This week at GDS

Mike Beaven talks about the latest quarterly update to the Transactions Explorer and welcomes cross-government heads of communications, whose monthly meeting is being hosted by GDS this week.

Transcript below

Interviewer:
Hi, Mike.

Mike Beaven:
Hello there.

Interviewer:
What have we got coming up this week, at GDS?

Mike:
So we’ve got an update to the Transactions Explorer. For anyone who has not seen that, it’s a kind of one stop shop for a lot of data about all the transactions that the citizens of the UK interact with government over. So, Cliff Shepherd and the team have got together a whole quarter’s worth of new data and loaded that into the tool.

Interviewer:
We’ve already had one visitor to GDS this week?

Mike:
Yes, we’ve had a delegation from the Singapore government. They came in today to talk to Liam (Maxwell) about his Office of Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) function, and basically what our approach is to running IT in the UK government.
Later this week, on Wednesday, we’ve got all the cross government heads of digital engagement and communication coming in. They’re holding their regular meeting here, but it’s good to have them in the heart of GDS, having that meeting.

Interviewer:
What were we up to last week at GDS?

Mike:
So last week, we had an interesting session about open standards, where we had a show and tell last Thursday. So, Paul Downey, who is one of our technical architects, he writes a regular blog on this, so you if you want to look at that on the GDS website. Generally, the thing about open standards is getting involved, so people should get involved.

Interviewer:
Graham Francis blogged about something else we’ve been up to recently?

Mike:
Yes, we have a blogging platform that’s available on GOV.UK, that any department can use if they want to, basically, blog about things. So it’s a really useful, valuable tool. If you want to get a sense of how it works, have a look at the History of Government blog that the National Archives have put on there.

Interviewer:
Finally, have we got any new starters, this week?

Mike:
We’ve got quite a few new starters this week. I won’t list them all, but we’ve got four new faces in the Content Team, who’s Cass (Bonner), Gavan (Curley), Charlotte (Harry) and Tom (Adams). GOV.UK have got some new people, and we’ve got some new people in the Transition team, moving all the content onto the main platform.

Interviewer:
Excellent. Until next time.

Mike:
Thank you.