News

IT for government and public sector

• December 17, 2019 17 Dec'19

  No change for tech in Boris Johnson’s new government – yet

  Nicky Morgan remains in charge of digital policies as DCMS secretary, despite quitting as an MP before the General Election

• December 11, 2019 11 Dec'19

  Post Office settles legal dispute with subpostmasters, ending 20-year battle for lead claimant

  The Post Office has settled its long-running legal dispute with subpostmasters, and will pay £57.75m in damages

• December 11, 2019 11 Dec'19

  How can CIOs in Europe turn innovation into a competitive advantage?

  CIOs across Europe are under pressure to innovate to help businesses grow and must think differently as a result

• December 10, 2019 10 Dec'19

  Department for Transport to build mapping tool for transport data

  System will use place-based information on a range of transport-related issues and follows the announcement of a future of urban mobility plan

• December 10, 2019 10 Dec'19

  Scottish Justice Committee wants extra powers for biometrics commissioner

  Members of Scottish Parliament in the Justice Committee have welcomed the creation of a biometrics commissioner for Scotland, but want ensure that they have the ‘necessary teeth’ for the job

• December 09, 2019 09 Dec'19

  Cloud computing surges in the UAE in 2019

  Cloud computing take-up saw a significant acceleration in the Middle East throughout this year

• December 09, 2019 09 Dec'19

  UK government supports online counter-extremism

  Work under the Building a Stronger Britain Together programme is due to be completed this month

• December 09, 2019 09 Dec'19

  Public sector still losing user devices in high numbers

  The Ministry of Justice has lost 354 smartphones, PCs, laptops and tablets in the past 12 months, according to a Freedom of Information request, and other government departments are in the same boat

• December 09, 2019 09 Dec'19

  Online fact-checkers warn of misinformation on unprecedented scale in 2019 election

  The UK’s elections watchdog, the Electoral Commission, is calling for new powers to regulate online political advertising

• December 09, 2019 09 Dec'19

  China bans foreign computing kit from government contracts

  All government offices and public institutions must eliminate foreign hardware and software within three years, according to a leaked directive dubbed 3-5-2

• December 06, 2019 06 Dec'19

  FCO to boost cloud analysis setup

  A new procurement process has been launched to bring in new features such as geospatial analysis

• December 06, 2019 06 Dec'19

  Tories plan electronic visa waiver for EU citizens

  Pledge introduces the idea of electronic travel authorisation as part of plans to protect the UK border after Brexit

• December 06, 2019 06 Dec'19

  Dutch government must sort IT mess as priority

  Dutch government lacks the knowledge and skills for its own IT strategy, according to scathing report

• December 06, 2019 06 Dec'19

  Dutch government must facilitate and coordinate a broad eID system

  The Dutch government should push for an electronic ID system for its citizens that works across the public and private sectors, according to a report

• December 06, 2019 06 Dec'19

  Cyber security takes its place alongside UK’s armed services

  Head of armed services says cyber security will take its place alongside the army, navy and air force as a key pillar of the UK’s defence strategy

• December 05, 2019 05 Dec'19

  Cyber Girls First volunteers encourage girls to think high-tech

  More than 80 schoolgirls spent a day learning about computer hackers and rocket science – Cyber Girls First hopes they will become the next generation of technologists

• December 05, 2019 05 Dec'19

  AWS CEO Andy Jassy blames 'significant political interference' for Amazon losing $10bn JEDI deal

  AWS CEO Andy Jassy claims White House meddling led to it losing out to Microsoft on the US Department of Defense JEDI contract, despite its cloud platform being demonstrably superior

• December 05, 2019 05 Dec'19

  Poor tech provision causes dissatisfaction in SMEs

  Smaller businesses are struggling to provide a good enough employee experience when it comes to tech, according to a study

• December 03, 2019 03 Dec'19

  General Election 2019: Which manifesto is best for the UK’s tech sector?

  Computer Weekly breaks down each political party’s technology policies ahead of the upcoming General Election to see how they compare

• December 03, 2019 03 Dec'19

  Survey finds most firms don’t respond to GDPR requests in time

  Most organisations do not respond to requests for GDPR data in the one month allowed, while many return incorrect data. The education sector does best, but the public sector lags behind

• December 03, 2019 03 Dec'19

  UK government urged to ramp up digital skills

  Programme for International Student Assessment results show UK is lagging behind Asian powerhouses, according to Open Knowledge Foundation

• December 02, 2019 02 Dec'19

  Private sector warned off delaying IR35 reform prep as Conservative Party promises review

  The Conservative Party has followed in the footsteps of the Liberal Democrats, The Labour Party and the Scottish National Party by committing to a review of the IR35 reforms

• December 02, 2019 02 Dec'19

  UK boards lose digital confidence

  Fewer organisations feel they have the expertise they require, according to a Harvey Nash survey

• November 29, 2019 29 Nov'19

  Labour SME minister back-tracks over claims party will scrap IR35 reforms if it comes to power

  Shadow small business secretary Bill Esterson clarifies comments he made during an event this week that suggested Labour had made halting the roll-out of the IR35 reforms to the private sector policy

• November 28, 2019 28 Nov'19

  Finnish tech firm aims to create scalable general-purpose quantum computer

  University spin-off is attempting to take quantum computing capabilities to multiple business sectors

• November 26, 2019 26 Nov'19

  Peer calls for clear-out of Post Office board after Court of Appeal confirms major court defeat

  Conservative peer championing subpostmasters’ long-running battle with Post Office suggests management clear-out after Court of Appeal rejects appeal bid

• November 26, 2019 26 Nov'19

  Revamped HMRC IR35 status checker tool still lacks key functionality, contractor groups claim

  HMRC releases an updated version of its IR35 tax status checker tool, CEST, to accommodate the onset of the tax avoidance reforms being rolled out to the private sector, but contracting stakeholders claim it still lacks basic functionality

• November 25, 2019 25 Nov'19

  General Election 2019: The Conservatives’ technology policies and digital plans

  With the UK gearing up for its third general election in four years, Computer Weekly outlines the Conservative and Unionist Party’s main technology policies and digital plans, as laid out in its manifesto

• November 25, 2019 25 Nov'19

  University of Leicester dumps SANs and LUNs for Cloudian object storage

  One-to-one mapping between Dell SANs and media servers had passed their sell-by date and caused vulnerabilities for the University of Leicester, which fixed the problems by a move to “stateless” object storage on Cloudian

• November 25, 2019 25 Nov'19

  General Election 2019: Labour’s technology policies and digital plans

  With the UK gearing up for its third General Election in four years, Computer Weekly outlines the Labour Party’s main technology policies and digital plans, as laid out in its manifesto

• November 25, 2019 25 Nov'19

  Conservatives propose national cyber crime force

  Manifesto also says Tories would “empower the police to safely use new technologies like biometrics and artificial intelligence, along with the use of DNA, within a strict legal framework”

• November 22, 2019 22 Nov'19

  Court of Appeal dismisses Post Office application to appeal damning judgment

  The Court of Appeal has rejected a Post Office application to appeal judgments made in the first trial of its multimillion-pound battle with subpostmasters over IT system failures.

• November 21, 2019 21 Nov'19

  Labour pledges review of NCSC in UK security overhaul

  The UK's National Cyber Security Centre may get expanded powers under a Labour government

• November 21, 2019 21 Nov'19

  SMEs prevail in expanded FutureNHS tender

  Health service is looking to procure a larger sharing and collaboration platform for health and social care

• November 21, 2019 21 Nov'19

  Lib Dem election manifesto: Party vows to scrap loan charge and review IR35 private sector reforms

  The Liberal Democrats’ General Election manifesto sees the party pledge to scrap the controversial loan charge policy, and undertake a review of the IR35 private sector reforms

• November 21, 2019 21 Nov'19

  Collaboration is key to rapid adoption of govtech across Europe

  Government technology is spreading across Europe, but policy-makers and senior civil servants are still figuring out best practices

• November 20, 2019 20 Nov'19

  NHSX seeks chief information officer

  Role is the latest in a series of senior positions the digital unit is looking to fill in order to build its leadership

• November 20, 2019 20 Nov'19

  Swedish hospitals suffer IT crashes

  Hospitals in Sweden’s West Götaland region have suffered computer problems because of as-yet unexplained hard drive crashes

• November 20, 2019 20 Nov'19

  Met Police launches £600m IT infrastructure tender

  Force aims to move away from a multi-supplier approach and enable flexibility and savings in technology

• November 20, 2019 20 Nov'19

  Finland’s ministry of transport floats tech-enabled four-day week

  Government department says four-day working week is made possible by technologies such as artificial intelligence

• November 20, 2019 20 Nov'19

  House of Commons seeks IT security chief

  Interviews for the two-year engagement are due to take place in December 2019

• November 19, 2019 19 Nov'19

  Public sector risks downplayed by senior IT leaders

  Sophos reveals a significant cyber security perception gap between senior IT and security leaders in the public sector and their front-line teams

• November 18, 2019 18 Nov'19

  Scottish local government prioritises automation and AI in digital plan

  Use of the technologies will be ramped up as part of the next phase of the Digital Office 2.0 programme

• November 15, 2019 15 Nov'19

  Loan charge under review: The 20-year retroactive tax policy pushing IT contractors to the brink

  Thousands of IT contractors are at risk of financial ruin as HMRC pursues them for tax it claims they owe on work they did up to two decades ago and were reimbursed for via loan remuneration schemes. Computer Weekly investigates

• November 15, 2019 15 Nov'19

  Notorious hackers claim responsibility for Labour DDoS

  Hackers claiming to represent Lizard Squad say they were behind a distributed denial of service attack on the UK’s Labour Party

• November 14, 2019 14 Nov'19

  Home Office Brexit app contains multiple security flaws

  The Home Office’s Brexit app may be putting EU citizens’ personal data at risk

• November 14, 2019 14 Nov'19

  LOTI launches dashboard that maps technology resources of local authorities

  London Office of Technology and Innovation launches dashboard in partnership with Bloomberg Associates to drive savings and identify skills levels

• November 13, 2019 13 Nov'19

  Attack on Labour shows need for DDoS defence but should alarm few

  After being hit by two DDoS attacks in the space of 24 hours, many commentators are convinced the UK’s Labour Party is the victim of foreign interference in the General Election campaign. It probably isn’t

• November 12, 2019 12 Nov'19

  NHS still holds citizen trust on data use

  But the public trust banks more than local or central government bodies when it comes to handling personal information, a new study has found

• November 12, 2019 12 Nov'19

  ‘Robust’ security foils cyber attack on Labour Party

  Labour claims to have been the victim of a cyber attack, but says it is confident no data leaked