - not a luxury - in social housing.

06/12/2011Health monitoring at home to be extended as study shows success of trials


05/12/2011Socitm 2011: Mobile & flexible work, property consolidation
Glyn Evans, Socitm President & Corporate Director of Business Change, Birmingham City Council speaks to UKauthorITy.tv at Socitm 2011

05/12/2011Socitm 2011: The challenges facing local government and the role technology must play in addressing those challenges
David Hopkins, Deputy Leader of Milton Keynes Council, talks to UKauthorITy.tv about the challenges facing local government and the role technology must play in addressing those challenges

05/12/2011Socitm 2011: Three ways that LAs could support the third sector
Mark Walker, SCIP speaks with UKauthorITy.tv at Socitm 2011 about IT Services for Charities & Communities

05/12/2011Socitm 2011: How LAs can support the third sector, according to The Salvation Army
Martyn Croft, CIO, Salvation Army speaks with UKauthorITy.tv at Socitm 2011 about IT Services for Charities & Communities

05/12/2011Socitm 2011: Post-Bureaucratic Government, Open Platforms, and Innovation: Why Government IT should never be the same again
Mark Thompson, ICT Futures Advisor, Cabinet Office speaks to UKauthorITy.tv at Socitm 2011

05/12/2011Socitm 2011: We can't afford the future unless we change what we do!
Andy Burns, Director of Finance and Resources, Staffordshire County Council speaks to UKauthorITy.tv at Socitm 2011

05/12/2011Interactive map shows councils are saving millions
Councils are saving more than £156m a year through the sharing of services and are outperforming central government claims the Local Government Association (LGA).

05/12/2011Cameron hails opening of NHS data
Sharing NHS data with industry - to help Britain become a world leader in life sciences - is just the start of a government revolution in open data.

02/12/2011Let's end the local-central parlour game - Bracken
Whitehall's digital chief has invited local authorities to join central government's programme to develop a new generation of user-centred online public services.

01/12/2011IT in Use Magazine - November/December 2011 issue
The November/December issue of ITU is now available on UKauthorITy.com. View an electronic e-book version, read individual features/sections in pdf or download the entire magazine as a pdf.

01/12/2011Dudley is the ICT champion
Dudley metropolitan borough council has been named as the local authority with the best ICT service by the local IT professionals' association Socitm.

01/12/2011Christmas ad launches electronics recycling campaign
The electronic waste recycling industry is seeking to enlist the help of councils to boost the percentage of electrical and electronic devices which are recycled, before tough new European targets come into force.

30/11/2011Socitm 2011: Collaborate or die?
Geoff Connell, CIO, Newham speaks to UKauthorITy.tv at Socitm 2011

30/11/2011Socitm 2011: IT Leadership in Public Services
Martin Reeves, Chief Executive, Coventry City Council speaks to UKauthorITy.tv at Socitm 2011

30/11/2011Socitm 2011: Knowledge Sharing in Challenging Times: Collaboration for Public Services Reform
Sue Spafford, Managing Director, Wisdom 2u speaks to UKauthorITy.tv at Socitm 2011

30/11/2011Socitm 2011: Cloud-based services: it's happening and what needs to happen
Chris Ulliott, deputy Techncial Director, CESG speaks to UKauthorITy.tv at Socitm 2011

30/11/2011VIDEO REPORT: FLAG PLANTED, NOW MOVING FORWARDS
Local CIO Council chair, Jos Creese, joins the dots between central and local ICT strategies to help frontline organisations deliver better public services for less. Big savings can be delivered from this strategy says Creese, but they will only be a fraction of what can IT can deliver from a technology-enabled public service.

30/11/2011Third sector calls for IT support from local government
Volunteering, intelligent buying and working in partnership to with the Salvation Army to develop a social network are three of the ways local government could give support to the third sector, said two speakers at Soctim 2011 in Birmingham.

30/11/2011Stop behaving like victims, IT chiefs told
IT managers should stop whingeing and start having fun, a chief executive tells several hundred IT managers

30/11/2011DVLA ponders charges for data checks
Local authorities may have to pay to find out the names and addresses of rogue motorists, MPs have been told.

30/11/2011Economy gets a course of NHS information therapy
One of the lesser noticed items commitments in George Osborne's

30/11/2011Small cheers for budget statement as IT announcements could lift the gloom
Chancellor George Osborne has restated the government's commitment to improving broadband services across the UK.

29/11/2011VIDEO REPORT: End-user devices: Government Spend to be brought under control
Phil Pavitt, Director General for Change and CIO at HMRC, is a man with a mission - to drive suppliers of 'commodity' end-user devices "to treat the public sector as a client". According to Pavitt, the days of a £3,500 per annum PC are well and truly over and the new end-user devices framework will "disrupt the market" such that government will be able to consume these devices in the way that they want to buy them.

29/11/2011Hillingdon latest to enter the cloud
The London borough of Hillingdon last week joined Warwickshire among the first wave of councils moving to cloud computing ahead of the implementation of the government's central cloud strategy, with the announcement it will be moving its desktop software to Google Business Applications.

28/11/2011VIDEO REPORT: The Government ICT Strategy, SMEs and planning for change
Government's ICT strategy is moving forwards rapidly into full-on implementation. Deputy Government CIO, Bill McCluggage, talks to UKAtv about the unprecedented collaboration across government that has resulted in a united bid to get technology right, first time, and about the opportunities this brave new public sector technology world opens up for SMEs.

28/11/2011£65m to protect public services from cyber attack
A Cyber Security strategy published by the Cabinet Office announces that £650m will be spent in the area by 2016. The Ministry of Defence will receive 14% of this money, online public services 10%.

28/11/2011Councils fined for email errors
North Somerset council and Worcestershire county council have been fined thousands of pounds after erroneously sending out emails with confidential Information in them to the wrong people.

25/11/2011We have totality: schools admissions shows way to 'digital by default'
One in five English local authorities is now achieving electronic secondary school application levels of 80% or higher.

24/11/2011Top two departures leave ICT strategy in flux
Joe Harley, government chief information officer, has revealed that he will retire in April. The news came close on the heals of his deputy, Bill McCluggage, announcing a move to the private sector.

24/11/2011How to save a billion - scrap those invoices
The public sector could be missing out on as much as £3 billion a year in savings by failing to switch over to electronic invoicing, an industry group has said.

23/11/2011Procurements biased against UK firms, says Maude
The Cabinet Office encourages public bodies to talk to industry before launching procurements

23/11/2011Councils breached personal data 1,035 times over three years
A campaigning privacy group says one in three local authorities have admitted to losing hundreds of electronic files including personal details of vulnerable children

20/11/2011Online tax payback is still a closed book to HMRC
Five years after launching a big expansion in online filing of tax returns, HM Revenue and Customs still does not understand the costs and benefits

17/11/2011UK Online becomes national mutual pioneer
The UK online centres network has joined the first wave of public sector employee-led mutuals, the network's head Helen Milner announced this week. Milner and her team of 32 staff mostly based in Sheffield will take over management of the centres from 1 December.

17/11/2011Parliament ponders doubling the threshhold for e-petition debates
A proposed curb to the government controversial e-petition system will leave the public "outraged", the government has been warned. Natascha Engel, the MP in charge of selecting petitions for debate, attacked a suggestion that the threshold should be doubled.

17/11/2011Borderless e-government 'solution to euro-crisis'
Neelie Kroes, vice president of the European Commission, has outlined plans for more cross-border e-government

16/11/2011Borough outsources IT to schools partnership
Luton borough council is to outsource its ICT services to the Luton Learning and Community Partnership and contractor Civica. The 10-year deal, worth £34m, is part of a broader programme to save the council a total of £12.6m. Some 60 council employees will transfer to the private secto

15/11/2011That's not information, that's a person-centric data asset
In what is claimed to be the first move of its kind in the world, the government announced a scheme to allow individuals to take control of data businesses hold on them.

14/11/2011VIDEO REPORT: Government clouds take shape
Chris Chant, executive director at the Cabinet Office and G-Cloud programme director talks to UKAtv about the government’s implementation plans for cloud technology.

14/11/2011Sunderland announces cost-cutting cloud deal
The city council has signed a deal with IBM which it says will reduce operational costs by £1.4m a year

13/11/2011County prize for local IT innovations
Kent county council is offering £1,000 prizes for IT innovations

10/11/2011Dudley GP feels the heat of transparency blast
Ann Abraham, the Parliamentary and health service ombudsman, has made public for only the second time ever a report into one of her investigations

10/11/2011Council spending disclosure provides a £7m bonus for fraudsters
Local authorities are being fleeced of millions of pounds by criminals exploiting online transparency drives, the Audit Commission warns.

09/11/2011'Severe' web access problem could prevent channel shift
Inaccessible websites are preventing councils from maximising cost savings from shifting older and disabled citizens towards online self-service, according to the head of the UK's leading digital inclusion charity.

08/11/2011How will the 2012 Olympics affect local communities in a digital and mobile world? Are you ready to keep working?
Next year's Olympics will be the first to take place in a post iPhone and smartphone world, with 2012 organisers expecting, indeed planning, capacity for more than 10 times the volume of data across the network than at the Beijing Games - it will be the country's biggest real, and virtual, event. ITU Live will explore the technology that will make the Olympics accessible in real-time across the globe, at the challenge of getting it 'right first time' and ensuring that the country functions 'as normal' for the Games' duration, and at the legacy for local communities.

08/11/2011Leaner and greener - £8bn reward from 'ruthless rationalisation'
A new report claims that there is a potential £8bn prize to be won through ruthless rationalisation of public sector estates.

07/11/2011PSN flavour for Warwickshire network
Warwickshire county council has deployed a county-wide PSN-compliant network to manage and share services with fire and rescue, schools and the district councils. UKauthorITt.tv talks to Stuart Smith, head of public sector at network supplier, Alcatel Lucent, about this emphasis on the Public Services Network.

07/11/2011Maude plans 'Tell Us How' crowdsourcing website
Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, wants all public sector workers to log on 'Tell Us How', the crowd-sourcing website he is setting up.

06/11/2011Address mis-matches plague voter registration plan
Individual electoral registration is a good idea - but MPs find plenty of technical hitches

03/11/2011Big IT bounces back with £350m DWP deal
Government's biggest spender continues to rely on the largest IT suppliers to implement ambitious reforms.

03/11/2011E-learning savings: coming soon to a PlayStation near you


02/11/2011£10m injection for ID assurance plan
The Cabinet Office finds £10m to stimulate work to create a market in personal identity systems

01/11/2011Green ICT plan: it's the economy, stupid
The Cabinet Office's "Greening government: ICT strategy", a sub-section of its wider ICT strategy, has missed a trick in failing to stress the economic imperatives for energy efficiency.

01/11/2011Crowdsourcing engineers disaster relief in Pakistan
An innovative online system combining mobile technologies and crowdsourcing to help co-ordinate the emergency response to last year's floods in Pakistan could form a model for other social support systems in developing countries, from reporting corruption to monitoring road accidents.

31/10/2011Political colour no barrier to sharing services
A major survey shows most public sector bodies are sharing or planning to share services - but have little faith in central IT initiatives