These are my links for September 11th through September 27th:
- Government Should Do its Own Data Homework | Jeni’s Musings – "….we need to work towards a virtuous cycle in which the public sector is rewarded for publishing useful data well. The reward may come from financial savings, from increasing data quality, from better delivery of its remit, or simply from kudos. It doesn’t matter how, but there needs to be some reward, or it just won’t happen."
- editorialgirl » Ah, Bridezilla… we’ve been expecting you – Government and e-mail: ! The assistant was apparently a bit flummoxed, saying, “well, you could email it, but there isn’t much point – I wouldn’t get it til tomorrow anyway”. Why was that, then? It wasn’t even mid afternoon. Had they got problems with their email? “No,” she explained, “all the emails are read at 9 o’clock in the morning, then they’re all printed out and we each get a copy on our desks. So if you email me now, I won’t get it until tomorrow.” He was baffled. Couldn’t she just access her email now? “No, it’s not my email,” she said. “It’s the office email. Only one person has access to it, and she only looks at it at 9 o’clock each morning.” Whu… why? “That’s just the way we do things.” Well, that’s silly, he told her. “Well, it works for us,” she replied. Bonkers."
- Rewired State – For the first quarter the challenges available are likely to be (but we don’t know for sure yet):
* Building a framework to enable localised civil action (Big Society)
* Using digital channels to get people online; building network of digital champions and apps to help get people online (Race Online) - The arts make a contribution to the Big Society in Yorkshire | Arts Council – 'If public funding of the arts is cut too hard, the contribution the sector makes to the Big Society may be in real jeopardy.
- Local council spending over £500: full list of who has published what so far | News | guardian.co.uk – UPDATE, 5:05pm: Government has just published its guidance for local authorities. See the guidance here