There is no cohesive, single vision for e-government,
argues Stuart Mitchenall.
Many working in IT in local government would like the
opportunity to comment on recent reports that more funds should be
made available to meet the e-government deadline in 2005.
The crux of this issue is encapsulated in an unanswered dichotomy:
why is it that central government gets the lion's share of the
funds, but is only required to carry out a small percentage of the
transactions with the public?
Why is the office of the deputy prime minister only required to
make "significant" progress towards 100% e-government, but local
government is required to deliver absolute achievement?
Although many central government projects, such as the Inland
Revenue and the Libra project, have been the victim of failure,
local government seems to achieve most of its objectives through
disparate implementations of not quite compatible systems from a
plethora of suppliers.
Local government is driven by many different perspectives, but it
is seemingly impossible for the e-envoy to deliver e-government, or
the Government Gateway, to timescale.
Central government departments are doing their own thing, as
witnessed by local government through their contradictory
requirements.
From a design perspective, Whitehall's cogent and visionary
policies should work. However, although £675m has already been
invested in local e-government, it has never been capable of
delivering this vision in a single, cohesive way to users.
If this had been achieved, I would not have suppliers still trying
to sell me products which only interoperate with their software,
instead of falling in behind the open standard e-government
interoperability framework.
Few suppliers show an understanding of what XML does. I even had
market research company Mori, on behalf of the office of the deputy
prime minister, asking me how I was going to use XML to transmit
data. Isn't that like asking me how I will use petrol to drive to
Birmingham?
E-government is working, but there are still gaping holes which
money alone will not plug.
What do you think?
Is e-government in a tangle?
Tell us in an e-mail >>
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Stuart Mitchenall is head of IT at a local
district council