| 26/4/2010 | ICT industry scans the post-election horizon |
| With the election campaign seriously heating up, suppliers are looking hard at the likely shape of the public sector IT market after May 6. Despite constant references to "get real", the second party leaders' TV debate last night gave only a passing mention to the public spending crisis, when David Cameron spoke of the need to "roll up our sleeves and make some savings this year".
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| 21/4/2010 | Google discloses governments' demands to take down data |
| In the wake of attempts by the Chinese government to censor Google, the search engine has unveiled a transparency tool that provides a global view of efforts to remove content or obtain data about its users.
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| 16/4/2010 | THE first impression is of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat alliance on the future of our so-called "database state" - but it is a false one. |
| Detailed reading of all three general election manifestos - we did it, so you don't have to - reveals a much more complicated and intriguing political divide ahead of the May 6 poll.
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| 14/4/2010 | Lib Dems will create a digitally inclusive society |
| More money for schools and the scrapping of the identity card project, biometric passports and child database form part of the Liberal Democrats election manifesto. And the party has promised to end the digital divide and ensure universal broadband access.
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| 13/4/2010 | Tories want to devolve local government power to the people |
| The Conservative Party has launched its Manifesto: "an Invitation to join the Government of Britain" - and the party wants more people to get involved in their local communities.
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| 12/4/2010 | Few surprises in Labour's manifesto nod to localism |
| Stronger local government, with "increased local democratic scrutiny over all local public services" is one of the pledges in the Labour Party's 2010 general election manifesto, published today. IT features in several of the manifesto commitments, including one to consider giving citizens direct access to data held on them by officialdom.
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| 26/3/2010 | Total reform of the place |
| The government is planning a radical transformation in the way local public services are delivered - and two percent savings - by rolling out the Total Place approach across England.
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| 24/3/2010 | Budget boost for Total Place - and e-channels |
| Total Place, e-government and free data all feature in chancellor Alistair Darling's plans to cut the cost of running government, announced in today's Budget speech. Along with headline cuts in IT expenditure by Whitehall departments.
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| 22/3/2010 | Chattering classes wake up to e-government |
| Thanks to a series of well-placed leaks - and a bit of party political grandstanding - e-government is finally on the political agenda. In his "digital future" speech today, the Prime Minister for the first time nailed his personal colours to the cause of public service transformation with the aid of new technology.
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| 19/3/2010 | Central government reorganisation squandering millions on IT |
| More than £150m was spent on IT by government departments going through a process of restructuring but there is little evidence of any benefits, finds a new NAO report.
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| 19/3/2010 | New culture needed to deliver Total Place |
| A lack of joined up working across Whitehall departments risks undermining the government's Total Place initiative, it is claimed.
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| 11/3/2010 | Lack of address register a national scandal, say government advisers |
| The development of a freely available national address register is "long overdue", the government's official advisers on public sector information said this week. In its response to the consultation on the future of Ordnance Survey (OS) the Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information says, "It is a national scandal that we do not have a definitive single National Address Register when most of the components have long resided in the public sector."
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| 10/3/2010 | After eight years, mass media wakes up to electronic health records |
| Critics of the London bias of the national media will have plenty of ammunition with the headlines being given to the NHS summary care record this week. The British Medical Association's grumbles about the way in which the record is being deployed featured prominently in today's Radio 4 Today programme and lead the Daily Telegraph.
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| 02/3/2010 | Slightly Better Connected: annual Socitm survey paints a gloomy picture |
| Five years on from the rush to make public services available online, the development of local authority websites has run out of steam. The latest instalment of an authoritative annual survey, the Better Connected report, shows "little evidence that councils have invested in their sites over the last 12 months" to enable self-service government.
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| 25/2/2010 | Staff at child maintenance agency shun computers and turn to pen and paper |
| Computers keyboards are being pushed to one side as staff at the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission turn to pen and paper to complete claims that the IT system cannot cope with.
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| 24/2/2010 | Address database to roll to census day - and then be wiped |
| Details have emerged of efforts by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to create a comprehensive database of addresses for use in the 2011 census. The aim is to build a list that is at least 99% complete from existing databases, update it continuously until census day in March 2011 - and then to discontinue the work.
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| 10/2/2010 | Council-run online TV station to be scrapped |
| Kent County Council's internet TV station, Kent TV, that has had more than £1.8m spent on it since its launch is to be closed next month. The council says the channel was always earmarked for closure in March.
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| 09/2/2010 | NHS steps closer to commercial online health records |
| Microsoft has taken a significant step towards launching its HealthVault personal electronic health record system in the UK. The company has announced the first NHS customer for its Amalga data aggregation platform, a key component of HealthVault in the US.
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| 02/2/2010 | To Arms and to Technology |
| The election battle cry rings out, says Helen Olsen in her comment in the Jan/Feb issue of LGITU magazine.
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| 29/1/2010 | ICT strategy brings local government under Cabinet Office wing |
| Whitehall measures to reduce the toll of public sector IT disasters will apply to the 'wider public sector' from 2012, according to the final version of the 10-year government ICT strategy published this week.
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| 28/1/2010 | Berners-Lee takes on Whitehall Windows |
| The government's 'make public data public' initiative was born in a lunch discussion between Gordon Brown and Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world-wide web, according to an interview published today. Prospect magazine quotes Berners-Lee as saying that Brown asked him in spring 2009 what the UK should do to make the best use of the internet. "I said, you should put all your government data onto the web. And he said, okay then, let's do it."
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| 27/1/2010 | Government opts for new money-saving IT strategy |
| Savings to the public purse of £3.2bn annually from 2013/14 are claimed through measures set out in the government's new ICT Strategy.
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| 21/1/2010 | Recession bites into local government ICT spend |
| Local government IT is under unprecedented pressure to deliver more with less, and tougher times lie ahead.
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| 21/1/2010 | Report shows path to protecting frontline services |
| A major report on shared services shows one of the key ways that local authorities and other public bodies will be protecting their frontline services during and after the most severe economic recession of modern times.
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| 21/1/2010 | Government slips the leash on data |
| More than 2500 data sets from across government are, from today, free for reuse by the public from a one-stop data shop, data.gov.uk.
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| 13/1/2010 | Public sector faces massive fines for breaches of data security |
| New powers, designed to deter personal data security breaches, are expected to come into force on 6 April - and it could cost the public sector millions if organisations breach data laws.
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| 08/1/2010 | Local government needs legislation to mandate sharing |
| Political and cultural resistance is preventing local authorities from working together to meet inevitable budget cuts finds a new report that recommends changes in legislation to mandate cost saving shared services.
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| 08/1/2010 | Wolverhampton reaches £7.1m settlement with Axon |
| An aborted attempt to transform Wolverhampton City Council through a partnership with an IT services firm has been buried with a £7.1m payment by the council.
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| 07/1/2010 | London set for an information revolution |
| Later today (7 Jan) Mayor of London Boris Johnson will announce free access to 'huge realms of previously unavailable data' from City Hall. A new 'London Datastore' will be fully open for business on 29 January.
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| 05/1/2010 | Legal halt for Easy Council plans |
| Barnet's new fast track planning system - whereby those wanting a faster decision could pay more to jump the queue - has been derailed due to concerns over the legality of the 'easy council' approach to this service.
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| 27/12/2009 | 'Free' OS data may hit local authorities in the pocket |
| Local authorities and central government bodies may pay more for some types of Ordnance Survey data as a result of the government's move to "free" mapping. The revelation comes in a consultation paper published by the Communities and Local Government department just before Christmas.
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| 24/12/2009 | Two London boroughs move to share ICT services |
| Lewisham and Bromley councils are collaborating on the purchase and supply of IT services - and have this week issued two joint tenders for five year ICT contract worth up to £26.5m.
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| 23/12/2009 | Essex gambles on outcomes - and a change in government |
| Predictably, the figure of £5.4bn (gleaned from the contract award notice) grabbed the headlines. Commentators were quick to present IBM's eight-year deal with Essex County Council as yet another hubristic government IT extravaganza. It is much more interesting than that, however.
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| 21/12/2009 | Digital Britain task force chalks up solid progress - so far |
| As the man said after jumping without a parachute from 40,000 feet: so far, so good. The first implementation update of last summer's Digital Britain plan, published by BIS, reveals progress across the board in turning the white paper's ideas into government policy.
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| 14/12/2009 | Row escalates over Wolverhampton's cancelled transformation deal |
| A political row over the termination of a West Midlands council's transformation partnership could be a preview of wider difficulties ahead as local authorities reconsider IT contracts. Wolverhampton City Council meets this week to discuss the terms of extricating itself from a 10-year strategic partnership cancelled following a change of leadership last year.
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| 10/12/2009 | Connecting the Public Sector – underpinning secure data sharing |
| Over four in ten - 44% - of local authorities regularly put sensitive citizen data in the post or use couriers, but the advent of the pan-public sector secure network, GCSX, is raising awareness of the need for secure communications. Research by LGITU and UKauthority.com conducted across UK local authorities and other frontline services late summer 2009, found that 44% of authorities regularly put sensitive citizen data into the postal or courier systems in paper, USB stick or disk formats. But now that all English and Welsh local authorities are connected to GCSX this figure looks set to fall.
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| 03/12/2009 | Now it's time for 'c-gov' |
| The storms that savaged the country in November add a physical backdrop to the devastation that is Britain's finances.
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| 02/12/2009 | Tories throw IT strategy open for crowdsourcing |
| The soon-to-be published government IT strategy, reported exclusively by UKAuthorITy.com last week, has become the subject of a unique exercise in opposition politics. In an exercise reminiscent of web activists MySociety, the Conservative Party has published a draft copy of the strategy on a website, and is inviting comments.
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| 01/12/2009 | Mind your language, MPs warn |
| A couple of years ago, the Cabinet Office solemnly announced: "Two pilot workshops have been delivered under the banner of the Government IT Academy." As the phrase appeared on page 27 of the Transformational Government Implementation Plan, it's possible that most people who read it understood roughly what it meant.
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| 09/11/2009 | Comment: A tale of two crashes |
| Connoisseurs of public sector project fiascoes have enjoyed two strongly worded reports in recent weeks. One was ordinary, the other very extraordinary, says Michael Cross.
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| 03/11/2009 | Rival visions of European e-government to surface at Malmo |
| In contrast to its four predecessors, the fifth EU e-government ministerial meeting, in Sweden later this month, looks set to become a genuinely political event.
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| 30/10/2009 | Royal Mail receives a postbag of postcode grumbles |
| As if Royal Mail didn't have enough on its political plate, the state-owned business's custodianship of postcodes is turning into a running source of embarrassment.
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| 13/10/2009 | Birmingham chief hits out at barriers to total place |
| Radical reforms in public funding and governance will be necessary to make the 'total place' concept of integrated services a reality, a leading figure in one of the pilot schemes said yesterday. Jason Lowther, director of policy and delivery at Birmingham City Council, told the Socitm 09 conference that the city has identified seven barriers to organising services around individual citizens rather than organisations.
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| 05/10/2009 | Doctors and NHS IT experts are urging the Tories to rethink plans to reform health service computing |
| Eight out of 10 UK doctors and NHS IT experts are opposed to scrapping the National Programme for IT in the NHS, finds a new survey.
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| 29/9/2009 | Digital champion gears up for new inclusion campaign |
| Nearly a year after the government announced that it would appoint a 'champion' to promote digital inclusion, the first hints about what the office will actually do have emerged at a fringe meeting of the Labour Party conference.
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| 28/9/2009 | Save Nomad's legacy |
| The demise of Nomad, the former national e-government project examining mobile and flexible working, is a sad event but no great surprise.
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| 12/9/2009 | Don't be the next twittercrat target |
| Sometimes you have to cry "enough". Last week, the Cabinet Office, which over the past decade has weathered a barrage of Fleet Street flak, finally cracked. A five-point statement, running to some 600 words, systematically demolished a prime example of what we journalists call a cracking public sector non-job yarn.
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| 09/6/2009 | Preparing for Recovery |
| The Operational Efficiency Programme, and the slough of despond that our economy has become, will combine to massive impact on frontline public services.
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| 09/6/2009 | Right place, right time, right care? |
| Letter to the Editor: McKesson's Neil Spragg argues for an evidence-based clinical approach
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| 03/6/2009 | Tom Watson resigns from ministerial IT post |
| Of the dozen or so ministers to have held the Cabinet Office IT portfolio under Labour, Tom Watson held a unique distinction. He was the only one to show any enthusiasm for the job, and the first to take the role further than fire-fighting. Within weeks of arriving at the Cabinet Office at the beginning of 2008, he had identified the systemic weakness in decades of central government IT policy. He saw a political opportunity to put that weakness at centre stage and his closeness to Gordon Brown gave him the political weight to make that happen.
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| 27/5/2009 | Public sector IT contract wins dependent on workforce skills development |
| Michael Cross says that the focus on wider benefits in public sector IT spend is a positive move for domestic suppliers.
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| 16/5/2009 | Counting time on IT projects |
| In less than 50 weeks there will be a new government.
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| 02/4/2009 | Digital Britain |
| 2009 has not started well for technology in the public sector: government databases have been branded 'illegal'; ContactPoint is on hold; the role of ICS in child protection failures is being questioned; data loss scares continue - to the extent that good data security becomes newsworthy; and high profile criticism of public sector management ofIT contracts makes the national news.
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| 08/12/2008 | Green IT, pragmatism & strategy |
| The Green Bandwagon is rolling, but how can we steer beyond the hype and adopt a pragmatic approach that's embedded in our ICT strategy? And how can we avoid preaching to the converted and influence those who are only paying lip-service? says Richard Steel, Society of IT Management (SOCITM) President, CIO London Borough of Newham.
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| 08/12/2008 | Green veneer or green revolution? |
| At one end of the spectrum Green IT is seen as being sustainable and organic, but with little practical business value - a sort of 'green froth'. At the other end it is seen to be just about reducing energy consumption and marketing more environmentally sensitive manufacturing methods, says Jos Creese, Head of IT, Hampshire County Council (Local Government Delivery Board, CIO Council and SOCITM Vice President).
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| 08/12/2008 | Right here, right now |
| Green in the here and now can make a difference long term, says Glyn Evans, Assistant to the Chief Executive on Transformation, Birmingham City Council (Local Government Delivery Board, CIO Council).
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| 08/12/2008 | When flying through heavy turbulence into a green fog you need good instrumentation |
| The roots of the current financial crisis lie in the inability of some major, multinational organisations to make evidence based risk:benefit decisions, and to therefore align resources and incentives with sustainable strategic goals, Dave Waltho, Head of Government Affairs, SAS UK.
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| 08/12/2008 | Think global, act local to impact sustainability |
| The importance of local initiatives combining to create a wider benefit cannot be underestimated, says Jim Craig, Public Policy and Corporate Social Responsibility Manager, Sun Microsystems Ltd.
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| 08/12/2008 | Traditional financial tools and strategy will underpin green ambitions |
| Local authorities have a vital role to play in taking the lead on 'going green' and are uniquely placed for encouraging local action for reducing carbon emissions and responding to climate change, says Helenne Doody, Sustainability Specialist, Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).
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