Puffbox

Simon Dickson's gov-tech blog, active 2005-14. Because permalinks.

2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005

Code For The People company e-government news politics technology Uncategorised

api award barackobama barcampukgovweb bbc bis blogging blogs bonanza borisjohnson branding broaderbenefits buddypress budget cabinetoffice careandsupport chrischant civilservice coi commentariat commons conservatives consultation coveritlive crimemapping dailymail datasharing datastandards davidcameron defra democracy dfid directgov dius downingstreet drupal engagement facebook flickr foi foreignoffice francismaude freedata gds google gordonbrown governanceofbritain govuk guardian guidofawkes health hosting innovation internetexplorer labourparty libdems liveblog lynnefeatherstone maps marthalanefox mashup microsoft MPs mysociety nhs onepolitics opensource ordnancesurvey ournhs parliament petitions politics powerofinformation pressoffice puffbox rationalisation reshuffle rss simonwheatley skunkworks skynews statistics stephenhale stephgray telegraph toldyouso tomloosemore tomwatson transparency transport treasury twitter typepad video walesoffice wordcamp wordcampuk wordpress wordupwhitehall youtube

Privacy Policy

  • ,

    E-gov minister not hanging around

    Just to note that e-gov minister (?) Tom Watson, responding to comments on his ‘tell me what to do’ blog post, says he has ‘already got moving on the single spot for consultations’. It’s a start, but it’s far from the solution. Indeed, not so long ago, we did have a single (Cabinet Office?) website listing all open consultation exercises. It disappeared. The address www.consultations.gov.uk now redirects to a page at BERR.

    The more important aspect to Sheila Thomson’s proposal was the ugly techie bit. Her four-stage plan started with a single list, moved to a single notification channel, then to a standard layout, then to a standard XML schema. The first two are dead easy, we could do it in WordPress in minutes; the second two are much, much more difficult – if not impossible. People get very precious about their writing.

    Of all the issues in government web activity, consultation is the one I’m most concerned about. It’s taking us a helluva long time to find an acceptable means of consulting, online or offline; and frankly, I’m not sure there’s an appetite for it among the general population. Various people are trying various things at the moment; but until those deliver (or not), we need to concentrate on re-engaging the population, and making them actually care enough to get involved.

  • , ,

    Another new FCO blogger (ish)

    The Foreign Office launched itself into blogging last September, with a couple of ministers and a couple of high-profile ambassadors joining in the fun. Indeed, I note they’ve been scoring some PR points with it: Jolyon Welsh, FCO’s head of ‘Public Diplomacy’ presented a case study on it at a conference last week. But what happens when a (relatively) senior FCO staff member blogs off his own bat?

    James Barbour is the (relatively) new Head of Press at the British Embassy in Moscow – one of the more interesting posts to be in at the moment, I guess. He has some experience in blogging, having blogged for a while in his last job, a consultant with the public affairs practice at PR agency Hill & Knowlton, with a focus on technology.

    He’s quick to point out that ‘this blog is unofficial, personal, and does not (necessarily) represent the views of Her Majesty’s Government’. But it’ll be interesting to see what he feels able to say, from such a potentially sensitive position.

  • ,

    HMRC website crisis

    hmrcdown.pngPrepare yourself for the next ‘IT incompetence’ story: HMRC’s online self-assessment website has gone down, on the day people must file their tax returns, or face a fine. Based on last year’s numbers, it’s going to affect thousands of people. The BBC’s story has a bit more.

  • ,
    , , , ,

    Leading blogger is new e-gov Minister

    I haven’t yet seen official confirmation, but I’m reliably informed that Tom Watson is the new minister for e-government, post-reshuffle. The Cabinet Office website only says that: ‘Following on from Gillian Merron’s departure to the Department for International Development, Tom Watson MP has been appointed as new Parliamentary Secretary.’ And since she was responsible, it seems a safe bet that he is now. Watson, writing on his own blog, has only said that he has ‘some responsibility for technology projects’.

    Tom Watson was famously the first MP to start a blog, back in 2003; he won recognition from the New Statesman’s new media awards in 2004. And already he’s putting it to good use, to try and engage with people like us:

    If I was (smarter at all this stuff), I’d design a one page “Tell Tom” site where you could describe the project you think the clever people at the Ministry should be working on. A sort of “Fix my Street” for government web sites. All ideas welcome and who knows, you might actually make a difference.

    (Tip for Tom: you’re using WordPress. Just create a ‘page’ rather than a ‘post’, and be sure to tick the ‘Allow Comments’ box – if, that is, your web designer has allowed for comments in the ‘page’ template, which he/she may not have done.)

    This, of course, raises an interesting dilemma. Watson’s blog has always been unashamedly pro-Labour, anti-Tory: even in the last handful of posts, he’s been having digs at Iain Dale and David Cameron (reminding me of his apparent involvement in 2006’s notorious Sion Simon video). It’s generally good-natured, but it’s certainly party-political. So is it appropriate for him to conduct Ministerial business on the same blog?

    I’m not trying to make a point by asking this question: just pointing out that Ministers face the same quandry as the civil servants. Tom clearly understands the territory, and it’s actually a great appointment from that perspective. But I’m more than curious to see how ministerial responsibility for government web activity will affect his long-running personal web activity.

  • ,
    , , , ,

    Cabinet Minister for digital inclusion?

    A timely piece from the BBC’s Ashley Highfield on the ‘digital divide’. It’s timely, because as of this week, Britain has a Cabinet-level minister with responsibility for digital inclusion – Wales secretary Paul Murphy. This news appeared to come as a surprise to BBC Wales’s David Cornock when it emerged at PMQs this lunchtime. Mr Brown announced:

    The new Secretary of State for Wales has responsibilities in addition to his responsibilities for Wales. He is overseeing the British-Irish Council, he is responsible for the joint ministerial committees on devolution, he is the Minister responsible for digital inclusion, and he is responsible for data security and information assurance. Those responsibilities are in addition to his responsibilities as Secretary of State for Wales.

    All of which is very timely, for reasons I’ll reveal here tomorrow. (Although if you attended my session at Barcamp, you know already.)

  • ,

    Another Whitehall blogger

    Just picked up on another Civil Service blogger, bringing the total to… er, a slightly larger handful. The otherwise anonymous Civil Serf is female, aged 33, and Whitehall-based. I’m guessing she’s a ‘Grade 7’, if her boss is a member of the Senior Civil Service – and that would seem to be more or less in line with her statement that:

    Fortunately for you i’m just senior enough in my department to really know what’s going on. Fortunately for me i’m not senior enough to attract suspicion from my blogging.

    And in the space of barely a dozen posts since November, she’s hit several nails squarely on the head – very articulately. You’re most welcome to the club, whoever you are.

  • , , , , , , ,

    Thoughts from Barcamp: just do it

    The mere fact that Saturday’s BarcampUKGovWeb happened at all would have been enough in itself; but the assembled group of influential, inspirational and interesting people made for a fantastic day. At one point in the afternoon, I remember looking at the schedule and getting depressed at the countless interesting sessions I’d missed. It’s been a long time since I thought that of a (more conventional) conference. But I left with a slightly empty feeling: lots of questions, some of them very deep indeed, but no simple answers, and very few ‘action points’.

    The best lesson I can draw from the day’s proceedings is this: Just Do It. The day itself was proof. We all arrived with a common purpose, but no specific agenda. The framework was set in advance, and proceeded to fill itself. We all got stuck in, and it just worked.

    You’ve got Steve Dale’s example of just getting a Drupal installation into place, within a fortnight, to shock the client into a response. Or the MySociety approach of accepting ‘The System’ can’t or won’t deliver, and just getting on with it. Or my own WordPress-based crusade, I suppose. How to decide if Twitter or Seesmic has a role in government? – start using it, and let’s see.

    Since Saturday, I’ve heard of one person who’s started a blog, and one person who’s decided to get to grips with Facebook. Dave’s (relatively simple) Pageflakes example has drawn some interest. I wonder how many had ever edited a wiki before signing up for the event? These are all baby steps, but they are the only way people will get the big picture. (Welcome aboard, guys.)

    I firmly believe ‘the shift’ has happened, and government risks being left (even further) behind unless it exposes itself to the new world out there. COI’s Transformation / Rationalisation isn’t a bad thing in itself: the worst excesses needed to be reined in. But if we can agree what not to do, can we start agreeing what we can or should do?

    Let’s start small: a Directgov/COI blog, please. Then maybe a WordPress (MU?)-based blogging platform for Civil Service uses (like Microsoft did). A tie-up with Basecamp or London-based Huddle, to encourage lightweight project management methods. But the best idea of the day came (I think) from Graham from DIUS: a parallel version of Directgov in wiki form, allowing external experts to suggest improvements which might improve the ‘real’ version. Sheer genius. Let’s just do it.

  • ,
    , , , ,

    Panic over

    Well, that’s a relief. With Peter Hain resigning at lunchtime, there was a rush of quite rational speculation that the Wales Office might be folded into a new ‘department for the devolved bits’, covering Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

    I’ve been doing a bit of work for the Wales Office over the last month or so, which I’ll (hopefully?) be unveiling at Saturday’s government BarCamp. I’m exceptionally proud of it, and I think it’s a potentially groundbreaking piece of work for e-government. But if Downing Street had announced the end of the Wales Office as a department in its own right, the whole point of my project would have disappeared. And for a moment this afternoon, it looked like my masterpiece might never see the light of day.

    Paul Murphy, I can’t tell you how pleased I am to hear of your appointment. I note he’ll also be chairing a ‘new cross-departmental committee on IT and information security – although the grammar of the No10 announcement doesn’t make clear if it means IT generally, or IT security specifically.

  • New FCO blogger: Kosovo calling

    Another new FCO blogger: this time it’s Ruairi O Connell, Deputy Head of the British Office in Pristina. ‘We are where we are,’ he writes in his first posting, putting his diplomatic training to good use. Sky News foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall is rather more forthright on his excellent blog: the ‘last question’ in the Balkan Wars, namely the fate of Kosovo, is about to be thrashed out one way or the other. Serbia is midway through a two-round Presidential election, with the ‘ultra, and I mean ultra-nationalist’ candidate winning round one; round two takes place on 3 February. An insight from the UK’s Embassy-in-waiting could be very timely indeed.

    I note, incidentally, that two senior FCO people spoke on Wednesday at a conference on ‘Transforming Public Sector Communications’, one giving a case study on the FCO’s blogging initiative. Would have been nice if they’d written some of it up on one of the various blogs.

  • Government's 'trust bounce'

    Just in case you miss it: Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer study shows ‘trust in business is higher than in government in 14 of 18 countries’. But in the UK, the key finding is a ‘trust bounce’ for business, media, NGOs and government, with media and governmental credibility doubling (albeit from a pretty low base).

    Here’s the odd part. For all the company’s appetite for new media, including live Twittering by Simon Collister and David Brain, it’s surprisingly hard to find decent, substantial online material to link to. Here’s the global press release; here’s the UK ‘microsite’, with YouTube-hosted video; here’s the summary of findings, in a web-unfriendly PDF. Expect more in a few weeks time.