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Introduction
The Prime Minister’s vision is of modernised, efficient
government, alive to the latest developments in e-business,
and meeting the needs of citizens and businesses. There is
no one blueprint for achieving it. But it is possible to envisage,
on the basis of what we know will be feasible, how the public
sector might be transformed by the end of the process. The
challenge of the strategy is for public sector organisations
to adopt ambitious, far-reaching plans to deliver the vision,
for the centre to provide standards and common infrastructure,
and for both to do so in a way which is flexible and able
to adapt to changing demands and possibilities.
Doing business with government
in the Information Age
In the Modernising
Government White Paper, the government set a target that
by 2008 all services (with exclusions for policy or operational
reasons) should be available electronically. The Prime Minister
announced in March 2000 that this date should be advanced
to 2005.
In 2005, when the 100% target has been achieved, all key
government services will be accessible electronically. Of
course public services will still be delivered by teachers,
social workers, doctors and nurses, fire-fighters, police
and other front-line staff, but much of the organisation of
services and initial public contact can be handled electronically.
So processes which currently depend largely on the exchange
of physical documents or attendance at a specific place will
be very widely augmented and in many cases replaced by the
application of new technology. The core processes which typify
government interactions with citizens and businesses —
giving and receiving money, giving and receiving information,
regulation and procurement — will be able to be done
electronically.
For the citizen or business, this will mean that government
services, like those of the financial, retail and other sectors,
will be available through a wide variety of media. The Internet
will be central, whether accessed through a PC, digital TV,
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) phone or other device,
or whether mediated by a call centre operator or a face to
face contact. Services will be available from more locations
and at times which suit users.
As well as a range of media, the services will also be available
through many delivery channels. Some of these will continue
to be one to one interactions between citizens and public
sector bodies for specific services. But there will also be
a drive towards better integration of services. In some cases
this may mean building on the one-stop shop models which have
been developed by local authorities, but with a wider range
of services from a bigger range of providers. Central and
local services will increasingly be delivered through common
channels.
Portal services will be developed on the Internet. The government
portal will offer a point of entry for citizens to all
relevant services from central and local government. It will
handle authentication and privacy. It will be capable of personalisation,
so that citizens can use the portal to match their own circumstances
and interests. It will facilitate push technology so that,
at the citizen’s choice, it can send reminders about
services or information by e-mail. Government online resources
will be well indexed and easy to find.
There will be sectoral and local portals too. Examples will
include an education portal, services for business accessible
through a business portal, and information about cultural
and heritage issues through a cultural site. An increasing
amount of information about legal services will be accessible
through the Community Legal Service and about health from
NHS Direct Online and the National Electronic Library for
Health. It is not assumed that these public sector portals
will be monopolistic. It should also be possible in many cases
for government services to be accessed via private sector
sites.
The creation of these services will require new business
arrangements within the public sector. Launching joined up
services will call for innovation which may not be within
the scope of any single agency. The e-Envoy, supported by
CITU, will have a role in identifying candidates for joined
up services. Bringing together information from disparate
sources to create new joined up services will require the
adoption of common protocols for data exchange. In some cases,
work to achieve back office integration will be a major commitment.
These changes are not just a matter for new technical infrastructure.
They will need the creation of e-businesses throughout the
public sector, creating, managing and marketing their services,
possibly in competition with established business units. In
suitable cases the same service might be available via a range
of channel providers, many in the private sector, operating
within a regulatory framework.
These e-businesses will be able to offer choice of access
and employ techniques of market segmentation and customer
relationship management. With citizens’ consent, they
will be able to use data to inform the development of their
services and build mechanisms for continuous improvement and
better quality services.
The convenience of dealing with government will be greatly
enhanced by the implementation of common policies on key building
blocks for e- government. These
are described in Chapter 3. There will be standards for authentication,
security and privacy to which all services will over time
be required to subscribe. There will be a common format for
smart cards which will be able to carry identifiers to enable
online identification.
e-government will have a sound
legal basis. The Electronic Communications Bill aims to establish
the acceptability of electronic signatures as evidence in
court and provide the means to modify legislation that restricts
government business to pen and paper. Government departments
are identifying areas where they can remove legal barriers
to electronic service.
In this new environment, public sector organisations will
be able to make information available online in order to meet
their responsibilities under the Freedom of Information legislation.
There will be much more information about the political process
itself, so that those who wish can be better informed about
proposals for legislation or about democratic scrutiny. Consultation
processes, complaints procedures and Ministerial correspondence
will be handled using new technology, enabling the public
sector to respond more quickly.
Skills and knowledge in the use and management of information
will be required across the public sector, including understanding
the role of new technology in policy making and service delivery
and end user IT skills to handle information and deliver electronic
services.
This is an ambitious agenda and it will not be achieved without
considerable effort, investment and cultural change. It will
be approached in steps, testing the technology, business models
and consumer responses along the way. By 2002, many of the
building blocks will be in place, on the basis of present
programmes. A number of government services and a large amount
of government information will be available online. The government
portal will have been established as a means of accessing
those online services and resources, including an electronic
change of address service. An increasing number of local authorities
will also offer a wide range of services on-line. Online information
will be easier to retrieve with the adoption of a common policy
on metadata and searching. The framework policies on web sites,
smart cards, authentication, security and call centres will
have been widely adopted. Government Secure Intranet (GSI)
connectivity will have been extended via extranet connections
to local authorities and others and common services and applications
on the GSI will support more effective working in and between
public sector bodies.
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