WRITTEN ON July 5th, 2008 BY Sir Bonar Neville-Kingdom GCMG KCVO AND STORED IN Power of Information, Transformational Government

Sir Bonar writes

At Tom Watson’s insistence I reluctantly consented to attend something called Open Tech at London University this weekend. It was something of a rush to squeeze it in before Wimbledon, to which Raytheon had kindly invited me, and I must confess I’m in some doubt as to whether I even found the event in question or not.

There were none of the familiar Lockheed Martin or Fujitsu logos to be seen anywhere in the Senate House, and no sign of the sort of hospitality to which one is accustomed. I was even asked to pay £5 to go into the Student’s Union where I found an Irish priest called O’Brien. He at least assured me I was in the right place and went on to quiz me at length about how it is that we in government come to be so well-informed about the needs of digital rights holders, the benefits of data sharing and so forth. I was just explaining to Fr O’Brien my own modest role in these matters when to my horror I spotted a junior colleague wearing what can only be described as shorts. I tore myself away and gave pursuit but before I could remonstrate I found myself in a curious presentation where Tom’s information task force was arguing that while technology was turning us from cavemen to spacemen politicians appeared to be dragging us back in the opposite direction. We will need to keep a closer eye on them.

All in all a curious affair. I made it to the final just in time, and I never did locate the exhibition or the VIP suite. I saw none of our friends from Accenture or AT Kearney. I rather fail to see the relevance of it all to our work on Identity Management, childrens’ databases, or our cherished Intercept Refresh project. Indeed I shall report to the Minister that such gatherings do nothing to support our progress on Transformational Government or the personalised services which lie at its heart.

Let us admit frankly that taking time out for such affairs is not quite how I am accustomed to spending my weekend. Such, however, is the mantle one takes on as Technology Outreach Czar.