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This section of the report
covers the work of the Devolved Administrations, who
have each set out their progress and plans.
Northern Ireland Executive
Introduction
The Northern Ireland Executive's
programme for Government focuses on five main areas:
-
growing as a community;
-
working for a healthier
people;
-
investing in education
and skills;
-
securing a competitive
economy;
-
developing North/South,
East/West and international relations.
One of the main aims of
this extensive programme is to modernise Government
and make it more open and accessible to the public.
To this end, in July 2001 the Executive Committee approved
ESD targets, to deliver 25% of key Government services
electronically by the end of 2002, with 100% capability
by 2005.
A Corporate Strategic Framework
for e-Government was issued for public consultation
in May 2001. This framework provides a foundation to
co-ordinate the delivery of Government services electronically
and help address key issues, such as social inclusion
and freedom of information.
e-Commerce
Telecommunications
Infrastructure
In line with the Northern
Ireland Executive's programme for Government, commitment
to a world-class telecommunications infrastructure for
the region as a prerequisite for the development of
a knowledge-based economy, the Department of Enterprise,
Trade and Investment (DETI) and its Agency, Invest NI,
have been working vigorously with both the public and
private sectors to ensure that Northern Ireland can
benefit from the opportunities emerging from broadband
communications.
Key among the actions being
taken forward has been the stimulation of demand from
industry for broadband services. In March 2002, in conjunction
with Invest NI's e-Solutions Centre and ICT Advisors,
DETI's Telecommunications Policy Unit launched the "Broadband
for Business" campaign under the UK online banner and
carried out a number of regional roadshows. The Broadband
for Business campaign is demonstrating to companies,
particularly SMEs, the appropriateness of the various
broadband technologies, how these can contribute to
their business, and the associated costs.
Following its launch in
mid-January 2002, the Northern Ireland SME Broadband
Satellite Programme has attracted substantial interest.
This programme provides each SME with up to 50% support
for both the set-up and first year running costs of
satellite connections.
An additional benefit of
the broadband satellite programme has been the stimulation
of the satellite market in Northern Ireland, with four
satellite providers new to our region indicating their
intention to actively pursue satellite broadband services
with local industry.
In October 2001, Northern
Ireland secured £1.5m from DTI as its share of
the £30m Broadband Fund. As a result, a call for
proposals was issued seeking innovative feasibility
schemes and pilot actions exploring various ways of
extending broadband technologies to a wider range of
users than is currently commercially viable.
The call, which closed on
14 June 2002, resulted in a very positive response of
53 applications from both the private and public sectors,
including a number of Local Councils. These applications
are currently being assessed and it is expected that
Letters of Offer will be issued to 15-20 successful
applicants.
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Invitation for expressions
of interest in flagship projects
On 24 June 2002 an invitation was issued through
the European Journal seeking expressions of interest
in possible telecommunication flagship projects
for Northern Ireland. The invitation, valued at
£2m, is extended to local and international
companies and organisations to bring forward sustainable
leading edge applications, content or services that
showcase broadband service design and innovation
in Northern Ireland.
An information day,
held on 25 July, attracted 66 representatives from
both public and private sectors. Following the closure
date of 27 September 2002 it is proposed to progress
to a restricted request for proposals.
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Call for proposals
addressing local access to broadband
DETI's Telecommunications Policy Unit is focusing
future activities on one of the key telecommunications
issues for Northern Ireland, namely local access
to affordable broadband telecommunications. This
work will involve the identification of methods
to stimulate commercial business cases that encourage
'last mile' broadband rollout by the private sector,
and which might be supported under a call for proposals,
expected to be towards the end of 2002.
-
Broadband aggregation
DETI is undertaking a feasibility study into the
viability of aggregating demand for broadband services
across the wider public service in Northern Ireland,
as a means of stimulating the rollout of broadband
particularly to rural areas. As well as generating
efficiency savings, it is expected that such an
initiative will provide wider economic and social
benefits, bringing affordable broadband services
to SMEs, and addressing digital divide and social
exclusion issues.
Information
Age Initiative
The work of the Information
Age Initiative (IAI) for Northern Ireland came to an
end in March 2002 with the establishment of the new
economic development agency, Invest Northern Ireland.
Over the past year the IAI focussed on:
-
encouraging the development
of the telecoms strategy in order to ensure affordable
accessible broadband services throughout Northern
Ireland;
-
support for initiatives
aimed at moving companies to the higher levels of
the connectivity chain, i.e. e-trading and e-business;
-
support for digital
creativity and multimedia development.
The initiative has had a
significant impact over the past two and a half years,
not least in terms of directing and co-ordinating the
work of the former DETI agencies, IDB, LEDU, IRTU and
NITB, in support of the IAI's three key priorities -
use of ICTs, growth of the ICT sector and an environment
supportive of the knowledge based economy. As its final
report, published in April 2002 clearly demonstrates,
excellent working and strategic alliances have been
formed across the private, public and academic sectors
to create and capitalise on Information Age opportunities
for local businesses.
A particular emphasis was
placed on supporting local projects which met the objectives
of the IAI - the Leapfrog projects. Under its first
call for projects, 31 proposals were selected to receive
assistance from EU Peace and Agenda for Government resources.
To date these projects have directly impacted on over
800 companies and created over 170 jobs.
Invest NI is now taking
forward the agenda set out by the IAI. This includes
work by a team of six ICT advisors who are currently
in place, jointly funded by Invest NI and UK online
for business. An annual target of providing support
to 500 small businesses is on track for achievement
with an average of 45 companies per month using the
advisers' support.
Invest NI continues to offer
advice and, where appropriate, financial support to
companies to help them maximise the business benefits
of e-business.
Getting
Government online
Case Study
The Rural Portal
The Rural Portal was
officially launched on 15 January 2002. There
are currently just over 300 farmers registered
to access the Animal and Public Health Information
System (APHIS) online. In keeping with the aim
of providing better services and better access
to information and services electronically, APHIS
and services such as online benchmarking are being
developed and enhanced. Work to use digital certificates
for identification and authentication and to use
the Government Gateway as an authentication and
transaction engine is continuing. Work on the
Sheep Annual Premium Scheme electronic application
is being undertaken by the Grants and Subsidies
Payments Division. An initiative to allow agents
to access electronic services on behalf of clients
is also being progressed.
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Case Study
Land Registers
of Northern Ireland
landweb direct, the
Land Registers of Northern Ireland's public access
service, went live at public counters in its headquarters
building in October 2001. The service provides
users with the functionality to view electronic
land registry maps and documents using a range
of searching options. The next release of the
service commissioned in July 2002 provides additional
functionality and the ability to access information
over the internet. Other functions include searching
for information held in the Registry of Deeds,
to request copies of documents and maps held in
both registries and to have them automatically
delivered. Payment for these services is either
by suspense account (set up when registering for
the service) or by credit or debit card. Internet
access to the system is currently the subject
of a pilot exercise involving a small cross-section
of customers who are testing the usability of
the functionality over the internet. The pilot
is due to end shortly and feedback from the exercise
to date has been positive. Following evaluation
the service will gradually be extended to all
parts of Northern Ireland. The target market (estimated
to account for in excess of 90% of the potential
customer base) is current solicitors, law searchers
and those Government agencies dealing with land.
It is expected that in future the service will
be extended to lending institutions, surveyors,
architects and other professional groups that
have a need to interact with land registers. It
is intended that from November 2002, users accessing
landweb direct services will be authenticated
using the Government Gateway.
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Case Study
JobCentre Online
In January 2001 the
Employment Service of the Department for Employment
and Learning (DEL) in Northern Ireland launched
(JobCentre Online) to publish all job vacancies
notified to it by employers. The Department's
operational client management system, which holds
information on vacancies, automatically refreshes
the internet site every 15 minutes, thereby ensuring
that vacancy information on the site is always
up to date. At the same time, DEL also piloted
the provision of vacancy information in its job
centres through touch screen kiosks. The technology
was piloted in six job centre locations. The same
technical arrangements are used to ensure that
vacancy information is kept up to date. Both of
these projects have proved to be very popular
with the Department's customers and the services
are now being extended to all 35 job centres in
NI via specially designed Jobpoints. To date 10
locations have been rolled out.
JobCentre Online has
been enhanced to become a more interactive and
accessible internet site, allowing for personalisation
through registration, saving searches, uploading
CVs and online job applications.
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Case Study
Driver and Vehicle
Licensing
Driver and Vehicle
Licensing Northern Ireland is responsible for
the licensing of drivers, including taxi drivers
and road freight and bus operators.
Changes of address
can be notified to the agency, as required by
law, through the agency's website and through
online, single point, change of address services
provided by three private sector companies with
which the agency has set up links. The agency's
successful telephone relicensing service for the
renewal of car tax is being rolled out to include
links to a central insurance database and a developing
database of vehicle test results. This will allow
all customers to make use of the service, which
will then be developed to provide an online service.
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Case Study
General Register
Office
The General Register
Office (GRO) is responsible for the administration
of marriage law and the provision of a system
for the civil registration of births, deaths,
marriages and adoptions in Northern Ireland. The
office is a branch within the Northern Ireland
Statistics and Research Agency, which is part
of the Department of Finance and Personnel.
Web based services,
which offer an online application service for
birth, death, marriage and adoption certificates
are now available. The office has made numerous
improvements in the past few years aimed at improving
customer service and due to customer demand a
priority service for those who require certificates
urgently has been introduced. A credit card payment
service has also been introduced.
Simplified keyboard
access to computer indexes to allow ease of access
and speed up the process for searchers and genealogists
has recently been provided.
The GRO's long-term
strategy is to utilise new technology to minimise
costs and to make the service more convenient
for its customers.
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Case Study
Electronic Health
And Social Care
The Department of
Health, Social Services and Public Safety has
recently published, for consultation, a draft
ICT strategy for Health and Personal Social Services.
The strategy sets out proposals that would, subject
to resource availability, lead to fully ICT-enabled
health and social care by 2010. The key themes
of the strategy are electronic care records and
electronic care communications.
Although the strategy
is still out for consultation, the first year
of the strategy programme is already under way,
based on the positive responses to the strategy
vision published last year and successful bids
for Executive Programme Funds.
The main strands of
current activity are:
-
introduction of
a new 'Health & Care Number' to all relevant
ICT systems across the HPSS and in GP practices;
-
modernisation
of GP practice ICT and connection of all computerised
practices to HSSnet, the private HPSS data
network;
-
providing connected
GP practices will electronic reporting of
pathology and radiology results;
-
enabling direct
access from GP practices to hospital patient
administration systems;
-
introducing direct
booking of first outpatient appointments from
GP practices;
-
consolidating
all current distributed HPSS servers into
a unified central configuration - supporting
initiatives towards introduction of an HPSS-wide
electronic care record.
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Getting
People online
Case Study
Digital Divide
In line with action
taken in other UK regions and work being carried
out under the auspices of the British Irish Council,
the Central Information Technology Unit for NI,
has recently carried out research on public access
to ICT in Northern Ireland.
The Unit published
a paper for public consultation, entitled Bridging
the Digital Divide in Northern Ireland in August
2002 which identified a number of appropriate
actions that the public, private and voluntary
and community sectors could take to ensure that
access to ICT is available to all who want it.
Public consultation
on public access to ICT in Northern Ireland is
scheduled to run until 19 November 2002 and the
paper will be available online at www.consultationni.gov.uk
until that date.
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Case Study
Electronic Libraries
The Electronic Libraries
for Northern Ireland (ELFNI) project will introduce
significant business change into the public library
services in Northern Ireland, by introducing new
electronic systems and services and by rationalising
functions across the five Education and Library
boards. It will enable libraries to function as
community information hubs, to open up new ways
of lifelong learning using the new technologies
and ensure that those from the most socially disadvantaged
backgrounds do not lose out. A range of additional
new services is proposed to assist the public
library service to meet the needs of 21st Century
users. The ELFNI project is, additionally, the
vehicle for implementing the People's Network
in Northern Ireland libraries, providing public
Internet access and a range of electronic information
services to all library users. Implementation
of all services, including connection to a broadband
network, is planned for completion towards the
end of 2003.
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