Staffordshire Moorlands District Council has set up an
intranet-based application to help the heads of front-line services
meet their targets.
The council developed the application after central government
set the Implementing Electronic Government targets in 2004. The
council needed to give service heads a simple means of tracking
their progress towards compliance with the IEG targets.
The application, called E-pro, is being used by each service
head to monitor their service’s progress towards both the IEG
targets and other initiatives proposed by central government.
Managing the number of central government-imposed targets is a
growing challenge for local authority managers. Last December the
Society of IT Management report - IT Trends - found that councils
believe "too many initiatives" is the greatest obstacle to
achieving the full potential of their technology-enabled
projects.
Peter Dunkley, Staffordshire Moorlands' head of service for
customer service, said, "In providing an immediate link to a living
document and the supporting materials relevant to my
responsibilities, the system has proved an invaluable tool in
supporting the work we are doing in realising the priority service
outcomes."
E-pro contains information to help meet each priority outcome.
It includes direct links to Improvement and Development Agency
guidance and the websites of any national projects that effect the
delivery of the priority outcomes.
The project manager responsible for each priority outcome is
clearly shown, as is the name of the project that will deliver that
outcome.
The application will show whether a national project is key to
the delivery of the priority outcome or supplemental.
Service heads can also see whether each project is on track.
Projects that are on target are signposted green, those where more
work is needed are signposted amber and projects that run a high
risk of failing to meet the target are signposted red.
Progress on each project is shown in a part of the application
called "benefits".
The benefits interface contains all the financial information
that is needed to populate Staffordshire Moorlands' two key
outputs: the Implementing Electronic Government form and the
council's Annual Efficiency Statement.
Both statements are required by central government so that it
can monitor the council's progress towards key targets.
The council developed E-pro in just eight weeks and it has
contributed the business processes covered by E-pro to the local
government customer relationship management national project, which
is being run by the London Borough of Newham. Newham is looking to
adopt E-pro's methodology for its own use.