News

IT for government and public sector

• April 08, 2021 08 Apr'21

  HMRC signs reworked, three-year public cloud deal with AWS worth £94m

  HMRC has ripped up and replaced its deal with AWS several months after signing it to tap into cost-savings on Amazon cloud services via the One Government Value Agreement

• April 07, 2021 07 Apr'21

  Digital Markets Unit starts work on codes of conduct for tech giants

  Digital markets regulator officially launched to ensure tech giants such as Facebook and Google cannot exploit their market dominance to crowd out competition and stifle innovation online

• April 07, 2021 07 Apr'21

  Post Office gives controversial Fujitsu contract another year

  The Post Office's controversial contract with Fujitsu has been extended another year to help the organisation manage its exit

• April 07, 2021 07 Apr'21

  Irish employees’ ‘right to disconnect’ enshrined in code of practice

  A code of practice giving employees the ‘right to disconnect’ from work and not engage in electronic communications outside of their normal hours has come into effect in Ireland

• April 06, 2021 06 Apr'21

  Demands for changes to ‘barmy’ rules on digital evidence have government’s ear

  The government is listening to calls for changes in how digital evidence is considered in court, as Post Office IT scandal spells out current rule's inadequacy

• April 06, 2021 06 Apr'21

  CDDO will assess delivery of government digital projects

  Government Digital Service boss Tom Read and the government’s Central Digital and Data Office executive director Joanna Davinson reveal next steps for digital, data and technology in government

• April 06, 2021 06 Apr'21

  GDS seeks director for identity assurance programme

  The new leader will be focused on efforts to deliver a single digital identity system for online public services

• April 01, 2021 01 Apr'21

  EncroChat hearings delayed as lawyers seek disclosure on police hacking

  Court hearings precipitated by police cracking the EncroChat secure mobile phone network have been delayed after defence lawyers request further disclosures on police decryption capabilities

• March 31, 2021 31 Mar'21

  DCMS publishes report on opening data access to stoke economic growth

  Research from Frontier Economics with economist Diane Coyle describes how the government could prime data sharing to stimulate economic growth

• March 30, 2021 30 Mar'21

  Ransomware attack on London schools highlights warnings

  Ransomware attack on Harris Federation comes just days after a fresh NCSC alert for the education sector

• March 29, 2021 29 Mar'21

  Big Tech eclipses telecoms and arms giants as biggest lobbying spenders

  Facebook and Amazon are spending more on lobbying and campaign contributions than any other companies in the US, including those in the arms and telecommunications sectors that have traditionally been the highest political spenders

• March 29, 2021 29 Mar'21

  Backup survey: UK councils’ downtimes five times longer than average

  Backup product supplier Veeam’s freedom of information request finds councils’ average downtime is seven hours and that backup and disaster recovery testing is not done frequently

• March 29, 2021 29 Mar'21

  UK courts face evidence ‘black hole’ over police EncroChat mass hacking

  French investigators have refused to disclose how they downloaded millions of messages from a supposedly secure cryptophone network used by organised criminals – leaving UK courts to grapple with a forensic ‘black hole’ of evidence

• March 26, 2021 26 Mar'21

  Surveillance expert ‘unfairly’ refused job at intelligence regulator after MI5 intervened

  The Home Office unfairly refused Eric Kind, a specialist in criminal justice and UK surveillance law, clearance for a job at an intelligence watchdog after MI5 claimed he was “insufficiently deferential”

• March 26, 2021 26 Mar'21

  Sarah Wilkinson resigns as NHS Digital CEO

  After four years at the helm of NHS Digital, CEO Sarah Wilkinson will leave in the summer of 2021, and the organisation is looking for an interim replacement

• March 26, 2021 26 Mar'21

  NHS Shared Business Services launches £1bn digital hardware framework

  Framework consists of 19 suppliers, and offers user IT hardware products and services to the NHS and public sector organisations

• March 25, 2021 25 Mar'21

  Cyber security complacency puts UK at risk, says NCSC head

  National Cyber Security Centre CEO Lindy Cameron, in her maiden speech in the role, warns of challenges ahead for the UK and sets out the future agenda for cyber

• March 25, 2021 25 Mar'21

  DWP completes in-house VME replacement project

  The department has taken an in-house approach to swapping its virtual machine environment (VME), getting rid of legacy infrastructure and replacing 11 key benefits systems

• March 25, 2021 25 Mar'21

  Deliveroo faces pushback from investors and riders ahead of IPO

  Two of the UK’s largest fund managers have said they will not buy shares in Deliveroo because of concerns over workers’ rights

• March 25, 2021 25 Mar'21

  NHS Wales shapes up ambitious plans for digital patient-facing app

  Computer Weekly looks at NHS Wales’ project to create a patient-facing app and a collaborative ecosystem for technology suppliers and NHS providers to deliver joined-up care

• March 25, 2021 25 Mar'21

  Government faces judicial review into plans for Post Office Horizon inquiry

  Subpostmasters that suffered great hardship at the hands of the Post Office are applying for a judicial review of a government inquiry into the scandal, which they see as a "whitewash"

• March 25, 2021 25 Mar'21

  Liverpool announces test and development area for drone technology

  Project aims to stimulate investment opportunities, employment and skills for the region

• March 25, 2021 25 Mar'21

  NHS to digitise the ‘red book’ by 2023

  Every child born from April 2023 will have a digital ‘red book’, or personal child health record, Matt Hancock has promised

• March 24, 2021 24 Mar'21

  Ex-Post Office CEO Paula Vennells walked away from IT scandal with over £400,000 in pay and bonuses

  Former Post Office chief was paid over £400,000 when she left despite the organisation being involved in what would become the biggest miscarriage of justice in UK history

• March 24, 2021 24 Mar'21

  IWM uses StorCycle to free capacity for all-flash SAN upgrade

  Imperial War Museums set to embark on unstructured data archiving project that will archive cold data to tape and free up capacity for a move to IntelliFlash all-flash SAN

• March 24, 2021 24 Mar'21

  Prime minister says people should be held to account for Post Office IT scandal

  Boris Johnson agrees with MP that those responsible for the Post Office Horizon scandal should be brought to book

• March 24, 2021 24 Mar'21

  Post Office was told in 2013 that Fujitsu witness was unreliable in subpostmaster prosecutions

  The Post Office was warned that a former Fujitsu employee had misled courts when giving evidence on its behalf

• March 23, 2021 23 Mar'21

  Former Skyscanner COO will lead Scotland’s tech-led recovery programme

  Following his independent review of the Scottish tech sector, Mark Logan will oversee a programme to establish the country as a world-class technology hub

• March 23, 2021 23 Mar'21

  NCSC beefs up support for education sector after spate of attacks

  Refreshed guidance from the NCSC recommends a defence-in-depth strategy as schools and universities face a renewed wave of cyber attacks

• March 23, 2021 23 Mar'21

  Scottish government AI strategy majors on ethics and inclusion

  Scottish government announces artificial intelligence strategy that involves the creation of a Scottish AI Alliance to be drawn from across society, including trade unions and companies

• March 23, 2021 23 Mar'21

  Commission calls for adult social care to get digital revamp

  A commission on adult social care has called for the government to fund a personalised social care innovation programme, as well as invest £450m to replace outdated care and housing technology infrastructure

• March 23, 2021 23 Mar'21

  UK defence strategy strengthens AI, cyber and satellite spies

  The nature of warfare is changing. Electronic warfare will need to be a key component of the UK’s defence strategy

• March 23, 2021 23 Mar'21

  Interview: Ivan McKee, Scottish innovation minister

  Scotland’s innovation minister talks to Computer Weekly about the country’s new digital strategy, the importance of inclusion, and why the strategy is underpinned by ethical thinking

• March 23, 2021 23 Mar'21

  Home Office completes transfer of all business apps to Oracle Cloud

  Home Office has completed its deployment of Oracle’s Cloud Applications suite to all its functions across 35,000 staff, ahead of other government departments

• March 22, 2021 22 Mar'21

  Post Office staff instructed to shred documents that undermined its claims Horizon was robust

  Barrister advising the Post Office in 2013 stated that destroying documents would "amount to a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice"

• March 19, 2021 19 Mar'21

  Government bids final goodbye to Gov.uk Verify

  Cabinet Office parliamentary secretary Julia Lopez confirms launch of “discrete” successor to Gov.uk Verify

• March 19, 2021 19 Mar'21

  Post Office IT scandal executive forced out of job at Football Association of Wales

  Angela van den Bogerd has left her role at the Football Association of Wales, following criticism of her part in Post Office IT scandal

• March 18, 2021 18 Mar'21

  Government to bail out Post Office which can’t afford to pay compensation to subpostmasters

  The Post Office does not have enough money to pay compensation to the subpostmasters it wrongfully prosecuted

• March 18, 2021 18 Mar'21

  NHS will get shared care records by September 2021, says Matt Hancock

  The health secretary sets September 2021 target for shared care records roll-out, and wants to explore potential of moving patient data being held in proprietary systems to the cloud

• March 18, 2021 18 Mar'21

  Subpostmasters in Court of Appeal to end 20-year torment

  Subpostmasters heading to Court of Appeal to clear their names in what is potentially the biggest miscarriage of justice in English legal history

• March 17, 2021 17 Mar'21

  Digital Green Certificate proposed for travel in Europe

  Digital Green Certificates will supposedly help re-establish freedom of movement within the European Union

• March 17, 2021 17 Mar'21

  Uber classifies drivers as workers after Supreme Court ruling

  Ride-hailing firm will pay its UK drivers minimum wage following court ruling, but has diverged from the court’s interpretation that drivers should be paid from when they log in, not just when passengers are on board

• March 17, 2021 17 Mar'21

  Capita restructures to simplify its business

  Business services supplier creates two core units that focus on public sector and commercial enterprise customers and will sell off non-core assets

• March 17, 2021 17 Mar'21

  Cyber sector welcomes PM’s defence review

  Security commentators approve of measures to improve the UK’s cyber resilience, strengthen its R&D and skills base, lead on the development of new technology and promote a free, open, peaceful and secure global internet

• March 16, 2021 16 Mar'21

  Children’s learning held back by digital schooling, NAO report finds

  Children’s socio-economic status has affected their experiences with digital learning, and most teachers consider their pupils to be, on average, three months behind where they would be expected to be

• March 16, 2021 16 Mar'21

  One-fifth of all UK tech investment went to just 10 scaleup firms in 2020

  Annual Tech Nation report shows UK technology firms saw record levels of investment in 2020, but a significant proportion of it was concentrated in a small number of scaleup enterprises

• March 16, 2021 16 Mar'21

  Uber and Ola ordered to hand over more data to drivers

  A Dutch court has rejected Uber and Ola’s claims that drivers collectively taking action to access their data amounts to an abuse of their individual data access rights, laying the ground for drivers to form their own union-controlled data trust

• March 16, 2021 16 Mar'21

  MoD partners playing fast and loose with confidential data

  Clear spike in data breach incidents at defence partners may reflect better reporting standards, claims MoD

• March 16, 2021 16 Mar'21

  Government calls for input into Covid-19 vaccine passports

  Evidence gathering exercise will inform the development of the UK’s proposed Covid-19 vaccine passport scheme

• March 15, 2021 15 Mar'21

  UK plans ‘full spectrum’ approach to national cyber security

  PM Boris Johnson expands on proposed National Cyber Force and plans to set up a north of England Cyber Corridor