Local government’s Improvement and Development Agency has given support to the Performance and Innovation Unit’s proposals for privacy and data sharing. Under the PIU’s proposals public bodies would share data, subject to the citizen’s continuous consent.The IDeA also supports the development of consumer authentication technologies, such as smart cards and it believes that such technologies will play an increasing role in authenticating customers of government. It gives a commitment to draw together the various smart card projects underway in local government to avoid the “wallet full of different smart cards” scenario.

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Home Secretary David Blunkett wants the views of the business community on the sensitive issue of identity cards. It is estimated that identity fraud costs to the economy at least 1.2 billion pounds each year, with the biggest victims outside of government being the financial services and insurance industry. A consultation paper on Entitlement Cards as a way of securely identifying people will be published later in the year, but the views of business are being sought before publication.A study on identity fraud led by the Cabinet Office has identified a number of potential initiatives that could close gaps incurrent procedures which fraudsters attempt to exploit. These include establishing a public sector database of known and suspected fraudsters against which applications for Government services could be cross-checked, making identity theft a specific offence in itself, rather than relying on offences being committed after the identity has been stolen and establishing a database of stolen identity documents that can be checked when they are produced as forms of ID

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By Tom Christensen, Per Laegreid and Lois R. Wise.Administrative policies and practices may evolve and change slowly and incrementally or they may be transformed intentionally. Intentional efforts to change by transforming the structure, processes, or personnel of public sector organizations define an active administrative policy. This article focuses on the fulfilment of these preconditions in the three national contexts – Norway, Sweden and the United States of America – in order to determine the relevance of a transformative perspective for understanding the process of administrative change. We examine what impact constraints like polity features, historical-institutional traditions and external pressure, particularly through popular international administrative doctrines like New Public Management ideas and financial crises, have on the possibilities to enhance an active national administrative policy.

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