Some recent developments and articles of interest:

• The 2012 Australian Government ICT Awards are open for nominations, including the Excellence in eGovernment Awards, Government 2.0 Innovator Award and the ICT Professional of the Year Award. Nominations close Thursday 1 March 2012.
• James Gardener, a former senior civil servant with the UK Government, writes about the difficulties of sourcing innovation from small suppliers. “Whilst I really enjoyed working for the UK Government, there is one lesson I’ve learned from all this; the only innovation that can be introduced by civil servants with a long term career plan to stay is that generated from within.” [This quote is not covered by the Creative Commons licence or Commonwealth Copyright. From James Gardener "Innovative Government Won't Come from Small Suppliers" 31 January 2012 accessed at http://innovatorinside.com/2012/01/31/innovative-government-wont-come-from-small-suppliers/]
• The UK Government has launched the beta of GOV.UK, the next step on the journey towards a single domain for central government. Alex Howard discusses the specifics. ”Unfortunately, far too often .gov websites cost millions and don’t deliver as needed. GOV.UK is open source, mobile-friendly, platform agnostic, uses HTML5, scalable, hosted in the cloud and open for feedback. Those criteria collectively embody the default for how government should approach their online efforts in the 21st century.” [This quote is not covered by the Creative Commons licence or Commonwealth Copyright. From Alex Howard "With GOV.UK, British government redefines the online government platform" 31 January 2012 accessed at http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/01/with-govuk-british-government.html]
• A piece on the Washington Post discusses the merits (or otherwise) of innovation labs and innovation funds.
• Satsuko VanAntwerp discusses three factors that make the time right for co-production in public services.

As always, please feel free to identify any other developments or articles of interest in the comments below.