Launched on January 31st 2012, the government’s new test site, Gov.uk is, as the Government Digital Service states, “a truly open and collaborative platform.”

Gov.uk is set to serve as the single, citizen-facing website for all UK government information and has been built around 667 actions or ‘needs people have of government’. With more needs yet to be addressed, the website is still considered ‘beta’ and further expansion and functionality is expected to take place in the next two months.

For example, the site is optimised for search rather than browsing, and as Tom Loosemore, project director of BBC 2.0, notes, browsing by section also needs further work. However, with Gov.uk, the Government Digital Service has created a scalable, modular open source platform that supports the needs of citizens across numerous government departments.

Our thoughts…

By choosing to build the primary website in which to interact with the general public using open source technologies, Gov.uk is not only proof that the government is finally taking open source seriously, but also proves that OSS works for the government.