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[Issue starts]
E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN
The Email Newsletter On Electronic Government,
UK And Worldwide.
ISSUE 105, NOVEMBER 2001
IN THIS ISSUE
Section one: News
Long-awaited digital TV policy imminent
- softer stance expected on commercial channels.
Local action plans drawn up across the UK
- e-strategies in devolved areas.
Councils ditch Microsoft over cost
- concern over software licensing.
International league tables throw up a few surprises
- UK puts in erratic performance.
Jobs for the girls?
- government's 'vague' plans to boost women in IT.
Bids invited to test electronic voting
- local elections to be test-bed.
European Commission seeks exploitation ideas
- public information trials invited.
News in brief: New e-procurement pilot; European sounding-
board; Corporate responsibility; East Riding wins IT award;
Reader offer.
Section two: News analysis
Digital TV: An interactive stroll in a walled garden
Section three: Focus
Computer crime: Email - friend or foe?
Section four: Commercial view
Solution providers: Major league players cross the Atlantic
SECTION ONE: NEWS
ALL CHANNELS CONSIDERED FOR DIGITAL TV
SERVICES
The government is set to soften its stance on the use of commercial
'walled gardens' for the delivery of public services over digital
television, E-Government Bulletin has learned.
In its long-awaited paper on the use of interactive TV for e-
government services, finally due out this month, it will reverse a
position taken in an earlier draft of the paper which rejected the use
of proprietary systems such as set-top boxes controlled by a single
broadcaster.
The switch, which follows heated debate within the Cabinet
Office, will raise fears that companies could end up exploiting
public services for commercial gain. However, the impracticality
of developing a completely open and flexible digital TV
marketplace, into which public channels could be inserted at will,
has led to the rethink.
Following a four-week consultation period the paper will be
launched in a final form in January. It forms part of a complex
joined-up policy exercise with several strands including a
'channels strategy' paper, which also floats the idea of private
companies becoming intermediaries for the delivery of public
services.
For the inside story on all these new policy developments, see
section two, this issue.
LOCAL ACTION PLANS DRAWN UP ACROSS THE UK
Following the 'implementing electronic government' strategy
process in England, where councils bid for a slice of a 350 million
pound funding pot (see EGB, October 2001), councils elsewhere in
the UK are gearing up to develop their own technology strategies.
The Scottish Executive is set to allocate its own fund for the
modernisation of local councils at the end of November. According
to the executive's head of e-government implementation Jim
Kinney, the total will come to "tens of millions of pounds".
As in England, Scottish authorities have been invited to submit
strategies, known as 'action plans', which will be used to decide
how much funding a project will receive. So far 19 out of 32
Scottish local authorities have submitted plans.
Council in Scotland have already taken part in an initial e-
government funding round in March 2000, to which 26 million
pounds was allocated. See:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/government/c21g/fund.asp
Meanwhile the Welsh Assembly has committed itself to
distributing 9.7 million pounds worth of 'supported credit
approvals' to councils for e-government projects in the period
2002-04. This means local authorities will be given additional
approvals to borrow capital up to a set limit, but the settlement will
include the revenue costs of doing so (i.e. the interest charges).
The assembly has invited the 22 Welsh local authorities to submit
IEG statements saying how they will put their services online, but
the contents of the statements will not, be used to decide how
much credit they receive. Instead, "We will be looking at the
statements to see whether we can develop some overall national
targets," an assembly official told E-Government Bulletin.
In Northern Ireland no extra money has been set aside by central or
regional government to fund the 26 local authorities' online
programmes. But some, like Derry City Council
(http://www.derrycity.gov.uk), have managed to gain one million
pounds of funding over the past five years by applying for EU
funds. Derry's partners included Strabane District Council
(http://www.strabanedc.org.uk), Borough of Limavady
(http://www.limavady.org) and Donegal County Council in the
Irish Republic (http://www.donegal.ie).
COUNCILS DITCH MICROSOFT OVER COST
Several UK councils have stopped or reduced their use of
Microsoft software following ever-increasing licensing costs, it
emerged this week.
Len Graves, past president of the local government Society of IT
Management (http://www.socitm.gov.uk) and society
spokesperson on Microsoft issues, told E-Government Bulletin that
"a few councils have moved away from Microsoft and other
authorities are giving it consideration." One of the authorities is
believed to be a district in Cornwall.
The news follows a recent warning from SOCITM that a proposed
move towards a subscription model for Microsoft software could
cost UK councils up to 70 million pounds a year (see E-
Government Bulletin, September 2001).
Graves said the situation is the same worldwide. SOCITM reached
an agreement last month with its counterpart bodies in Australia,
the US, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Sweden to share
information on cost calculations for Microsoft subscription. This
has already revealed that "authorities in other countries are also
finding there is a significant added cost from subscription, and that
Microsoft is in a monopolistic position - though this could change
with the new court rulings emerging daily," he said.
However Graves said it was not straightforward for most councils
to switch away from Microsoft, however, particularly medium to
large-sized authorities. Those that had done so were smaller
councils which could be more flexible, he said.
Microsoft is unwilling to comment on the matter publicly but has
now tabled an improved offer to SOCITM "in confidence". The
offer entails an extended transition period to the new arrangements,
plus a proposal for a single UK local government licence for key
Microsoft products negotiated en masse. A similar block licence
has already been negotiated between Microsoft and two
government departments - the Department of Health, and, in a
move confirmed yesterday, the Ministry of Defence.
INTERNATIONAL TABLES THROW UP A FEW SURPRISES
UK national government web sites comfortably outdid European
rivals in international league tables published last month, but poor
marks for security, privacy and disabled access meant they lagged
behind many from elsewhere in the world. For local government,
however, a new Society of IT Management report found the UK
sizes up a little better against the likes of the US, Canada and
Singapore.
UK national government web sites came out fifth in a World
Markets Research Centre league table based on a comparative
survey of 2,300 sites from almost 200 countries. Researchers
allocated scores for the provision of services; availability of
official documents and searchable data; accessibility to disabled
users and privacy and security policies.
The UK's overall marks were dragged down by a disappointing
zero rating for security policy and a measly seven out of 100 for
privacy and accessibility. The top four spots in the overall rankings
were taken by the US, Taiwan, Australia and Canada.
The competition was livened-up by some impressive performances
from unexpected quarters. In the privacy competition, for instance,
Santa Lucia hit the jackpot by taking full marks, while the
Madagascan authority unexpectedly stormed past the UK to take
the fifth position in the race to provide disabled access.
The Society of IT Managers survey of local government sites was
far less quantitative in its approach, describing its first
international
foray as "an impressionistic view, not a scientific evaluation".
Accordingly it stopped short of ranking the few English-speaking
countries surveyed, but it did conclude that "e-government in the
US is in a similar position to that in the UK with a mixture of
developed and underdeveloped sites."
*The WMRC survey can be downloaded from:
http://www.worldmarketsonline.com/e_gov_report.html
And the SOCITM survey is at:
http://www.socitm.gov.uk/public/insight/publications/travelabroad.
html
JOBS FOR THE GIRLS?
The announcement of a government drive to boost the number of
women in the IT industry from January next year is welcome but
"too vague", according to industry analyst Beth Porter.
The government said it hopes to increase the number of female IT
workers by increasing the number of girls using technology in
school, raising awareness of IT career opportunities and educating
employers in both the public and private sector. The Department of
Trade and Industry said it had consulted several key employers
including IBM, Hewlett Packard and CSSA.
The cross-departmental initiative is being led by Trade and
Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt, who is also Minister for
Women. The size of the project's budget has not been revealed.
Porter recently criticised the government for not addressing the
gender imbalance in the UK's IT sector, where only one in five
people is female compared to just under half of the entire British
workforce. (see http://fastlink.headstar.com/porter).
Offering a qualified welcome to the new initiative, she said:
"Unless educational budgets allotted to local authorities contain
significant ring-fenced amounts to implement programmes
specifically designed to enable girls to make more effective use of
computers, this measure will not achieve its objective."
A report entitled 'Women participating in IT, electronics and
communications', produced jointly by the Department of Trade and
Industry and the Department of Education and Science, is due to be
released shortly.
BIDS INVITED TO TEST ELECTRONIC VOTING
Local authorities have been invited to make bids to pilot new
methods of voting, including electronic voting, during local
elections scheduled for May next year.
The Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions
said it will finance the trial with a portion of its 350 million pound
Local Government Online budget. The deadline for bids is 31
December and winners will be announced in January 2002. The
DTLR also announced it will publish a tender to select a panel of
suppliers to provide the equipment and technical consultancy.
A third of the representative posts at 88 of England's 238 shire
districts will be contested in the May elections. The same
proportion of seats will be up for grabs in 18 of England's 46
unitary councils and in all 36 metropolitan districts. In London, all
borough and City council seats will be contested.
*An account of recent Swedish local e-democracy pilots was
published last month by Swedish local government bodies. It can
be downloaded as a 'pdf' file from:
http://www.svekom.se/skvad/E-democracy-en.pdf
EUROPEAN COMMISSION SEEKS EXPLOITATION IDEAS
The European Commission is calling for organisations interested in
a share of 27 million euros to submit proposals for "experiments in
the exploitation of public sector information"'.
The commission is looking for projects which improve access to
public sector information, enhance content production and increase
dynamism in the digital content market. The closing date for the
submission of proposals is 1 February 2002.
The scheme is part of the commission's plan to enlarge the public
sector information sector in Europe to the size of that in the US,
where there is more consistent regulation.
For a 16-page 'pdf' document outlining the commission's approach
to energising the European public sector information sector, see:
ftp://ftp.cordis.lu/pub/econtent/docs/2001_607_en.pdf
The Department of Trade and Industry is holding an afternoon
event to encourage UK organisations to submit proposals. See:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/DTI
NEWS IN BRIEF:
TENDER PARTING: The Department of Health plans to test an
alternative to the online public sector contract-tendering prototype
selected by the Treasury's Office of Government Commerce in
May. For the full story see the archived October issue of our sister
publication Future Health Bulletin, at:
http://www.headstar.com/futurehealth
EUROPEAN VOICE: The European Commission has launched
'Your voice in Europe', an online consultation site which allows
people to discuss European policy online:
http://europa.eu.int/yourvoice
CORPORATE CODE: The charity Citizens Online has published
'Corporate social responsibility in the IT industry', a report
examining the role and responsibilities of the IT sector in closing
the digital divide:
http://www.citizensonline.org.uk/pdf/csrreportfull.pdf
RIDING HIGH: The East Riding of Yorkshire Council has won
the CSSA-backed local government IT award for its CitizenLink
videoconferencing rooms linking communities to public services.
The council said an initial tender seeking a private sector supplier
of the booths had "failed miserably" when all it received were
"jazzy, overspecified, high-tech designs" - so it designed its own
solution with a few PCs and webcams:
http://www.eastriding.gov.uk/yourcouncil/citizenlink.html
READER OFFER: E-Government Bulletin is hosting the
Electronic Government Forum in London on 21 November, where
delegates can pre-arrange meetings with service pioneers including
'Invest to Save' project winners. The speaker programme includes
top level representatives from the Office of the e-Envoy; IdeA;
Central IT Unit for Northern Ireland; Egg.com; and HM Treasury.
Bulletin readers receive a 50% discount by writing 'Bulletin' after
their surname on the registration form at:
http://www.electronic-government.com/
[Section one ends]
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[Sponsored notice ends]
SECTION TWO: NEWS ANALYSIS
- DIGITAL TV
AN INTERACTIVE STROLL IN A WALLED GARDEN
By Dan Jellinek [log in to unmask]
The Office of the e-Envoy's long-awaited paper on the use of
interactive digital television for e-government services is finally set
to be published this month, in the week beginning 19 November,
E-Government Bulletin has learned.
The government's attitude towards the development of public
services within proprietary digital TV systems or 'walled gardens'
- rejected out of hand in an earlier version of the policy paper - is
to be softened in the new version, sources say.
The earlier draft, considered by a Cabinet Office working group in
June, had suggested that public service channels should never be
carried exclusively by a single commercial delivery channel such
as a set-top box, since this would raise the potential for companies
to hijack or exploit these services for commercial ends.
But following heated internal debate, and in the absence of open
standards for public service channels, the revised policy will
sanction further exploration of the use of walled gardens.
At the heart of the report will be the government's belief that
digital television will play a key part in achieving its ambitious,
intertwined targets of universal access to the Internet; placing of all
public services online; and the establishment of Britain as a world-
leader in e-commerce.
The paper will examine the potential of all the various uses of
digital television - from reference information services to
enhanced television programmes - for public services. It is
envisaged that the government's main Internet portal, UK Online,
will also brand its digital TV services. It will conclude that the key
challenge for interactive services is not technical, but the provision
of compelling content of kinds that will stimulate consumer
demand.
Once the paper is published a 28-day consultation period will
follow, concluding before the Christmas break. In January, the
results of the consultation will be woven together with no less than
three other major policy exercises in an impressive display of
joined-up thinking - assuming it all works - culminating with a
final digital TV policy paper for January launch.
The first of the three supplementary strands is the recent
Broadband Stakeholders Group first report which urged
convergence between government broadband policy and digital TV
policy (see E-Government Bulletin, October 2001). A beefed up
version of the broadband report is due to be released by ministers
in the next fortnight, and the government acknowledges that it will
make little sense to consider the roll-out of a national broadband
network separately from working towards the switchover from
analogue to digital TV in 2010.
The second is a recent consultation exercise on a 'Digital TV
Action Plan' from the Department of Trade and Industry and the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport (see
http://www.digitaltv.culture.gov.uk).
And the final strand is a little-noticed but highly significant
'channels strategy' paper, which was posted up on the 'GovTalk'
(http://www.govtalk.gov.uk) policy and standards consultation site
for 28 days ending on 5 November.
Though it was also circulated to a few consultation email lists,
observers were surprised that the channels paper, a high-level
document drawing together many key aspects of e-government
policy for the first time, was not posted for consultation on the e-
Envoy's own site.
The channels paper suggests all public sector bodies in the
information age must have a strategy for which channels, from
mobile phones to paper, it will use to deliver its whole range of
services and in what proportions. It is particularly significant in
floating the idea of private companies such as Internet portals,
broadcasting or telecommunications companies becoming
intermediaries for the delivery of public services - the abstract
form of the digital TV 'walled garden' debate.
Local councils could also become formal intermediaries for central
government services, and the paper suggests a mix of channels will
be required. Representatives of local government feel strongly that
there should be a presumption in favour of localised intermediaries
in the final version of the policy, which will also be launched
before Christmas, maintaining the frenetic pace of policy
development.
Once all these strands have been woven together, the digital TV
policy will be an important building block towards the
Communications Bill in the New Year, which will set out a new
pattern of combined regulation for the broadcasting,
telecommunications and online content industries. A wonk's work
is never done.
[Section two ends]
SECTION THREE: FOCUS
-COMPUTER CRIME
EMAIL: FRIEND OR FOE?
By Phil Cain [log in to unmask]
Only half of the organisations that took part in a recent Audit
Commission survey on IT abuse think email presents more than a
low level security risk. Think again, say security specialists, most
of whom think it is the most abused information technology and
also the most difficult to police.
The cost of at least two of the most common evils transmitted by
email are increasing. According to the Audit Commission survey
(http://www.audit-
commission.gov.uk/publications/yourbusrisk.shtml), remedies for
email-borne viruses cost just over 7,000 pounds each, over four
times as much as in the previous commission survey in 1997. If
anecdotal evidence of the increasing prevalence of viruses is true,
the total cost to organisations may have increased even more
dramatically.
The other rising cost identified by the commission is the
'reputational' damage caused by the transmission of unsuitable
material to and from email accounts. However, the commission is
not able to quantify the financial cost of this kind of abuse, despite
the fact that numerous cases have reached the courts usually in the
form of costly sex discrimination cases.
Further problems are presented at the more extreme end of the
criminal scale. Under UK law, it is an offence for an organisation
to fail to report to the police that they have "reasonable cause to
suspect" that someone is engaged in paedophile or terrorist activity
on their network. For a list of organisations deemed to be terrorist
by the Home Office see:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/terror
Given "reasonable suspicion" of illegal activity of this kind it is a
serious offence to tamper with evidence in any way. It is therefore
imperative that network support staff do not inadvertently destroy
valuable evidence, says chief computer forensics consultant Peter
Yapp of Vogon International (http://www.vogon-
international.co.uk). Data destruction is all too easily effected,
however: "Even the act of turning a computer on can change a
whole series of dates and times," he says. A failure to ensure
accurate records are kept could result in a heavy financial penalty
for the employer, with the ceiling on unfair dismissal
compensation having risen to 60,000 pounds.
According to Yapp, best practice in the event of suspected email
abuse is to take 'images' of suspect drives; obtain secure back-ups
of all mail files; and above all to act fast, as Internet service
providers do not retain logs for long.
Vigilance need not mean that business cannot go on as normal,
however, as it is possible to take an instant 'snapshot' of a server at
any given time. Using this record, forensic IT investigators can
track a person's behaviour while computer systems and staff can
return to business as usual.
To detect and deter email abuse Yapp advocates the use of email
surveillance to single out inappropriate words. He says the most
important feature of such a policy is that it enables an organisation
to make it known that the issue is taken seriously without seriously
impinging on people's privacy by attempting to monitor all mail.
Yapp also advocates the use of software that can block users from
sending emails from remote Internet email accounts such as
Hotmail, which he says are inherently insecure and provide an
alternative means for people to siphon information from an
organisation.
All these filtering measures can be sidestepped by miscreants using
a freely-available encryption software known a PGP ('pretty good
privacy'). This technique has made the task of overseeing email
systems more difficult, because it is impossible to decrypt their
contents without possession of the private encoding 'key' of the
sender. For this reason Yapp says organisations should ban the use
of encryption software to which they have no access. Filtering
software is available which to alert network administrators to the
use of an unauthorised PGP system.
Ironically, PGP or its stronger relative PKI ('public key
infrastructure') system are to many the solution to another problem
to which email is prone, 'spoofing', where someone sends messages
from someone else's email address. In a well-publicised case last
year, software company GEAC fired an executive they believed to
have sent embarrassing emails around the company and to
customers. On further investigation it was discovered that the
emails were the work of a disgruntled former employee who had
hacked into the executive's email account.
All in all email, hailed by many as the most useful Internet
application, has now begun to show it also has its darker uses. The
decision on what action should be taken to combat its misuse on
corporate systems is complex, but avoiding it could result in heavy
penalties.
[Section three ends]
SECTION FOUR: COMMERCIAL VIEW
- SOLUTION PROVIDERS
MAJOR LEAGUE PLAYERS CROSS THE ATLANTIC
By Dan Jellinek [log in to unmask]
As UK central and local government gear up to hit a series of
tough targets for online services, a number of large North
American e-government technology providers are sensing that now
is the time to enter the British and European marketplaces.
One such newcomer is e-Government Solutions (eGS), an offshoot
of National Information Consortium (http://www.nicusa.com), a
major provider of web-based e-government applications in the US
and a strategic partner of Deloitte Consulting.
It was only last year that NIC turned its attention to Europe,
detecting a potentially lucrative new market for its suite of e-
government and e-procurement solutions. It set up eGS as its
European arm, with offices in London and Berlin.
"The UK and Germany seemed the best places to start, as the
biggest economies with the most coherent and committed e-
government strategies," says eGS chief executive Ian Busby. "No-
one in the UK has developed every e-government application but
we have a suite of over 100 which can translate to the UK because
most processes surrounding public services are similar. For
example processing parking fines is the same in Westminster as in
San Francisco."
The company's first toe-hold in the UK market is a contract with
the Association of Colleges (http://www.aoc.co.uk) to provide the
further education sector in England with an online procurement
marketplace based at a new web portal, 'FEOnline'
(http://www.feonline.net).
The e-procurement element is free to colleges, with revenue for
eGS derived from sales commissions from suppliers. Busby says
that by collaborating on procurement technology and by running
tenders in groups to drive down prices, colleges stand to gain
average annual savings of around 350,000 pounds each plus a 90
per cent reduction in order and payment processing time.
Once online procurement is bedded in, many other services are
possible through the portal, Busby says. "The community can
decide where to go from there - you could create further common
business platforms like a student enrolment system, or e-learning
modules for staff.
"At the moment the further education sector is disaggregated, but
we could see it becoming much more co-ordinated, without losing
the local focus of each organisation." The same principle applies to
any public sector service with an element of local delivery he says.
Another US player newly arrived on these shores is EZGov
(http://www.ezgov.com), which provides e-government technology
to more than 65 public sector bodies in the US. Like eGS, EZGov
has a strategic alliance with a major consultant -
PricewaterhouseCoopers - as well as with established technology
players IBM and EDS.
It was through EDS that EZGov gained its first business when it
arrived in London in October last year - helping Inland Revenue
introduce online tax filing.
If partnerships with established players are the key to entering a
new market, many established generalist technology firms see
plenty of potential reciprocal value in teaming up with specialist
players from overseas.
The most interesting new partnership in this context is between BT
and the Canadian giant CGI.
Although it already has an extensive customer base in the public
sector, BT is trying to move away from mainstream telecoms
business to generalised technology work including combined
hardware, software and consultancy packages.
Casting around for a partner, it settled last month on CGI, which is
already huge in Canada - the fourth largest technology firm by
staff numbers in North America after Microsoft, EDS and IBM.
CGI's best-known e-government work is the 'Service New
Brunswick' project (http://www.snb.ca), which brought a
comprehensive, 'single window' online service infrastructure to this
vast, sprawling Canadian province. The project recently drew
glowing reports of from analysts Gartner, which concluded -
"under any metric we choose, the project is a success."
CGI does already have a UK presence but until now this has been
focused largely on the insurance industry. From the Canadian
firm's point of view, BT provides it with a sizeable launch-pad into
government, and Freeman says it is working towards initial deals
with up to 15 local authorities.
Naturally CGI, which likes to buy in technology solutions and
integrate them, has its own patchwork of major software partners
who include Microsoft, Oracle and SAP.
Taken together, the North Atlantic e-government newcomers to
Europe represent a mix of the old and the new, backed up by some
serious marketing muscle. The US and Canada have been the e-
government proving grounds, but Europe is now moving centre-
stage as it gears up for rapid transformation of its public services.
"The UK's e-government policy programme is about the most
aggressive I've seen," says CGI partner Brian Freeman. The
number of major new players jockeying for position seems to bear
out this analysis.
[Section four ends]
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Copyright 2001 Headstar Ltd
The Bulletin may be reproduced in full as long as all parts
including this copyright notice are included.
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long as they are clearly sourced and our web site address
(www.headstar.com/egb) is also cited.
PERSONNEL:
Editor - Dan Jellinek [log in to unmask]
Deputy Editor - Phil Cain [log in to unmask]
Reporter - Tamara Fletcher [log in to unmask]
A searchable archive of our back-issues can be found on our web
site.
[Issue ends]
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