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Luton Borough Council chose to renew its IT contract rather than go with a new provider. The council’s technology lead tells Gill Hitchcock how it shifted to an outcomes-based approach – and why a flexible 10-year contract can still be a good deal.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has opened a procurement drive for its hosting and application support services as part of the exit from its IBM and Capgemini contracts.

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. 

Public sector organisations need to proactively work with existing large-scale public sector cloud-based networks to deliver more savings, a report from the association of IT professionals, Socitm, has said.

Civil servants running HMRC’s digital tax reforms have defended the timeline of the plan, but admitted that some software suppliers will not have products ready until October – six months after the pilot of the scheme is due to start.

The Government Digital Service has said it will use “more robust metrics” for GOV.UK as its 2017-18 roadmap reveals plans to improve email subscription, content search and user journeys.

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.

HMRC is advertising for a director to lead its data strategy and help personalise customers’ interactions with services, as the tax authority reveals more details of its behavioural insights work.

The Ministry of Defence has launched a competition for small businesses to develop new ways of using data to improve decision-making as part of efforts to increase its data analytics abilities.

Senior managers in the public sector have said that data privacy, security and increasing regulations are all barriers to their organisations benefitting from mobile and digital technologies, according to a survey.

The public sector needs to use technology to reform its workforce by disrupting hierarchies, adopting new recruitment processes and automating administrative roles, a think tank has said.

The Government Digital Service has said that although ‘cloud first’ remains government policy, its aspiration should be ‘cloud native’.

The Government Digital Service has launched a consultation for the next iteration of its cloud procurement platform for buyers and suppliers. 

Government plans to bring in expand specialist digital recruitment capabilities at the Government Digital Service and “address reward issues” in digital, data and technology have been revealed in a job advert for a new director for the function.

The Government Digital Service has set up a community for people working on cloud adoption across Whitehall – and is seeking more members to drive up productivity. 

The IT managed services provider Redcentric has been chosen to provide the peering exchange for the UK’s new Health and Social Care Network.

The Government Digital Service has said it wants to find out what technology councils need to buy, in a bid to make its Digital Marketplace procurement platform more attractive to local government.

The government’s industrial strategy has emphasised the importance of data-sharing by Whitehall, as well as a push to improve digital skills training and boost funding for technologies like robotics and 5G.

The Public Services Network adds unnecessary complications to providing digital services and will be abandoned, according to the Government Digital Service.

Suppliers of cloud-based technology to government will be able to apply for the ninth iteration of the G-Cloud framework from March, the government has announced.

Much of the digital information that government has amassed over the past two decades is poorly organised and “almost impossible” to search, a Cabinet Office report has said.