Year in Review: Public Sector in 2009

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This year saw the last full year of Gordon Brown’s Labour Government before the next general election and technology played a key role in some of the biggest stories.

We take a look back at what happened with technology in the public sector throughout 2009.

The path towards a Digital Britain

The biggest technology story to have taken over the public sector this year is how to bring Britain up to date in the technological world we now live in.

The first part of the year was spent waiting for Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report to be released. Although we knew most of what was to come, the report being made public also created quite a stir.

One of the major recommendations was to ensure everyone in Britain had access to a minimum of 2Mbps broadband by 2012.

During a year when big companies like Virgin Media and BT were trialling superfast broadband of up to 100Mbps and more, it sounded feasible but with ongoing problems in the UK’s infrastructure, especially to serve rural areas, it is a waiting game to see if this will be achieved.

Another recommendation came out as a more controversial topic. To pay for improvements to the infrastructure Lord Carter suggested a 50 pence monthly tax to be placed on landlines. Although the amount was relatively small, a number of critics came out against it including a very outspoken ISP, TalkTalk.

The Digital Economy Bill, born out of the Digital Britain report, is now going through the legislative process and has controversies of its own. The main is focused on Business Secretary Peter Mandelson’s proposals to cut off illegal filesharers from the internet.

Both ISPs, MPs and consumers are lobbying against the move and thanks to Europe, users will not be able to be cut off without a full court procedure, which Mandelson’s plans saw fit to leave out of the process.

The bill has only just had its second reading in the House of Lords so we will have to wait until 2010 to see the outcome.

Keeping an eye on ID cards

Many may have thought that ID cards had their year back in 2008 but 2009 has seen even more discussion, controversy and even some implementation on these contentious little bits of plastic.

The cards have already been implemented for Foreign Nationals but the looming thought of compulsory ID cards for all, storing more information on citizens in government databases made many increasingly feel at ease.

Summer saw the start of the pre-election warm up with the Conservatives claiming they would scrap the scheme if they were in power as more public bodies got on Labour’s case.

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