The UK government is promising local authorities that
they will save around £320m a year by implementing its local
e-government national projects.
On top of sizable savings, councils could increase total
revenues by £60m a year, while delivering service improvements
worth £1.3bn, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) said.
Those figures are the average in a range for each category,
according to a spokesman from the National Projects Programme.
The ODPM is basing its claims on a study it commissioned from
the French IT consulting and services specialist Capgemini, which
looked at six of the 22 national projects the government is
promoting as part of its push to deliver local e-government by
2005. Capgemini has a contract to do work in the UK's e-government
initiative.
The six projects studied were: CRM; workflow; local authority
websites (called LAWs); mobile working (called Nomad); online
planning and regulatory services; and council tax and business rate
valuation (Valuebill).
"These programmes were chosen for study because they are a good
sample for the programme as a whole and because they are the most
well developed of all the programmes," said a spokesman from the
National Projects Programme.
The government has long pushed e-government's benefits, though
it has struggled to meet its own deadline of putting all government
services online by the end of 2005. Analysts have long warned that
the government will be unable to reach its targets.
Last year, IDC published a report stating that the UK government
was falling behind its European counterparts in providing its
citizens with e-government services.
Forrester Research also published its own findings that the
government would fail to reach the 2005 self-imposed deadline,
partly because it does not understand how to work with fast moving,
small e-commerce vendors and how to build partnerships.
But the government continues to assert it is on the right track,
though privately sources concede the 2005 deadline is now simply
more of a guideline.
The ODPM set up the local e-government National Projects
Programme to help all local authorities achieve the 2005 local
e-government targets and develop a vision for e-government within
their own authorities. The funding comes from the ODPM, but the
National Projects are run by local authorities for the benefit of
other local authorities.
The National Projects Programme spokesman said the government
does not know exact numbers in terms of which councils adopted what
programmes, but said that 80% of councils "are already involved in
at least one national project".
The spokesman said that "involvement" went beyond simply
enquiring about a programme, but did not necessarily include
commitment to implement.
The 22 national projects also include a DigitalTV programme that
would enable councils to run an interactive digital TV channel to
publish information and conduct polls.
Representatives from Capgemini could not immediately be reached
for comment.
Laura Rohde writes for IDG News Service