Computing spoke to the experts to get an understanding of how leading-edge systems will be used in the coming years.
Northumberland County Council was in danger of running into problems with managing and storing a spiralling amount of business data.
With 3,000 email users, the council was seeing a dramatic increase in email use and volume. The IT department realised that adding more Microsoft Exchange servers would only postpone the challenge, and not address the key issue of compliance.
After investigating several email archiving products and speaking with other government bodies that had deployed email archiving, Northumberland County Council chose Enterprise Archive Solution from software supplier Zantaz.
It was a painless process, says the council’s network manager, Keith Taylor. And the authority has now made considerable storage and backup savings through the compression of files.
With so many emails containing large attachments, the storage savings gained from compressing files have been enormous, says Taylor.
‘With broadband, people have generally lost the concept of the size of electronic files, and often do not realise the costs of managing and storing content,’ he says.
‘Content storage and management definitely need to be tackled, preferably before regulations require you to do so.’
Portals
The December 2005 deadline for providing UK government services online has passed, and local authorities have, for the large part, risen to the challenge.
2006 marks not so much the end of the egovernment programme, but the point at which local government can begin to realise the real benefits from past investment, says Neil McIntyre, director of business strategy at consultancy Anite.
Local authorities are now accepting the possibilities offered by online technologies, says Graham Colclough, vice president at services specialist Capgemini.
And as councils move beyond offering just a basic online presence, a growing number are looking to portal technology as a way of providing simplified access to an increasing number of services.
East Renfrewshire Council recently implemented a citizen portal, to give residents online access to its services.
The portal has helped to improve citizen access, reduce costs, free staff time and meet vital internal and national targets for online services.
Christchurch Borough Council, Dorset County Council, East Dorset District Council and West Dorset District Council all switched off their individual web sites last April, becoming the first partnership in the country to provide joined-up citizen services through a single online portal.
Dorsetforyou.com was conceived because local people were often unsure which council provided which services, in an area with three tiers of local government.
But implementing the technology is the easy part of such a move, says Nigel Watson, head of information and communication technology at Runnymede Borough Council.
The organisation recently implemented portal and content management technology to create a personalised and interactive web site, offering up-to-date information and self-service facilities, such as parking fines payment and planning permission application.
‘We were working in silos and the public, had to deal with several different organisations within Runnymede Council,’ says Watson.
He says the e-enablement of services allows local government bodies to think more carefully about how they can most efficiently provide public facilities.
‘There is a great temptation simply to leave things as they are and allow the e-enablement technology to deliver services more quickly to the citizen,’ he says.
‘But the real advantage is how it enables you to positively change your relationship with the public.’
Procurement
Electronic procurement has the potential to deliver significant efficiency benefits, but the government advises that it should be introduced as a means of implementing good purchasing principles, not as an end in itself or solely to meet online targets.
Local authorities and educational institutions need to ensure that they have thought through their eprocurement strategy fully.
The strategy should cover electronic tendering and supplier and contract management, as well as online catalogue, requisitioning and payment capabilities.
When implemented well, eprocurement can deliver noteworthy cost savings.
The University of Edinburgh, for example, has reduced its purchasing costs by about 25 per cent using an institute-wide eprocurement system.
The university has about 20,000 students and more than 8,000 staff. Annual turnover at the institution exceeds £365m.
The driver when implementing the eprocurement system was ease of use, says Karen Bowman, director of procurement at the University of Edinburgh.
Because the technology will be used across the university by a range of people, it was important that the system was no more complicated to use than previous online and offline systems for purchasing.
Bowman says the benefits of getting eprocurement right can be considerable, but warns that there are challenges.
‘Eprocurement has enabled us to get better value out of contracts and to make efficiency savings, but that may not sell it to the end user,’ she says.
‘You have to ensure that you can support your users and suppliers, and understand their needs. Don't get too hung up on the system itself.’
Autor: Martin Fustes
Quelle: VNUnet, 23.03.2006
