IN THIS ISSUE:

• Danger of ‘e-politics divide’ from new digital elite
• Website personalisation advocated by new draft standard
• NHS IT faces uncertain future from new government
• United Nations e-government survey
• Online space for London councillors
• New programme for ‘Building Perfect Council Websites ’10’ event
• Report: The E-Democracy Delusion

NEWS: New Digital Elite Threatens E-Democracy Ideal, Academic Warns.

Moves to open up the political decision-making process using online tools could simply lead to a new ‘e-politics divide’ whereby old forces of influence are entrenched in new ways, a Spanish academic has warned....

Read full story here, Danger of ‘e-politics divide’...

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NEWS: New Draft Access Standard Embraces Website Customisation.

Personalisation of website accessibility, including customising tools and offering different versions of sites to suit individual needs, should be considered for some specialist websites such as social networking platforms, according to the latest draft of a British standard on web accessibility....

User-specific approaches to accessibility...

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NEWS: Future of NHS IT Programme Thrown Into Doubt. The formation of the UK’s new coalition government has thrown into doubt the future of the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT), with both of the governing parties - the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats - having opposed aspects of the programme in their election campaigns.... Read full story here, Coalition government sheds doubt on NPfIT... Back to index

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NEWS IN BRIEF:

UN Survey: Full findings of the 2010 United Nations E-Government Survey have now been published, including chapters on citizen empowerment, the role of e-government in financial regulation, electronic service delivery, and methods of measuring e-government. The survey also contains the world e-government rankings published earlier this year, which rated the UK and Northern Ireland as fourth in the world for e-government development, behind Canada, the US, and top-ranked Republic of Korea:

Quick link: UN Survey

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Capital Resource: A specialist online space for new and returning London councillors to communicate and share information has been created by Capital Ambition, London’s local public service improvement and efficiency partnership agency. The agency has also created an online map of the recent local government elections across all London’s boroughs, with a detailed voting history available for each:

Quick link: Capital Resource

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Web Gathering: Social networking for councils, ‘mobilising’ websites and the benefits of open data will all be explored by field experts in panel and discussion groups at ‘Building Perfect Council Websites ’10’, the UK’s largest event on local authority web design, organised by E-Government Bulletin publisher Headstar in partnership with public sector IT management body Socitm. See online for the latest programme information and to register:

Quick link: Web Gathering

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Report: ‘Goverati’, Or The E-Democracy Delusion. The e-democracy sector has so far failed to have a significant impact on the development of modern democracy, Andy Williamson, Head of Digital Democracy at the Hansard Society in the UK, told this month’s annual EDEM10 conference at Danube University Krems, Austria. Dan Jellinek reports from the event.... Read full story here, E-democracy’s failings, and future developments... Back to index