Comments for Does Directgov Deliver?

Comment on Too much information by Alan Wylie

Alan Wylie — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 14:17:19 +0000

I very rarely, if at all, use directgov for public enquiries, I tend to go straight to the original source whilst most members of the public use google etc. I don’t think i’ve ever had a member of the public ask me about it and my general impression is that public awareness is extremely low.
The site itself is extremely deep and in my view overwhelming, having one site for all gov info seems impractical?

Comment on About by Republic Polytechnic

Republic Polytechnic — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 05:54:09 +0000

You’ve made a very excellent story.
If it’s ok with you, I would like to seek permission to use your article as it fits to my obstruction. I will be happy to negotiate to pay you or hire you for this.

With Regards from
Republic Polytechnic

Comment on About Directgov by David Grant

David Grant — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:31:35 +0000

In response to Tony – do you have an up to date link please? Any more PQs would be of interest as well (I’m not sure how to find them, sorry). Thanks

Comment on About Directgov by David Grant

David Grant — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:18:08 +0000

So, 25p per visit is accurate. Sounds expensive to me – incidentally, this doesn’t cover the extra services which operate from DG; the DVLA functions cost £38 million to build, if memory serves. And £2 million on TV ads!? The next question is, where are the exact figures for the savings Directgov has produced?

Comment on About Directgov by Tony Singleton

Tony Singleton — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:13:11 +0000

In reply to the questions about Directgov costs, as Ian Cuddy says, the increase to £30m in 2008-09 was recommended following Sir David Varney’s service transformation review (http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/prebud_pbr06_varney.htm). The £30m per annum was the figure agreed with HMT under Directgov’s CSR07 settlement as being necessary for Directgov to deliver the website convergence and service transformation programme. This is the total Directgov budget, not just that associated with running the Directgov website or other channels (TV and mobile). There are several PQs on the subject as well as the one Ian cites.

Comment on Small steps to innovation by Thomas

Thomas — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:50:45 +0000

Show Us A Better Way sounded good, but what has it actually delivered?

Two of the three chosen projects actually already exist – http://www.recyclenow.com/ and http://www.cyclestreets.net/ , as pointed out by people just after the competition announced the winners, but there’s nothing on those sites that suggests they actually got any funding, I presume both could do with it!

Others still like the JobCentre one seem to be messing about scrapeing google for postcodes for lack of funds, because of the idiocy of having to pay for the postcode database, which should a national asset if ever there were one.

And the SUABW website seems not to have any kind of follow -up report, again suggesting that they didn’t actually use the money that was allocated!

It looks as if they came up with the idea but didn’t follow it through which is a great shame given what the voluntary sector seem to be doing, seemingly with few funds.

Tom

Comment on Keep up to date by MJ Ray

MJ Ray — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:00:30 +0000

I feel that if it’s simpler to go through all Googlegroups signup and setup screens than to add a mailing list or just a plugin on your WordPress, then there’s something wrong with your hosting.

Thanks for adding the note anyhow.

Comment on The context of web 2.0 by alex stobart

alex stobart — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:39:37 +0000

The reason these examples work is they are built by users, for users, with users.

We are reluctant to use Directgov because we have no loyalty to it, and no incentive.

Our children will not even think about, let alone be able to speall it.

Comment on Do-it-online by alex stobart

alex stobart — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:38:00 +0000

I think I have 6 government gateway passwords and possibly more.

I would like to give stuff once, and by my personal choice of route. I will do the work for you, I promise.

Try VRM, please

Comment on Too much information by alex stobart

alex stobart — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:36:19 +0000

I use

directionless.gov

This was built for very little and works much better.

I don’t want to waste time searching. Amazon – I tell them what I want ( a book on science ) and they have clever algorithms to alert me to other stuff

Could we not have tesco, amazon, greenpeace and citizens designing the next site ?