Atkinson Review, United Kingdom - Archive

Report on plans to improve further measurement of the United Kingdom output in public service spendings.

Audit Commission, United Kingdom - Archive

Archived articles and resources about audit commissions reviewing egovernement activities in the United Kingdom.

Better Practice Guidance for Government Contact Centres, United Kingdom - Archive

Articles and resources about best practice for government contact centres.

Births, deaths and marriages - United Kingdom - Archive

Archived articles and resources about birth, death and marriages registration services in the United Kingdom.

Cabinet Office e-Government Unit, United Kingdom - Archive

Articles about the Cabinet Office e-Government Unit, which works with departments to deliver efficiency savings while improving the delivery of public services by joining up electronic government services around the needs of customers.

Cabinet Office, Electronic Networks: Challenges for the Next Decade, United Kingdom - Archive

This report provides a strategy to deliver the best outcomes for consumers from competition in electronic networks.

Call Centres - United Kingdom - Archive

Articles and resources about government call centres in the United Kingdom.

Channels framework: delivering government services in the new economy, United Kingdom - Archive

This Channel Framework document sets out the direction for public sector organisations to plan and shape the future development of channel strategies for the delivery of electronic services.

Choice, Voice and Public Services, United Kingdom - Archive

Archived articles and resources about the Public Administration Select Committee's (PASC) report on Choice, Voice and Public Services.

Co-creating the Capital: towards a Digital Innovation Strategy for London

This paper sets out some early thinking around what a Digital Innovation Strategy for London might look like. The aim of the Strategy would be to assess London public sector's current strengths and weaknesses in terms of digital engagement, crossorganisational collaboration and co-creation of services with Londoners themselves.

Customer and Citizen Focused Public Service Provision, United Kingdom - Archive

Articles about a report published by a customer management Consultancy for the Scotland government.

data.gov.uk : how did we do it?

Presentation by professor Nigel Shadbolt, UK Open Data Advisor, 17th March 2011, Paris. Conference organized by Microsoft France.

Delivering e-enabled public service reform - The framework for e-government, United Kingdom - Archive

To help the UK Government provide successful e-government services, an IT best practice network composed of major private sector companies has published on 12 May 2004 a “framework” for e-government.

Demos, United Kingdom - Archive

A 2004 Demos report says Government’s promise of personalised services will increase public expectations and create wave of demand-led reform in the United Kingdom.

Department for Constitutional Affairs, United Kingdom - Archive

Articles and resources about an online toolkit produced by the UK Departmental of Constitutional Affairs in order to help public sector bodies understand the issues around data sharing.

Department for Work and Pensions, United Kingdom - Archive

In 2004, the United Kingdom Department for Work and Pensions published "Link-Age", a document outlining a strategy to develop networks of services for older people.

Digital Inclusion Panel Report, United Kingdom - Archive

This report identifies social groups most at risk of digital exclusion and actions to encourage them to take up Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

Digital Strategy, United Kingdom - Archive

Articles and reports about "Connecting the UK: a digital strategy", a report published by the government in April 2005 in order to tackle the persistent digital divide and low uptake of e-government services by citizens.

Dotgovlabs Innovation Hub

The UK DotGovLabs Innovation Hub is a virtual space enabling digital innovation of public services. It is part of the Cabinet Office Skunkworks programme and is backed by Francis Maude and with wide participation from across government. It aims to nurture digital innovation from outside government from the people who know digital. It is the part of the skunkworks programme that looks to ask the external community to show government what it should be doing with digital.

e-Citizen National Project, United Kingdom - Archive

This project presents works with local authorities to identify how to promote e-services to local citizens.

e-Government Unit

The UK "eGU's mission is: "ensuring that IT supports the business transformation of Government itself so that we can provide better, more efficient, public services." The Prime Minister, Tony Blair. The e-Government Unit (eGU) is the largest unit in the Cabinet Office. We are responsible for: formulating information technology (IT) strategy and policy; developing common IT components for use across government; promoting best practice across government; delivering citizen-centred online services..."

Police tap social media in wake of London attack

By Charis Palmer. IT News, May 23, 2013. "Tracking sentiment with software. A dedicated team of British police officers are monitoring social media around the clock in the wake of last night’s fatal attack on a soldier in the south-east of London, in order to gauge sentiment and be ready to respond. Umut Ertogral, who runs the Opensource Intelligence Unit for London’s Metropolitan Police Service, today told the AusCERT information security conference a team of 17 staff were working seven days a week to track social media feedback and monitor community tension..."

Open Standards Board - members and biographies

Cabinet Office Standards Hub. Lists the board members and their biographies.

Open Standards Board sets the direction

by Linda Humphries. Government Digital Service, 17 May 2013. "The first meeting of the newly formed Open Standards Board took place on Thursday last week (9 May). Liam Maxwell, the Government’s Chief Technology Officer, chaired the meeting writes Linda Humphries... The Open Standards Board agreed the process for how we should select open standards and appointed Nicholas Oughtibridge from the Health and Social Care Information Centre to chair a Data Standards Panel to advise the Board. They also agreed to use the assessment criteria proposed in the European Common Assessment Methodology for Standards and Specifications as a starting point for the criteria to be used by advisory panels and challenge owners when assessing challenge proposals..."

Rebalancing technology across government

by Liam Maxwell. Government Digital Service, 21 May 2013. "Today we are releasing a further iteration of the Government Service Design Manual. We’ve updated this with more guidance for service managers and, for the first time, information for Chief Technology Officers on how government is rebalancing its approach to technology. Users need services that are genuinely agile and responsive to changing needs – where change reduces costs and risks rather than raising them and so making government more productive and our public services better. Our guiding principles for this change are simple: - focusing on user needs, ensuring that technology becomes so good that our colleagues, citizens and businesses want to use it - putting outcomes first; such as reductions in cost per transaction - using ‘openness’ to our advantage – open data, open standards, open source, open markets..."

Sign of the times: How Change.org and e-petitions have given campaigns new life

By Aidan Radnedge, Metro, Thursday 16 May 2013. "Robert F Kennedy claimed that ‘one-fifth of the people are against everything all of the time’. Whereas The Simpsons’ writers were so fond of one declaration they variously had both Kent Brockman and Homer Simpson wonder: ‘When are people going to learn? Democracy doesn’t work.’ And yet Conservative cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Gove appear to be competing in an (e-)voting contest of their own, even in this apparently apathetic nation. Work and pensions secretary Duncan Smith has the lead, for now, against his education secretary colleague/rival – that is, in being the subject of the most online petitions: 38 to 22. The running tally comes courtesy of Change.org, this week celebrating the first anniversary of the US-based firm setting up a specialist British operation..."

Internet Access Quarterly Update, Q1 2013

Office for National Statistics, 15 May 2013. " Key Points: At Q1 2013, 43.5 million adults (86%) in the UK had used the Internet. 7.1 million adults (14%) had never used the Internet. Men (88%) were more likely to be Internet users than women (84%). By region, London had the highest rate of Internet users (90%); Northern Ireland the lowest (79%)...."

Market Assessment of Public Sector Information - in pdf format (4870kb)

(This document requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader). A report by Deloitte for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, May 2013. "This report has been produced by Deloitte between October 2012 and March 2013. The lead authors are Andrew Tong, Haris Irshad and Daniel Revell Ward... This is the first UK-wide market assessment of public sector information. It spans the use and reuse of public sector information at the UK-level, regionally and locally by a wide range of businesses, civil society groups, government and members of the general public. The aim of this market assessment is to establish a robust evidence base on its value and to highlight the policy implications flowing from an examination of how public sector information could be utilised further. The research has covered three broad thematic areas: - definitions of public sector information and its characteristics; - how public sector information is used and re-used inside and outside of government; and - barriers to fully exploiting the value of public sector information, including issues around competitiveness, funding and regulation..."

Shakespeare Review: An Independent Review of Public Sector Information - in pdf format (3243kb)

(This document requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader). by Stephan Shakespeare, CEO of YouGov, May 2013. "In October 2012, I was invited by government to lead an independent review of Public Sector Information (PSI) to explore the growth opportunities of, and how to widen access to, the wealth of information held by the public sector... The review considers the full breadth of the PSI market, both current and future. It deals with the private sector, civil society and general public use and re-use of public information as well as the potential benefits for how the public sector uses and re-uses its own data. The review covers the elements set out below and includes answers to the questions posed. The review establishes and takes stock of the current use and re-use of PSI within Government, making recommendations for improvements where appropriate. It will consider the current and anticipated future needs for Government given the current policy objectives across departments and wider public sector bodies as well as the opportunities and challenges presented by rapidly developing technology in the area. In addition to the stated terms of reference, I have identified a number of further strategic questions that I have considered in this review: - What types of PSI offer the greatest business opportunities? - What are the biggest obstacles for government in order to unlock PSI opportunities? - What might be done by Government to deal with any obstacles? ..."

The Shakespeare review: what's the future of UK open data?

Stephan Shakespeare, CEO of YouGov, has published his independent review into open government data in the UK. What's he said, what's he missed, and what will it mean? Posted by James Ball . The Guardian DataBlog, Wednesday 15 May 2013. "The UK is the world leader on open government data, according to YouGov CEO and Open Data Strategy Board chair Stephan Shakespeare, but needs to avoid being the "boffins ... we generate the excitement but don't mint the money". The finding is one of the core messages of The Shakespeare Review, a government-commissioned report on what should happen next with opening up government data for the benefit of government, business and (of course) citizens..."

Channel Shift: Speeding Up the Long Game

Posted by Andy Price. Public Technology, PM Friday, 10 May 2013. "For many local government organisations, there is a gap between aspiration and reality when it comes to realising their channel shift programmes. They can see their ultimate goal of a self-service model for public interactions, and many organisations have already made headway in this by offering a select number of services online. But how should they extend these initial footings to build a solid foundation for pervasive online interaction? Simply offering online engagement to supplement telephone or face-to-face contact channels isn’t the ultimate objective. While this may realise some financial savings, it also runs the risk of simply offering another point of contact to the organisation, rather than delivering genuine ongoing benefits from transforming services..."

A Perspective on the Government Digital Strategy (GDS): Balancing agility and efficiency in UK Government IT delivery - in pdf format (650kb)

(This document requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader). Draft, by Alan W. Brown, John A. McDermid, Ian Sommerville, Rob Witty, 7 January 2013. "The recent publication of the Government Digital Strategy (GDS) addresses 'how the government will become digital by default' and heralds the redesign all UK Government 'transactional services handling over 100,000 transactions per year'. The GDS is intended to play a fundamental role in defining how UK citizens will access the most critical government services. Although somewhat broad in scope, the principles and actions defined in the GDS appear to be underpinned by three key assumptions that form the heart of the way the GDS believes it can realize digitized services in practice. These are: 1. Use open source tools to reduce cost and break dependency on proprietary solutions; 2. Adopt agile methods to speed up delivery via an incremental stream of capabilities; 3. Encourage more SME participation to enhance innovation and flexibility. In this report we examine these principles with respect to delivery of the UK Government IT solutions, and provide an extensive commentary on how these principles should be interpreted to improve their impact and success. Based on the that commentary, we recommend enhancing the GDS as it stands with additional detail, an extended focus on clearer interpretation of those principles to help understand how to enact the principles, and deeper elaboration to emphasize several under-developed themes. We focus on four major recommendations..."

What Works: evidence centres for social policy

UK Cabinet Office, March 2013. "A new initiative will build upon existing evidence-based policy making through launching a series of independent specialist centres. These will produce and disseminate research to local decision-makers, supporting them in investing in services that deliver the best outcomes for citizens and value for money for taxpayers..."

Cabinet Office celebrates major GOV.UK milestone

Posted by Andy Price. Public Technology, 3 May 2013. "Following the move of the 24th and final ministerial department website across to the single GOV.UK domain earlier this week, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has commented on the savings and user-benefits the completed phase of the project will bring: - "I’m proud to welcome the online home of No.10 Downing Street to GOV.UK, our flagship website for government. - Our digital by default vision for government is all about having online public services which are so good that people will choose to use them – that’s how we will get ahead in the global race. At GOV.UK anyone can find out information about any Whitehall department, all in one place..."

David Cameron's No 10 Twitter messages deleted without being read

More than 3,000 messages to David Cameron's official Number 10 Twitter feed are deleted without even being read every month, it has emerged. By Rowena Mason, Political Correspondent. The Telegraph, 2 May 2013. "Direct messages intended for the Prime Minister's office are routinely ignored, even though aides reply to letters sent to Mr Cameron by mail. A Freedom of Information request about the @Number10gov Twitter feed reveals it gets 100 to 200 direct messages from Mr Cameron's followers every day..."