The fund is part of the Executive's collaborative working with service providers to develop innovative solutions for improving public services. This £30 million for the next two years will bring spending on the Modernising Government programme up to £95.5 million over the four years since the fund was announced.
Minister for Finance and Public Services Andy Kerr said:
"We have produced guidelines for the Modernising Government Fund following consultation with our key service providers. The overwhelming response has been that we should consolidate and build on the good work and the priorities already established by earlier rounds of the fund.
"We need to build on this achievement, providing more effective and more responsive services to the public, sharing best practice effectively and avoiding re-inventing approaches unnecessarily. Just as importantly we can provide real help to those involved in our front line services, making their jobs better and more productive as a result."
One of the core priorities is to provide further support to the local authority driven Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programme; giving people better access to the services that they need, and at a time and place that is convenient to them – for example, arranging a bulky uplift, reviewing benefits, applying for a blue badge or arranging a civil marriage.
The key objective for councils will be to provide customers with one-stop access to services and to deal with the customer enquiry at the first point of contact. Already the councils involved in this programme are able to deal with up to 80 per cent of transactions in this way which means less form filling for customers, more online services, less bureaucracy and less inconvenience for customers, along with reductions in transaction time and transaction costs.
Another of the key priorities is to provide electronic links between local authority social work departments and the NHS, delivering a secure facility to share and exchange critical data. One of the major projects will be to develop an integrated children's services record.
A key objective is to reduce the overhead for practitioners in tracking down key information and increase the availability of the real time data that is necessary to support child protection.
Other projects will evaluate the potential for a voluntary citizen's entitlement card, utilising the efforts of all of Scotland's local authorities in developing this technology whether it be for cashless catering and registration in schools, or booking recreation and leisure facilities such as squash courts, aerobic classes or library lending, or even concessionary fares amongst others.
In addition the fund will continue to support the development of a national, geographical, database that can provide the foundation for improved land and property management across Scotland.
Quelle: PublicTechnology, 19.02.2004
