Digital, Data & Technology

The government’s controversial patient record-sharing programme care.data, paused in February after noisy opposition, will be restarted as a pilot this autumn, according to NHS England’s national director for patients and information Tim Kelsey.

An official responsible for an IT contracting error which cost the Ministry of Defence (MoD) £70m is no longer working for the department, its permanent secretary Jon Thompson told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on 16 June​.

Government spending on outsourcing contracts rose by 23% to £1.2bn between 2012 and 2013, bringing the two-year total to £2.3bn, while expenditure in most other sectors fell by between 1% and 20%, according to analysis of public sector transactions carried out by the Institute for Government (IfG).

The Civil Service Competency Framework should be updated to require all staff to have minimum skills in critical thinking, quantitative analysis and digital skills, according to think tank Policy Exchange.

The majority  (88%) of civil servants believe their department needs more training in order to be able to take advantage of cloud computing, according to a survey carried out by Civil Service World and cloud services provider Eduserv.

Policy Exchange, a right-leaning think-tank, has called on the government to spend £875m on digitally educating the 6.2m people who aren’t currently using the internet, bringing Britain’s entire population online by 2020.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is to open a second digital academy for its civil servants working in the North of England

Three quarters of British people view strong data security as the most important feature of government’s online services, according to a survey carried out by YouGov for Deloitte, and nearly one fifth of people avoid using digital services because they don’t want to share data online.

The Government Digital Service (GDS) and the business department (BIS) will establish a cross-government digital capability and skills programme to help citizens use digital services.

Serious questions remain about accountability for Universal Credit in light of Robert Devereux and Iain Duncan Smith’s latest appearance before MPs, the Institute for Government has said.

Baroness Martha Lane Fox is stepping down from her role as the government’s digital champion, after more than three years in the job.

The gov.uk website is to be adapted to ensure that the civil service communications profession can more easily use it to run campaigns, the government’s executive director for communications Alex Aiken (pictured below) has told Civil Service World.

The government should ditch paper altogether and rely on digital technology - unless face-to-face interaction is absolutely necessary for public service delivery - a report by think-tank Policy Exchange argues today.

New Zealand's civil service believes that their central government needs one single web portal. Their digital team write about how they’ve taken inspiration from gov.uk.

Of all the agendas set out last year in the government’s Civil Service Reform Plan, the fastest progress is being made on ‘digital by default’, a CSW survey has found. Over half (53%) of civil servants said their organisation is making rapid or steady progress on this agenda, and 55% said that the reform would 'dramatically' or 'significantly' improve the civil service.

Many civil servants work in the government analogue service

Andrew Dilnot, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, told the Public Administration Select Committee last week that he has written “six or seven” letters to departments complaining about the distortion of official statistics.

Officials should publish more freely; the media more carefully

Digital technology offers tremendous opportunities for people of all ages. Being able to buy groceries or access a huge amount of information at the click of a button is fantastic, as is the ability to keep in touch with loved ones via email, video link and social media. However, although the opportunities offered online are immense, there are real challenges for some when it comes to getting digitally connected in the first place.

The development of new ICT procurement frameworks by the Government Procurement Service (GPS) has been “paused” while a review is undertaken to ensure they’re offering the best value for money.

The new head of the Welsh Civil Service, Derek Jones, will take up his position on 8 October after a four year hiatus from the civil service. He replaces Dame Gillian Morgan, who retired in August. Jones was the director of business and partnerships at Cardiff University, and prior to this role he spent 30 years as a civil servant, including as a senior director.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has said that the civil service is moving away from an “old-fashioned” culture of “presenteeism”, and argued that remote working can increase productivity.

Civil servants support moves to increase the transparency of government and to devolve powers down to local government and communities, but are strongly opposed to outsourcing delivery to the private and voluntary sectors, an exclusive poll by CSW has found.