Simpler, clearer, faster – that's
GOV.UK's shoutline.
GOV.UK is the new "single government domain" produced by the
Government Digital Service and it recently won the
Design of the Year award:
Design of the Year jury member Griff Rhys Jones said GOV.UK "was a clear winner". |
Great 1980s satirist that he is, Mr
Rhys Jones hasn't lost his touch.
----------
Updated 2 September 2013
GOV.UK wins the only 2013
D&AD award in the newly-created "Writing for Websites and Digital Design" category.
Updated: 15 November 2013
Ex-
Guardian man Mike Bracken/GDS comes top of the
Digital Leaders 50 awards given to those "who demonstrate a pioneering and sustainable approach to digital transformation". The
BBC come second and
Francis Maude third.
No examples of sustainable digital transformation are given but
CloudStore has been unavailable for eight of the 14 days leading up to the awards' being announced on 12 November 2013.
Updated 15 November 2013:
Back in May, G-Cloud won the
Public Cloud Project of the Year Datacentre Solutions Award 2013. Few people noticed ...
... but one wag did (
@LazBlazter), and retweeted the following on 9 November 2013, just after CloudStore's
October outage, on day #2 of the
November outage:
Only one way to go from here, two weeks at the top, ex-
Guardian man Mike Bracken tumbles to sixth position in the
Computer Weekly UKtech50 awards, "our definitive list of the movers and shakers in UK IT".
No.1 now is Liam Maxwell, chief technology officer, HM Government.
And what did ex-
Guardian man Mike Bracken tell us about technology in his speech to
Code for America? "Technology is a fourth-order question in government", he said. Only after the user needs and the policy needs and the operational needs have been determined should attention be paid to the technology needs, if any ... If we let technology determine public services, then "we are literally starting in the wrong place and guaranteeing failure". The proper question to ask is: "What technology may we need to provide the service?" ... "One of the first battles you've got to fight", he said, "is putting technology in its place".
Noting the success of the gov.uk site, a portal that brings the government billions in revenue from countries such as New Zealand that have paid for the source code, Maude said ... |
Is this true, does anyone know? Have New Zealand or anyone else paid billions to use the GOV.UK source code?
Updated 26 January 2014:
2013 GovFresh Awards winners
by Luke Fretwell / January 21, 2014, 6:00 am:
Updated 18.6.14
Since we last looked (15 November 2013) the Digital Leaders 50 awards have become the Digital Leaders 100 awards – twice as good.
All change?
No. Public Servant of the Year ex-
Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE, executive director of
GDS and senior responsible owner of the identity assurance programme (
RIP), is still top:
Not only that but the
Skyscape express rolls on ...
... as does the Martha-now-Lady Lane Fox
revolution:
Updated 10.9.14
The awards just keep coming in.
One breathless encomium ...
... after another ...
... and another ...
... and another ...
... and another:
Sometimes even Anna and Katie and Rachael and Emer and Alexandra must get tired. At which point there's a praise-generating engine in GOV.UK's armoury that takes over:
But today, new heights were scaled, when an awards body contacted GDS and begged them to apply so that they can be given an award:
What next?
Can GDS write an app that generates GOV.UK award-awarders?
Updated 31.10.14
Still the praise keeps coming in – is there no end to it?
Updated 4.12.14
Now
Computer Weekly have published
UKtech50 2014 - The most influential people in UK IT and the first question must be "where have Skyscape come"? You will remember that
Digital by Default News rated Skyscape
the number 1 digital leader in the Industry category back in June. Six months later, and
Computer Weekly ... don't mention Skyscape.
Still, we know from
Simon Wardley that:
Close.
But no award for accuracy.
Actually they came fourth and fifth, not third and fourth, if you care to look.
Liam Maxwell, the government's chief technology officer who comes in at number 4, is "attempting to break the stranglehold of the oligopoly of large companies that have dominated government IT". That's what
Computer Weekly say.
How's that going?
In its first 2½ years of existence, G-Cloud, the government cloud project, has placed 53.2% of £346 million = £184 million of business with SMEs (
half of which goes to Skyscape alone, according to Skyscape).
£184 million. £0.184 billion. Spread over 2½ years. And how much does the government spend on IT every year? About £20 billion? Some way to go before Mr Maxwell can expect to come third.
Which brings us to
fifth, Public Servant of the Year ex-
Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE CDO, executive director of the Government Digital Service and senior responsible owner of the pan-government identity assurance programme (
RIP). As
Computer Weekly say: "Bracken is the figurehead for a cultural change in how public services are delivered in a digital world".
And how's that going?
As every fule kno, you can't have
digital-by-default public services unless you can identify your parishioners. That requires identity assurance.
GDS are
several years late starting a small beta test of their offering.
The users are finding it hard. No alternative, non-digital registration system is provided. And
GDS are breaking their own rules.
Meanwhile, they are providing us with re-written front ends to services we already had, but with no identity assurance, and
without re-designing the services first. Culture change? Hardly.
The promise of government transformation is not being delivered.
Gavin Patterson, the Chief Executive Officer of BT, came sixth. When Westminster and Whitehall realise in several hundred billion pounds' time that, in digital-by-default, they are chasing a
will o' the wisp, Mr Patterson may expect to move up at least one place.