As the deadline of December 2005 for making all council services available online looms ever closer in U.K., the range of IT projects focussed on delivering these services continues to grow. In this special feature we take a look at the progress of three local authorities in delivering major projects that will help them reach their e-government targets.
In 2004, Westminster City Council announced a major project that will eventually deliver key applications and services to staff, residents and visitors. The Wireless City Project, with its BT network infrastructure, supports Project Nomad, the government initiative to encourage local authorities to provide more flexible working and reduce costs. It is now in the early stages of delivery. As well as remote working capabilities for staff in every department, the project will provide CCTV coverage and remote noise and street environment monitoring, and BT Openzone Wi-Fi hotspots. As Cheryl Bennett, Wireless Westminster Programme Director, explains, it's a groundbreaking venture with plenty of challenges.
This is all about using the same infrastructure to deliver different things. It addresses the basic questions: who needs what, why, where and when? Initially we'll be wireless-enabling business applications to get core functionality out to where our users need it; for example anyone who is dealing with members of the public out in the field. Further down the line it will fit in with other pilots and initiatives, such as Westminster Connects, a social inclusion project that's providing those people who qualify on housing estates with refurbished kit, and youth inclusion projects.
'End to end wireless technology costs about one fifth of a physical network to install; you don't need to dig up the streets, you don't need so much street furniture. So it works from the good corporate citizenship angle, too. We're trying to reduce all that. We'd like to get as close to 100 per cent wireless coverage as possible, rather than relying totally on a fixed network.
'The biggest challenge is our ability to manage multiple partners. We have more than 30 and we all, public and private, need to work together to deliver a joined-up vision. There's no point having these great ideas if you can't do it! The Wireless City Project dovetails with the whole e-government agenda.
'We need to lead by example and prove that it's possible. You have to make it real for people, and that isn't easy. Change management never is. But if you spend time showing them how it will help them, sharing the level of the business benefit with them, you get them on board. Then it becomes a springboard for spin-off benefits for residents and visitors, like Wi-Fi hotspots.
'This project is about enabling a significant level of change in so many different areas. We want to get people away from the office, doing their core business at the point where the service is actually provided. In other words, they'll be doing what they've been trained to do, not chained to a desk. The Council will be getting the best out of them; they'll be doing the best job possible in dealing with the public, and that should mean a lot of job satisfaction.'
One of the key challenges facing local authorities with increasingly mobile workforces - a trend driven by the Government's Project Nomad - is the securing of sensitive data. Many local authority employees work with vulnerable members of the community, for example, and gather a significant volume of sensitive information that must be carefully shared across different agencies. Others are simply doing jobs that take them to remote sites.
'The new software means that data can be shared electronically and combined across the agencies securely. Access can be controlled centrally. It's already been put to the test when a member of staff had their laptop stolen from their house. And the tracking feature gives extra protection for staff who might be working in awkward environments.
'There's so much hype about technology, and the main thing you have to do is make sure it works. If you can't see it working elsewhere first, you must expect things to go wrong. It's actually very wearing and stressful for a local authority to run leading edge projects! The trick is to make sure that they are driven by a real business benefit and you've done your research first - on GPRS coverage, for example - so that users' expectations aren't dashed.
'Mobile technology is a great leveller. We've provided our senior people with Blackberries to do quick and fast communications. Our Leader and Chief Executive have really pushed that strategy, showing how they've been able to work more simply and effectively. But we discovered that our dog wardens had very similar requirements; fast access to quick information that means they don't turn up at a location half an hour too late to catch an animal that's been reported. In other words, the technology meets the real needs of the people who are using it.
'Local government's biggest challenge is changing the way it sees itself; local authorities aren't typically driven to measure service improvements in terms of hard money. The Gershon recommendations really help to bring in some commercial measurements and put more emphasis on cashable and non-cashable benefits.
'Everybody involved needs to understand it. If we can save someone from coming into the office every day, it reduces their stress levels and the efficiency savings could prevent the need for an extra member of staff.
As a unitary authority with a revenue budget of around £180 million, Flintshire County Council in North East Wales offers around 700 public services - ranging from education to refuse collection - to 147,000 inhabitants, and provides some 350 business-critical systems, running on a variety of platforms, to support them. A recent consolidation project has resulted in the standardisation of its server management strategy on IBM i5 servers, providing a centralised infrastructure for delivering the 24-hour availability of mission critical applications key to its e-government strategy.
'The project was driven very much by our technology strategy, but this is closely aligned with delivering major benefits for the organisation as a whole; improved efficiency and performance for our staff, and access for our customers, the citizens of Flintshire. Resilience and reliability have been improved so systems, whether accessed remotely by our staff or via our website by the public, are available when they are needed. This is vital if we are going to ensure take-up of electronic information and services. We have seen an eight-fold reduction in the backup time for our major applications as a result of the project.
'The Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) has not set targets for 100 per cent of services to be available electronically by 2005, as the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has. However, Welsh councils have been setting local targets based on local circumstances. In Flintshire, we hit 71 per cent in March 2005, with a target of 80 per cent by March 2006. Making the Connections, a policy document published by the WAG on its vision for the public sector in Wales, identifies e-government as a major contributor to service modernisation and efficiency gains, and this is recognised by local authorities.
'There is still an issue that many see e-government as being 'an ICT thing', rather than something that requires a change of culture and a recognition that without challenging existing services and ways of working, we will not deliver the efficiency and effectiveness gains that e-government could deliver. This project is another piece of the e-government jigsaw that strengthens the ICT infrastructure further in Flintshire.
'The dependence on ICT to deliver local government services is forever increasing. We have to be ready to meet the demands of the business. This project, we believe, puts us in a better position to meet those demands. We are constantly increasing the services we deliver electronically, both to increase choice for the citizen and to deliver efficiency gains through better use of valuable staff resources. We are striving for far greater integration of information about properties, people and management information generally.
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