back to article Painfully insecure GDS spaffs £21,000 on online narcissism tool

The Government Digital Service is spending £21,000 per year on a brand monitoring tool designed to track what is being said about it online. Brandwatch monitors conversations happening online "in order to provide brands with information and the means to track specific segments to analyse their online presence". The Brighton …

  1. Bob Vistakin
    Facepalm

    21k to click "search" on the twitter page?

    Who commissioned this?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Big deal

    £21k is nothing in the world of government spending, where billions are routinely wasted on the whims of gormless politicians, and whilst Her Maj's opposition froths at the mouth at "austerity" in which the government fritter £80 billion each year more than they raise in taxes.

    Given that getting good quality user feedback is far more difficult than tracking what people actually say about you, this is probably a sensible more, although with the cynical caveats that nobody probably does discuss GDS on social media (the Reg Commentariat excepted), and that there's no point getting feedback on your service unless you do something effective about it.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    GDS smells of poo. Also I have it on good authority that they only employ furries.

    (Just testing. Teeheehee.)

  4. Captain DaFt

    Oh well, humanity had a good run

    "The Government Digital Service is spending £21,000 per year on a brand monitoring tool designed to track what is being said about it online."

    So, they took some AI software and are subjecting it to all the abuse directed at them? What could possibly go wrong?

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Oh well, humanity had a good run

      I suppose that those of you on that side of the pond should watch what you post here lest you end up on some watch list...

      1. Vic

        Re: Oh well, humanity had a good run

        I suppose that those of you on that side of the pond should watch what you post here lest you end up on some watch list

        If we're not all already on a watch list, that that list is useless.

        And if we are on it, then it's evil.

        Ho hum...

        Vic.

  5. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Cheap at the price

    If they take note of the feedback it could be the best thing they ever spent money on. "Only good thing", of course, is equivalent to "best".

  6. cantankerous swineherd

    hello brandwatch

    Government Digital Service - the people bringing in identity cards through the back door.

  7. jrd

    A government should seek feedback on its' performance. This may not be the best way to do it but it's also not the worst and £21k isn't much by the standards of government waste.

    Of course, as others have already said, the difficult part is getting the government to actually *listen* to what people are saying - especially if it is not what they wish to hear (same problem with senior management in the private sector, in my experience).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      (same problem with senior management in the private sector, in my experience).

      That's my experience too.

      Senior management were very disappointed by the results of last year's staff survey, as a cosequence they held meetings to identify two or three things that staff felt were a major frustration and within their remit to address.

      So far so good.

      A year later they have failed to deliver on any of the issues in 'their remit' and we have just had another survey pushed out.

      But we have a successful cycling team so everything is fine.

      Happy days.

      1. Vic

        Senior management were very disappointed by the results of last year's staff survey

        Some years ago, I worked for an organisation that had a goal of delivering at least 40 hours per year of training to each employee. And for some years, it all worked well - we all got at least 40 hours of training, and occasionally a bit more.

        Then, management decided to start cost-cutting, and all sorts of things were no longer allowed.

        At the next staff survey, senior management were "disappointed" that staff were claiming an average of 2 hours of training per year, and resolved to find out why we were "under-reporting" the training we got...

        Vic.

  8. caffeine addict

    Depending on how they're using it, I can genuinely see a purpose to this. Not if they're tracking how often someone says "$GOVDEPT are $EXPLETIVE" but if they're tracking trends in things like "$GOVSITE is down again" or "on hold for 3h to $GOVDEPT" then it has the potential to spot problems early on.

    Not that I'd put any money on them doing this, of course...

    1. SolidSquid

      But call times should be monitored by their phone system, site being down should be monitored by server monitor, etc. There are much better ways to record and search this data than scraping social media sites

      1. Scott 53

        SolidSquid - you're talking about measuring the reality. They are mostly interested in measuring the perception.

  9. denzil

    21k to find out we think there a bunch of useless c$%@s ,i could have told them for free

  10. Mike 137 Silver badge

    Can anyone answer this?

    Why could it be that two letters of mine this year relating to important issues, sent directly to the ministers responsible, have elicited zero response but the govt is dead keen to find out at our expense what some of us have tweeted about it?

    1. Tokoloshe

      Re: Can anyone answer this?

      Because the whole world can read a tweet, but only you and a goverment letter opening minion know what's in your letter.

      Suggest you either tweet the questions or send the letters via your MP.

      1. charlie-charlie-tango-alpha

        Re: Can anyone answer this?

        "Suggest you either tweet the questions or send the letters via your MP."

        I'd go for the letter to your MP as the most effective route if you want a Minister to actually see your complaint - whether that Minister actually does anything as a result is of course a moot point.

        Letters from the public to HMG Ministers are treated in one of two ways. If the letter is direct to the Minister (or his office or an official in the Department) then the Minister never actually gets to see it. It is handled only by officials (this is known as "treat official"). If, however, the same letter is sent to an MP and is then forwarded by that MP to a responsible Minister for reply, then the Minister will get it in his red box along with a draft reply (from the same official who would have replied directly as before). The Minister then signs the reply to the MP and encloses the constituent's original letter with the reply. Said constituent then gets back the official line trotted out by the Department with a nice letter from both his or her MP as well.

        In my experience however, this is a largely futile exerccise unless you happen to like collecting letters from Ministers and MPs.

  11. Crisp

    Brandwatch monitors conversations happening online...

    Because that doesn't sound creepy at all.

  12. Chris 155

    Is this really a story?

    Most large organizations do something like this. When your random complaint on twitter gets actually addressed by the company, 99 times out of 100 that's because of something like this. 21k is less than they'd pay in labor costs to do it without the software so it's also pretty cheap.

    This is the 21st century here. Social Media and what people are saying about your company on Social Media is important. For 21k you can monitor a bunch of different sources and produce a digest that can be easily managed.

  13. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    It's very important for the GDS to know what and how much people are saying about it.

    And the answer is..

    Nothing very much outside this article.

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