Puffbox

Tom Watson (West Bromwich East, Labour) To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the total cost to her Department was of the directgov advertising campaign, Go DirectGov. Jim Knight (Minister of State (the South West), Regional Affairs; South Dorset, Labour) The cost of production and airtime purchased to date combined is £2.05 million. Source: TheyWorkForYou.com Why? [...] read on »

Doing a bit of research for my presentation in Oslo tomorrow (of which more later), I came across a somewhat surprising figure in Hansard. Directgov cost us £30.7 million in the year 2008-09 - well over double what it cost us the previous year. Of that £30.7 million, £7.48 million went on 'advertising, public relations, publicity [...] read on »

I didn't write about Mash The State when I first heard about it, because the ambitions seemed embarrassingly modest: getting each council in the country to offer an RSS feed by Christmas. In 2009? - seriously? And then I note that, of the three e-government super-sites - Directgov, Businesslink, NHS Choices, annual budget approx £30m each [...] read on »

So Directgov have 'partnered' with Microsoft to create a little IE8 search plugin, eh? Well, in the interests of wider browser compatibility, Puffbox presents its own search plugin to help the greater number of people using IE7 or Firefox. And we've done it at no charge, too. read on »

If there's one lesson to draw from the unveiling of Directgov's experimental School Closures site, it's the sheer goodwill of the community towards them. Quick précis for those who missed any of it: at 11.50pm on Sunday night, Cabinet Office minister Tom Watson publicly throws down a gauntlet. With the country facing snowy armageddon, could Directgov [...] read on »

I'm not going to say much here about the Power Of Information Taskforce report: the best place to do that is on the site itself. But I will pick up one point which stopped me in my tracks. The report notes that: Successful leading high tech businesses will spend at least 10% of their budget on [...] read on »

Hooray for another high-profile UK government website based on an open source content management system: the new National Strategies website from DCSF, built on Drupal. It's big, bright, bold, and once you've registered - a remarkably painless process for a government site, without any apparent checks on your membership of the target audience - it offers [...] read on »

I'm not sure we learned a lot from this morning's Lords Communications Committee session with Michael Ellam (the Prime Minister's official spokesman) and Sir Gus O'Donnell (head of the home civil service), part of the continuing review of government communications, and reforms proposed in 2004's Phillis Review. It wasn't an intense grilling, and as you'd [...] read on »

COI has announced details of the bidding process for the contract to promote Directgov. Four agencies are on the shortlist - Chick Smith Trott (incumbents), Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy, Clemmow Hornby Inge and Farm. Now folks, remember, these are advertising agencies: don't click those links unless you're ready for a full-on Flash assault. And what'll it [...] read on »

I'm reluctant to write this solely on the basis of a piece in the Mail (on Sunday?), but it seems Civil Serf has been identified and suspended by DWP. Investigators hunting for the blogger summoned her to a meeting last week, when it is understood that she denied responsibility. She was told she was being [...] read on »