News

IT for government and public sector

March 26, 2012 26 Mar'12
Department for Work and Pensions outsources IT for universal credit welfare to India

The government is outsourcing IT development for the universal credit welfare programme to India despite promises to keep data projects in the UK
March 23, 2012 23 Mar'12
Information management: lessons from the public sector

Freeform Dynamics identifies the lessons organisations can learn from the public sector's approach to information management
March 21, 2012 21 Mar'12
Half of education institutions victims of mobile IT theft

According to research, 45% of UK education establishments claim to have had mobile IT equipment stolen during the last three years.
March 20, 2012 20 Mar'12
Birkbeck College consolidates servers to cut PUE rating to 1.3

Birkbeck College has consolidated four equipment rooms into one £700,000 datacentre with a PUE rating of just 1.3

March 19, 2012 19 Mar'12
UK hacktivist cases should spur business to action, says lawyer

The last of four alleged UK members of hacktivist group LulzSec has appeared in Westminster magistrates court in London
March 16, 2012 16 Mar'12
Hampshire and Oxfordshire councils sign SAP ICT partnership

Hampshire County Council and Oxfordshire County Council have signed an ICT partnership to save £1m, focusing on SAP systems for HR and financial services
March 16, 2012 16 Mar'12
SourceForge takes down Anonymous operating system

The open-source collaboration website SourceForge has taken down an Ubuntu Linux OS project purportedly affiliated with online hactivist group Anonymous, after a review by security experts
March 15, 2012 15 Mar'12
BBC cyber attacks highlight difficulty of attribution

The BBC has said it is was targeted by cyber attacks following a campaign by Iran against its Persian service, but stopped short of accusing Tehran of ordering the cyber attacks
March 14, 2012 14 Mar'12
Interview: Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude on open data

Francis Maude, Cabinet Office minister, talks to Computer Weekly about the importance of open data to the UK economy.
March 14, 2012 14 Mar'12
NHS trust to use iPads for real-time access to patient records

An NHS trust in the Midlands is planning to equip medical staff and community nurses with iPads to give real-time access to patient records on the move.

March 08, 2012 08 Mar'12
Councils meet first superfast broadband deadline

All but two local authorities have met government deadlines to submit plans to roll out superfast broadband
March 07, 2012 07 Mar'12
Systems integrators 'charge more in paperwork than SMEs do in delivery’

A systems integrator asked for more money from the government for an IT product proposal than an SME was able to deliver the actual service for.
March 07, 2012 07 Mar'12
Government’s shared services strategy failing, says NAO

The government’s £1.4bn shared services centres have failed to achieve value for money, according to a report from the National Audit Office (NAO)
March 07, 2012 07 Mar'12
FBI informer Hector Xavier Monsegur aids in arrest of LulzSec hackers

Authorities in the US, UK and Republic of Ireland have arrested seven suspected members of hacktivist group LulzSec, including Hector Xavier Monsegur, who helped investigators
March 05, 2012 05 Mar'12
NHS trusts to be freed from CSC contract commitments

The Department of Health has proposed a deal with CSC to release trusts in the National Programme for IT from their contractual obligations to use software from the troubled supplier.
March 02, 2012 02 Mar'12
Somerset Council to bring Southwest One services back in house

Somerset County Council is seeking to bring key services back in house from Southwest One , the troubled joint-venture it created with IBM in 2007.
March 01, 2012 01 Mar'12
RSA 2012: IT security experts urge enterprises to ban smartphone BYOD schemes

Enterprises should ban employees from using their own smartphones for work, a panel of IT security practitioners told the RSA Conference 2012
March 01, 2012 01 Mar'12
DWP tenders for £25m IDA services

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has tendered for a £25m identity assurance (IDA) framework to create a marketplace of providers across the public sector.
February 29, 2012 29 Feb'12
Does the PSN need to happen before the cloud?

The deployment of public services networks (PSN) will need to happen before widespread uptake of CloudStore services occur, IT heads said at a roundtable meeting.
February 27, 2012 27 Feb'12
Post Office reveals plans for identity assurance services

The Post Office is tendering for hardware and software which will enable it to be a provider of the government's Identity Assurance (IDA) services.
February 23, 2012 23 Feb'12
OSSIM update enables cyber threat intelligence sharing

The latest update to the Open Source Security Information Management (OSSIM) base system includes a mechanism for sharing cyber threat intelligence.
February 21, 2012 21 Feb'12
Google bypassed IE too, says Microsoft

Microsoft has accused Google of bypassing the privacy settings of Internet Explorer users after Safari faux pas
February 20, 2012 20 Feb'12
CIO priorities 2012: Ali Jaffri, ICT manager, Gallions Housing

Ali Jaffri, ICT manager at Gallions Housing, talks about the challenges of 2012.
February 19, 2012 19 Feb'12
Government launches CloudStore and names G-Cloud suppliers

The government has launched its CloudStore, a catalogue of 1,700 cloud-based, pre-approved IT services now available for the public sector to buy.
February 16, 2012 16 Feb'12
Cisco wants EU to reconsider Microsoft Skype deal

Cisco is calling on European Union authorities to reconsider the unconditional approval of Microsoft’s $8.5bn acquisition of Skype.
February 14, 2012 14 Feb'12
President of European Parliament critical of Acta

After a weekend of public protests against the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Agreement (Acta), the president of the European Parliament has added his voice to those of critcs.
February 13, 2012 13 Feb'12
IE update top priority for Patch Tuesday

Microsoft releases nine bulletins addressing 21 vulnerabilities in its monthly Patch Tuesday security update on 14 February
February 10, 2012 10 Feb'12
Government takes on proprietary software lobby in open standards battle

The government wants to push through open standards against vested interests keen to maintain the dominance of proprietary systems.
February 10, 2012 10 Feb'12
LinkedIn Q4 revenue more than doubles

Social networking site LinkedIn has reported 2011 fourth quarter revenue of $167.7m, up 105% from Q4 2010; and net income of $6.9m, an increase of 30%
February 09, 2012 09 Feb'12
Cisco back on acquisition trail after record quarter

Cisco Systems has reported record revenues of $11.5bn for the second fiscal quarter that ended 28 January 2012, up 11% on the year-ago quarter, and profits of $2.6bn or 47 cents a share, up 27%.
February 08, 2012 08 Feb'12
Greater Manchester Police deploys two-way CMS

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has implemented a case management system from STL Technologies that has a two-way interface with the Crown Prosecution Service’s system.
February 07, 2012 07 Feb'12
More than half of government projects behind schedule

More than half of major government projects are behind schedule, according to the head of Whitehall's Major Projects Authority.
February 07, 2012 07 Feb'12
UK to take part in weekend protests against Acta

Protests against the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Agreement (Acta) have been organised across Europe, with most set to take place on 11 February.
February 06, 2012 06 Feb'12
FBI investigates Anonymous intercept of call with Scotland Yard

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is looking into how a conference call with Scotland Yard was intercepted by a member of the activist hacking group Anonymous.
February 03, 2012 03 Feb'12
St. Helens and Knowsley NHS trust signs £1.3m storage deal

St. Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has signed a £1.3m deal with EMC as part of its five-year plan to overhaul its storage infrastructure.
February 01, 2012 01 Feb'12
Fewer than a third of UK organisations plan mobile security projects

Despite the media hype around the adoption of mobile technologies and the need to secure them, relatively few UK organisations are planning mobile security projects, a survey has revealed
January 30, 2012 30 Jan'12
Oracle and SAP worst for government ERP cost differences

Oracle and SAP have been singled out as having the most inconsistent prices for ERP systems across government departments.
January 30, 2012 30 Jan'12
ICO fines Midlothian Council £140K for data breaches

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has imposed its highest penalty yet of £140,000 on Midlothian Council for breaching personal data
January 30, 2012 30 Jan'12
MEP quits as thousands protest ACTA signing

A European MP has resigned after thousands of people in Poland protested against the international anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA)
January 25, 2012 25 Jan'12
EC publishes proposed data protection reforms

European Justice Commissioner, Viviane Reding, has unveiled the new European data privacy framework that includes new regulation.
January 23, 2012 23 Jan'12
Advocacy group La Quadrature du Net rallies opposition to ACTA

As controversial anti-piracy legislation stalls in the US, a European group of free internet supporters, La Quadrature du Net, calls for a halt to similar legislation in the European Union.
January 16, 2012 16 Jan'12
NHS Trust saves £1m a year with text reminder service

Barts Hospital and the London Hospital NHS Trust have saved nearly £1m a year with an automatic appointment reminder text service.
January 16, 2012 16 Jan'12
Apple aims to improve working conditions for technology workforce

Apple has published a list of all suppliers for the first time and says it will allow independent observers into its facilities around the world to monitor working conditions.
January 16, 2012 16 Jan'12
Rupert Murdoch attacks Barack Obama over online piracy legislation

News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch has accused Barack Obama's administration of siding with "Silicon Valley paymasters" as two anti-piracy bills go through US Congress.
January 13, 2012 13 Jan'12
NHS Trust to appeal £375k data loss penalty

An NHS Trust is to appeal against a proposed monetary penalty of £375,000 after after patient records were stolen from a hospital and sold on eBay.
January 11, 2012 11 Jan'12
ICT curriculum for GCSE is scrapped

The government is to scrap the teaching of GCSE ICT in schools this September, with plans to replace the subject with the “rigorous” teaching of computer science and programming subjects.
January 10, 2012 10 Jan'12
Healthcare IT is a beneficial force, say doctors

IT in the NHS has had a bad press in recent years as a result of the problems associated with the now defunct £12bn NHS National Programme for IT, but most doctors in England believe IT improves patient care.
January 10, 2012 10 Jan'12
Accenture bolsters public sector skills

Services giant Accenture has recruited two former civil servants to its ranks to boost its UK and global public sector services capabilities.
January 09, 2012 09 Jan'12
Olympics resale site still offline after two days

The Olympics tickets resale site has been offline for more than two days, after tens of thousands of people clamoured online buy unwanted tickets on 6 January.
January 06, 2012 06 Jan'12
Ramnit worm steals 45,000 Facebook passwords

A computer worm has begun targeting Facebook accounts and has stolen at least 45,000 login credentials from users, say security researchers.