Utterly pointless rebranding.
Axe falls on Directgov as GOV.UK launches
The government's new £4.6m-and-counting public services single domain website GOV.UK officially replaced Directgov this morning. Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude confirmed in late 2010 that New Labour's garishly orange-coloured site would be killed off in favour of a new online service that followed Martha Lane Fox's …
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 08:35 GMT MartinSullivan
Jobseekers.direct.gov.uk and Edon.businesslink.gov.uk Unchanged
Happily for us (and the Jobcentre Plus Database Mirror) nothing has changed on two critical web-sites. Both jobseekers.direct.gov.uk and edon.businesslink.gov.uk remain completely the same, without branding or even a link back to this new gov.uk site.
The Jobcentre Plus Database Mirror aims to mirror the Jobseekers Direct effort, but be more commodious and open, Its feeds are the basis of a number of third-party efforts. More on http://blog.zois.co.uk/
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Friday 19th October 2012 10:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Not all directgov.uk
Almost ... the tax disk form that you get in the mail still has a directgov.uk web address printed on it ... if you go to that you get sent to the "things relating to cars and driving licenses" gov.uk page and it takes another couple of clicks on gov.uk page till you get to the page you mention where you start the process of paying for a new license on line .... and that is still branded with the orange directgov page style etc.
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 10:16 GMT Piers
Useless...
There used to be some really good information on the Business Link site.
Business Link has now been subsumed.
If I try to use the so-called navigation, I can't see where this information (eg An example of the terms and conditions of your website which covers the content and usage of your website.) has gone.
If I search for text that was on the page "An example of the terms and conditions of your website which covers the content and usage of your website." I can't find anything remotely related.
Very disappointing.
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 10:23 GMT Skoorb
Re: Useless...
Sorry. You're wrong about what you want. They are right.
See http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/16/meeting-the-needs-of-businesses/
Basically; bog off to a third party website, they only cover 'popular' content in summary form; you are a busy business man rushing about with a Bluetooth headset stuck in your ear and don't have time to read words!
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 10:43 GMT Kay_terra
Re: Nice Design
A cursory glimpse at the internets will let you know that the government has actually hired people into the GDS to build and run the service. Tom Loosemore led a lot of the web work and the executive direction came from Mike Bracken ... so yeah, not an agency.
Cynicism is expected and healthy, but it pays for it to be based in fact rather than lazy speculation.
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 10:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
Congrats GDS
You've spent ages telling us all how clever you are, and finding new clever ways to redo all the easy bits of DirectGov.
Today your website launches: real users will tell you what they think of it, and hard questions will be asked about the true costs.
And you still haven't tackled any of the hard bits that require actual systems integration knowledge, policy knowledge, etc.
Maybe now you'll shut up and go away until you deliver something real
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 10:50 GMT Da Weezil
"It has been planned, written, organised and designed around what users need to get done, not around the ways government want them to do it "
There is stuff I DONT want to do online. so this was/is a waste of money.
Looks like a second rate phishing site. With such an amateurish layout I don't trust the site to have a professional grade security layer in place.
Dont want.. wont use.
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 11:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
you know
you should go easy on them, this is a great start. It does save a lot of money no doubt about that - the old providers of this service were ripping us off royally it would seem. I find it interesting the GDS seems to be headed up by the same people who brought you 'whatdotheyknow' and the other open government sites. Realistically, functionality for everything on day1 is never a goal, im going to sit tight and wait to see what they come up with over the next 12 months before i pass judgement. Our tax burden is millions better off per year - cant argue much with that.
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 11:14 GMT taxman
Re: you know
If this were an Alpha or Beta release I might agree with you. But to still have to rely on links to a site that has been announced as now being closed down - Directgov - then all I can think of is that not much real work has been done on toolset side of the site. Then again, youngsters playing with Macs doing the work.....
Ok just to redisgn page layout but not much beyond that. At least the Search tool is now in the right place.
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 11:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: you know
Its still a start and it still saves us a lot of cash. I know this will get better with time. Sure some functionality still sits of subdomains of directgov, but isnt there something like 500 of them? Dont you think the people who original made these systems (and asked us to bend over in the process) would make it as hard as possible to move away from them? Simple rules of being evil in publicly funded IT - to retain the business make it ridiculously difficult to move away and then jack up the price. Taking the first bite out of the migration mountain today was a great first step IMHO and I hope to see a lot more work done on this site over the coming years. ITs a bloody good idea,a dn when you have a lot of the 'mysociety' people running things they tend to be coming from the ange of what we need, not what the government wants us to need.
Not sure on the kids with Mac comments, from the reasearch I have done about GDS it seems to have hired people who have been doing IT work for 15 to 20 years going by some of the names ive seen flying about.
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 11:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: you know
"it still saves us a lot of cash"
Not proven.
"people who have been doing IT work for 15 to 20 years"
Not big IT though
Ask yourself this. It's a website designed to subsume all other websites. It's built by the Government Digital Service, part of the Cabinet Office. Yet, on launch day, Cabinet Office is still a separate website and the GDS has websites coming out of its ears.
Why aren't they eating their own dogfood?
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 12:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: you know
"I am pretty sure that is not the case, those sites were built by mySociety, whereas gov.uk has been built by a new in-house team (the house being the cabinent office) ."
The deputy director is from mysociety, as some of the team.
"Not proven." - where are you getting your info? Just look at the bills we no longer pay the (several) companies who ran the old site.
"Not big IT though" - really? Well, lets see - theres BTs old chief web architect there. Theres a director of mysociety there. I could go on, but I think they are 'Big IT' enough for me. Maybe not 'I used to run HP' big. By any chance are you the same 'Fatsbrannigan' that has been all over the comments on GDS and other government websites when ideas to replace the old sites were put forward? You have seemed highly critical since day one, even before a beta was up. I wouldnt be surprised if you work for the people that used to run the sites, hence the expected negative comments.
Im not looking at this team as some new government quango-quasi-thing - realistically they are true IT guys who want to provide people with open government - and they have been given carte blanche.. FFS give them a chance, if this fails, what are we left with? The old way where the few big companies selected to 'outsource' the sites to make them crap and millions over budget. FatsBranningan would be back in a job then ;)
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 13:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: you know
Am I Fats Brannigan, would-be-scourge of GDS? You betcha
Do I work with/for DirectGov or interested parties? No
Are you a GDS shill? Who knows
This side of the rainbow, we're still waiting for proof of those savings, and the presence of one mid-league and one minor web player ain't gonna help bolt .gov.uk onto that big old government tin
Let's wait and see what happens with Digital I'd and Universal Credits - fun!
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 11:33 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: you know
"It does save a lot of money no doubt about that ... Our tax burden is millions better off per year"
Touching faith. The true costs of the new site, and any real savings, have not been published or audited. GDS are just quoting their business case at this point.
They have needlessly overspent by adopting a not-invented-here mindset but have still only tackled the low hanging fruit. Costs will climb steeply when they get to the hard bits (transactions) as few of the team have any record of delivery for complex integrations with legacy systems. Sadly their arrogance has alienated the people charged with running those legacy systems
Hold your enthusiasm for a while - they're going to need all the supporters they can get.
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 11:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
So far...
... at least half the editors I have on our LA site (we have about 250) haven't said a nice word about it when I informed them this morning of the (sort of) official demise of DirectGov. The old DirectGov services database seems to have stopped reporting broken links for me as well, so I need to check the entries manually. So far gov.uk looks to have been implemented by a monkey as clearly the organ grinders are too busy playing angry birds on their iPhones paid for by our tax money.
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 13:12 GMT D Moss Esq
The savings are for me, the costs are for you
"A taxpayer service that saves taxpayer money... Hmm".
There may be savings. We may find out when we see the audited accounts. But wherefrom comes the touching belief that these savings will be enjoyed by taxpayers?
Go back to the Bible, Martha Lane Fox's 10-page letter to Francis Maude, and you will read:
"I recommend that any savings from the reduction in duplication should remain in departments, once transition costs and ongoing funding for the new central team have been taken into account".
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/resources/Martha%20Lane%20Fox's%20letter%20to%20Francis%20Maude%2014th%20Oct%202010.pdf
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 13:28 GMT D Moss Esq
GOV.UK + IdA + G-Cloud + midata + ... + NSTIC - Government Gateway
Savings? Improving the user experience? Those are the issues Messrs Bracken and Maude might like to restrict us to in our discussion. But there are a few more:-
1. You can't deliver public services on-line if you can't identity the users. GOV.UK needs IdA, identity assurance, major announcement due next Monday, or read leaks to the Independent,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/national-virtual-id-card-scheme-set-for-launch-is-there-anything-that-could-possibly-go-wrong-8196543.html
2.1 GOV.UK is being hosted in the cloud by a one-man company, Skyscape Cloud Services Ltd. Bit small?
2.2 GOV.UK is being hosted in the cloud. Loss of control over data, staff, costs ...
3. Identity assurance relying on Facebook, Google, Twitter accounts may not be quite as reliable as the identity assurance offered by the Government Gateway but the Gateway's going anyway and soon Facebook and the others will have become part of the British Constitution. Not mentioned in Francis Maude's blog post but nevertheless the case.
4. The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill continues to meander through Parliament and, if it gets through, we will all have PDSs (personal data stores). PDSs are the foundation on which midata is built but, again, mysteriously, they make no appearance in Mr Maude's missive.
5. It is tempting to say that ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken is over-fond of Google and will do anything to further its interests including giving it the UK to play with, a power apparently in his remit. Tempting, but wrong, because what he really loves is Estonia. GOV.UK is his way of making the UK just a little bit more Estonian,
http://www.dmossesq.com/2012/05/francis-maude-seeks-future-in-estonia.html
6. ...
They go up to 17,
http://www.dmossesq.com/2012/10/press-release-govukdigital-by-default.html
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 15:35 GMT D Moss Esq
Re: GOV.UK + IdA + G-Cloud + midata + ... + NSTIC - Government Gateway
Akamai? Maybe they've disintegrated?
Mr Newton, I am as mystifyied as you, please explain the following:
http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/09/18/introducing-a-new-supplier-skyscape/
QUOTE
Government Digital Service
Introducing a new supplier (Skyscape)
by Mark O'Neill on 18/09/2012
... To meet the needs of GOV.UK, we are planning to work with a number of different Infrastructure as a Service providers. We are happy to announce that the first cloud hosting provider we are working with is Skyscape.
UNQUOTE
also
http://gcloud.civilservice.gov.uk/2012/09/18/first-iaas-purchase-completed/
QUOTE
HM Government | G-Cloud
.gov.uk hosting bought through G-Cloud
Posted on September 18, 2012 by Eleanor Stewart
We’re really pleased to be able to announce the first major sale of Infrastructure As A Service. Government Digital Service have signed a contract with Skyscape for:
1) Compute as a service
2) Compute as a service (test & development)
3) Storage as a service
This is all intended to support the exciting work they’re doing on .gov.uk to revolutionise the way citizens access information and services online.
UNQUOTE
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 16:06 GMT D Moss Esq
Re: GOV.UK + IdA + G-Cloud + midata + ... + NSTIC - Government Gateway
I dug on www.gov.uk and got a poor user experience:
QUOTE
What are you looking for?
Sorry, but there are no results for 'akamai'
Please try
Searching again using different words
Browsing from the GOV.UK home page
Visiting the support pages if you need more assistance
UNQUOTE
Using Google found a few thousand references to Skyscape and GOV.UK including this one
http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/public-sector/3404042/hosting-govuk-in-the-cloud-to-cost-gds-record-breaking-600000/?intcmp=rel_articles;pblc-sctr;link_1
QUOTE
Hosting GOV.UK in the cloud to cost GDS record-breaking £600,000
Government Digital Service signed a deal with Skyscape last month
By Derek du Preez | Computerworld UK | Published 10:29, 10 October 12
The Government Digital Service’s (GDS) infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) deal with Skyscape to host single domain website GOV.UK, which was procured through the G-Cloud, is worth an estimated £600,000.
Denise McDonagh, G-Cloud programme director, revealed the figure in an article for the Financial Times, where she said that the deal is the biggest sale to date from CloudStore and is “an important milestone for G-Cloud, showing that the public sector is ready to embrace low-cost utility cloud services”.
UNQUOTE
The meaning seems pretty clear. From what you say, Mr Newton, these claims are simply false and GOV.UK is after all not being hosted on Skyscape.
Is this possible?
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 17:37 GMT D Moss Esq
Akamai 1 - 0 Skyscape
Enter nslookup www.gov.uk and back comes the answer:
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: e6453.b.akamaiedge.net
Address: 2.23.20.23
Aliases: www.gov.uk
www.gov.uk.edgekey.net
Check up with RIPE on that 2.23.20.23 address and you get:
inetnum: 2.23.16.0 - 2.23.31.255
netname: AKAMAI-PA
descr: Akamai Technologies
country: EU
admin-c: NARA1-RIPE
tech-c: NARA1-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: AKAM1-RIPE-MNT
mnt-routes: AKAM1-RIPE-MNT
mnt-routes: CW-EUROPE-GSOC
source: RIPE #Filtered
Things are looking good for the Akamai theory and not so good for Skyscape.
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Sunday 21st October 2012 22:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Akamai 1 - 0 Skyscape
From your last few comments, I take it that this is the first time you've been on the Internet by yourself.
I believe, but don't actually care, that Skyscape is using a CDN (perhaps Akamai) to prevent their having had to buy hardware, pay for software, pay for data center space, etc, etc, etc.
Whether that is what was intended when Skyscape's bit was accepted, I don't know, but I'm sure that Akamai are happy with the situation.
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 13:40 GMT ScepticTank
Early days
As one of those embittered old lags who ran one of the old sites seeking to simplify everything in one place I say ....congratulations! Gov.uk has continuously improved since the days of the Beta, and I'm sure there's much more to come.
It does rankle that GDS can't acknowledge the people behind the old sites and say thanks for your contribution. Yes the old way was expensive, but don't believe that any of that cash trickled its way down the chain to the grunts who did the editing and coding. Much of it went on military-grade security for servers that only published public domain content, and equal amounts on servicing the bureaucracy that scrutinises the work of an outsourced contract. But we did include our overheads in the published figures. Are GDS?
Both DG and BL had many staff that were above all passionate about doing the best thing for the user. Gov.uk is delivering what many of us saw was needed years ago, and benefits from a culture that allows things to happen quickly. We look on with admiration and a pang of jealousy perhaps.
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Wednesday 17th October 2012 21:47 GMT taxman
Oh suits you!
Well, I think we can all agree that at least someone from GDS has been monitoring the t'interweb for comments on the Neu Service. Nice job if you can get it.
Still crap how it links to Directgov though particularly when ALL the comms coming from the CO say Directgov is closed. Why not bring it all in and go live when it's complete....or is that now entering a political sphere of when the LID had to be achieved .....no matter how crap it is?
Oh and using Akamai.... makes a change from Prolexia, but could still be expensive in the long run when the kiddies start playing about again.