With Downing Street’s agenda firmly set on modernising the services offered by local and central government, there is little time left for those councils yet to embrace the challenges of delivering effective services online. For authorities on track to meet the deadline, there is no question that e-government will dramatically transform our daily lives. Councils now recognise that providing e-government does not just mean having a website with a list of contact numbers on it, but a service that offers greater access to a whole host of information.
With the notion of being able to pay council tax bills or even monitor the progress of planning applications online fast becoming a reality, the potential benefits from e-government are great.
But given the public sector’s poor reputation for successfully delivering advances in IT, should we approach with caution?
The central challenge is essentially one of picking the right technology for the job. Get this right in the first instance and the rest of the initiative should succeed.
Take the online services offered by the Inland Revenue or the Job Centre as an example. Not only do they provide an information source for individuals, employers and for businesses but they have helped to reduce the associated costs.
By adopting joint partnership working, the private sector specialists can help to effectively drive forward e-government initiatives. It sounds straightforward, but the local government commissioning structure does not make it easy for smaller specialist suppliers to get onto tender lists.
To ensure that public sector organisations maximise the benefits of working with the private sector, access must be improved. Councils must be given the opportunity to source IT support to match their specific needs and not rely on the traditional approach favouring standardised packages that provide limited benefit.
What we need to see is more projects handled by smaller, more agile companies bringing benefits in cost, specialist expertise and, crucially, time.
Historically, government systems have not been set up to embrace the advances in the IT industry, but the introduction of standardised systems across the public sector offers a real step forward.
The IT industry needs a common set of standards underpinning the development and enhancement of the service. These standards will aid the transfer of information and data and form a solid base upon which to build further intricacies as IT develops.
The issue of so-called agile development and its associated benefits towards meeting the 2005 e-government deadline was raised at a recent Scotland IS conference.
It’s a win-win situation - for the public sector, being able to harness the core skills and expertise in the private sector, without having to worry about compatibility issues would bring huge benefits, while for private companies, accessibility to government tenders means that more businesses are able to successfully provide the much-needed skills and expertise to bring government projects to fruition.
With a £2.3 billion budget at the start of the e-government programme, public sector organisations can ensure they receive the best possible level of service.
There is no doubt that the public sector is moving in the right direction in terms of IT outsourcing and it is slowly but surely proving that it is no longer a technology dinosaur.
Given the clear commitment to delivering the e-government agenda, it is an encouraging sign that more and more local authorities are actively seeking out and working with specialist IT providers, ultimately bringing about wider benefits for taxpayers.
Quelle: The Scotsman, 17.02.2004
