For many years I’ve worked for, or with, UK Government (and associated entities) delivering large scale systems based solutions. For the greater part, I’ve found a great deal of sense spoken about the strategy and direction that the Government wishes to take, particularly of late (without making any judgement on success in achieving this strategy).

One of the things I am a fan of, and we’ve seen a lot more recently, are open, pan-government strategies and approaches that can be re-used and referred to by the many (many!) arms of Government. The “Digital By Default” is something many of us will have heard about. The 26 points outlined there, will (to many) seem like common sense, but it’s easy to lose sight of them in the rushes and pressures of day to day Systems Engineering (and supplier management!)

Today I wanted to just highlight a new guideline that I hadn’t come across before, but in a similar vein to Digital by Default, provides a number of points to consider (or adhere to, depending on your situation). The Technology Code of Practice might look fairly similar at first glance, but it’s well worth a read, and for those of you working on Government systems as a day to day function, might like to check your current work against it.

Whatever your views on pan-Government initiatives, I hope you, like me, appreciate the open publication of such initiatives.