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01 Dec 09

BMJ Group blogs: BMJ » Blog Archive » Richard Smith: can the internet transform public services?

  • Tom Loosemore, the head of Channel Four’s Innovation for the Public Fund and formerly head of broadband at the BBC, is getting impatient with the speed of progress. After 10 years of thought he has reached the radical conclusion, unpopular with many, that governments should get out of websites. NHS Choices, for example, should be canned. The problems with government websites is that they are stuck firmly in the past, dampen innovation, are terrible value for money, and stop government truly “listening” because moderation of websites is in the end censorship.
  • Instead of building websites government should make data available for other organisations—whether for profit or not for profit—to build into websites with contractual requirements to keep the websites up to date and display the brand of whomever produces the data—perhaps the NHS. Similarly governments should pull out of transaction sites and let other organisations build them. This arrangement is common in the United States, and HM Revenue and Customs has begun to make it a reality here, allowing interaction of its system with other systems.
31 Oct 09

Poor whites: On the edge | The Economist

  • Most outlying estates have not had Castle Vale’s makeover. Many are shabby and a long way from shops, jobs and power. Frankley, an estate that lies at the end of an infrequent 40-minute bus ride south from Birmingham, is one. “Here feels so far away from the power base,” complains Andy Ross, a community worker who recently lost a colleague after an unexpected edict from city hall unilaterally deployed him elsewhere.
  • Frankley has had a particularly rough time, straddling the boundary between Birmingham and a neighbouring council. Squabbles over who is responsible for drains, street lighting and other services mean that, sometimes, work goes undone. Ray Goodwin, who works for Birmingham Settlement, a local charity, says that these slip-ups leave gaps for the BNP. “Someone will come round and take your rubbish away, or mend your fence. The next time he knocks it’s to ask for your vote,” he says. Frankley is not alone in feeling cut-off: national polling shows that whites feel less in control of their communities and country than any other ethnic group (see chart).
13 Sep 09

Hospitals to be rewarded for happy patients | Society | The Guardian

  • the next stage of health service reform should make hospital budgets linked to patient satisfaction.
10 Sep 09

We will follow example of efficient Tory councils, says George Osborne | Politics | guardian.co.uk

  • Hammersmith and Fulham, for example, reduced administration costs and froze councillor allowances so it could focus resources on local schools and more policing.
  • Another Tory borough, Barnet council in north London, is using the business model of budget airlines to radically reform public services.
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