We have been critical of the grasping information stealing powers which HM Treasury has abrogated to itself under the control freakery of the previous Labour government.
In spite of these unlimited powers, they do not seem to have a clue as to exactly where all the public money has been wasted.
It is therefore interesting to see the Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition government's new Web 2.0 (WordPress blog, promotion via Twitter, Facebook etc.) website entitled:
This attempts to solicit information about saving public money, from, initially, those people actually working in the Public Sector
i.e.
Armed forces
Central government
Education and training
Executive agencies & non-departmental government bodies
Local and regional government (including fire services)
NHS
Police (including civilians)
Private sector partners working with public sector
Third sector organisations working with public sector (e.g. charities)
Other
After July 9th, the wider general public, will, apparently, also be allowed to contribute ideas.
There is an encrypted web form, but no published email address for this Spending Challenge website.
Interestingly, this official UK Government website specifically mentions online anonymity and also the controversial and now insecure "whistleblower" website http://wikileaks.org
All ideas submitted to this site will be considered providing they meet the criteria below:
- Your idea should relate to the question asked ('How can we rethink services to deliver more for less money?')
- Anything you submit should contain a clear idea rather than containing a comment about the Spending Review or about the spending cuts in general
The Privacy Policy needs to be read very carefully:
Your idea should not include the following:
* Potentially libellous, false, or defamatory statements; nor should you impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or organisation
Obviously sensible.
* Material which is potentially confidential, commercially sensitive, or which may cause personal distress or loss;
" may cause personal distress or loss;" is ok, but it should be separated out from
"potentially confidential, commercially sensitive,"
Can HM Treasury really not be trusted with "commercially sensitive information" which pertains to direct or indirect Government spending, waste or inefficiency ?
Since the "economic well being of the United Kingdom", is one of the vague definitions of "national security", surely HM Treasury, is under a legal duty to keep such information, if submitted, in the strictest confidence ?
* The names of individual officials of public bodies, unless they are part of the senior management of those organisations;
What exactly is the definition of "senior management" ?
* Language which is offensive, intemperate, or provocative. This not only includes obvious swear words and insults, but any language to which people review the questions could reasonably take offence.
Obviously sensible.
[...]
To submit an idea, you will be asked for your email address and which area of the public sector you work in. This will appear alongside your idea when it is reviewed by the Treasury. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can choose not to include your email address.
It is good to see that the authors of this website and hopefully their political bosses, recognise that without online anonymity, their attempt at getting good ideas online, especially from "insiders", will simply never work in practice.
When you make your contribution, you also need to be mindful of your obligations under your organisation's Code(s) of Conduct.
How does the Civil Service Code apply?
If you are a Civil Servant, in order for your idea or comment to comply with the Civil Service Code it should adhere to the following:
* Uphold the principles of impartiality, and not be party political in nature
* Avoid disclosing any confidential information
* Avoid being critical of government policies
* Not draw from papers or advice relating to the previous administrationYou should familiarise yourself with the guidelines for Civil Servants on working with social media: http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/about/work/codes/participation-online.aspx
How it is possible for a Civil Servant to comply with these restrictions and to actually submit any detailed, useful ideas ?
You should also make sure that you comply with your organisation's IT Usage Policy.
If anyone is threatened or is actually disciplined, for submitting ideas on how to save public money, to an official Government website consultation, then please let us know anonymously via this blog's comments, or via email to blog@spy.org.uk, using , so that the petty bureaucratic jobsworths responsible can be named and shamed.
You should not post personally identifiable information such as telephone numbers or private addresses.
It is not a good idea to post these on a public blog, but surely HM Treasury should be able to keep these private, especially as they will be moderating any blog comment feedback before publishing it.
If you choose to share your email address and department, it may be used as part of our response process to ideas and suggestions. For more information please see our 'How the Challenge Works' page.
Traffic data is collected anonymously for the purposes of analysing visitor usage patterns only.
Really ? How can we be sure of that "Traffic data" is not abused for other purposes, given the "national security" snooping powers of HM Treasury ?
Please note that contributions are not 'protected' i.e. if an idea is submitted, the user should expect that it may be taken forward for implementation by HM Government and that the idea becomes the property of HM Government.
No worse than say, Facebook, in terms of stealing your intellectual property.
N.B. if your public money saving ideas relate entirely or mostly to the Government department you work for, then you should not expect any financial reward for coming up with a good money saving idea.
However, if your novel, practical idea for saving money, relates to a different department, or public body, which you are not directly or indirectly paid by, then surely there should be at least some sort of monetary prize incentive scheme, ideally on a percentage of public money saved basis ?
All personal data will be treated in line with:
Why does the original link to the Directgov Privacy Policy employ some sneaky javascipt Page Tracker code ?
i.e.
onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.direct.gov.uk');"
Does that mean that it will be left on a train, or copied to an insecure laptop computer, USB memory device or CD/DVD and then lost ?
Will the WordPress blog response form data be left on an insecure web or email server, open to the internet or to privileged internal snoopers ?
No HM Treasury Spending Challenge email address ?
Why is there no HM Treasury Spending Challenge email address e.g.
SpendingChallenge@hm-treasury.gsi.gov.uk
(suitable for the low level Restricted Protectively Marked document security classification)
or
SpendingChallenge@x.hm-treasury.gsi.gov.uk
(suitable for the medium level Confidential Protectively Marked document security classification)
for direct email contact or submissions of Spending Challenge ideas ?
Is it really too much to ask for the Spending Challenge team to also publish a PGP Encryption Key, for such an email address or for use as an extra layer of security via their online submission web form ?
Even without publishing a PGP Key, which not all people will be able to use, the HM Treasury Spending Challenge team could provide a reasonable level of whistleblower email encryption in transit over the internet, by ensuring that their email server(s) use the STARTTLS protocol, which major email providers like Google etc. honour.
Online anonymity and WikiLeaks.org
The 'How the Challenge Works' page. has this interesting paragraph at the end:
Although this process allows you to submit ideas anonymously, we respect the fact that some people will not want to contribute directly to a government website. As part of this exercise, we will monitor a range of blogs, social networks, forums and also http://wikileaks.org.
We wonder which "blogs, social networks, forums" will be monitored by, or on behalf of, HM Treasury ?
It is astonishing that the controversial and now insecure "whistleblower" website is actually mentioned and hinted at as a method for UK government insiders to "leak" good money saving ideas to the current Government.
Is the Conservatives / Liberal Democrat coalition government trying to sneak around the Sir Humphrey Appleby / "Yes Minster" style Whitehall mandarins, to gain access to "papers or advice relating to the previous administration" etc ?
The online response form on the Spending Challenge home page, is not ideal, in that it is run by a script on a non-UK Government webserver:
https://depts.theclubuk.com/build1001/wp-comments-post.php
theclubuk.com seems to be run by Steria, presumably under contract to the UK Government.
It would be more trustworthy if this webserver had an official UK Government (,gov.uk) domain name address, ideally a HM Treasury one (.hm-treasury.gov.uk).
However, to be fair, this web form does at least use SSL/TLS encryption with a current Digital Certificate, to protect the submitted information in transit over the internet.
Sadly, the same is no longer true of wikileaks.org.
- WikiLeakS.org allowed the only PGP Public Encryption / Digital Signing which they publicised on their website, i.e. the only one which could be trusted, to expire on 2nd November 2007
- WikiLeakS.org stopped their Tor Hidden Service method of accessing the website and of securely submitting whistleblower leaked document around Christmas 2009, when they took the website down to beg for more money. i.e. no more http://gaddbiwdftapglkq.onion/
- When the WikiLeakS.org website returned partially after their fund-raising strike, the only method of securely submitting a document to them was via their SSL/TLS encrypted web page.
This used an old , deprecated, RapidSSL Digital Certificate, with a potentially forgeable MD5 signed Digital Certificate. This Digital Certificate expired on 12th June 2010 and has not been replaced.
The supposedly secure document submission system via https://secure.wikileaks.org has been disabled.
- The current WikiLeakS.org website no longer even qualifies as a "wiki", as new online Comments or Discussions have been turned off.
- There have been no new whistleblower leaked documents submitted via the website, actually published on WikILeakS.org for at least 6 months
See the WikiLeak.org blog for more details of the decline in security and trust which WikiLeakS.org has suffered from
Are the HM Treasury Spending Challenge team cynically aware that WikILeakS.org is no longer functioning as a secure online whistle-blower leak channel, which is why they have dared to mention it ?
We would urge any Public Sector "insiders" to read our Technical Hints and Tips for protecting the anonymity of sources for
Whistleblowers, Investigative Journalists, Campaign Activists and Political Bloggers etc.
They claim to have had over 18,000 responses so far.
Are they keeping these safe and secure ?
Fuel Allowance and bus pass to be available at 70 (many 60 year olds are working and don't need these benefits)
Numbers of girls are to be seen every day on Bristol buses with babies...For many it has been a career choice where school has not worked..An attractive option when you get council housing too. The resultimg offspring have no male role model and join the "disadavantged" ar a great cost to the state. If under 21 the shiulf be obliged to stay in the parental home, or failing that, a hostel.
On the subject of babies, a quarter of all children born in the UK were born to foreign mothers. Who is paying the hospital bill?
The big issue around responding to the Government's 'Spending Challenge' is the sheer numbers - over 43,000 individual freeform responses so far, and its being opened up to the general public next week.
Given the popularity of telling uk.gov what you want, they'll have to spend millions just to analyse the responses because, as they aren't categorised in any way, a real person has to read every single one of them because of the pisspoor way that this 'system' has been set up... :\
Several of the current 25 or so "examples of suggestions" (from 60,000 ideas so far!) relate to replacing Microsoft operating systems with Linux.
Although this might potentially be a long term strategy, a much simpler and immediate saving could be adopted almost universally throughout government departments. Simply enforce use of Openoffice equivalents to EXCEL/WORD etc and thereby cancel 95% of future maintenance for MS/Office products. I don't know exactly how many MS licenses are paid for by government/local government/armed forces but I bet it's a gigantic figure.
Suppliers of new equipment should be obliged to install Openoffice on servers and standalone laptops/PC's etc as a matter of course.
Since most MS/Office users actually only utilize a tiny fraction of supported features, there will be no loss of function and, where absolutely necessary, a shared server/PC in the office could be used for the odd occasion a feature of the MS product itself is particularly important.
That is one license instead of multiple for entire departments.
Not only would implementing this be fast, it would be painless and reduce the balance of payments deficit too.
Reducing the frequency of Operating System upgrades would also reduce the need to spend huge amounts on re-purchasing latest versions of other software (eg MS/Office 2007 when M/S Office 2003 is perfectly adequate for most purposes - some would even say more adequate!)
I would suggest that the major way save money is that we cut the amount of money we send abroad in overseas aid, this could save you billions, then they would not be a need to increase taxes, also cut MPs wages to half they are now, stop all minersterial cars, these are a few things that I think will help the deficite hugely.
Sir.
Stop aid to India ..... This Country is buying a couple of nuclear submarines from Russia ( obviously has more than enough money to look after its own people ).
Stop giving money to young irresponsible teenage girls who are milking the system by having babies.
Lets all grow up and put an end to this Royal business firm. We can all go to Disney world to see Kings, queens, and Prince and Princesses.
@ ken - it is not as simple as that, unfortunately.
There will be huge pain and vast sums of public money, will be wasted, in making such a change, if the current Whitehall IT management culture is allowed to persist !
Why do you think that OpenOffice or the hundreds of variants of Linux would in any way reduce the ongoing re-installation and support costs ?
None of these are really stable, bulletproof and future proof bits of software - they are forever being patched and upgraded and broken, just like the Microsoft products are.
The heavily discounted licence fees which Governments or large companies negotiate with Microsoft represent only a small fraction of an IT project.
If there was a very clear financial case for using something else, then why would it not have already beaten Microsoft in the marketplace ?
In response to your spending challenge i would like to suggest that the govt seriously consider either re-writing the human rights law, or scrapping it altogether,i would say a whole lot of money be saved.
I also think that the govt should take more control of the taxpayers money that local councils spend housing saylum seekers in two million mansions at an astronomical rent(Mail on Sunday 11/07/2010.
Stop foreign aid in cash form all aid for farming,building etc should be by voucher and may only be spent by buying Brtitish made goods in this country.
Ditch the human rights act and stop full benefits for all immigrants on arrival including legal aid for appeals and speed up the deportation process.
Prosecute underage school girl mothers and the child's father (if she knows who he is)and no state funded housing untill the age of 18.
@ wtwu - obviously I don't agree with your criticism of my simple idea. Firstly I never suggested using Linux (for the reason you stated), second, Openoffice is, as you willingly admit, just as stable (or unstable) as M/S office (although for most purposes, such as composing a monochrome letter using ARIAL 12 font or editing a simple spreadsheet application, a little instability will hardly be life threatening. This stability can, in any case, be mitigated using staged updates supplied from a trusted central IT source.
As for the overblown IT project costs - dreamed up by greedy IT suppliers - it is hardly surprising that the cost of MS Office is small by comparison!
In any case, who said the costs should be compared to (individual) IT project costs? The relevant costs are effectively ongoing annual maintenance or operating upgrade costs spread over a vast plethora of government sites.
That's gotta to be such an ironic thing to pursue. It's a nice way, yes, I guess to get ideas from, but censored and controlled, how constructive can that be?
:( oops so sorry for that dp! My pc controls sucks
DIVERSITY.
Govt. Depts.& Civil Service are paralysed by the growth and power of the Diversity Orgasation. Managers cannot make decisions fearful of transgression and individuals are stifled. It actually causes resentment among the various groups of employees.
Conclusion.
Disband Diversity Depts.Diversity issues should be handled as part of every day HR/Personnel Depts. duties (without extra staff being created). HR should be responsible for ensuring that individuals have recourse to them with any complaints re. Race, Religion, Gender etc.The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Developement (CIPD) could be consulted on how to achieve Best Practice. This would 'free up' staff to do their core business e.g. The Police Force complain about budgets and having to cut front line services. They should look beyond the front line and stop trying to frighten the general public.
HEALTH and SAFETY.
Much the same as Diversity. This huge growth industry resorts to justifyig a day at the office by coming up with ever more ludricrous, negative ideas. They stifle all aspects of business and individual activity. H&S power has grown out of all proportion, their negativity results in project delays and in many cases unnecessary expense.There is confusion with legislation being interpreted differently in different areas.H&S is necessary but in a much reduced role as advisors and not they who must be obeyed, that is for management to manage risks.
Conclusion.
A Govt. H&S Section(small) should be responsible for the issue of one interpretation only for any present or new UK/EU legislation.Cut H&S right back to Regional offices that work at the sharp end visiting places of work and leisure to ensure safety also to act in an advisory role to individual nominated H&S local staff in work areas and to liaise with Govt. H&S Section for any clarification points. They are not required to sit in an office, dream up and instigate local H&S rules.