PublicTechnology.net

Warren Smith, interim director of the Digital Marketplace programme at the Government Digital Service, has been officially given the position full-time.

HMRC’s chief digital officer Mark Dearnley is to leave the department when his contract runs out in September, it has been announced.

Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS trust has chosen provider MCSA to revamp its IT infrastructure in a bid to save money and make backing-up records more reliable.

Around 18 months ago, senior leaders at Wigan Council decided to take digital seriously. Since then the authority has won multiple awards for its transformation. Rebecca Hill asks Alison McKenzie-Folan, deputy chief executive director for customer transformation, about the journey.

Council IT chiefs tell Sooraj Shah that, although the Internet of Things has huge potential for local government, it’s still early days for the technology.

A training programme to help vulnerable people how to use the internet to access healthcare services has saved the NHS as much as £6 million in avoided GP and A&E visits in a year, according to a report published by the Tinder Foundation.

At the end of last year, the charity doteveryone launched its heatmap of digital exclusion across the UK to help communities take control of the situation. But where is the project now, and have councils paid attention? Rebecca Hill reports.

Public authorities will be granted more powers to share their data with other bodies through proposals set out in the Digital Economy Bill, which was laid before Parliament yesterday.

Local government lacks the understanding, budgets and leadership to create smart cities, a report has said.

An audit of gov.uk domains has identified more than 1,000 breaches of government guidance and has led to the closure of 471 local government domains.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has made more than 11,000 datasets open for anyone to access, use and share, exceeding a self-imposed target set last year.

Kate Craig-Wood, managing director of Memset, one of the original technical leads of the government’s G-Cloud framework, was a strong believer in the initiative, but now says her mind has changed. 

The Government Digital Service plans to update its Technology Code of Practice to encourage a more adaptive and innovative approach to technology use in government.

Moves to create a new open register of property addresses has the ability to improve public services, according to Cabinet Office minister Matt Hancock.

Privatising the Land Registry risks "repeating the same mistakes" of previous outsourcing arrangements and could undermine the government's bid to make more data publicly accessible, according to the Open Data Institute.

The Greater London Authority is working on a secure, private version of its London Datastore that will allow boroughs to share sensitive information to help improve services.

Local authorities must demand open access to data generated via service contracts if they are to maximise the potential benefits of the smart cities agenda, the Socitm spring conference heard.

The UK has signed a memorandum of understanding to improve digital cooperation with the Australian government.

Investment in developing premium mapping technology for commercial use has knock-on benefits for the general public and the development community, according to Ordnance Survey’s public sector director.

HM Revenue & Customs chief technology officer Steve Walters has detailed two data-driven areas of change his department expects in the coming years.