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Subject:

[CSL]: E-Government Bulletin, 09 December 05 - Birmingham Joint V enture; E-Procurement Declaration; Ian Watmore Interview.

From:

J Armitage <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Interdisciplinary academic study of Cyber Society <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 07:46:31 -0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (747 lines)

From: Dan Jellinek [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: 09 December 2005 13:05
To: egb-html
Subject: E-Government Bulletin, 09 December 05 - Birmingham Joint Venture;
E-Procurement Declaration; Ian Watmore Interview.

E-Government Bulletin, HTML version:
Please click on the attachment to read.
See below for plain text version.


+++E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN
- ISSUE 201, 09 December 2005.

IN THIS ISSUE - Birmingham Joint Venture; E-Procurement Declaration; Ian
Watmore Interview.

Please forward this free service to others so they can subscribe - full
details at the end.
We never pass on email addresses.


++Special Notice: Flexible Working in the Public Sector
- An E-Government Bulletin Seminar
- 31 January 2006, Central London
http://www.headstar-events.com/flexible/ .
- Early Bird Offer Until End December

Flexible working is a vital topic for the public sector. The Office of
Government Commerce, in a report published this summer, noted that:
"The need for efficiency gains [means] people, information and communication
technology and workspace need to complement each other so overall
flexibility can be achieved." We are pleased to announce that the authors of
this report are our keynote speakers.

Places normally cost 295 pounds plus VAT for public sector and 395 for
private sector delegates. However if you register before 31 December you
will save 100 pounds by typing 'ebDec' after your name on the form (NB:
offer does not work alongside other codes).
See:
http://www.headstar-events.com/flexible/

[Special notice ends].


++Contents - E-Government Bulletin Issue 201.

01: Birmingham Set to Launch 420 Million Pound IT Joint Venture
- Capita selected as preferred partner for 10-year project.

02: Ministers Pledge to Digitise All EU Public Procurement
- Declaration sets 2010 target for full electronic capability.

03: Only Three Per Cent of Public Sector Web Sites Accessible
- European survey finds low compliance with basic standards.

04: Geographical Data Sharing 'Held Up by Lack of Awareness'
- Public sector bodies unaware of what is available.

News in Brief: 05: Budget Deficit - European cities lack e-government plans;
06: Service Recognition - European awards; 07: Stephen Hill:
tributes welcomed.

Section Two: Interview - Ian Watmore.
08: Transformation Champion Takes on Whitehall Culture Challenge:
Dan Jellinek talks to the UK government's Chief Information Officer about
his ambitious new strategy to use technology to take service and business
improvements to new levels.

Section Three: Conference Report - e-Democracy '05.
09: Live 8 Sets the Tone for Modern Campaigns: The Make Poverty History
movement demonstrated that complex issues could be presented in an
accessible way, using the web and texting to build support. Derek Parkinson
reports.

Section Four: The EGB Vaults - From Our Archive, December 1999.
10: Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications Gathers Pace: Six years ago,
time was running out for internet access charged by the minute.

[Contents ends].


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++Section One: News.

+01: Birmingham Set to Launch 420 Million Pound IT Joint Venture.

Birmingham City Council is set to approve a 420 million pound deal with
support services company Capita to form a joint venture partnership to run
all the council's IT and administrative functions over 10 years.

The project is expected to start in April 2006, following formal approval by
the council's cabinet and final negotiations on the details of the 'Service
Birmingham Partnership'.

The move could create up to a billion pounds worth of efficiency savings
over 10 years and 15 per cent productivity gains within five years, twice
the target laid out in the Gershon Efficiency Review, the council says (
http://fastlink.headstar.com/birm1 ).

Up to 450 council IT workers will be seconded to the joint venture company.
Under the deal, old computers will be replaced and computer networks will be
joined up via an intranet.

"Incompatible systems within the city council [mean] we desperately need to
make improvements faster," Birmingham deputy leader Paul Tilsley told
E-Government Bulletin. "We can only do that by bringing in additional
resources. We're dealing with an ancient system. By modernising our whole IT
system we can work smarter and more efficiently. The starting point is to
get a common system across the city council," Tilsley said.

Following the deal, IT staff will be retrained to take on several tasks.
"We've got a lot of skilled people in Birmingham City Council,"
Tilsley said. "Because of the way the system has been working, their skills
haven't been utilised. Staff at local authorities have been tending to work
strictly within their departments."


+02: Ministers Pledge to Digitise All EU Public Procurement.

A pledge to ensure at least 50 per cent of EU public procurement is carried
out electronically by 2010 was the biggest commitment made in a European
ministerial declaration on e-government published last month. In addition,
the systems will have to be in place to ensure all procurement could
potentially be conducted electronically in the same timeframe, the
declaration said.

The declaration was unveiled by the UK Presidency of the EU as the
centrepiece of a ministerial conference hosted in Manchester (see
http://www.egov2005conference.gov.uk ).

In a set of explanatory notes issued alongside the declaration, the
commission said that the part of e-procurement which formed the biggest
challenge to digitisation was the submission of large-scale tenders. It said
only around 9 per cent of tender submissions was currently digitised, and
without further intervention this figure was likely to rise to between 20
and 25 per cent by 2010. "Therefore a call for 50 per cent take-up gives the
right - ambitious yet realistic - political signal," the paper said.
"Technically, the main hurdles can be solved if member states can agree on
common/similar procedures and standards (eg e-ID and e-Registration of
companies)."

Cabinet Office Minister Jim Murphy acknowledged later that the declaration
did not have the force of EU legislation, and it was up to member states to
set their national e-government policies. However European Commissioner
Viviane Reding said the declaration would act as a "stimulus", with the
commission giving member states "a push so things happen." It would be
followed up with an action plan next year on how the commission could help
member governments on procurement by facilitating exchanges of ideas, she
said.

The declaration also commits governments to ensuring that all European
citizens and businesses will be able to use secure electronic identification
systems to access public services by 2010, and that a framework will be
drawn up so that these systems are compatible across Europe. Murphy said
later that this pledge did not relate to citizen ID cards, but to systems
like online authentication that would allow citizens access to public
services across Europe.

NOTE: The European Commission has adopted a strategic framework setting out
how it can better use technology internally to improve its transparency and
efficiency. See:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/ec1 .


+03: Only Three Per Cent of Public Sector Web Sites Accessible.

Just three per cent of public sector web sites in the EU reach accepted
minimum international standards of accessibility to people with
disabilities, according to UK government-funded research published last
month.

The results were obtained by carrying out automated and manual checks on 436
public sector web sites across all 25 member states of the EU. The checks
were designed to show how well the sites measured up to the World Wide Web
Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG -
http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/ ), that grade sites 'A', 'AA', or
'AAA', in rising order of accessibility.

According to the research, only three per cent reached 'A' status, although
a further 27 per cent narrowly missed out, either because they passed all
automated checks but failed a manual inspection, or failed a small number of
automated checks. No sites were found to reach 'AA'
or 'AAA' status.

However, the UK Department of Health web site ( http://www.dh.gov.uk ) was
cited by the report as a particularly good example of accessible practice,
complying with twelve of WCAG's checkpoints.

"I had expected and hoped that governments were doing better,"
accessibility expert Helen Petrie, Professor of Computer Science at the
University of York, told E-Access Bulletin. "Such a low level of conformance
is disappointing and shows that we have a mountain to climb."

The report, 'eAccessibility of public sector services in the European
Union', ( http://fastlink.headstar.com/eur6 ), was commissioned as part of
the UK's presidency of the EU. It revealed that few member states know how
well they are doing in the accessibility field: of the 25, only six felt
able to estimate the proportion of their web sites meeting 'A' requirements,
but all six were found to have overestimated.

The poor showing may partly be explained by the fact that the WCAG are not
available in all EU languages. At present, the guidelines aren't available
in the national languages of Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Greece, Latvia,
Malta and Slovenia; and a number of other minority languages. Translations
are in progress for the languages of Poland and the Slovak Republic.

NOTE: This story was originally published in E-Government Bulletin's sister
publication, E-Access Bulletin, the free email newsletter on access to
technology by blind and vision-impaired
people:
( http://www.headstar.com/eab ).


+04: Geographical Data Sharing 'Held Up by Lack of Awareness'.

The major barrier to sharing geographical information across public sector
bodies - vital for services from fighting crime to town planning
- is a lack of awareness of what data is available, according to a Cabinet
Office survey ( http://fastlink.headstar.com/gis3 ).

The survey examined current use and interoperability of GI data by the
public sector and its private sector partners, including all data with a
geographic reference such as map information or personal details linked to a
postcode.

Other barriers to sharing GI data include data protection constraints and
concerns over accuracy.

"Geographic information has been the poor cousin of public information for a
long time which is surprising as probably 80 per cent of all public
information is location-based," GI consultant Martin Ford told E-Government
Bulletin.

Around 130 public bodies responded to the online survey, which said
49 per cent of respondents have a GI-based initiative currently underway.


News in Brief:

+05: Budget Deficit: Some 28 per cent of European cities do not have
a budget plan to support their e-government policies, according to
'E-Citizenship for All,' from global consultancy firm Deloitte and European
local government network EUROCITIES. Nine per cent of cities do not even
have an e-government policy, the survey found:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/deloitte .

+06: Service Recognition: An electronic pension service from Poland;
an electronic invoicing service from Denmark; an online land registry
service from the Netherlands; and an online tax filing service from Ireland
were the four category winners of the European Commission's eEurope awards
for transformation of public administrations and services, announced last
month. Full details of runners-up and finalists
at:
http://www.e-europeawards.org/ .

+07: Stephen Hill: The E-Government Bulletin team were hugely
saddened to learn of the death of Stephen Hill, managing consultant at the
Society of IT Management (Socitm), on 2 December. Stephen had over 30 years'
experience of business transformation and ICT and was involved in founding
Socitm Consulting in 1997. One of Stephen's maxims for e-government was:
"don't just do things differently, do different things". Tributes can be
emailed to:
[log in to unmask] .
Stephen's funeral is to be held in Holyhead on Monday 13 December.
Anyone who knew him is welcome, arrangements are at:
http://www.socitm.gov.uk/public/consulting .
And there is a further Socitm notice at:
http://www.socitm.gov.uk/Public/press+releases/20051205.htm .

[Section One ends.]


++Sponsored Notice: Have Your Say on E-Government Blog.
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++Special Notice: Help Improve Resources For Web Accessibility.

Accessibility of web sites is an increasingly important issue, yet many web
developers remain confused about the issues surrounding it.

The University of York is conducting a survey of web developers and website
owners to gauge levels of knowledge about accessibility and to gather
information about what kinds of support people would like to have.

The survey has been designed by Helen Petrie and her team, formerly at City
University London. Afterwards the team will be making recommendations to the
European Commission and the World Wide Web Consortium. So if you develop or
own a site, please help by completing our brief survey at:
http://www.bentoweb.org/surveys

We will post the results on the same website in March 2006.

[Special Notice ends].


++Section Two: Interview
- Ian Watmore, Chief Information Officer, UK Government.

+08: Transformation Champion Takes on Whitehall Culture Challenge
by Dan Jellinek.

Alex Allan was a Grateful Dead fan, who created his own online 'Deadhead'
searchable lyrics engine while working as principal private secretary to
both John Major and Tony Blair. Andrew Pinder was a charismatic public
speaker who could hold the attention of a large conference as if he were
having a cosy fireside chat.

On the face of it, the government's third IT supremo to date, Ian Watmore,
is a less colourful character than his two predecessors.

It is not that his life is dull - a sometime disco DJ and Pink Floyd fan
whose son plays for a Manchester United youth team, he can compete with most
civil servants and former management consultants in the colour stakes. It is
his public persona that is different: he comes across generally as quiet,
careful and serious, and while friendly and approachable he tends to field
questions with a straight bat.

In some ways, this is a product of the changing nature of his post, which
was always intended to be less high profile - he is no longer an 'e-envoy',
but has instead the more workmanlike or even backroom title of 'CIO' (chief
information officer) to the UK government.

In his short time in office to date, however, he has in his own quiet way
achieved a great deal, impressing many seasoned observers of Whitehall.
Without making a fuss, he has pulled some powerful people and forces for
change together across the machinery of government, and championed a new
policy of 'transformation' which he sees as the key to galvanising central
government into finally making best use of technology to improve public
services.

The policy is set out in a five-year strategy published last month for
consultation up to 3 February next year, entitled 'Transformational
government: enabled by technology'
( http://fastlink.headstar.com/strategy1 ).
The strategy was drafted by Watmore's Chief Information Officer
(CIO) Council, assembled from all parts of the public sector under a model
developed in Canada to ensure buy-in from all parts of government.

The strategy's overall aims - shared services within government, designing
services around the citizen and boosting efficiency - are not new. Indeed
all have been talked about endlessly since the early days of e-government up
to a decade ago. What is new, however, is that the bold vision is backed up
with a set of concrete proposals that for the first time would embed key
e-government policies like shared infrastructure and shared internal
services deeply into the whole of government. If it works, the back-room
processes would finally catch up with the citizen-facing political visions
that have been bandied about by technology enthusiasts for some time.

Speaking exclusively to E-Government Bulletin after presenting his new
vision to the recent ministerial conference on e-government hosted by the UK
Presidency of the EU, Watmore made it clear that the new agenda would only
be achieved by the various parts of government pulling together, not simply
by the Cabinet Office driving through change in a prescriptive way.

"The e-Government Unit itself is not going to do any of this, it is up to
the whole of government.

"Technology will be used to achieve an outcome, which could be better
services or cheaper services, but we will put the technology in that light.
In the past we've mainly bolted technology on to what has come before."

Watmore said there had been examples of projects where technology had
already been used to transform services, like the recently completed
modernisation of the Department of Work and Pensions'
benefits system which allowed benefits to be paid directly into people's
bank accounts. He also cited an online car tax disk renewal system; a Leeds
hospital project which enabled clinicians to exchange films and other
information digitally, changing workflow and working practices, and the
'XHIBIT' system using SMS text messaging to run criminal trials more
effectively by letting lawyers and police officers know immediately of any
delays or changes in appearance times.

But he said the biggest challenge he now faced was to ensure organisations
work across boundaries to ensure such service transformations can reach
across government, and not just in small isolated areas.

Not everyone is convinced this task will be easy. When asked at the
Manchester conference whether he saw any evidence of transformation actually
happening in the UK public sector, BT chief executive Ben Verwaayen said,
with Watmore sitting by his side: "I don't know if it is happening, but
there is a need for urgency. We should be transforming government much
faster. We need to reach beyond this audience, and find a way to impact on
the nay-sayers in every public organisation."

So ultimately, it is Watmore's success in changing cultures and mindsets
within the UK civil service which will determine his success overall as UK
government CIO. It is a massive task, but it may be that his brand of quiet
catalysis succeeds where higher profile figures have struggled in the past.

Certainly he has a staged plan in mind which will take a series of practical
steps to achieve the broad vision.

"My first task next year will be to move from the strategy to an
implementation plan, by the end of the financial year," he said. "Then we
will draw up a shared services plan for each area of government, and appoint
the first customer group directors and customer groups, such as one for
elderly people to inform development of the pensions service. The
development of the IT profession is also a priority."

Sean Shine, government managing director for UK and Northern Europe at
Watmore's former firm of Accenture, told E-Government Bulletin last month he
thought Watmore could succeed, but his job was not an easy one.

"Change in any big organisation, whether public or private sector, is very
difficult to do," he told E-Government Bulletin. "There is a big cultural
change, and underlying it a big technology system to implement, and the task
of carrying on with the day-to-day business of government at the same time.
But it is possible."

[Section Two ends].



++Sponsored Notice: Managing Web Projects
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++Special Notice: Place Your Advertisement Here
- Reach more than 11,000 in e-government
- Largest opt-in/requested circulation in the sector.

E-Government Bulletin is the logical choice for advertising any e-government
service, product or job. We are the only email newsletter in our sector to
receive a circulation audit from ABC Electronic ( http://www.abce.org.uk ),
part of the Audit Bureau of Circulation. This shows we have the largest
opt-in/requested circulation in the sector:
http://www.abce.org.uk/search/headstar .

To find out more about advertising and sponsorship opportunities, please
email Claire Clinton on [log in to unmask] or phone her on
01273 231291.

[Special Notice ends].


++Section Three: Conference Report
- e-Democracy '05.

+09: Live 8 Sets the Tone for Modern Campaigns
by Derek Parkinson.

Bob Geldof's Make Poverty History campaign carries useful lessons for others
wishing to use the web and mobile phone texting for democratic lobbying,
delegates heard at E-Democracy 05, a conference hosted by E-Government
Bulletin with the Hansard Society
(http://www.headstar-events.com/edemocracy/).

These high profile campaigns show the willingness of the public to express
their views on complex and difficult issues, Martin Gill, online strategy
co-ordinator for Make Poverty History, Live 8 and Comic Relief, told
delegates. One of the essential ingredients for any of these to work well is
effective communication, he said.

For the Make Poverty History and Live 8 campaigns, this was particularly
important with a need to present complex economic and political issues in an
accurate and easily digestible way, Gill said.

"We had to get experts to write a one-paragraph pricis of all their years of
work so that we could get all the information into a single email," he said.
Although this was a tough challenge, the effort was worthwhile, with 700,000
people registering their details online, and a total of four million online
actions recorded, such as making donations, he said.

"Our approach is based on the idea that fatigue, lack of awareness, and
complexity are the main barriers to people hearing political messages.
One of our challenges is to talk to the entire community," said Gill.

A similar challenge faces the traditional media, said Martin Vogel, head of
the BBC Action Network, an online service (formerly known as iCan) that
enables the public to discover groups with similar interests and concerns,
discuss issues, and translate their ideas into collective action
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/).

The starting point for Action Network was to recognise the growing
disaffection that many people feel for some aspects of public life, and the
role the media has played in this, said Vogel.

"An important part of this disaffection is the feeling that people can't
change things, because they feel they're just one person on their own, and
because they don't know where to start. Action Network aims to tackle both
these things," he said. Although the project is still young, having run for
little more than a year, Vogel said feedback has been positive, with users
telling the BBC that they feel empowered by the service.

Overall, Action Network can be seen as part of a wider shift in the
relationship between broadcasters and the public, Vogel said. "There is a
zeitgeist feel to this, and you can see examples in the 7 July bombings when
citizens were directly involved in news gathering, and then there's the ITV
move to buy Friends Reunited. Increasingly, viewers are being used in the
programme-making process," said Vogel.

Jamie McCoy, originator of the weblog or 'blog' Jamie's Big Voice
(http://jamiesbigvoice.blogspot.com/),
which provides insights into the lives of homeless people, told delegates
that his interactive online journal has opened many doors that were closed
to him before. "It's given me a voice, in a way I've become like an
independent newspaper," he said. Since launching his blog, McCoy has met
with MPs to discuss homeless issues, and built up contacts with many people
around the world.

Providing practical ways for people to tackle their problems was a key
element in setting up mySociety (http://www.mysociety.org/), an incubator
for social software projects, said founder Tom Steinberg.
He was impressed by the example set by FaxYourMP
(http://www.faxyourmp.com/), the web-based service allowing anyone to
contact their elected representative, but disappointed that voluntary and
public sector bodies were slow to see its potential. "mySociety was set up
because there weren't enough follow-ups to FaxYourMP," he said. As well as
providing services, mySociety also aims to demonstrate what's possible with
small resources, and to prod the government and other actors in public life
into changing their approach, he said.

"In the voluntary and public sectors there are too many web sites that I
would characterise as 'Please, please, please, don't beat your wife dot
com'. They send out the right messages, but they don't provide victims of
the problem with a way of doing anything about it."

[Section Three ends].


++Special Notice: E-Government Bulletin Online Archives
- Purchase Your Password Today.

Your trusty E-Government Bulletin - the largest circulation independent
e-government news source - is archived each month into a database searchable
by any keyword or phrase, as well as by issue number or date. You can also
access the complete contents of back issues in html, word and text format.

The archives extend back to February 1999, representing over six years'
worth of news and feature coverage of UK e-government issues.
To access this fabulous research resource, you will need to pay an annual
subscription fee of just 50 pounds for an individual user in the public,
charitable or voluntary sector, and 100 pounds per user in the private
sector, with discounted group licences available for multiple users and
organisations. To find out more please email:
[log in to unmask] .

[Special Notice ends].


++Special Notice: Test Your Site's Accessibility.

Headstar, the publishers of E-Government Bulletin, is offering a range of
independent, expert assessment packages to ensure your web services comply
with best practice and the law. We can provide you with a clear, detailed
report on the current access status of your site, and a list of tasks you
will need to carry out to ensure compliance with government requirements.

Reports also include results from general quality assurance tests such as
link-checking. Taking accessibility action benefits all users, will make
your site easier to maintain, and can improve your search engine rating!
Please note the service is tailored in particular to larger organisations
with major web sites or services.

For more information please email:
[log in to unmask] .

[Special notice ends].


++Section Four: The E-Government Bulletin Vaults
- From Our Archive, December 1999.

+10: Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications Gathers Pace.

In E-Government Bulletin this month five years ago, the issue of
telecommunications regulation was under scrutiny: the European Commission
had launched a consultation document reviewing the regulatory framework for
European telecommunications markets. This described "the comparatively low
level of harmonisation of the licensing and interconnection regimes in the
EU."

Meanwhile, the bulletin reported former UK telecoms regulator OFTEL had
shifted its position on internet charges and suggested BT provide unmetered
internet call charges, acknowledging concerns that charging per minute
stifled the information society.

However, the regulator stopped short of direct enforcement action, saying it
is for operators to negotiate such arrangements and the Campaign for
Unmetered Telecommunications described their new line as "much more like
it."

The practice - common in the early days of the internet - of councils
offering service information on the web through portals run by private
companies rather than their own sites  was hotly debated in a feature that
pitched Michael Mulquin, Director of IS Communications head-to- head with
chief executive of TownPages Stephen Hall, whose company had joined forces
with councils to provide public kiosk and web services.

"The quality of these sites is variable," Mulquin said. "And sometimes
several sites serve the same locality, so there is a strong case for
developing a national template system". He also said the investment would be
better spent in community projects to build the skills and confidence of
people who lack access to a computer.

Hall, meanwhile, said the private-sector-led portal was a "revolutionary way
to reach out to their customers and tax payers, and help meet government
targets for Best Value and open government."
He described it as a "winning combination for all concerned" where councils
can reach out to the widest community.

[Section Four ends].


++END NOTES.

+HOW TO RECEIVE E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN.

To subscribe to this free fortnightly bulletin as an HTML attachment
email:
[log in to unmask]
or for the plain text version email:
[log in to unmask] .

To unsubscribe from the HTML version email:
[log in to unmask]
and to unsubscribe from the text version email:
[log in to unmask] .

For further information on subscription, including how to subscribe or
unsubscribe from an alternative email address and how to find out if a
particular address is subscribed, see:
http://www.headstar.com/egb/subs.html .


+TEN STANDARD: This newsletter conforms to the accessible Text
Email Newsletter (TEN) Standard, developed by our sister newsletter E-Access
Bulletin. For details see:
http://www.headstar.com/ten .


+COPYRIGHT NOTICE.
- Copyright 2005 Headstar Ltd.
Regular circulation or reproduction of the bulletin by third parties is
forbidden. Properly accredited articles (always including source details,
bulletin subscription details and web address) or entire single issues of
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