Cabinet Office Homepage

Government is moving from ‘consultation’ to ‘collaboration’.

At the Cabinet Office, we're leading the Government's drive to give people more say on how they want public services to be delivered.

By using technology to improve customer service, we want to make it easier for members of the public to have, for instance, one point of contact with government whenever we can. We believe that where possible services should be shaped around people’s lives, rather than provided at the government’s convenience.

A major part of this work is a web rationalisation programme managed by the Central Office of Information (COI). It aims to make government websites more effective by bringing together public-facing content on a small number of easy-to-use websites: http://www.direct.gov.uk/ for citizens; http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/ for businesses and employers; and http://www.nhs.uk/ for patients. The department has already more than halved the number of central government websites.

As a result http://www.direct.gov.uk/ now has more than 18 million visits a month and commissioned independent research shows the satisfaction rate for businesslink.gov.uk stands at 92%.

Knowledge is power

In March 2008, following the publication of the Power of Information Review, the Government established a new, independent task force to explore how developments on the internet could improve public services and engage better with citizens. The Power of Information Task Force was born. Its highly successful Show Us a Better Way competition attracted 450 innovative suggestions for ways to make better use of existing public information. Entries came from as far afield as India and Australia, and ranged from maps showing the location of undersea wrecks off the coast of Britain to a text service giving you the location of the nearest public toilets. There was a total prize fund of £80,000 to develop the best ideas.

In March, a report was published with recommendations for carrying this work forward. Produced collaboratively, a version of the report was published online. Members of the public were able to comment on the content and their recommendations were included in the final version.

The Government's response to the report was published on 12 May 2009.

Your data is in safe hands

Assuring the safety of personal data is of paramount importance. But, as high-profile cases show, it is not without its risks.

Following the loss of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs child benefit data in 2007, Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell commissioned a report - Data Handling Procedures in Government. The final report was published in July 2008 and its recommendations - which are mandatory across all departments - are now being implemented.

Improvements include enhanced technical precautions such as large-scale encryption programmes (over 20,000 laptops have been encrypted in the Ministry of Defence). Leadership and governance, as well as greater accountability, are being encouraged in the form of the Cabinet Office working with over 50 Senior Information Risk Owners (SIROs) from central government departments and agencies. Meeting once a month SIROs are provided with updates, training and education to enable data handling culture change within their organisations. Cultural change has also been a major focus of efforts through education, training and increased  professionalism. Cabinet Office, in conjunction with the National School of Government (NSG), has rolled out a Civil Service-wide e-learning package with over 200 public sector organisations already accessing this training. By spring 2008, more than 120,000 staff across the Civil Service have received training in data handling, in support of the Data Handling Review commitment to train all civil servants who handle personal data.

We have also funded the development of an MSc in Information Security and Assurance for the Public Sector at Cranfield University. This is part of the effort to educate the next generation of managers to better understand and manage data security in complex business environments.

Future plans

Our future plans are to:

• hold government departments to account for delivering our data security standards by reporting to Parliament in Autumn 2009;
• identify at least six major online communities where we can ensure cross-government impartial information and advice by summer 2009;
• create a government data catalogue offering access to information assets in a re-usable format;
• devise a system to measure the effectiveness of government websites and a method for users to give feedback on content; and
• establish a Web Academy of internet expertise and develop a strategy for maximising innovation in how we present government information online.