The most recent Public Sector IT articles from IT Week

Interview : Viglen chief predicts uphill struggle for Vista

Dave Bailey — 2008-05-14T11:58:00.000Z

Dave Bailey, IT Week, Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 11:58:00

As head of a PC vendor with a big presence in the public sector, Bordan Tkachuk sees little appetite for major Vista deployments

Bordan Tkachuk is perhaps best known for his appearance as one of Alan Sugar’s three lieutenants in the BBC hit show The Apprentice....

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Surfers shine at studies and salaries

David Neal — 2008-05-01T10:45:00.000Z

David Neal, IT Week, Thursday 1 May 2008 at 10:45:00

Government must do more to reach the un e-enabled, finds report

According to a new report, called Economic benefits of digital inclusion, people with computer and internet access are likely to both do better at school, and earn more in the...

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Brent Council sends PCs to Africa

Rosalie Marshall — 2008-04-22T00:00:00.000Z

Rosalie Marshall, IT Week, Tuesday 22 April 2008 at 00:00:00

A partnership with Computer Aid International makes compliance easier for Brent

Brent Council has introduced an innovative IT disposal strategy, which helps it comply with regulations, while boosting its social credentials....

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Government urged to introduce data loss controls

Rosalie Marshall — 2008-04-15T00:00:00.000Z

Rosalie Marshall, IT Week, Tuesday 15 April 2008 at 00:00:00

New losses of data revealed

Losses of sensitive personal information by public sector bodies will persist unless the government introduces stronger controls security experts have argued....

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OGC hits back at public sector overspend claims

Rosalie Marshall — 2008-04-11T00:00:00.000Z

Rosalie Marshall, IT Week, Friday 11 April 2008 at 00:00:00

The Office of Government Commerce does not waste money, it counters

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) has argued against claims that public sector outsourcing contracts are wasting tax payer’s money, costing the public 75 per cent more than they should....

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Technology vendors offer advice in response to police reform strategy

Rosalie Marshall — 2008-02-12T00:00:00.000Z

Rosalie Marshall, IT Week, Tuesday 12 February 2008 at 00:00:00

Vendors have advised the government to move slow on police IT plans

IT vendors are advising the government to undertake its police IT plans with caution and to consider previous project disasters....

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NOMIS marks another government IT failure

Rosalie Marshall — 2008-01-10T00:00:00.000Z

Rosalie Marshall, IT Week, Thursday 10 January 2008 at 00:00:00

Another government IT project gets chalked up to experience

The National Offender Management Service Information Technology programme (C-NOMIS), will now be introduced in prisons only and no longer extended to the probation service as originally planned, according to a...

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Modernisation puts paid to mainframes

Martin Courtney — 2007-11-26T00:00:00.000Z

Martin Courtney, IT Week, Monday 26 November 2007 at 00:00:00

A two-phase project will see Stoke-on-Trent city council completely overhaul its financial systems.

Faced with a pressing need to update its e-procurement and financial management systems, Stoke-on-Trent City Council recently gave systems integrator Civica the task of implementing a four-year, £1m modernisation programme....

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UK moves up e-government rankings

Rosalie Marshall — 2007-09-21T00:00:00.000Z

Rosalie Marshall, IT Week, Friday 21 September 2007 at 00:00:00

UK ranks fifth place for sophistication and availability of online government services

The UK ranks fifth place in Europe for sophistication and availability of online government services, according to the annual e-government benchmark study by Capgemini....

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ID cards on track for 2009 as procurement begins

James Murray — 2007-08-13T00:00:00.000Z

James Murray, IT Week, Monday 13 August 2007 at 00:00:00

Procurement process finally gets underway but questions remain over the technical "nuts and bolts" of the project

The government has confirmed that it remains on track to deliver the first ID cards by 2009 after it finally began the procurement process for the £5.5bn project....

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Podcast: What can we expect from the new minister for identity?

IT Week Staff — 2007-08-03T00:00:00.000Z

IT Week Staff, IT Week, Friday 3 August 2007 at 00:00:00

Audio analysis from IT Week, including the latest developments in the government's long-running ID cards project

This week Phil Muncaster talks to Management editor James Murray about the government's newly-appointed minister for identity, Meg Hillier, and how the ID cards project is progressing....

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E-gov focus shifts towards ROI

James Murray — 2007-08-01T00:00:00.000Z

James Murray, IT Week, Wednesday 1 August 2007 at 00:00:00

Kable research predicts increase in spend on customer-facing projects

Local authority spending on e-government is to remain healthy despite an end last year to central government subsidies, according to a new report released this week....

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Councils set their sites on value

Phil Muncaster — 2007-07-23T00:00:00.000Z

Phil Muncaster, IT Week, Monday 23 July 2007 at 00:00:00

Public sector IT expert Paul Smith says councils can achieve a lot more with their web sites

IT Week: As technology director of public sector consultancy firm Civica, what is your view of the Transformational Government scheme? Paul Smith: There’s a lack of focus. The government keeps telling public sector bodies to join up their services, but doesn’t say exactly what this entails. How big a part does the web play in Transformational Government? Local authorities have a love-hate relationship with the web. They want more people to use it because it’s cheap, but just telling people there are services online doesn’t mean they’ll use them. Furthermore, they don’t want to disenfranchise anyone who doesn’t have access to the web. I believe a local authority should aspire to make its site the home page for local residents. How could they do this? They could tell you what’s on in your local cinema, where the local restaurants are, if there’s a planning application to turn your local cinema into a supermarket – it’s very empowering for people and could work very strongly for local authorities. We have an application, for example, that can take all the environmental health reports on restaurants and publish them to the web. If you tied this up with letting customers post reviews up about the restaurants then it can become something quite powerful. Local authorities have all that information and once it gets personalised it could be quite exciting. What is your perception of IT departments and their challenges? Local authorities are all competing to provide the best services, so there’s a range of different back-office service providers, middleware and front-end CRM systems that are used. And IT departments have a variety of levels, skills and competencies. IT managers’ major demand is to deliver service in a demanding environment, and they are under pressure to achieve five percent efficiency cuts every year – it’s quite a challenge, and there are political agendas to deal with too. Will Transformational Government deliver better value for tax payers? It needs to happen. Council Tax can’t keep going up so councils have to be more efficient. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister said that the e in e-government needs to change from electronic to efficient, and that’s what’s happening. The web is a key part of this. Figures suggest it costs around £20 for a face-to-face [transaction]; £4.50 for the same on a telephone; and around 12.5p on the web – that’s potentially a huge amount of money you could save. Is there any interest in mobile internet tools in the public sector? There is interest but the solutions are not there yet. Some people are looking at text-to-pay solutions on mobile phones. IT Week: As technology director of public sector consultancy firm Civica, what is your view of the Transformational Government scheme? Paul Smith: There’s a lack of focus....

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Should proprietary IT get our vote?

George Gardiner — 2007-07-02T00:00:00.000Z

George Gardiner, IT Week, Monday 2 July 2007 at 00:00:00

E-voting is coming, but the issue of who supplies the systems could have major implications for our democracy

Reports suggest that e-voting may soon become a reality in the UK. E-voting systems could help to streamline elections and reduce fraud, but the way these systems are developed and...

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Brown’s opportunity

IT Week staff — 2007-06-25T00:00:00.000Z

IT Week staff, IT Week, Monday 25 June 2007 at 00:00:00

Inbound PM Brown faces tough IT decisions

It is an attractive thought that Gordon Brown is quite possibly the last Prime Minister to be a self-confessed computer ignoramus....

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