Archive for the ‘News’ Category

As I started writing this on Christmas Eve the news websites were proclaiming “Brexit Deal announcement imminent”, or similar. Behind these headlines the commentators all seem to have become experts in fish quotas, arguing that these are fundamental to the deal, or conversely wondering why the whole shebang is being held up for something relatively
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(*and I attempt to prove it using a logical fallacy and with reference to the Darwin Awards)   “Outsourced bin collections leading to rise in upheld complaints” This was the headline in a recent article on localgov.co.uk, which is the web presence of the Municipal Journal, one of the two industry rags normally found in
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Steven Wilson should in my view be much better known than he is.  He has been putting out music under his own name, his former group Porcupine Tree and other projects for over 25 years.  Lazy people would describe his music as progressive rock, but his back catalogue covers everything from math rock, to pop,
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New Networks appointed to major public sector consultancy framework New Networks is delighted to announce that it has been awarded a position on ESPO’s Consultancy Services Framework 664-17.  The framework commenced on 19th April 2017 and will run initially for 2 years, with the possibility of extension for a further 2 years to 2021. The
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As the prospect of Brexit becomes reality it is only natural for us to wonder what impact this is likely to have on aspects of the work that we do for public sector clients, particularly in relation to strategic/complex procurements – and also on how we and other SMEs go about winning our advisory work
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I have a manufacturer-provided Satnav in my car. As one might imagine obtaining this feature also required various other bits of kit to be installed at the same time. In total this probably added several hundred pounds to the basic price of the car when it rolled off the forecourt. It is of course rubbish.
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I’m starting to wonder if we have all been looking at alternative business models for public services from the wrong angle. Traditionally the approach has reflected the way in which government organisations are structured.  Hence we have a range of outsourced blue collar services,leisure trusts,and shared back offices that tend to be scoped around the
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I’ve been a video games enthusiast since the first blocky space invader .  Over my lifetime the size and complexity of the games has increased hugely, as has the market and industry supporting them.  Games now often have the revenues of Hollywood blockbusters and the development budgets to match. As with films games can fall
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The Government has decided that the Service Integration and Management (SIAM) model is the one to pursue for all the current round of departmental ICT refresh projects.  Is this the right thing to adapt for other parts of the public sector such as local authorities or the police? In essence a SIAM model involves the
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Itunes, Youtube, Spotify and the like are great achievements in the democratisation of music consumption but for people of a certain age (i.e. me), there is a regret at the diminishing importance of working one’s way through an album, recognising that, with the exception of the absolute favourites, every long player in the collection would
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