How the UK is raising the open government bar and setting a new standard

I’ve been collecting links (below) from the UK’s Government Digital Service blog for a while wondering when they’ll stop executing their great “beta” work on GOV.UK, but they continue to outdo themselves.

As Simon Dickson writes, “Betagov not afraid of public commitment.” See also Alex Howard’s “With GOV.UK, British government redefines the online government platform.”

Many will appreciate UK ICT Futures Programme Director Liam Maxwell’s quote in the Guardian:

"For years we spent on IT systems built for bureaucrats, they were not built for people."

Here, Maxwell outlines the role of IT in open and efficient government:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXnOhKBy8ow

Links:

• This is why we are here
• Introducing the beta of GOV.UK
• GOV.UK- a truly open and collaborative platform
• Introducing the next phase of the GOV.UK beta
• INSIDE GOVERNMENT – a few highlights
• Local services and GOV.UK
• Using HTML5 for GOV.UK
• It’s all about the words
• Writing simply: language choices for the GOV.UK navigation
• Creating videos for GOV.UK
• Pulling the servers’ strings
• Where are those APIs you promised?
• The mobile question: Responsive Design
• Browsers we support and why
• Hosting the beta of GOV.UK