Council IT leaders are increasingly worried about the
prospect of a drought in IT funding after the 2005 e-government
targets expire, Chris Guest, president of Socitm, the council IT
professional’s association has warned.
Central government grants for e-government projects to put
services online will run out at the end of 2005.
"Our members are concerned about whether IT funding will be
sustained beyond 2005 when e-government funding dries up," said
Guest.
He said that for many councils the process of using IT to
transform business processes was just beginning.
Richard Steel, head of IT at Newham Council, echoed Guest’s
concerns. "The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister should not
create the impression that the job is done. This [the e-government
programme] is a major strategic change and it takes time. We have
made a good start, but it is just a start.
"The leading local government sites have done the front-end, but
all the value comes from transforming the organisation and that is
where we need to go."
He called on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to make
explicit the link between effective e-government and the efficiency
savings expected by central government initiatives such as the
Gershon Review, which has demanded 2.5% savings across the public
sector.
To make the most of local e-government initiatives, they need to
be able to link with other local public sector organisations to
make the efficiency central government expects, said Steel. "The
danger is that our [e-government] projects will flounder because
they cannot make the link to other organisations. That sort of
thing is going on many times across the country."
A spokeswoman for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister said
local government minister Phil Hope had promoted the link between
e-government and efficiency savings.
The department had published research showing that national
projects, developed as a beacon of e-government excellence, could
save councils £320m if implemented across England and Wales. The
government has announced the end of central funding for these
national projects in 2006.
There were no further plans to promote e-government to councils
as a means of delivering the Gershon targets, the Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister said.