E-government is changing the way citizens communicate with their
councils. But do all these councils communicate with each other?
Liz Warren reports on the cultural issues that are inhibiting the
sharing of experience
What is it about public sector culture that makes it hard for good
ideas in one place to be picked up somewhere else? The recent
report, Local E-government Now 2003, by local government IT
managers association Socitm and the Improvement and Development
Agency, paints a positive picture of the progress councils have
made so far with the e-government agenda. Yet it also claimed that
progress could be faster if councils and different professional
groups were better at sharing their experiences and learning from
each other.
The public sector is often compared unfavourably with the private
sector when it comes to implementing change. Patrick Manuel, a
consultant with independent consultancy Vega, points out that
companies are often able to achieve dramatic change only when their
continued existence is threatened. Local authorities simply do not
face the same drivers and cannot be expected to make such extreme
changes.
Moreover, says independent consultant Mary Wintershausen, co-author
of the e-government report, the public sector is probably more open
and more comfortable with sharing knowledge than private sector
companies which are competing with each other. There is also a
tradition of trying to share good practice, especially within
professional groups.
Where councils tend to fall down, she says, is moving knowledge
between service silos or from one type of authority to another. She
points out that e-government is often seen as "a corporate thing
that happens from the centre and deals with things like call
centres". Front-line staff working in areas such as social care,
housing, transport and the environment are quietly implementing
technology to improve aspects of their work as professionals. This,
says Wintershausen, is the real heart of e-government: simply
finding better ways to do things for the benefit of citizens. Yet
it is the lessons from these kinds of service improvements that
councils find it hardest to share and, especially, to re-interpret
for different services.
She cites the case of a city council working with a bus company to
use global positioning by satellite to track the position of buses
and provide real-time information on arrivals to screens around the
city. "I am sure they are disseminating that work widely to
transport professionals in other councils - but is it being passed
on to people who run meals on wheels, school buses, refuse
collection or other areas which operate vehicle fleets within the
same council?" she asks. "Knowledge of that type so often isn't
being shared in that way."
Barriers to sharing
Local authorities do not share across different professional groups
because the history of local government has divided the authority
into distinct professional groups.
"While particular professionals do share knowledge to some extent
between authorities, because they have the same professional
issues, there is little recognition that there is much they can
share from one service silo to another," says David Cullen, head of
the local government division of consultancy Hedra. This isolation
is reinforced by repeated attacks by central government, the media
and others, which encourage council employees to fall back into
their "professionalism".
At the same time, local political agendas conspire against
co-operation between local authorities. Each council perceives
itself as unique, a view augmented by the way reorganisation and
boundary changes create antagonisms between authorities in the
fight for continued existence.
In addition, the local political complexion of the council can
influence where its priorities lie, whether that is education or
planning and the environment. Wintershausen points out that the
introduction of compulsory competitive tendering entrenched this
culture still further by setting different parts of the council or
different councils against each other.
Manuel suggests this history has fostered a very proprietorial
approach to all kinds of information. "The feeling is that it's
mine and I am going to keep it and I am not going to give it to
anyone," he explains. He thinks that if the Freedom of Information
Act, which will come into full force over the next two years, can
change attitudes so that people see themselves as custodians of
information rather than owners, it will encourage greater openness
and sharing in all areas.
Cullen agrees that what is needed is a new perspective which will
help councils understand the common elements in different service
silos or across different types of council. He thinks that the
"customer" perspective driving much of the e-government agenda at
the moment is proving particularly effective at identifying these
common requirements in terms of process and systems. Wintershausen
also thinks that e-government has been one of the biggest drivers
for sharing knowledge, overcoming some of these cultural
barriers.
However, another way in which local government is disadvantaged
compared to the private sector is in the way innovations are
funded. "Funding comes in packages with a label on them: it must be
spent in this financial year or on a particular group or in a
particular area which has been targeted for regeneration,"
Wintershausen points out.
She says this presents councils which want to develop the kind of
cross-boundary projects that would really drive e-government
forward with the challenge of finding ways to argue that they
should still have the money, even though they want to spend some of
it in areas which fall outside those narrow criteria.
Wintershausen gives the example of using regeneration budgets
targeted at specific localities to develop e-government
initiatives. This can result in part of a city having
state-of-the-art e-government solutions, which are extremely
effective, yet the council has no budget to roll out its expertise
to other areas.
The public sector should also work harder at sharing best practice
on the sharing and learning process itself. As Manuel points out,
"The police service consists of 43 forces, all of which have
identities and cultures. But if any of them wants to implement a
new system, they will see what everyone else is doing."
Of course, with all budgets under pressure, councils are often too
busy to find the time to talk to others who are keen to learn.
Those who could be on the receiving end also suffer. "Budget
pressures mean training and time for thinking get cut, so it
becomes more and more challenging to get space to innovate and to
share," Wintershausen points out. Manuel says that, as with any
cultural change, improving the way information is shared needs to
be actively promoted by senior managers and efforts should be
suitably rewarded.
What is best practice?
Many of the umbrella organisations, such as Socitm and the Local
Government Association, and government bodies the Office of the
E-Envoy and the Improvement and Development Agency, are trying to
support the learn and sharing process. Manuel praises the amount of
guidance they provide through the web and other channels but warns
that it may be in danger of being ignored if councils start to
experience "initiative fatigue".
Cullen agrees that the forums created by these bodies have a
positive impact on the process of sharing knowledge, although he
thinks they could provide more proactive support through
consultancy and education.
However, he sees a major flaw in their perception of what is best
practice. "We need best practice frameworks that can be shared
across the sector and get you 80% of the way for 20% of the effort,
together with alternate practice case studies that show the work
involved in customising those frameworks for particular citizen
groups. The danger is that the customisation work and specifics of
the implementation get published as 'best practice' when they're
not. We need to refer to that side of things as implementation case
studies. That would also help open us up to discussing bad
experiences and things to be avoided."
Wintershausen agrees that the historical dominance of
professionally-led departments means councils find it hard to tease
out underlying best practice in terms of new processes or new
applications of technology. "Councils need to get better at
recognising best practice not just as being of use where it was
first pioneered but also where else it might be applied. It is a
question of widening understanding beyond small, specific
innovations. They need to take the broad view of ideas, rather than
seeing them only in the context of a specific service silo."
A manifesto for change
- Don't just look to the middle for innovation but look at how
front-line professionals are using technology to improve their
services
- Acknowledge the history that makes it hard for the public
sector to share and learn - and then look for new perspectives
(such as the citizen-centric one) that make it easier to identify
common elements in different services
- View service-specific projects as implementations of best
practice, not the best practice itself, and work out how that
project might be generalised and applied to other services
- Identify and adopt best practice for becoming a learning
organisation in which people effectively share and learn from each
other
- Include an element in budgets for learning and sharing so there
are the resources to support these tasks.
Case study: Westminster targets generic
solutions
Westminster City Council is implementing a customer service
initiative which will touch every area of the council's operations
- and the project director, Simon Norbury, says sharing good ideas
developed in one area of the council with other services is at the
heart of Westminster's strategy.
While the most visible aspect of Westminster's customer service
initiative is a new contact centre, Norbury points out that this is
backed by a second project focusing on business process
re-engineering.
The council's approach, he insists, is all about trying to
identify generic solutions and apply them specifically rather than
implementing lots of specific solutions simply so the council can
tick boxes and reach an arbitrary target of 100% e-enablement. "If
we can do things right for less in one service area, then we look
to roll that out to other areas. That approach is slower to kick
off but does then become very rapid."
Norbury admits that organisational politics can initially hold
people back from embracing change and accepting ideas originally
pioneered by others.
"People are unsure about what we're going to do or feel they
already run a tight ship," he acknowledges. "But once we get in and
demonstrate to them what we can do, people sign up very quickly
because they can see how they can benefit." After they have made
that commitment, he adds, it then becomes very easy to introduce
common corporate technologies, such as a document imaging system
which will be used across the board within the council.
Norbury thinks that Westminster's position near the leading edge
means there are relatively few chances for the council to learn
from other authorities. However, he cites the experience of
implementing an Oracle customer relationship management solution
where Westminster was able to participate in the LG45 Oracle user
group. He also points out that no council leads in every area and
that local authorities which may have received a relatively low
rating in the Audit Commission's Comprehensive Performance
Assessment rating may still be at the leading edge in a particular
area and have much to teach others. Westminster does host many
visits by other councils seeking to learn and is interested in
exploring options for the development of shared services that can
be used by several councils. Norbury admits that resource
constraints make it hard to do as much of this work as he would
like. He hopes that some of the freedoms which may be accorded to
Westminster as a result of its excellent assessment rating will
allow it to spend more time on sharing its knowledge with
others.
Case study: Telford and Wrekin aims to streamline
information holding
Telford and Wrekin council's e-government vision centres on
streamlining its information holdings to provide better services to
citizens. Two projects, partly funded by Invest to Save Budget
money, have piloted this vision with a multi-agency and
multi-disciplinary team providing services to children and their
families.
The Wise project looked at the process of how multiple agencies
work with the same client, while Aware focused on the exchange and
use of data by different agencies and included the development of a
common information system for all professionals involved in a case.
"The Wise and Aware projects have shown we can use and share
information appropriately while building in suitable security
protocols," explains project manager David Tordoff.
The best practice for integrated working which has emerged from
the project is now being applied to other client groups, as well as
informing the councils overall approach to managing its information
holdings. With its use of the NHS Number as a unique identifier,
the council has also become a "trailblazer" for the Identification
Referral and Tracking project.
Tordoff says the council did look for examples of best practice
when it started the project, turning to other Invest to Save Budget
projects and bodies such as local government IT managers group
Socitm, the Improvement and Development Agency and the NHS, but
"found few other good practice examples to take on board".
Even now, he suggests, these bodies could do more to promote key
best practice concepts. He also feels professional bodies in the
main service areas need to put more effort into disseminating
information about good professional practice in multidisciplinary
situations.
"Many people perceive the e-government bodies as coming at the
subject of joined-up working and information sharing from a
technology aspect," he points out. "We would suggest it is 90%
about people and information and only 10% about technology."
Telford and Wrekin is certainly taking its responsibilities to
share what it has learnt seriously. "Although time is at a
premium, we are still making time to talk to others," says
Tordoff. The council has spoken to professional and management
groups in other agencies in the area, provided a full write-up of
the project, continues to speak at many seminars and is making time
to talk to bodies such as the Improvement and Development
Agency.