Councils have until December 2005 to deliver services
electronically. Continuing our focus on e-government challenges,
Liz Warren finds out what help is available to local authorities
which fall behind, and how the benefits will be passed on to the
public
The national strategy for local e-government laid down that all
local government services should be made available electronically
by December 2005. The strategy also made it clear that this does
not mean that all services should be provided on the web, but
rather that delivery of all services should be underpinned by new
technologies that allow them to be delivered in ways that are more
convenient and helpful for users.
Jim Thornton, director of e-government at the Improvement and
Development Agency (IDeA), which promotes local government best
practice, says councils are making good progress towards the
strategy. The latest Implementing E-government statements from
councils, which set out their plans and priorities, reported that
about two-thirds of local authority services are e-enabled.
According to Thornton, all councils now have champions drawn
from elected members and senior council staff to take the agenda
forward and every council has a website. Of the websites, 28% were
capable of online transactions by the end of 2003, which was up
from 6% in 2002. About 71% expect to offer transactions by the end
of this year.
In addition, most councils have already implemented one-stop
shops or contact centres and have customer relationship management
initiatives that are not just about installing technology, but
about transforming the culture of the council. Away from front-line
electronic service delivery, Thornton says good progress is being
made in areas such as e-procurement.
Naturally, some councils are struggling with e-government "In
any major change, there will be a number of people who are first
and a number of stragglers," says Mary Wintershausen, independent
local government consultant.
"There are very few councils which are not recognising the
advantages of using technology. A few are saying that e-government
is not a priority because they have so much to do in other areas
for their comprehensive performance assessment. But there is
increasing recognition that you cannot end up with a good
assessment unless you are making use of technology. The emphasis
now is on modernisation," she says.
The councils making the best progress, says Thornton, are those
with "strong leaders with a vision of what they want to achieve.
Ownership of e-government must be by the top people in the
organisation - both members and officers - and they must have the
capacity and resources to do the job."
For the small number of councils which have been identified to
be struggling, IDeA has created an implementation support unit.
Thornton says, "We offer experienced programme managers who have
specialist skills in working with politicians and IT managers. They
are able to help councils identify the specific barriers to
progress, show them which levers can make e-government happen and
help them to create and implement an action plan."
The agency will only send in the implementation support unit if
asked and failing councils will not be penalised if they do not
meet the targets. However, they will be denied access to the
additional funds that result from submitting a successful
Implementing E-government statement. This is proving a powerful
incentive for failing councils to invite the implementation support
unit in to help them kick-start their e-government programmes. "It
is often not a lack of will but a lack of capacity and
understanding," Thornton says.
There are a number of issues that are still creating barriers to
meeting and moving beyond the 2005 targets. At its most basic
level, says Glyn Evans, chairman of the Information Age Government
Group at the local government IT association Socitm, some councils
are struggling to recruit and retain the right technical staff, and
are having to contend with years of under-investment in
infrastructure. Their priority is simply to have a base from which
to tackle targets.
However, even councils that are well advanced with e-government
strategies are wrestling with a number of issues, such as the need
for better integration of data sources. "Local government delivers
about 650 services, many of which have common information
requirements, but the information sources are not effectively
joined up," says Jim Haslem, chief executive of the Local
E-government Standards Body and immediate past president of
Socitm.
Few councils see system integration as a barrier, according to
the latest report, IT Trends in Local Government, from Socitm
published at the end of last year. But they are putting off further
system integration because of concerns about data protection.
"There is still a considerable amount of aversion to taking risks
around data protection," Haslem says. "I was disappointed when the
Children Bill was published that there was not a clearer definition
of what the government will do to resolve data protection
issues."
Thornton says this is a national problem for all branches of
government and that the Office of the E-envoy is working on some
answers.
Another tricky issue councils must deal with is authentication
and identification. How can citizens prove who they are when
using
e-enabled services, and how can they be sure they are dealing
with the council when submitting sensitive information? Haslem
feels standards will be central to developing user confidence in
online identities and that central and local government must work
together quickly to define authentication processes.
Evans says focusing on high-profile areas such as benefit
payments means councils have missed a trick. "This is because some
of the really high-volume transactions, such as booking leisure
centre facilities and renewing library books do not require a high
degree of authentication," he says.
The complexity of many personalised services is also holding
some local authorities back. For example, council tax involves
complex data relationships with several people in a household
potentially being jointly and severally liable, but all members of
the household should be able to look at their bill online.
Similarly, many benefit payments involve making decisions based
on detailed information gathered from claimants. Thornton says such
service users are typically more vulnerable people who are not
necessarily internet users. Yet, despite these difficulties, some
councils are making progress by equipping staff with laptops so
they can handle verification of information in the client’s
home.
Wintershausen says she has not seen any area where all councils
are struggling. "Some local authorities may feel it sensible for
them to stay away from particular services at present, but other
councils are seeing good results when tackling those services," she
says.
Some elected members and local government officials have yet to
realise that e-government presents opportunities to transform
processes, create efficiency savings and deliver joined-up
services. According to the Socitm report, 40% of councils say their
elected members still feel e-government is distorting local
priorities, is not a priority, or cannot be cost-justified.
"There are signs elected members do increasingly appreciate the
ability of e-government to contribute to service and policy
priorities, but it is not a natural link yet," Haslem says.
Evans agrees that the more successful councils are those that
can show how e-government is a business development issue rather
than a technology initiative. He thinks most councils will not
stall or slip back once the 2005 target has been achieved because
"they don’t see e-government as just another initiative. It is not
like compulsory competitive tendering, where several councils did
as little as possible until it went away. Some people still see it
as just electronic service delivery, but most are clear that it is
really about how business processes can be changed to make the best
use of technology.
"The social pressures for councils to deliver more
customer-focused services will not go away, and most councils see
e-government as a driver to enable fundamental change. For them,
the 2005 target is just the start of the process."
Other government initiatives, such as the Children Bill
currently passing through Parliament, will also require significant
underpinning from e-government technologies. The Audit Commission
is likely to take note of the correlation between councils
receiving excellent evaluations under the Comprehensive Performance
Assessment process and those making progress on e-government.
Evans says, "At the moment, only a small part of the assessment
is dependent on progress with e-government. By changing the
criteria, central government and the Audit Commission could
significantly increase the drivers for e-government without
increasing the available funding."
However, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) caused
some consternation among councils at the end of last year by
issuing a consultation paper, Priority Services and Transformation
Outcomes, which appeared to link continued funding for e-government
to e-enablement of specific services. "For a number of councils, it
was seen as a diversion away from local priorities to national
ones," Wintershausen explains.
Councils made a strong case for a more locally-defined
component. The ODPM responded with final guidelines that reduced
the number of specific services that councils must deliver online
by the end of 2005. Implementation of other services may now be
achieved in line with local priorities, but councils must commit to
rolling some of them out to receive further funding in 2005/6.
Finally, there are some services which are meant to stretch
authorities at the leading edge to ensure e-enabled services are
not only available but actually used.
Haslem says, "The ODPM’s desire to push the boundaries on what
people were expecting to achieve is not a bad thing, because the
point of e-government is not just to get the technology and
infrastructure in place but to exploit it."
Moreover, these new targets, coupled with linking e-government
with service transformation and the wider pressures in society for
technology-enabled processes, mean councils are unlikely to slip
back once they have met the 2005 targets.
"There is more to e-government than electronic service delivery
and, for the most part, we still do not know what that means,"
Wintershausen says. "We will only find out over the next five or 10
years how to incorporate technology to the point where it is just
part of everyone’s job and part of delivering every service. In
five years’ time, we will be working with things we cannot even
envisage now."
Thornton agrees, "Once people start to use these services and
they and local authorities see the advantages, they will not want
to go back. Those authorities which are making good progress are
not relaxing but are asking how to use e-government platforms to
drive further benefits."
Birmingham hits targets with virtual team
Glyn Evans, director of business solutions and IT at Birmingham
City Council, attributes a large part of the authority’s success in
meeting the 2005 e-government targets well ahead of the deadline to
top-level commitment.
The council’s deputy leader, councillor Stewart Stacey, took a
personal interest in ensuring the council achieved the target by
the end of March. Birmingham now has all its services online and
has carried out some back-office integration.
Another factor in Birmingham’s success, says Evans, was the way
the council structured its response to targets. It created a
virtual team which provided corporate resources and skills for
projects, yet devolved design and implementation to individual
departments.
Evans says, "We did not try to centralise activity and we did
not just leave people to get on with it. We had a strong core team
to manage the process, yet practical help for individual
departments was available when it was needed."
The council also involved external partners, such as its
outsourcing supplier ITNet, so that it could draw on outside skills
and knowledge where necessary.
Two technical approaches will allow the council to move forward
even more quickly with its e-government programme. One is the use
of XML to allow data to be moved between back-office systems and
the customer relationship management system, and the other has been
to create reusable components that can be slotted into different
business areas. For example, the council has a payments system
which can be bolted onto any service that involves taking
payments.
"We have laid a foundation for how we want the council to
operate in the future," Evans says. "The key challenges are how we
manage information as a critical resource for the council, and how
we run our processes to deliver that information where it is
needed."