It’s not a trick question, I do want to know but I don’t want to start counting characters per page, but 20 pages of guidance on how to twitter in government would be a lot of tweets. The latest government guidance is called ‘Template Twitter Strategy for Government Departments’ and is available here. News outlets are all reporting on it and the author even guest blogged on the cabinet office’s Digital Engagement Blog to promote it. Let’s hope the guidance is put to use sensibly.
The government’s hotly anticipated plans for reforming adult social care finally saw the light of day last week. Having launched a call for more integration of health and social care services back in March 2007, we at Intellect, were pleased to see that the burden of an ageing society and rising costs of care are finally getting some proper attention from government.
The green paper sets out plans for a National Care Service that will offer national assessment, joined-up services, information and advice, personalised care and support and fair funding. News that a Cabinet-level ministerial integration group has been set up to help drive this forward will be welcome to everyone that’s campaigned for reform. But good intentions are not enough.
Having the right technology to underpin these changes will determine whether the vision stands or falls. Various technical, commercial and cultural barriers to providing joined-up services will need to be addressed if we’re are to see the creation of a more sustainable health and social care system. That’s why we’ve launched ‘Fitting IT all Together’ which sets out the industry’s view on health and social care, and which calls for more openness and transparency, a roadmap to support joined-up working, and earlier engagement with industry.
An interesting posting appeared on Google’s public policy blog yesterday which once again set out not only their support for smart meters but what they are doing to better leverage their use. One key part of this is the Google PowerMeter. In brief, it will enable users to access information about their own energy use on their iGoogle home page. This reminds me of an earlier posting which highlighted that it is possible to receive updates about your home’s energy use via Twitter.
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So the government’s big low carbon transition plan was launched today mapping out how we’ll achieve emissions cuts of 34% by 2020. It’s a beast of a document at over 200 pages but any strategy that promises the creation of 1.2 Million “green jobs” isn’t going to be able to tell you how on a couple of sides of A4. Overall it seems to do a good job of pulling together previously disparate policies in to a coherent transition plan and we welcome that. I’ve included a summary list of all the big ideas below and we’re particularly pleased to see the reinforced commitment to smart metering and smart grids. However, ICT and associated technologies are critical enablers of this transition and don’t seem to get much of a mention elsewhere. Maybe that’s fair enough when the document points out that half of the proposed carbon cuts by 2020 would come from changes to the power sector. But the 15% that will come from making homes more efficient, 10% from workplace improvements, and 20% from changing how we travel (the other 5% from agriculture and land use) will also benefit from ICT applications. The problem here is the lack of a market for these already-available technologies and we must be smarter at addressing how we tackle this.
Summary points:
• Plans are projected to create 1.2m “green jobs”
• Every government department will be required to meet a carbon budget alongside its financial budget.
• Domestic energy prices would rise in 2020 to pay for some of the required changes. Hopes are this would be offset with energy efficiency savings in 7m homes and financial help for the poorest consumers.
• launches consultation on the details of the government’s feed-in tariff, re-named the “clean energy cash-back” scheme, which will pay people and businesses a premium for generating low-carbon electricity. A similar scheme for renewable heat will follow in April 2011.
• Introduces plans for a “pay as you save” scheme for homeowners to receive loans to insulate their homes, with money repaid by savings in energy costs.
• Up to £6m to start development of a “smart grid”, including a policy road map next year.
• Launch of the new Office for Renewable Energy Deployment in the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to speed up the growth of renewables in the UK.
• DECC to take direct responsibility from Ofgem for establishing a new grid access regime within 12 months.
• Up to £180m would be made available to promote wind and tidal power – this includes setting up a low-carbon economic area in the south-west to promote marine technologies and money for up to 3,000 wind turbines off the UK’s shores by 2020.
• £15m to establish a Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre that will develop the next generation of nuclear power infrastructure.
• £10 million will go to improving infrastructure for charging electric vehicles.
• Challenging 15 villages, towns or cities to be test-beds for piloting future green initiatives.
This story is too mind-boggling to pass up. India has now announced that it is issuing a biometric ID card for each of its 1.2 billion citizens. The Times article from today says that “it is surely the biggest Big Brother project yet conceived.” The newly created Unique Identification Authority will be responsible for gathering and storing personal details electronically and issuing a unique identity number (with the card), with an estimated cost of at least £3 billion. The scheme was a key commitment in the election manifesto of the Congress party and has quickly sprung to life.
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Although it may feel longer with all this sunshine (bar the recent tropical-style action) and long summer nights, it’s been a little over three weeks since the launch of Digital Britain. In this time we’ve seen the appearance of the Digital Economy Bill on the legislative programme for next term and today, an announcement from BT detailing the initial stages of their FTTC roll out. For all those broadband wonks out there these developments represent a significant step towards what I have heard termed, and I kid you not, next generation nirvana. (more…)
The IA09 conference kicked off today with a heading of ‘The Critical Next Steps: Enabling Government Business through Information Assurance’. Sir Gus O’Donnell was first in line with a morning key note speech which reiterated the critical necessity of providing information assurance in government as set out by the National Information Assurance Strategy from last year. Sir Gus also hailed the joint industry-government Information Security & Assurance Board as a necessary channel for improving IA in public sector (on both sides).
As Dan Smyth very presciently points out , Stephen Carter got a lot of undeserved criticism in the media when Digital Britain when it came out. Sure, it could have gone further in a number of areas. No-one likes a new tax. There could have been more mention of the role for satellite networks in delivering some of the commitments in it. This is especially the case for Intellect, given our position as the only major European trade body that representing all major European satellite network operators. But I like my DAB radio, and I think I could handle £6 a year as my contribution towards NGA deployment and giving everyone a legal right to broadband.
Regardless of what could have been said in Digital Britain, the key point is: Almost alone in Europe (with the exception of France) the UK now knows what direction its communications infrastructure, and associated industries, is going in in a very comprehensive way. We do have a set of policies to build on. The legislative tools to implement them are about to start making their way through parliament. I know for a fact that many other EU member states see Digital Britain as being far ahead of their own plans and are looking enviously at us. The Tories could do with noting this, rather than simply scoring political points over what could or might have been said in it. Maybe I will be forced to eat my words when the Tory Review of the Creative Industries comes out, but as I haven’t seen a draft yet I’d just urge them to be a bit more constructive.
This is why, more than most ministers in the current Government, I will be particularly sad when Carter steps down. His speech at our Consumer Electronics Conference was particular short, snappy and free of meaningless jargon. My view of it was helped by him name-checking Intellect heavily of course, but regardless of that it was definitely one of the highlights of the day. When asked, by the chair Maggie Philbin, what he thought his most important piece of technology would be in 20 years, his answer, “a pacemaker”, was pretty sharp. He also publicly confirmed that Intellect will be working with Government to ensure the recommendations outlined in Digital Britain are implemented. However much praise Intellect got yesterday, there is no denying that Carter simply gets ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ is. Some stand-outs included his statement that “the key role for Government in its relations with business is clarity” and his firm implication that the best policy comes from ministers who aren’t political careerists and therefore don’t care what enemies they make. I couldn’t agree more. We do of course need as many democratically elected ministers as we can get. But we also know how difficult it is for Labour to find them at the moment. There is no denying that peers can sometimes be really effective at policy making and implementation because they aren’t always climbing the greasy pole.
I also know a number of the civil servants who’ve worked under Carter as a minister fairly well. Gushing is not too strong a word. In the words of one I was talking too - “When we wrote Digital Britain, Carter actually had us all effectively co-ordinated and working towards a common goal, we felt like we were achieving something”. Anyone who talks to civil servants regularly knows that, in their language, this is tantamount to them voting him as the greatest Briton of all time. Not that I would. But you get the message. Carter was that rare beast- a politician who really does know what he is talking about. Somehow we need to get hold of more of them.
So I guess the question now is, will we get a replacement? And who will it be? In fact, will Labour be able to find someone to pilot the related Digital Economy Bill through parliament? We can but wonder. But whether Carter gets his mooted role as Chief Executive at ITV or not, he has done a lot to move the debate on how Government supports ICT development forward. For that, he should be applauded.
Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change announced last Friday the UK’s ‘Road to Copenhagen.’ With a strategy that is ambitious, effective, and fair the Government believes that we can make great headway coming into the Climate Change Sumit and achieve a robust (i.e. staying below a 2°C rise in global temp) climate agreement that all (relevant) countries agree to. Well, no counter arguing from me on that point.
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The collapse of the Postal Services Bill led the news last night and – along with Andy Murray – dominated much of the quality press this morning. The fallout from Lord Mandelson’s announcement has caused much head scratching with all the stakeholders as they figure out what lies ahead.
Politically, the Bill has been a hot potato from the start, with the Labour Party demonstrating an ability to tear itself apart over it, and the Conservatives, with their support for the Bill, adding further pressure to the Government. So what happens now?