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Category: Government

More Government micro-management: E-commerce legislation

More Government micro-management: E-commerce legislation

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I wonder how many UK businesses have complied with the e-commerce legislative requirement to include company registration details on their web sites and in their emails? The law became effective from 1st January 2007. If you are a business owner (as I am), you may be forgiven if you didn’t hear much about it, because there was little in the way of any direct communication with businesses.  Unfortunately that will be no excuse when the bureaucrats come to dishing out…

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New Guidance on use of Council Tax data

New Guidance on use of Council Tax data

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I saw this earlier this week on Public Sector Forums and  reflected  on its significance. The Information Commissioner’s Office will today (26th Jan) publish revised guidance for local authorities wishing to make secondary use of Council Tax Data, for example to populate CRM systems. Previous government guidance on data sharing has created uncertainty in many local authorities on whether they can use this data for other council functions, despite the prevailing common sense that having one authoratitive data set is…

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Evidence-based Policy Making

Evidence-based Policy Making

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This is a riveting good read! Released under a creative commons licence from Demos, available here for download (87 pages) (Download receivedwisdom.pdf ). Extract: Since 1997, there has been a flowering in bodies such as the Health Protection Agency, the Food Standards Agency and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) that turn science into policy. At the same time we have seen more and more ad hoc expert groups pop into existence, tell the government what to…

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Road Pricing Petition

Road Pricing Petition

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The government’s proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it. The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study by the BBC, the lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a delivery driver. A non working Mum who used her car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month. On top of…

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Why Command and Control is So Bad

Why Command and Control is So Bad

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Bruce Nussbaum at Business Week has written an article entitled "Lessons from Home Depot’s Bob Nardelli – Why Command and Control is So Bad". Now here’s a lesson from the private sector which could easily be applied to Government; autocratic top-down, command and control works great when you focus on process, e.g. cost and quality, Six Sigma measures and all that stuff. However, if the UK Government is serious about giving local authorities and and local communities more influence and…

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Government culls web sites

Government culls web sites

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For anyone that didn’t catch this headline on the BBC web site yesterday – "Hundreds of government websites are to be shut down "to make access to information easier" for people.Of 951 sites, only 26 will definitely stay, 551 will definitely close and hundreds more are expected to follow". For anyone even remotely connected to the public sector, as well as ordinary citizens, this can only be good news. The proliferation of webs sites across central government is a consequence…

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Crisis at Gov Connect

Crisis at Gov Connect

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Government plans for a single authentication system for citizens accessing public services online may be derailed by procurement issues branded by one industry insider as ‘rank bad practice’, according  to a recent article in Computer Weekly. Seems the crisis was triggered by a ‘no punchs pulled’ letter from the Director General to the CIO of the DCLG – a full copy of the letter is attached. Will be interesting to see how this one pans out….lots of squirming in the…

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The DCLG Capability Review – not for the squimish!

The DCLG Capability Review – not for the squimish!

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Prescott’s legacy – the Department for Communities and Local Government – DCLG (previously the ODPM) continues to flounder. A recent Civil Service Capabilty Review identifies the DCLG is one of the least capable departments in Whitehall. The report refers to "skills gaps in project and programme management" and says the DCLG lacks a reputation for strategic influence across government. Its senior officials are also unable to exert significant leverage over ministers on spending choices. Is it right to watch something…

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Central Government Isn’t Working!

Central Government Isn’t Working!

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As a private sector taxpayer I’m always slightly more sensitive to wastage and inefficiency in the public sector than many of my public sector colleagues. Thus, I thought I’d share this real-life story: I’m currently doing some contract work for a large central government department, who outsource their ICT services and support to a well-known private enterprise services organisation. I wanted to change the hypertext link on an Intranet web page to point to a different page in order to…

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