I’m very grateful to the Power of Information Task Force members who have worked hard to produce their report. They’ve already helped shape action across government; whether it be the re-use of data agenda, public servants and their use of social networks or how the tools can be used to innovate.
Being digital natives, they’ve decide to publish the report in beta format on a platform that allows you to comment on all sections. They’ll scoop up any insight from your comments and try and incorporate them in the final report that will be formally presented to government in a couple of weeks.
I do hope you find the report of interest and please feel free to share your views in the comments section of the site.
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[...] The Power of Information Taskforce Report: It’s online and open to comments for two weeks. Probably more on this later… Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Eye On Child Abandonment Law [...]
Did Pat McFadden lead the way last month in stopping Commission changes that would have ensured that local pay deals would have to be honoured by Companies bringing in EU labour?
If so, this has paved the way for cheap EU labour to be exploited and used to undercut local wage deals meaning more of the unrest we are currently seeing. McFadden may have a lot to answer for, along with others of you in Government who knew this was happening but said nothing.
John Edwards
[...] is required. The Taskforce makes a range of recommendations to enable and embed those changes. Tom Watson and Richard Allan should be proud of where they are at. Secretly Brum can also be. Why? Because [...]
[...] March, U.K. Cabinet Office Minister and Member of Parliament Tom Watson established the Power of Information Task Force to advise and assist the government on how it can [...]
[...] group is reporting back to Tom Watson MP, the Civil Service Minister, on the recommendations from that review. Tom Watson proved himself able to listen to the public [...]
[...] online for comment, rather like the Power of Information report promoted by social media Minister Tom Watson. That attracted over 300 [...]
[...] online for comment, rather like the Power of Information report promoted by social media Minister Tom Watson. That attracted over 300 [...]
Darn. Missed the deadline because I spent too long thinking about it. Anyway, overall it’s an excellent move.
Two things for me:
1. Iimportantly, it doesn’t really address the issue of government procurement (local, national, etc). Whilst the social enterprise / 3rd sector question is addressed, there’s a large gap in how companies can take ideas and services to government. Public sector procurement procedures make it virtually impossible to take ideas to government proactively. Meanwhile, tender documents usually overstipulate a solution – eliminating creativity in response. Additionally, the length, complexity and cost of the tendering process mean that government usually just doesn’t get access to innovation delivered by small, nimble companies.
Putting it bluntly, my innovative technology company (c. 50 people within a PLC of c. 200) just doesn’t bother trying to take ideas to the public sector, and barely ever tenders for public sector work. This is hugely disappointing for me because I desperately want to contribute to improving public services. I imagine the vast majority of innovative new(ish) companies face the same issue.
(BTW – this isn’t just an issue for government, it can apply to many large organisations – but it’s harder for government because the procurement processes are even more binding, and the risk/reward framework rarely favours innovation and its attendant [perceived] risks)
2. There’s a great discussion about mapping and OS, but I couldn’t find any reference to postcodes which are a crucial part of the geospatial dataset which need to be freed (as ZIP codes are in the US).
[...] The report doesn’t go into the new generation of applications that are enabling user participation in on-line communities. For me, that is an obvious critical third area. The most exciting thing I heard was Lord Carter suggesting there should be a separate report into Digital Government and participation. There is huge opportunity to innovate in that space. Providing open APIs to government data and turning the new generation of Web 2.0 application developers loose on it. It is also worth checking out the Power of Information Task Force Report too (seeTom Watson’s blog post). [...]
[...] online for comment, rather like the Power of Information report promoted by social media Minister Tom Watson. That attracted over 300 [...]
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