Whitehall digital policy blog aims to stimulate web debate

Central Office of Information wants to create an online forum for sharing ideas

The COI is trying to co-ordinate digital policy across Whitehall

The Central Office of Information (COI) has launched a blog to share information on developments in digital policy across government.

The blog aims to stimulate debate around digital policy with other departments and agencies, the government's digital suppliers, other bloggers, web developers and academics.

"Our goal is to improve government's presence online," said COI digital policy manager Adam Bailin.

"This blog will help provide the best advice for digital communicators across government and create a forum for discussion so that everyone can learn from each other."

The COI provides communications guidance for the public sector. It is working with the Cabinet Office to close many government web sites and consolidate them onto the Directgov site. It has also recently created a framework for government departments to measure the cost effectiveness, use and performance of their web sites and a toolkit for those developing new web sites.

The blog will discuss these issues as well as information re-use, web analytics, "findability", innovation, training, toolkits and events.