Do take a look at MHCLG's Open Digital Planning opendigitalplanning.org or DfE's plans for a Digital Centre of Excellence for how this could be done differently by central and local government.

It all feels like side-effects of the government CTO / CDO having no actual powers to compel departments to work together on things.

We should be forcing digital teams across government to collaborate to build a single event-driven Platformland-esque environment.

I'm going to try and put all my thougths about this into something long-form in the new year...

Yes, but I've come to fully believe that the whole idea of "supporting a software market" as any part of the responsibility for delivering a government service is just a completely toxic anti-pattern. It invariably leads to hideous cartels, massive expense and terrible services.

(The eagle-eyed will also spot a new government chief data officer which, in its continued commitment to transparency, the govt has not yet mentioned anywhere on GOV.UK)