
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills today unveiled a . Only any comments made will be unable to influence the outcome of the report because it has already been published.
Instead the government wants the public to provide suggestions on how the report's conclusions might be implemented.
"Please remember that the final report has, of course, been published," reads the official website. "So this isn't an opportunity to alter the report itself. However, it does give you the chance to provide suggestions to how the report might be implemented."
The government came under fire when the interim report was published, for failing to harness the views of the public, although Lord Carter, the report's author, stressed that he has met with 300 plus people and encouraged contributions from all quarters.
Frustration led to activists in the digital industry creating their own version of the Digital Britain report. The same collective is now in the to the findings of Digital Britain.
UPDATE
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has been in touch. Rather than summarise, here's the statement to Revolution in full:
"Digital Britain started in October 2008 and we published our interim report on 29 January setting out the framework of our ambition and 22 immediate actions to take forward. At that point we invited views from industry and the wider public on the proposals and recommendations we set out. The idea was that we said - 'this is where we are, where do you think we are right or wrong and where do we need to do more work?'
The final report represents the culmination of a process of engagement, discussion and debate since the interim report was published. We had:
- more than 250 written responses to the interim report, which we published online;
- a Digital Britain Summit with over 250 attendees;
- events in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland;
- a series of roundtable events at Nesta on key policy issues;
- a Digital Britain
- a Digital Britain Twitter Account;
- more than 500 bilateral ministerial and team meetings with stakeholders
- a series of Digital Britain Unconferences, which also produced a report that we published alongside the final report
Bill Thompson from the BBC and an organiser of the unconferences recently wrote in his BBC blog: "Although I criticised the interim report when it was published in January because it had been written behind closed doors and offered few opportunities for consultation and engagement for those outside the charmed circle of invited experts, it is clear that Stephen Carter and his team have listened to and taken notice of the extensive debate around their initial proposals."
The commentable version of the report is designed to let people have their say about how we should implement the decisions we have taken. We will also be having several consultations over the coming months on various parts of the report, which will present people with more opportunities to express their views."