UK to comply with IT open standards
The new policy is a new step forward for competition and innovation
Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude | AFP PHOTO/ANDREW YATES
From now, all British governmental bodies presenting future projects or asking for cash must comply with the Open Standards Principles when drawing up their proposals to stimulate interoperability and competition of government IT, the Minister for Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, announced on 1 November.
Compliance with theses standards will make UK. government IT more open, less expensive and better connected, Maude said and added that they are “a fundamental step towards achieving a level playing field for open source and proprietary software and breaking our IT into smaller, more manageable components.”
After a four-month consultation exercise, the new rules will finally cover open standards for software interoperability, data and document formats. This means that they will dictate how data is formatted and also the ways that software should interoperate.
According to the principles, a product choice made by a government must not force users, delivery partners or government bodies to buy the same product. Besides, web-based applications should work equally well with different browsers and products should not be tied to a single browser or desktop software.
With open standards everyone can look at how a program is built or data is formatted, in contra-position to the previous proprietary formats. The change helps to avoid bugs and makes it easier for data to travel and be re-used as programmers can easily see how it is structured.
Departments and agencies could apply for an exemption on these standards, Maude said, but he warned that the process of winning one would be "challenging". Standardising is the only way yo cut IT costs in the UK.
"At the moment we lag behind”, he stated. "For example, 74% of people use the internet for car insurance, but only 51% buy car tax online." And in a world where digital channels are cheaper than post or phone, the current situation is "inefficient."
Open Standards Principles should be an "agnostic and plural" environment with regard to technology, suppliers and commercial arrangements, and also break down large IT contracts into smaller ones. In addition, they have to evolve according to changing user needs, expectations and technology innovation, the government said.
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