WRITTEN ON Sunday, August 8th, 2010 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Design: Co-creation, Foundation of Trust, Power of Information, Save Time and Money, We told you so...

The closure of ContactPoint and the onset of the Databankendämmerung is – let’s say it again – cause for celebration. It’s also cause for congratulation to those who campaigned long and hard, with negligeable resources, against the brick wall of prevailing wisdom to get rid of it.
That’s not to say the underlying problems ContactPoint [...]

WRITTEN ON Thursday, May 20th, 2010 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Policies, Save Time and Money

As well as the good stuff on civil liberties noted below, the governing coalition’s Progamme for Government (pdf download) has this on government IT procurement:
We will take steps to open up government procurement and reduce costs; and we will publish government ICT contracts online.
We will create a level playing field for opensource software and will [...]

WRITTEN ON Saturday, February 27th, 2010 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Ideal government IT strategy, Save Time and Money

I dont get this.
The 2011 Census will adopt a similar processing strategy to that used in the 2001 Census.
But this is a £500m deal. And it’s 10 years on. Shouldn’t things have changed more than this?
The Times reported
The ONS has already formed a working group to investigate alternatives to the census. It will present [...]

WRITTEN ON Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Design: Co-creation, Foundation of Trust, Save Time and Money, What do we want?

Cripes. HM’s Loyal Opposition has announced – if elected – a £1m prize for an online platform for large-scale crowdsourcing.
This almost comes onto the radar of big IT suppliers. It’s massive for smart little NGOs; it would have funded about a decade of early MySociety work.
I got it in an email (extract below). [...]

WRITTEN ON Friday, December 18th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Across the Board, Design: Co-creation, Design: user-oriented, Foundation of Trust, Government Procurement, Ideal Goverment - project, Ideal government IT strategy, Identity, Pertinent Art, Policies, Political engagement, Power of Information, Save Time and Money, Transformational Government, We told you so...

It’s time to say what we want from government IT.
Let’s do this together. Let’s say “wouldn’t it be better if” about how tech affects transparency, costs and the quality of public services and how they affect our lives.
@ntouk and I have long since been fed up with what one senior Whitehall official yesterday called [...]

WRITTEN ON Thursday, December 10th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Bad stuff, Data nitwittery, Identity, Official fibbing/bad stats, Pertinent Art, Political engagement, Save Time and Money, Transformational Government, We told you so...

In a speech yesterday Michael Wills (whom I dont know myself, but he’s Labour member of Parliament for Swindon North, and a Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice) called for a new, more courteous and respectful dialogue over government’s use of personal data.
IdealGovernment has wanted this for years. But – as he [...]

WRITTEN ON Sunday, December 6th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Government Procurement, Political engagement, Save Time and Money, Uncategorized

From The Times
Francis Maude, the shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, has written to Sir Gus O’Donnell, the cabinet secretary, calling for a moratorium on the £100bn of government IT contracts in the pipeline.
This raises a load of questions. What’s the list of contracts? Is it complete and definitive?
One can imagine suppliers are lobbying [...]

WRITTEN ON Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Design: Co-creation, Design: user-oriented, Save Time and Money

Consumer Focus is calling for a rethink of DirectGov which puts the consumer at the centre:
Directgov appears to have grown into the massive service it is today without a clear consumer-focused strategy. As described, the 2005 Cabinet Office report, Transformational Government: enabled by technology, set out a vision for transforming services through digital means, [...]

WRITTEN ON Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Political engagement, Save Time and Money, What do we want?

Oppositions have always listened better than governments. Labour did up to 1997, and the Tories do now. But this breaks new ground, and on our core theme: government IT strategy:

Granted, we had the idea first, but this latest move makes the whole process altogether more serious. Will the government now have to respond with [...]

WRITTEN ON Friday, November 27th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Across the Board, Design: user-oriented, Foundation of Trust, Political engagement, Save Time and Money, Transformational Government, What do we want?

@NTOUK and @williamheath are heartily fed up with half-baked government IT strategies.
Having to read the current proposal is the last straw. Modernising Govt promised the same in 1999. The 2009 draft Government ICT Strategy – New world, new challenges, new opportunities seems oddly detached from the pressing discussions under way about public services renewal. It [...]