THE NEED FOR JOINED-UP THINKING IN ICT

 9 March 2000

Thank you for inviting me to address you today.

The government’s information and communication technology policy is part of a family of measures. Measures that will change the culture of the public sector in the UK.

Successful modern businesses bring suppliers closer to customers. They are responsive.

They provide services in the way people want.

But excellent businesses often have a narrow focus. The public sector cannot afford that. It must achieve excellence across the board.

People should no longer be forced along narrow, tortuous routes created by the division of responsibilities between departments, agencies, local authorities and other public bodies.

People do not expect to have to understand how government is organised, which department or agency does what, or whether a function is carried out by central or local government. They don’t care about that. They are right not to.

People increasingly expect to be able to deal with government on their own terms. To deal with Whitehall or the Town Hall as conveniently as they deal with the bank, their retailers, or the travel agent. Given the far greater complexity and breadth of public services this is an enormous challenge.

If the public sector is willing to embrace new ways of thinking, new ways of doing business, new alliances and new technology it can begin to offer people the services they want, when they want them, and with a minimum of bureaucracy. New technology can support the new ways of working and the new information flows needed to cut through traditional boundaries. It will be essential, for example, in meeting our commitment to deliver public services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, where there is a demand.

• NHS Direct
• Employment Direct

But we must not get carried away by the technology itself.

Our starting point has to be the customer. Only when we really understand what people need can we modernise our services to deliver it. When our business models are clear we can implement the technology that will make them work.

So we have to start by listening to our customers. And we’re already doing so, in a variety of ways:

• The People’s Panel
• The consumer focus for public services
• The Better Government for Older People Programme, and listening to older people events and
• The listening to women initiative

At the heart of this is partnership working. Partnership [working] is the core of better quality public service. It means working with customers, suppliers and local communities to get the best out of people, improve performance, improve communications and improve the quality of the working environment.

I know that many of you are seeking to achieve excellence through the EFQM Excellence Model.

The Model is now in use in hundreds of organisations across the public sector, including two thirds of executive agencies, a third of local authorities and all police forces. It is also used in schools, hospitals, government departments and almost every kind of public sector organisation.

The Cabinet Office is no exception and is currently using the Model in three of its main divisions. I am sure we will be extending it further across our own department as we gain experience with it.

Of course, like information and communications technologies, using the model is only a means to an end. It is a simple, effective framework, to improve performance through greater understanding of an organisation’s strengths and areas for improvement. It forces people to look at the whole of their organisation and to explore the relationship between what they do and the results that they achieve.

In a recent survey, 93% of public organisations reported that their performance had improved as a result of using the Excellence Model and we have no doubt that it can be an effective diagnostic tool for everyone.

This and other initiatives, such as Charter Mark, better quality services and best value, are contributing to raising the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of public services.

For example, Gateshead Council Library services were awarded a Charter Mark in 1999. They provide free internet access at all their libraries, including mobile libraries, and have made particular efforts to deploy ICT for blind and deaf people.

Achieving a radical improvement in the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of services is a significant challenge for managers and staff in any organisation.

Making effective use of new technology to deliver change in public sector organisations is particularly challenging.

Our work in developing a Corporate IT Strategy, with a clear vision of where we want to be, and a programme for how we are going to get there, will offer support.

The Strategy will strengthen the role of the centre, provide key components for e-commerce in government and develop a high-level model of government business as e-business.

It has been written in collaboration with departments, agencies and local authorities.

Formal structures were put in place to ensure that we captured the views and the expertise of the local government community.

In July 1999, John Prescott and Jack Cunningham joined Jeremy Beecham of the LGA and Len Duvall of the Improvement and Development Agency in signing the Information Age Concordat. The aim of this partnership is to develop integrated and effective services, that are accessible, seamless and citizen focused.

The Concordat established a new body, the Central Local Information Age Forum at the heart of which is the Central Local Liaison Group comprising the Central IT Unit, DETR, LGA and the Improvement and Development Agency. This body is responsible for providing strategic leadership in the implementation of the Corporate IT Strategy.

Also in July the first meeting of the Information Age Government Champions was held. The Champions are charged with developing the corporate IT strategy for government. They comprise 36 senior government officials at Board level within departments.

Their number includes Local Government Association representatives: Bernard Quoroll from the Isle of Wight and Barry Quirke from Lewisham.

We published the consultation draft of the Strategy in late February. I hope you saw it. I hope you had the opportunity to discuss it with your colleagues and to comment.

We are looking carefully at all the comments we received and we will publish a final version shortly.

The strategy explores:

• how we must make better use of the information we hold
• how our services must be built around the real needs of people
• how we must offer choice
• how government services in the Information Age must be available to the many and not just the few

It also sets out how we will achieve these objectives and the milestones we expect to pass on the way.

I would like to draw your attention to the annex to the Strategy which contains guidelines for local government on implementation.

This is not consultation for consultation’s sake. There will be changes made to the document in light of comments received. I want there to be changes to the final document to reflect:

• how we better address IT and social exclusion
• IT skills gaps
• Cross-cutting issues such as the joining up of services
• Joining up different, perhaps incompatible, systems

The strategy will be owned by the e-Envoy who will monitor its implementation and report on progress to Ministers. The e-Envoy will also jointly chair a cross-cutting review in the 2000 spending review on the knowledge economy, including e-Government and identify new opportunities for cross-cutting initiatives

Under the strategy, lead agencies and the Central IT Unit (CITU) in the Cabinet Office will

• Manage networks of public sector e-business managers.
• Develop and monitor implementation of framework policies, standards and guidelines
• Co-ordinate the development of shared infrastructure and applications
• Promote common policies on the management of information including privacy and
• Develop and manage a government portal

 Public sector organisations will:

• Implement common standards and framework policies
• Develop strategies as to how they will adopt this strategic approach
• Provide services which are accessible via the government and other portals

Taking the strategy forward will need commitment and investment across the public sector and openness to innovative ideas and approaches.

Your presence here today suggests that you are already asking yourselves how your authority should respond to the challenge of developing cross-cutting services.

You are almost certainly routinely using enabling technologies that would have been unimaginable 15 years ago – personal computing, document image processing, workflow management and the Internet, for example. You may already have developed one or more joined-up services based around these new technologies. I hope you have plans for more.

How should you now respond to the Corporate IT Strategy?

We are recommending three steps. They are set out in the guidelines for local authorities on implementing the Strategy.

• First, authorities should consider appointing a senior level e-business strategist who will be responsible for co-ordinating activities with regard to the Strategy. The e-business strategist’s chief role will be to ensure that the authority integrates the Strategy into its own forward business planning processes. A key element of this work will be to align the adoption of the Strategy with the drive to apply best value to all Council services and activities. The publication of the Corporate IT Strategy provides an opportunity to factor in the use of new technology and the possibility of integrated electronic service delivery directly into developing Local Performance Plans.

•  You should also consider adopting electronic service delivery targets. As part of the overall drive to achieve Best Value in service delivery it is expected that local authorities will wish to set electronic service delivery targets along the lines proposed under the Local Authority Electronic Service Delivery Target Setting Framework. This is being published along with the strategy as a joint consultation paper by the Government and the LGA for proposed implementation as from 31 July 2000.

• Finally, authorities should adopt the framework policies. The technical framework policies include policies on smartcards, authentication, data standards, security and privacy. The full text of those published so far can be found on the Central IT Unit website. These detailed frameworks provide an important foundation for the overall strategy. Local authorities should devise strategies for adopting them.

These three steps:

• Appointing a senior level e-business strategist to integrate the Strategy with forward business planning and best value
• Adopting electronic service delivery targets and
• Adopting the technical framework policies and devising a strategy to implement them

Will ensure that your Authority is in a good position to respond to the challenge of Information Age Government.

We are also currently carrying out a review of Government’s handling of major IT projects. This aims to ensure that the IT systems that support the delivery of improved public services are sound. We announced the first recommendations from this study on 21 February. These cover:

• ways to improve minister’s awareness of their role in major IT projects;
• requiring suppliers to produce detailed plans for how they will deliver systems before contracts are signed;
• the introduction of peer reviews for high-risk projects;
• a system to share knowledge about IT projects across Government;
• making the strategic management of IT suppliers a priority area for the new Office of Government Commerce.

These are clearly areas where these steps might be of value at the local level as well as to the Centre. Further recommendations to drive-up performance will be issued in due course, and I look forward to working with partners across government and industry to implement these.

We will next week submit our response to a PAC report on difficulties experienced with major IT projects over the past decade that was published in January. This will set out the actions we are taking to make sure that current and future projects are delivered to time, to cost and provide the promised service benefits.

These steps are particularly important for cross-cutting programmes that involve several related projects being run by different players across government.

There are clearly areas where local government will be impacted by some of the cross cutting projects that might be led from the centre, and these projects have additional complexities that must be understood and managed if they are to succeed. The mechanisms we are introducing to allow us to share and benefit from the lessons from our past experiences will enable us to ensure that the pillars that support successful IT systems are in place from the start of all projects in future.

Finally, and also as part of our cross-cutting work, the Cabinet Office’s Performance & Innovation Unit is undertaking a study to develop a strategy for the electronic delivery of Government services to the citizen.

The study will identify what services consumers will want delivered electronically and make recommendations about how to deliver those services.

The PIU team is looking at the respective roles of the public and private sectors and across a full range of channels – including internet access through PCs, interactive Digital TV, and even mobile phones and games consoles. The PIU team will work closely with the e-envoy, the Central IT Unit and the Modernising Public Services group in the Cabinet Office, and with local government and other government departments.

The study will give us a clear view of how we should use technology to give people the first class services they deserve.

Alongside these strategic programmes we are providing funding for a range of local initiatives and much good work is already being done within local authorities to use technology as a platform for excellent public services. Hampshire County Council recently won funding through the Invest to Save Budget to support integrated 24 hour social services. Carrick District Council will be developing an Intranet to link 27 town and parish councils with other public bodies. The City of Nottingham has plans for an electronic one stop shop for planning and Hackney Borough Council is developing a model of seamless public services using IT support.

In total, more than 50 local authorities will be receiving funding. Many of the successful projects involve joining-up services between central and local government. For example, Bradford MBC are the lead partner in a pilot to integrate customer service. This will provide a ‘hub’ for electronic access to a range of public services including council services, the Benefits Agency, the Employment Service and voluntary services. It will involve joint development of a service that will include video link access for the public.

Improving service delivery across the public sector is a major challenge. Along with other tools, information technology is part of the solution.

With so much going on, it is essential that central government departments and agencies, local authorities and the wider public sector is offered a clear vision and a strategic pathway. This is what the Corporate IT Strategy is designed to do. Taking the strategy forward will need commitment and investment across the public sector and openness to innovative ideas and approaches.

The Strategy, our review of the lessons that can be learned from major IT projects and the PIU’s strategic study into electronic service delivery are some of the resources that we are making available. We have also provided funding for local initiatives.

I hope that you will agree that joined-up thinking is central to all of this.

It is also the key to avoiding a new form of social exclusion – the information rich and the information poor.

The bewildering pace of change we are experiencing these days must be managed at many different levels. Joined-up thinking, put into action, allows local initiative to flourish. It also ensures that local initiative is aligned with national strategy.

Joined-up thinking across public services will allow us to exploit new technology in the interests of the individual, families and communities. 

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