[LINK] UK government to create 'super websites'

[Ivan Trundle]

On 11/01/2007, at 9:42 AM, Sandra Henderson wrote:

> and won't it then become that much more difficult to keep things up- 
> to-date, and less likely that individual agencies will put much  
> effort into that...

Hi Sandra

I don't recall the article mentioning that individual agencies were  
to lose access to their data, but rather the right to store it in a  
particular location. It would be as simple as offering accounts (on  
the centralised server - or servers) to those agencies that require  
access. But I'm only guessing here. I can't see how it would be made  
more difficult to keep material up-to-date: no-one would approve the  
change otherwise.

> Just how are they "ensuring" that quality of service won't be  
> affected..

By suggesting that more resources can be put into maintaining a  
central server? I'm sure that they'll think of something... Rampant  
ideology offers a range of options here.

> .
> And, conscious of the problems I encounter in linking parts our our  
> site to other agency sites, who's making sure nothing important is  
> actually disappearing completely in this change - we've certainly  
> seen important government reports and the like disappear from  
> the .gov.au domain here in Oz when govt agencies have changed name/ 
> responsibilities, redesigned websites, amalgamated with another  
> agency...

But that's altogether different. And harder to avoid. But I would  
assume that migration of data to the central server(s) would be  
managed by individual agencies, and that places where duplicate  
records were held could be streamlined somewhat.

Agencies changing names/merging/dissolving is all part and parcel of  
government thinking these days: it must be hard for Pandora etc to  
manage archival of this material.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I like the proposal (??).

I thoroughly dislike, as a consumer/taxpayer, having to assess which  
is the best location to find information, and in any event, there is  
simply too much of it about to make sense of it much of the time  
(less is more).

Must be the heat ...

iT

--
Ivan Trundle
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