IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC)'s report on year-long open-source software trials in the public sector says the software is maturing rapidly and should be considered alongside rival proprietary tools.

Central government ICT expenditure forecast 2004-05 to 2007-08, published on 25 July 2005, forecasts that expenditure on ICT will rise from £2.6bn in 2004-05 to £3.2bn in fiscal year 2007-08. Just over 60% of the 2007-08 spend (£1.9bn) is predicted to be outsourced.

The Cabinet Office has appealed to local government to contribute to its programme to develop shared services principles.

Director of the shared services transformation team David Myers told delegates at the IDeA e-champions network conference that the public sector had to develop its own sharing principles to avoid repeat buying of systems and processes.

More than 40 government departments contribute information to www.businesslink.gov.uk. They include the Office of Deputy Prime Minister, Health and Safety Executive, HM Revenue and Customs and the Patent Office.

Over 650,000 small businesses use the site each month and the figure is rising, according to research into the website released on 1 June 2005. 90% of users believed using the site offers time and cost savings, while 85% said the information gave them the confidence to grow and develop their business.

The fragmented political structure of London means that it would be extremely difficult to appoint a CIO or CTO to oversee IT policy for the whole city, according to the government agency tasked with managing e-government initiatives across the capital.

The UK has slipped another rung down the e-government ladder, slipping further behind leaders including Canada, the US and Denmark.

Despite the huge amounts spent on government IT - and the laudable target of having all government services online by the end of this year - the UK is still rated as a follower in the rankings put together by Accenture.

Irrespective of the result, many of us hope that we can continue to enjoy the benefits of democratic processes which aim to provide our society with both social and economic stability.

But one area where change should and will occur is in the way people are able to have a direct input to those processes online.

The public sector has a bad reputation when it comes to IT. Frequent project failures have led to central government being lambasted in the press, and yet with the emphasis now on driving efficiency in government, tightening up public sector IT becomes more important than ever.

The length of Upper Street, Islington, has been blanketed with free wireless internet access, courtesy of the local council. It is London's biggest hotzone, and typical of things happening around the world - though there is less agreement about who should pay for them. In a US city, for example, Islington's launch would cause political outrage, but in other countries, it would pass unnoticed. Finland, for instance, has hundreds of square kilometres of continuous Wi-Fi coverage in its major cities.

The unveiling of a government strategy to install wireless hot spots in public areas across Britain has been put on ice until at least October.

The initiative to wirelessly enable public places and buildings access was due to be launched at the British Library on Tuesday. But organisers were forced to pull the event on Monday -- citing the government reshuffle earlier this month.

Wigan Council is looking forward to making savings totalling £250,000 after automating its purchase invoice process.

The council was struggling to pay suppliers within 30 days and needed to automate the process to meet e-government targets. It struck a deal with Graphic Data Online (GDO) to scan past and present invoices and capture the data alongside the scanned image.

As the second largest borough in the Greater Manchester conurbation, Wigan Metropolitan Borough serves over 300,000 citizens. E-government drivers have provided the spur to improve accessibility to council and local information for citizens of the Borough and boost their adult and community learning initiatives.