It is going to be a very difficult time for local government in
the years ahead, writes Simon Moores, Conservative district
councillor for Westgate-on Sea.
I was fortunate to be present at the very beginning of the
eGovernment revolution which changed the face of public services.
Generous investment, the internet and the arrival of new
technologies gave the public unprecedented access to local
government and streamlined processes, such as planning and
benefits, which had once been complex and impenetrable.
In 2009 one might argue that local government now finds itself
at the wrong end of two financial cycles. The first involves the
growing costs of a 'technology refresh' and the second, the more
serious implications that now surround the public sector financial
crisis; the worst since the end of the Second World War.
Councils are now struggling to cope with the fallout from the
recession and are facing the prospect of as much as a 30% cut in
their central government support if Treasury forecasts for the
economy prove too optimistic. This in turn could lead to even
larger cuts for some public services as the more essential are
protected.
With the public sector now facing a period of unparalleled
financial austerity, the effective use of technology becomes even
more of a driving force in maintaining services, as both the budget
and the workforce come under threat. Collectively, we need to
genuinely re-think aspects of public service design and the pivotal
role that technology plays in its consequent operation.
However, we have very limited room to manoeuvre. I was at a
meeting of several neighbouring councils last month, where we spent
half a day exploring the shared services route. Having had an
alarming presentation on the prospect of 'Financial Armageddon', it
was made clear that we had a very limited time in which to achieve
harsh cuts in our budgets and create, from near thin air, a
cost-effective shared services plan.
My own council, Thanet, has just published its 2009 strategy and
in its pages you will find not only a commitment to the development
of shared services to exploit Kent Connects and the Kent Public
Services Network (KPSN), but the introduction of thin client
computing technologies, open source software and a long-overdue
migration from Novell's GroupWise. All of this will have to be
implemented within the budget I have available.
It's my experience that the nature of the public procurement
procedure invariably means that, in contrast with the private
sector, what we have available in terms of ICT is frequently behind
the curve - a result of the lowest bidder process - and often
several years out of date. As a consequence, we need to be more
joined-up, increasingly smarter in the way in which we integrate
different processes and innovative in the way in which we use our
existing solutions and partnerships with other authorities.
There comes a point however when doing more with less becomes
unsustainable and - while we can be smarter about the application
of the technologies we have available - as a nation, we may not
have the time, solutions or funds to balance the demand and load
that will be placed upon local government resources and services in
the next year.
Simon Moores is Conservative district councillor for Westgate-on
Sea, cabinet member for customer services and vice chairman (policy
development) at The
Conservative Technology Forum