To really deliver in a complex, disconnected UK, you need a base where you can access a flexible workforce with high-speed rail links back to Westminster and to other cities and where the issues of inclusion and exclusion really can be felt and engaged with. More reasons here: http://whitellama.blogspot.com/2009/05/many-reasons-why-director-of-digital.html

Small agencies and freelancers are more innovative, cost-effective and flexible than large IT outsourcers. And yet government procurement frameworks discriminate against them. The new Director should look at how creative small firms can be brought into government more easily.

Iterate like a fiend. See what works and what doesn't. Learn the lessons. Move on. Essentially - encourage a culture of experimentation.

Departments hold on behalf of citizens mountains of non-personal data. It's time to develop clear policies of how to release and encourage the use of this data in developing new services and applications - and to encourage the creation of new businesses during a time when innovation in technology can help create one of the many required growth paths out of recession.

Too many public sector organisations still block or inhibit access to mainstream social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and even Blogspot.

It's time to make this the management and business issue it is, and not just the domain of bloody-minded IT managers.

Without digital equality we exclude a large portion of society from effective engagement with government. We can't push government into the digital age and leave a signifncant minority of people behind.

Some government organisations are using blogs, wikis and Twitter to promote policymaking. But a sophisticated, scalable, user-friendly platform for online deliberation of policy ideas which Departments can use would help to accelerate the acceptance of digital engagement by policy teams.

Would seem a sensible option

At the moment anything that is published online is crown copyrighted.

In an age of creative commons licencing, giving the public clear permission to reuse content I'd like to see a similar approach to Government content whether that's photography, written texts, audio recordings or data.

By open sourcing software by default, departments will find projects cheaper, private companies will get benefit from the huge amount government spend, quality will be transparently obvious, less money will be wasted, government software capabilities will be increased. Oh, and as individuals we can get hold of some of the software we're paying for.

It's absolutely essential that the figurehead is seen to practise what he/she preaches, and engage with the community from day one.

... and ensure that nothing like it ever happens again. http://puffbox.com/2008/06/24/fco-website-cost/

Recognise that whilst there's a lot of good that Government can do online, it has limited resources to do it with. Figure out the most important information and services for the most important (in either size or influence/ability to deliver) audiences and stakeholders, meet *their* needs, BEFORE trying to cater for 000's of audiences on 000's of subjects.

The 25M non internet users find it low bandwidth, unaffordable, difficult to use or irrelevant to their lives. The DofDE must support the solutions to these problems

There are many non-governmental web based internet sites. Civil servants should be encouraged to contribute to these to ensure information is up to date and accurate.

A set of rights and corresponding responsibilities for citizens and government designed for use in all engagement contexts. It will establish rules of engagement and manage expectations, but also promote civility, efficiency and transparency.

many rural areas have little or no connectivity, we need someone with passion to bring the fibre out to us and we will do the rest

Existing communities can learn digital engagement by creating their own online and offline hub around what they do (music/sports/etc etc), thus the members learn to use technology to engage in a safe space. Then it becomes logical to also engage with policy makers in this way.