| 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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