Q. When is state spending considered ‘wasteful’ by the TPA?
A. When it was instituted by a British Labour government. This is the impression one can’t fail to get when reading the following two statements by the Taxpayer’s Alliance on the subject of government-developed iPhone applications, which improve civic engagement.
April 30th, 2010, posted on Taxpayer’s Alliance website.
In the Dutch city of Eindhoven, citizens can now report broken street lights, potholes, graffiti etc. using an app on their iphones. Users can take a picture and locate the problem on GPS and maps and send it directly to the local authority so they can easily locate and solve the problem. Obviously not everyone has an iphone, but it’s a great innovation that involves citizens in looking after their community.
July 6th, 2010, statement given to media by Mark Wallace, TPA campaign director, after news leaks via FOI requests that the previous government spent £40,000 on something similar.
“It seems many Government bodies have given in to the temptation to spend money on fashionable gimmicks at a time when they are meant to be cutting back on self-indulgent wastes of money…It is ridiculous not only that they are commissioning these apps but that some of them are supposedly secret on grounds of national security.
“Someone who is faced with losing their home because of high tax bills, or whose life is being ruined by crime isn’t going to get any reassurance from knowing there’s an app for that.”
The recent furore is over the government developing iPhone apps to provide DVLA services, to provide Jobcentre services and so on. Personally I think it’s a great idea – I don’t have an iPhone, but I do have a smartphone, and applications have a way of transferring across, once developed.
What I found particularly amusing about the blatantly churnalistic BBC report (some of which was cribbed direct from the wire service report by the looks of it) was this:
“By the end of May there were over 53,000 downloads of the Jobcentre Plus app, although critics have asked why someone who can afford both an iPhone and the expensive running costs would need a Jobcentre Plus app.”
Because even those who have been prudent with their savings and worked hard to amass them can be made unemployed, and even bottom of the chain workers can fit this particular bill? Nice to know what the BBC generally thinks of the unemployed though; if they have anything remotely fancy, there’s something funny going on.
No, no, no! It wasn’t the /BBC/ implying there’s “something funny going on”. It was unidentified “critics”. Who are in NO WAY a lazy journalistic way of importing some personal editorial comment into a “news” story.
I did ask Rory Cellan-Jones on Twitter why he and his colleagues persist in quoting the Taxpayers’ Alliance as if it were a respectable, non-partisan, independent body. No response as yet…
“Personally I think it’s a great idea – I don’t have an iPhone, but I do have a smartphone,”
That’s so pettit bourgeoisie.
LOL. I got it free – my proletarian credentials are still intact, bitch.
“….after news leaks via FOI requests that the previous government spent £40,000 on something similar”
That’s simply not true – these apps are in no way “similar” to the practical app you cite from Eindhoven.
The JobCentre Plus app that duplicates many other free jobsite apps, doesn’t work in Scotland and still doesn’t work at all on iPhone OS4 (as well as, of course, focuses on the better off rather than the poorest by being delivered through iPhone).
The DVLA app that gives drivers a “masterclass” in erm how to change a car wheel – which it isn’t the DVLA’s job to do.
It’s simply lazy thinking to say that because we oppose pointless, malfunctioning Govt apps we must be Luddites. It would be better for the Govt to make public data accessible in useful formats so any developer could do their own apps using it.
PS if you’d read all the way to the end of the original post on the Dutch app, you’d know that in the UK just such an app is available – created by MySociety, not by Government agencies. It’s called FixMyStreet.
Well Mark, I disagree. First of all, the Masterclass app is merely one of several – and the others in development are supposed to aid the transfer of information from service-users to the DVLA. That sounds exactly like the Eindhoven app – ease of information transfer.
The JobCentre plus app doesn’t duplicate “many other free jobsite apps” – and with 60,000 people a month still using web-browsing phones to access the JCP website and a further 53,000 downloading the official JCP app, I reckon people agree. Certainly your claim elsewhere that there’s ‘barely any uptake’ is rubbish.
Furthermore, as I don’t have an iPhone, may I also say that the JobCentre app works through Android-based handsets as well, so there’s not just a focus on the better off. I’m poor but my handset is the cheapest to run but most advanced I’ve ever owned. While we’re on the subject though, surely jobcentre services are for everyone and, particularly for those who live rurally, we should seek the widest possible distribution of such information?
You say the government should make such public data accessible and encourage ‘any developer’, but this isn’t a game. It’s not backed by a multi-million dollar company that can afford to give away a free app for marketing purposes. It’s a public service, and the surest way to get this done, so that it doesn’t serve a private agenda, is for the public sector to pay for it.
PS. In reply to your own PS, I did read down the page. I’ve known about FixMyStreet and other such websites since before I knew about the Taxpayers Alliance. I have the android app on my phone. Guess who pays for FMS? As mentioned on their website, the Department for Constitutional Affairs Innovation Fund.
I’ve posted a longer response here http://bit.ly/cuuK2F
Not even a courtesy link? Well that’s just bad form.
I love “53,000 people have downloaded it, but we reckon no-one will download it because of our prejudices”
Just because I’m unemployed doesn’t mean I’m not allowed an iPhone. How else can I get text messages and email alerts from JCP about all the jobs I’m unqualified for?
In other news, would Chavez be a better prime minister than David Cameron?
http://southoftheborder.dogwoof.com/chavez_vs_cameron/
Please – let’s get our terminology right. It’s the TaxDodgers’ Alliance.
..and why are they a “think tank” rather than “extreme right wing camapaigning group”