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Think tank says data dashboards have the potential to mislead and urges government to boost staff’s data science skills

Analysis comes amid reports that the contractors behind HMRC’s own tax status assessment tool are set to leave the public sector because of the clampdown

At the start of the year, Cornwall Council’s cabinet approved an £18m digital improvement plan that aims to fix years of IT underinvestment. Gill Hitchcock reports.

The Scottish government will implement a “tough” assurance process for digital projects, mandate the use of common technologies and offer training to make sure civil servants “get digital”.

Councils should be in the “driving seat” of technological change, but need to rethink the role they play in their locality and invest in long-term planning, a report has said.

Public sector organisations have been told they still have to meet the common Public Sector Network assurance standards while work is carried out to move away from the network.

The number of public sector bodies using the Crown Hosting Framework for data centres is set to increase, as the Crown Commercial Service takes over responsibility for the service.

Tech companies have welcomed the focus on innovation and IT skills in yesterday’s Spring Budget, but called for the government to follow up its ambition with targeted actions.

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.