Free Access to .gov.uk sites via mobile networks
Negotiate deals with UK phone networks to allow free access to any .gov.uk website from mobile phones.
With the ever increasing level of visitors from mobile users, pay as you go users and those without data bundles should be encouraged to access council/government information while away from the computer (.e.g Bad weather - use mobile to check if school is closed).
Data is traditionally quite expensive, and with the no doubt future development of more mobile specific government/council sites, allowing free access would allow more visitors to get the information they need, whenever they need it, and not have to worry about the traditionally high costs of mobile data.
Negotiate HOW?
Data traffic is bandwidth-intensive, and expensive for mobile network operators to provide. What exactly do you suppose the government would have to do, in order to "negotiate" such a deal?
* Pass legislation? (This would force everyone using a mobile phone to pay for a few people who would use .gov.uk sites excessively via their mobile phones.)
* Pay money? (This would force every taxpayer to pay for those few people.)
Your preferred option?
It would be nice to have all data free... But why via your mobile phone? The regular internet is good enough.
There's only one type of government information that should be free to obtain/ free for the government to transmit to mobile phones.
That is, an announcement from the government that a huge tidal wave is about to hit the coastal village from where your mobile phone is currently transmitting signals.
When mobile IS regular internet
What about for people for who mobile internet access is their regular internet? There is a fair proportion of the population who don't have access to broadband internet as the infrastructure isn't there or is pretty shaky. These people probably still need / want to get information or transact with government at some time on some level - probably more on a local level than central gov.
And if more people could access local services more easily via the internet (broadband or mobile) then there is a cost saving possibly there - it might not be enough of an offset against the cost of the negotiating tools you highlight but, still, another way to look at it maybe....
Perhaps there is a digital inclusion element to this idea as much as a free or open data stance?