2010 and Beyond

Abstract

As the first formal coalition government in the UK since the Second World War, some way of fusing and reconciling aspects of both parties’ manifestos and policy commitments needed to be found. This was achieved through the ‘Coalition Agreement’. The influence of Conservative Party and Liberal Democratic Party thinking whilst in opposition, together with some of the independent contributions discussed in Chapter 3, make their presence felt throughout this joint document issued after the two parties formed their Coalition government. Specific IT-related commitments include:

• • We will take steps to open up government procurement and reduce costs; and we will publish government ICT [information and communications technology] contracts online.

• • We will create a level playing field for open-source software and will enable large ICT projects to be split into smaller components.

• • We will require full, online disclosure of all central government spending and contracts over £25,000.

• • We will create a new ‘right to data’ so that government-held datasets can be requested and used by the public, and then published on a regular basis.

These echo earlier policy ideas that provide a common strand across all the major UK political parties — notably the efforts to open up the IT marketplace to better, more effective competition and to drive a level playing field for open source software.