PublicTechnology.net

The Government Digital Service is recruiting for a new service manager for its identity assurance programme Verify as as part of the push to increase users of the service by more than 20 million.

After a tumultuous first six months as director general of the Government Digital Service, Kevin Cunnington has finally got the long-awaited Transformation Strategy off his desk and is looking forward to an office move. He tells Rebecca Hill about Whitehall “self-help groups”, reforms to spend controls and cold water swimming.

The Ministry of Justice has become the latest department to transfer its employee data onto the government’s shared back-office IT system.

DfE IT leader Dave Rutt has called on digital teams to let users test their tech – and raised concerns that tax reforms are driving contractors out of the public sector.

GP practices may be inadvertently breaking data protection rules due to a record-sharing feature in a widely-used IT system, it has been reported.

Police forces across the UK are struggling to cope with technologically advanced crimes and are failing to exploit digital investigative techniques, a report has said.

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.

MPs have urged the government to take a “concrete step” to greater transparency by creating a searchable database of meetings with businesses that extends to include senior civil servants.

Individual councils could save up to £80m on IT spend alone over the next decade by adopting common platforms like GOV.UK Verify, according to government estimates. 

Experts say HMRC's online tool to help contractors calculate tax status is 'not fit for purpose' as effects of IR35 reforms start to bite

Microsoft Surface has helped Cheshire Police reduce paperwork and free up time

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 government has published its long-awaited Digital Strategy, which sets out plans to increase digital inclusion, data skills and industry links.

The Government Digital Service has published six new user research methods guides in its Service Manual.

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 government has been urged to focus on speeding up move to digital healthcare records amid accusations that the NHS covered up the loss of more than half a million pieces of confidential patient data over five years.

The government’s long-awaited Digital Strategy is expected to include £17m for artificial intelligence, a review of AI technologies and support for smart devices, cyber security and autonomous vehicles.

The government’s latest digital procurement framework has attracted 60% more suppliers than the previous iteration of the platform.

The government chief people officer Rupert McNeil has said that the civil service is using recruitment technology that is “40 or 50 years out of date” as the civil service announces plans to trial a cloud-based recruitment platform in efforts to tackle bias.

Countries that want to use digital tools to increase public engagement with the democratic process must gain cross-party support for the intervention and be honest about what it will and will not do, a report has said.

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.