Please find below the latest e-government bulletin
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Phil
From: Dan Jellinek [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, 4 February 2006 2:39 a.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: E-Government Bulletin, 03 February 06 - Parish councils; Online consultation; E-procurement.
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+++E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN
- ISSUE 204, 03 February 2006.
- Incorporating Future Democracy Bulletin.
IN THIS ISSUE - Parish councils; Online consultation;
E-procurement.
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++Special Notice: GIS In the Public Sector
- An EGB Seminar, 8 March 2006
- Places Limited, Sign Up Today
- Royal Institute of British Architects, London.
A huge proportion of public sector service data includes an address or
location element, and electronic mapping underpins many modern web
and intranet services. Our second annual GIS conference covers what
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[Special Notice ends].
++Contents - E-Government Bulletin Issue 204.
Section One: News.
01: Parishes And Community Groups Enter The Directgov Fold
- Lowest tier of local government to join national web portal.
02: Politicians 'Cynical' About Electronic Consultation
- Senior Scottish politician talks to E-Government Bulletin.
03: Virtual Worlds 'Emerging As Tool For Democracy'
- Videogames may offer way of connecting with young people.
04: Open Public Access For Online British Coastal Mapping
- Interactive site is innovative environmental resource.
News in Brief: 05: Local Phase - more services join national portal;
06: Shared Benefits - e-democracy guide; 07: Paper Chase - Spanish
strategy unveiled.
Section Two: Focus - Parish and Town Councils.
08: By The People For The People: The lowest tier of local
government has been largely neglected in e-government strategy to
date, reports Derek Parkinson. But now parish, town and community
councils are to be welcomed into the fold.
Section Three: Ask an Expert - Colin Whitehouse on E-Procurement.
09: Collaboration Is The Future: The chair of the national e-
procurement project offers his thoughts on the future of electronic
marketplaces, e-auctions and shared services.
Section Four: The E-Government Bulletin Vaults - From Our Archive,
February 2000.
10: Early Parliamentary Online Consultation Trial A Success: This
time six years ago we reported on a first venture into online
consultation by a Parliamentary agency that was largely successful but
detected some potential pitfalls as well.
[Contents ends].
++Special Notice: Email Management '06
Best Practice and Compliance in the Public Sector
12 April 2006, CBI Conference Centre, London
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With concerns about information law compliance and an urgent need
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[Special Notice ends].
++Section One: News.
+01: Parishes And Community Groups Enter The Directgov Fold.
A programme to link the lowest tier of local government - parish and
town councils - and grassroots community and neighbourhood
organisations to the Directgov online portal for public services is to be
launched in March, E-Government Bulletin has learned.
The initiative from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister ( ODPM -
http://www.odpm.gov.uk/index.asp?id=42 )
will include the release of a "web site in a box" product based on open
source technology developed by the Local Authority Websites national
project ( LAWS -
http://www.aplaws.org.uk/ ).
It will also include guidance on how to build and market online
services.
"This is important because it's about joining up the whole of the public
sector," Anna Tan, ODPM's director for the Home and Community
Franchise, told E-Government Bulletin. "Imagine your elderly mum
lived in Hackney, for example. Wouldn't it be great if you could go to
Directgov and find information about health centres and organisations
like Age Concern, as well as neighbourhood centres and contact details
for councillors?"
According to Tan, local government will be expected to take a leading
role in promoting the services to parish councils in their areas. To
support this effort, ODPM will provide guidance materials covering
the technology, the business case for using it, and how parish councils
can market online services effectively. Grassroots organisations that
already have a web site will not be under pressure to change suppliers
because ODPM has developed middleware that will join third-party
technology to Directgov
( http://www.direct.gov.uk/Homepage/fs/en ),
said Tan.
There are around 10,000 parish, town and community councils in
England and Wales, but only between 10 and 20 per cent of them
currently have any kind of web site, according to government
estimates.
NOTE: For more on wiring up the lowest tier of local government see
'By The People, For The People,' Section Two, this issue.
+02: Politicians 'Cynical' About Electronic Consultation.
Parliamentarians across Europe remain unconvinced about the efficacy
of electronic consultation, one of Scotland's most senior politicians has
told E-Government Bulletin.
"We are constantly re-emphasising that consultation works," said
George Reid, the Scottish Parliament's Presiding Officer, the
equivalent of the Speaker of the House of Commons. "But there's a lot
of cynicism that it doesn't work. Many members of Parliaments have
the attitude that they don't want the public putting their nose in."
Speaking after addressing this week's Government Leaders Forum
hosted in Lisbon by Microsoft, Reid said some parliamentary members
have a "box-ticking" mentality when it comes to online consultation
with the public. He said the key to success is for parliaments to
produce structured online participation spaces, and not to push for
legislation too quickly to allow more time for consultation. "Then you
get [online] networks within the community - and 'citizen to citizen' is
more powerful than 'government to citizen,'" he said.
Reid said campaigns such as Make Poverty History have proven that
people are willing to participate in political issues. "Politics is alive
but
it is no longer connected to parties and classic institutional structures.
The old certainties are gone."
The Scottish Parliament has a reputation as an e-democracy pioneer,
embracing electronic petitioning from citizens and webcasting all its
meetings. Last November it won an 'E-government good practice'
award at the e-government ministerial conference in Manchester
hosted by the UK presidency of the EU.
+03: Virtual Worlds 'Emerging as Tool for Democracy'.
Virtual online worlds and videogames could play a key part in
engaging young people and others in the democratic process, a
discussion meeting hosted by the New Statesman magazine heard this
week.
Jo Twist, newly-appointed head of the digital society and media
programme at the Institute of Public Policy Research, said virtual
worlds and online games are "emerging as very graphically-rich places
where younger people - future voters and citizens - are spending a lot
of their time. They are giving up time watching TV and looking at
other media to play games."
With so many people engaged in these environments - 26.5 million in
the UK alone - there are major emerging opportunities to develop
educational or democratic spaces within them, Twist said.
"Gaming has been used as a tool for education and policy: the History
Channel used [the game] Brothers in Arms to help educate people
about World War II," she said. And during the last presidential election
race in the US, political campaign offices were set up within the virtual
world 'Second Life'
(http://secondlife.com/),
home to more than 100,000 virtual residents or 'avatars' controlled by
real people. "It has also been used as a base for government research,
and academic lectures have taken place there."
When one delegate objected that most young people play games purely
to have fun and shoot things, Twist said modern gaming was far more
sophisticated than many realised. Virtual worlds were entered by real
people with real social issues that could be played out online, she said.
Real money could even be raised in a virtual world, with a campaign in
Second Life for hurricane Katrina victims raising thousands of dollars.
After the meeting Twist told E-Government Bulletin she intends to
initiate research into e-democracy and gaming at the IPPR. In the
meantime, the leading work in this field is being carried out in a
project run by New York Law School entitled 'Democracy Island,' a
three-dimensional virtual democratic space.
(http://dotank.nyls.edu/DemocracyIsland.html ).
+04: Open Public Access for Online British Coastal Mapping.
An interactive web site that draws together maps and wildlife data
covering the entire coastline of Great Britain for the first time has been
launched by a government consortium.
Aimed partly at organisations responsible for tackling marine
pollution, the Coastal and Marine Resource Atlas (CAMRA -
http://www.magic.gov.uk/camra.html )
provides a comprehensive source of information for government and
industry bodies to plan their responses to incidents like oil spills. The
service is also freely available to the public, with all the maps, tools
and data designed to be accessible through a standard web browser.
As well as detailed interactive maps for the whole British coastline,
CAMRA provides information to serve a wide range of commercial
and environmental interests including the breeding grounds of various
animals and areas where fishing is and is not permitted. The three-year
project, which cost 211,000 pounds, is led by the Maritime and
Coastguard Agency
( MCA - http://www.mcga.gov.uk/c4mca/mcga-home )
and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
( Defra - http://www.defra.gov.uk/ ),
along with local government partners including Kent, Essex, and
Hampshire County Councils.
The atlas is hosted by Multi-Agency Geographic Information for the
Countryside
( MAGIC - http://www.magic.gov.uk ),
a collaboration between eight government agencies responsible for
policy in rural areas. MAGIC has seen a rapid growth in demand for its
services, with usage between November 2004 and April 2005 more
than doubling, causing the system to crash on numerous occasions
according to an internal report
( http://fastlink.headstar.com/magic1 ).
However a Defra spokesperson told E-Government Bulletin the
department could not comment on whether such problems might affect
the new coastal service.
News in Brief:
+05: Local Phase: More local services are to be made available
through the Directgov national public sector web portal with the launch
of 'Phase 2' of the programme to join up local government web sites to
the system. Councils have been asked to provide information about
their online services to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister by 17
March:
http://www.local-egov.gov.uk/en/1/1137509988732.html.
+06: Shared Benefits: A guide to the benefits of local e-democracy to
councils and citizens has been released by the Local E-Democracy
national project. The benefits from using online channels include
improved citizen participation in consultations, cost savings and help
with meeting e-government targets:
http://www.e-democracy.gov.uk/ .
+07: Paper Chase: Spain has unveiled MODERNIZA, a plan for e-
government that will run from 2006 to 2008. The plan includes the
introduction of electronic ID cards and a right for Spanish citizens to
carry out electronic transactions with the government. Taken together
the measures are expected to eliminate more than 20 million paper
documents over the next three years:
http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/5265/194 .
[Section One ends.]
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[Sponsored Notice ends]
++Section Two: Focus
- Parish and Town Councils.
+08: By The People For The People
by Derek Parkinson.
Until recently, talk about modernising the public sector has only rarely
mentioned one entire tier of local government: parish and town
councils. Yet these bodies, along with community councils in Scotland
and Wales, sit closer to the communities they serve than any other part
of government.
Parish, town and community councils - which number around 10,000
in England and Wales and a further 1,200 in Scotland - can trace their
history back to the middle ages, when their role was to manage
community life on behalf of powerful landowners such as feudal lords
and the church. The split from the church was completed in 1894, and
their powers and responsibilities have since been shaped by numerous
pieces of legislation. The bodies are made up of councillors serving
four-year terms and receive no grant from central government, raising
revenues from local taxes known as "precepts" that are usually bundled
with council tax charges.
Differing only in ceremonial details, town and parish councils have the
same potential responsibilities as each other, although the precise mix
of powers varies from place to place according to size, budget and
whether other tiers of local government choose to delegate powers to
them.
All town and parish councils are statutory consultees for planning
decisions, for example, but a larger parish such as Boxley in Kent
( http://www.boxleyparishcouncil.co.uk/ )
is responsible for bus shelters, council offices, open spaces, various
seats and bins, a war memorial, village signs, a burial ground and 10
notice boards.
A small number of forward-looking parish councils have already
moved online, either by building their own web sites, or using
commercial suppliers. According to government estimates, somewhere
between 10 and 20 per cent of parish councils have some kind of web
presence, although in many cases this is no more than a static home
page.
That is set to change in March 2006, when the Office of the Deputy
Prime Minister
( ODPM - http://www.odpm.gov.uk/ )
launches an initiative to join parish councils to the UK's central public
sector portal, 'Directgov'
( http://www.direct.gov.uk ).
Using technology developed for the Local Authority Websites national
project
( http://www.localegovnp.org.uk/laws ),
ODPM will unveil a low-cost 'web site in a box' product, that is
designed to be easily adapted to the needs of parish councils, urban
neighbourhoods, and communities of interest. The product will include
tools for publishing content on web sites and email lists, hosting online
discussions, and polling and fundraising.
County, borough, district and unitary councils will be encouraged to
take the lead in promoting the technology to parish councils in their
areas. To support this effort, ODPM will provide guidance materials
covering the technology, the business case for using it, and how parish
councils can market online services effectively. Those parishes that
already have a web site will not be under pressure to adopt ODPM's
in-house technology, said Anna Tan, Home and Community Franchise
director at Directgov. According to Tan, software is being developed
that can link these parishes to Directgov as seamlessly as any other
council. "People who have already got a web site will still be able to
belong," she told E-Government Bulletin.
Much of the research behind the initiative has been led by the East of
England Regional Assembly
( EERA - http://www.eera.gov.uk/ ).
Supported with around a third of a million pounds of e-innovations
funding, EERA was tasked with researching the size, resources and
level of activity of parish councils; their interest in and capacity for
delivering online services; and their roles, including those laid down by
statute, and those delegated by higher authorities. It even had to start
by finding out how many parish and town councils there are, since no
definitive national register is kept and more than 150 new parish and
town councils have come into being since 1997, when communities
were given the power to create new councils (see
http://www.createacouncil.org.uk ).
"Some of the largest cover populations of around 50,000 people and
are very active," Tim Anderson, e-service officer for Norfolk County
Council, told E-Government Bulletin. At the other end of the scale, the
opposite is often true, he says. "Some of the very small parishes can be
no more than about 60 to 70 people, with very little activity."
In many cases, a parish council will be made up of elderly members of
the community, many of whom have little interest in or exposure to the
technology. In these cases, the process of getting the council online
will involve tackling another priority for the e-government agenda.
"You could see this as a 'digital divide' issue," says Anderson.
Wiring up the parishes will draw on work such as Community Heritage
Store
( http://www.localchs.co.uk ),
an award-winning government-funded project to capture and store
local cultural information in all media run by the borough councils of
King's Lynn and West Norfolk, he says. The Community Heritage
Stores project suggested that local history and genealogy can be a
powerful incentive for older people to get online, and this interest
dovetails neatly with much of the work of parish councils.
Another obvious attraction for local authorities to link up with parishes
is effective consultation, says Anderson. "Parish councils can get a
higher percentage of responses - sometimes as high as 80 to 85 per
cent - to consultations on planning," Anderson told E-Government
Bulletin. By helping parishes online, larger local authorities can be
more effective in their consultations, as well as driving more traffic to
their own web sites, says Anderson. "Most local authorities now have
their planning applications online, for example. Parishes can help
direct people to local authority resources," he says.
While local authorities may be receptive to this message, it is likely
that some parish councils will be slow to see the benefits of having a
presence on the web. "Part of the work for EERA involved asking why
a parish council would want to get online," says Anderson. "One
obvious reason is the growing trend for most people to work outside
the area they live in. For a parish council, having a web site could
improve communication with residents, and also increase efficiency."
[Section Two ends].
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++Section Three: Ask an Expert
- Colin Whitehouse on E-Procurement.
+09: Collaboration Is The Future.
In our 6 January issue, we invited readers to put questions on any
issues related to e-procurement to Colin Whitehouse, chair of the
National e-Procurement Project (NePP -
http://www.nepp.org.uk).
Below, Colin dispenses his wisdom on topics ranging from e-auctions
to the wider European e-procurement picture.
Q: If e-auctions are so good at saving money, why aren't more councils
conducting them?
A: Councils are very keen to use e-auctions to help their efficiency
drive. Unfortunately many are still in the process of assessing their
spend in areas which might be suitable and others have found that their
spend is not large enough for e-auctions to be worthwhile. The latter
are sensibly looking to procure in collaboration with others and are
starting to share their procurement information. NePP is working with
Regional Centres of Excellence and the Office of Government
Commerce (OGC) to deliver a programme of e-auctions which will
result in contracts which will be available for everyone to use.
Q: How should a council judge an electronic marketplace before
joining it?
A: As with any e-procurement technology, consideration must be given
to what the local authority wants to gain from joining a marketplace
before it decides whether the options can offer this. NePP are about to
launch - through the Regional Centres of Excellence - a model for the
creation and development of business cases particularly suited to
groups of local authorities looking to implement e-procurement
together.
Q: Is it now too late for new e-procurement suppliers to enter the UK
market?
A: I think it would be extremely difficult for any newcomers as the
major service providers are well established. Experience teaches us
that most software-based markets hit a point where there is a shake-
out, leaving a smaller number of larger providers. There is some
evidence that we're quickly approaching that point and that is
something that needs to be addressed by councils as part of their risk
management strategy.
Q: Are any councils going to face penalties for not introducing e-
procurement?
A: The introduction of e-procurement is a mandatory target specified
by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) in its National
Procurement Strategy and Priority Service Outcomes and so will be
measured by the Audit Commission as part of councils' Continuous
Performance Assessment (CPA) processes. The penalties there are
clear. Additionally it's difficult to see how a council will achieve its
cashable efficiency targets without e-procurement, and that could lead
to further penalties.
Q: Where do you see the growth areas for e-procurement in 2006?
A: The biggest growth area will be in collaborative procurement of
goods and services and in sharing costs of technology. I think we're on
the verge of making huge savings through collaborative e-auctions and
e-tendering in particular. If I was a betting man I'd also wager on
growth in better procurement in vertical markets such as construction
and social care. Different regions will also have other priorities such as
engagement with small businesses.
Q: Beyond local government, how are other parts of the public sector
such as schools and universities progressing with e-procurement?
A: NePP is working with the Department for Education and Skills'
Centre for Procurement Performance, which is tasked with making
savings in education. We're adapting some of our guidance for the
education market. Uptake of e-procurement is patchy both between and
within central government departments. The ongoing Efficiency
Review applies to the whole of government, not just councils, so we're
hoping that much of our work can be reused rather than be reinvented.
The collaboration angle is important here too. The Cabinet Office's
new Transformational Government strategy sensibly guides us to
examine the provision of shared services across the whole of the public
sector.
Q: Are European local councils doing better or worse than their
English counterparts?
A: As you might imagine, the situation varies greatly. Local councils in
different member states have many different structures, as do the local
economies which underpin them. Those seen as most successful in this
field, such as those in Denmark, have introduced a measure of
legislative compulsion to ensure compliance. It will be interesting to
see if the lessons learned there are applicable to the UK. The recent EU
Ministerial Conference held in Manchester produced a declaration that
included target savings of 5 per cent of EU spend from e-procurement
and NePP is actively engaged in how best practice can be shared by
member states.
Q: What does the future hold for NePP?
A: We're negotiating with ODPM at the moment. Our intention is to
continue to deliver new practical guidance in emerging areas and to
deliver hands-on guidance in conjunction with the Regional Centres of
Excellence and OGC. There's a long way to go yet before every
council can call their procurement efficient.
[Section Three ends].
++Special Notice: Place Your Advertisement Here
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E-Government Bulletin is the logical choice for advertising any
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++Special Notice: E-Government Bulletin Online Archives
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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
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The archives extend back to February 1999, representing over six
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To access this fabulous research resource, you will need to pay an
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[Special Notice ends].
++Section Four: The E-Government Bulletin Vaults
- From Our Archive, February 2000.
+10: Early Parliamentary Online Consultation Trial A Success.
In our February issue of six years ago, we reported on the success of
one of the first ever online public consultations by a Parliamentary
agency.
The experiment by the Parliamentary Office of Science and
Technology (POST) in collaboration with the Hansard Society and the
Women in Higher Education Register, used moderated email lists to
debate the subject of women in science, engineering and technology
over a period of four weeks. Topics examined included the education
system for young women; career paths; gender imbalance in the culture
of science and technology; and policy proposals.
A report on the trial found online consultation was "a useful method of
encouraging wider and more interactive participation than is usually
possible in select committee enquiries." However the exercise was not
without its problems. Academia was disproportionately represented in
the debate, the report found, and younger people were under-
represented. Moderators had to move once to bar an unruly individual
from the lists, and a number of contributors had to be asked to shorten
their messages when they exceeded the target limit of around 500
words.
In the same issue, we reported that a lack of understanding among
councillors and local government officers of new technologies and the
unique economic development opportunities they create could
jeopardise communities' ability to transform their local economy,
according to research by social technology consultancy
ISCommunications
"Failure to ensure that citizens have access to a fast broadband
telecommunications network and the complex data that flows up and
down it, ensuring jobs as well as completed tax forms, will result in
severe social exclusion for many generations," said the report, which
was endorsed by the Local Government Association and the Local
Government Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA).
"Telecommunications are the new roads and it is vital that councillors
and senior managers ensure those roads lead to their area - not bypass
it". Councillors and managers must use the technology themselves or
they will never grasp its potential to achieve the council's business
objectives, and hence provide the required leadership, the report found.
It is still available as an Adobe Acrobat pdf file at:
http://www.iscommunications.co.uk/media/Report.pdf .
NOTE: The E-Government Bulletin archives are available in full
online, in a searchable database accessible to subscribers for a small
annual fee. Rates begin at just 45 pounds a year for individuals and 195
pounds a year for unlimited access by staff at a single public sector
body. For more information please email David Clark on:
[log in to unmask] .
[Section Four ends].
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++END NOTES.
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