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back to article Cabinet Office allocates £1.6m for single government domain

The Cabinet Office is spending a further £1.6m on a single government domain that has yet to be signed off by the government. A rough-around-the-edges test of the Alpha.gov.uk project ended last week, after the Cabinet Office injected an initial £261,000 into the test build website that is intended as a would-be successor to …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And the rest of us pay a fiver.

    Of course, the rest of us isn't the government. But this still sounds a tad clueless. There's a reason you have .gov.uk, which could be that "single domain" with everything goverment stuck under that. Why you wouldn't want to use that feature of the DNS is probably... incompetence and/or ignorance. The latter is the same thing for those deciding on what to do with the government internet presence.

    I can see that not having lots of bureaucrats looking out the window any more than they already do because the internet befuddled them, but going at it from the presentation inwards looks a bit bass ackwards to me. Or an excuse to shell out more; someone's going to have a little party with all that money.

    No matter how I look at it, it sounds like half-arsed failsauce waiting to go downhill in a hurry. Too bad good intentions alone don't get you there, not even halfway. Carry on government.

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  2. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

    Dumb Question

    So what's wrong with the existing direct.gov website/system ?

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Megaphone

      Re: Dumb Question

      What's reform without a good rebrand?

      Direct.gov.uk is associated with Labour. That's what's wrong with it.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        FAIL

        I don't associate it with Labour

        and even so, there's nothing wrong with it.

        And ignoring the petty reason for this new site, 1.6mil? Some overpriced company are laughing all the way to the bank, just like with that crappy crime location map.

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  3. dotdavid
    Joke

    alpha.gov.uk

    ...is a stupid domain name. As it's a site about the UK government, not about very early test versions of the UK government. it should be called gov.gov.uk or something.

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    1. Steve X
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      gov.gov.uk

      These days "gov.co.uk" would be nearer the mark.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Or how about

        gov.uk?

        Why the need for the co?

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        1. Steve X
          Reply Icon

          .co

          is "commercial"

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        2. sabba
          Reply Icon
          Holmes

          At the risk of stating the bleedin' obvious...

          ....I think he is implying that the government is more like a corporation these days (in its approach and underlying ethos)!!

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  4. Tim Brown 1
    Pint

    how about

    hapless.gov.uk?

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    1. Captain Mainwaring
      Reply Icon

      Or even...

      hopeless.gov.uk

      That's the kind of handle most people would associate with UK governments of the past 30 years.

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  5. Jacqui

    event better

    pork.co.uk for the large project tendering web service

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  6. Rory Gibsson
    Thumb Up

    Stop being deliberately cynical

    This is a move towards using agile techniques, with a team hired from across the industry (led by the ex- head of the Guardian's online operation) and staffed up with UX experts and people who know how to use Open Source software.

    It's not a big systems integrator - it's a small team of permies, working directly to produce something better, and using modern techniques.

    This is a GOOD thing.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Big Brother

      "a team hired from across the industry"

      Who were, of course, recruited totally transparently with all jobs advertised openly, and fair and honest interviews - rather than, let's say, a bunch of Martha Lane Fox's cronies recruiting a bunch of their own cronies quietly and without giving anyone else a chance to apply.

      Wait, what's that you say?

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        And...

        ... who are using open-source software to build a closed-source, and less scalable, version of off-the-shelf open-source software. The primary purpose of which is to take publishing control away from departments and give it to a new, closed-off National Web Service.

        Work Request Forms all round, and more jobs for the boys and girls!

        The only agility here are the contortions the Hoxtonians get into, patting themselves on the back for their massive hipster job creation scheme.

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  7. Miek
    Coat

    Damn

    "The Cabinet Office is spending a further £1.6m on a single government domain that has yet to be signed off by the government."

    That's a bit pricey, I'm glad we don't share domain registrars!

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  8. localzuk Silver badge

    Beta

    Does that mean that the new site is going to be beta.gov.uk?

    Will it eventually end up as 'final.gov.uk'?

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    1. Adrian Bool
      Reply Icon

      Beyond beta

      Or release.gov.uk - which kind of gives us some hope ;-)

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Comments

    http://blog.alpha.gov.uk/about

    Hilarious - can you spot the ones left by the Cabinet Office rather than the public?

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  10. Morteus
    FAIL

    ... how much!?

    this reminds me of that scene in Independence Day where Bill Pullman queries the funding for Area 51...

    President: I don't understand, where does all this come from? How do you get funding for something like this?

    Julius: You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?

    ... apparently our goverment does.

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Still...

    I guess £1.6m is cheap considering the £35m the Government wasted last time they tried to build a unified platform - DotP. And the nomenclature (alpha.gov, beta.gov, ... omega.gov, armageddon.gov, etc) is surely less tempting to fate than Delivering on the Promise. However, the lead on this project is (worryingly) Tom Loosemore - as in loose (sic) more money.

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  12. David Gale

    Customer focus?

    Would it be too much to ask that they move to a name that starts from the customers' perspective, as I advised the Cabinet Office five years ago...

    David Gale

    CEO

    SITFO.org

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  13. dreamingspire
    Unhappy

    Another question

    Would it be too much to ask of them that they listen and consider what others are doing? Like the USA NSTIC programme for an open eID scheme that helps us in all transactions, rather than a closed scheme that creates a new ID database for public sector use only.

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