Dissident World

Terrific interview on eGovmonitor with Marilyn Leask, new Head of Knowledge & Learning at the IDeA, about how the IDeA will be supporting the (public) sector through more effective and systematic use of KM. Marilyn is my successor in this position and is delivering the strategy I (humbly) set out during my period as Interim manager at the Agency. Look forward to seeing how this will develop - Marilyn has a great team behind her so expect to hear a lot more about this strategy over the coming months.

Quite a confusing landscape out there in public sector land with all these various initiatives to encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing. Check out the announcement from Socitm about the enhancements to their Knowledge Exchange for a new knowledge sharing platform . A more biting commentary about the lack of any joined-up thinking around knowledge management strategy in the public sector is on Public Sector Forums,  which slates the DCLG’s TALK>>>  initiative. Then of course we have the IDeA, the esd-toolkit ,the outputs from the National Knowledge Project and the Improvement Network  and you start to get a sense of the lack of any cohesion across all these initiatives. Must be an opportunity here for someone….but who’s brave enough or stupid enough to take this on??

So, just goes to prove that money doesn’t buy you happiness!  Seems there is mutiny in the ranks involved in the  NHS IT Project . Even £6.6bn doesn’t buy you competence. Whatever happened to the concept of small pilot projects to test and verify the functionality and user engagement before ‘going large’? MacDonalds has a lot to answer for!

The Treasury has released an interim report on the assessment of value for money across all government departments. Sets out progress on the current efficiency programme and the government’s strategy for driving further value for money improvements. Details the foundations that have been laid by the 2004 Spending Review efficiency programme. Describes the potential for delivering even greater value for money gains over the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) period. Sets out the terms of reference for the policy reviews that will inform the government’s preparations for CSR 2007.

At last the penny has dropped. It looks like the government has taken notice of the trend for blogging and online community spaces. At least Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Education and Skills has in a recent speech called Democracy and Education .