PublicTechnology.net

Des Ward, information governance director at Innopsis, reflects on the real story behind the WannaCry cyber-attack.

With the cyber threat shifting its focus to sabotage rather than data theft, many of the defences deployed by public sector organisations will have to be adapted for the new world

New threats require the sort of joint civilian and military planning that was common in the Cold War – but with a focus on cyber rather than nuclear, says Jennifer Cole of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)

There is no lack of appetite for data projects – it’s just that the scope of them is so vast, many people don’t know where to begin

While some councils boast impressive advocates for data analysis, there are strict limits on what they can accomplish without the backing of Westminster – as the election campaign row over social care shows

Tackling shadow IT should be an urgent priority for government in the wake of the WannaCry breach on the NHS, says Julian Cook.

An NHS-wide cloud for sharing diagnostic images and intelligence across the health service could mean huge economies of scale, stronger collaboration, and rapid digitisation, according to Jane Rendall and Fredrik Gustavsson.

Benefit fraud is worse than ever. Gary Pettengell asks if new technology is helping?

Budget constraints and practicalities might prevent councils from making large-scale changes to their IT systems. But, says Richard Whomes, even the smallest steps to modernisation can make a big impact.

Existing social media platforms aren’t providing effective political engagement, because they weren’t designed to, says David Evans, director of policy and community at the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

The global ransomware attack has been followed by an outcry about the NHS' reliance on legacy systems. Harry Metcalfe and Lee Maguire of dxw say you can't properly diagnose the problem - or understand an organisation's culture - from the outside, but call for technicians to be empowered to act quickly when...

Last week’s local elections saw a swing to the Conservatives, with a few successes for Labour in the city mayoral polls. But, if the political landscape has shifted, David Walker says it remains to be seen if local government tech will move beyond business as usual.

In three weeks, voters in Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool get to choose new mayors, but you’d be hard pushed to find much mention of tech in their manifestos, says David Walker. He asks if there’s a reason for their seemingly half-hearted approach to IT...

Much will be made of the UK spending watchdog’s recent report on how the Government Digital Service is adapting to its new way of working – but the real test of government digital is more likely to be Brexit, writes the Institute for Government’s Daniel Thornton.

At the end of March, the government is facing a brain-drain as contractors leave the public sector rather than be caught out by stricter tax rules. But Eduserv’s Max Elliott-Massouras says the focus should be on the value of contractors – not their cost.

Aingaran Pillai, CEO and founder of open source software company Zaizi, says that governments need to make bold decisions on digital - but make sure they're executed properly. He offers his top five tips for digital staff here.

A lack of benchmarking data on digital transformation programmes in government makes it hard to evaluate success at a time when it has ever been more important, says Jane Roberts, strategy director at TopLevel. 

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee is to investigate the use of algorithms in decision-making, an inquiry chosen as part of the committee’s crowd-sourcing project. Stephanie Mathisen, campaigns and policy officer at Sense about Science, who pitched the idea to the MPs, explains why the field needs more scrutiny.

The UK’s model of governance seems impervious to radical technological change, but elsewhere in the world, countries are getting digital democracy right, says Theo Bass, a researcher at innovation foundation Nesta and author of a report looking at the tools governments have at their fingertips.

The government’s transformation strategy seems to be more about re-packaged principles when it needed to demonstrate how a revolution could be achieved in practice, says independent digital analyst Jos Creese. 

The government's transformation strategy needs buy-in from the political top brass to drive the radical culture change that underpins the plan, writes PublicTechnology editor Rebecca Hill.