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[Issue starts]
E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN
The Email Newsletter On Electronic Government,
UK And Worldwide.
ISSUE 96, FEBRUARY 2001
IN THIS ISSUE:
Section One: News
-Low initial take-up for Bracknell experiment; Acting e-Envoy
becomes permanent; More cash for Crown Court modernisation;
Renewed commitment to electronic patient records; Transactions to
come through Gateway; G8 opens up 'digital divide' debate; News
round-up: New guidelines, Peg launch, Fit to drive, e = mc squared
Section Two: Analysis
- Wales Information Society
Section Three: Reader response
- Email management
Section Four: Security
- Virus protection
[End of contents]
SECTION ONE: NEWS
LOW INITIAL TAKE-UP FOR BRACKNELL EXPERIMENT
Public trials of an 'integrated services portal' run by Bracknell Forest
Council in partnership with software firms Novell and Metastorm have
failed to meet initial take-up estimates, the council says.
The portal allows participating residents secure access to services such
as council tax payment and planning applications online. Access is via
the Internet or special kiosks using a system of smart cards holding
digital signatures.
The pilot project started in June 2000 and the current stage of public
testing is working towards a planned full release in April 2001.
Nick Harding, IT services manager for Bracknell Forest Borough
Council, admitted traffic figures for the portal had not met
expectations in its first month of operation. But he said the service's
popularity was likely to gain a boost from an advertising campaign in
its next council tax mail-shot.
The low response to the trial came despite a unusually high level of
publicity for the portal's January launch. A major press campaign by
Novell gained extensive national coverage.
Harding said the council was not paying high fees to Novell to license
its software, and the company was hosting the web site for no initial
charge. The precise financial arrangement was being kept confidential
at Novell's request, he said. Metastorm said the trial was a "loss-
leader" for the company, to test their systems and help obtain future
business, but said the council will be expected to pay some licence
fees.
Harding said the council would consider accepting advertising on the
service to help fun it, but recognised this opened an ethical "can of
worms". One likely source of advertising would be sponsorship of the
smart-cards. See:
http://www.bracknell-forest.gov.uk/
ACTING E-ENVOY BECOMES PERMANENT
To the surprise of most observers, the former Inland Revenue,
Prudential and Citibank man Andrew Pinder has been confirmed as the
UK government's second 'e-Envoy' - charged with driving forward e-
government and e-commerce in the UK.
Pinder has been acting e-Envoy since October last year, following the
departure of the first post-holder, Alex Allan. His ability is not
doubted - the surprise stems from the fact that a lengthy and expensive
recruitment process has ended up appointing the incumbent.
Around 100 other candidates are said to have applied, with the Prime
Minister thought to favour a high-profile businessperson. However,
few candidates displayed the right range of experience.
As the process dragged on, there was widespread speculation that no
appointment would be made this side of a general election, and that the
e-Envoy's office might be dissolved as part of a major departmental
restructure early in a second Labour term.
The role would therefore appear to be safe for the time being, although
Pinder, like most Cabinet Office staff, has been appointed on a short-
term contract.
As E-envoy Pinder is charged with ensuring the government meets is
target of making sure there is electronic access to all government
services by 2005. His office announced last month the interim target of
making 25 per cent of services available electronically by 2002 has
already been exceed a year early, with some 40 per cent of services
online. See:
http://www.e-envoy.gov.uk/
MORE CASH FOR CROWN COURT MODERNISATION
The presentation of electronic evidence in court has moved a step
closer with the announcement of a 62 million UK pound investment by
the Lord Chancellor's Department to modernise the Crown Court
system. The money is to be spent over the next three years, in addition
to 32 million already announced.
The 93 Crown Courts in England and Wales hear criminal jury trials
and magistrates' court appeals. They currently cost around 100 million
pounds a year to run.
Ian Magee, chief executive of the Courts Service, said the installation
of technology to allow advocates to present electronic evidence could
lead to shorter trials, particularly in cases where crimes are themselves
committed online.
The Lord Chancellor's Department (http://www.open.gov.uk/lcd/) said
the programme would place all Crown Court schedules and records
online. Some of this information will be made available to court users
through terminals in court buildings and over the Internet.
The court administration system will also be connected to that of other
criminal justice agencies such as the police and the prison service. The
new 'joined-up' system would allow prisons to make provision for
new inmates from the moment they are convicted, and judges to run
police checks on potential jury members.
RENEWED COMMITMENT TO ELECTRONIC PATIENT
RECORDS
The Department of Health this week restated its commitment to
provide everyone in the UK with an electronic health record by March
2005. The records will hold data about patients including registered
GP, ongoing conditions, and allergies. Pilot studies are underway to
test patient access to their records online or using smart cards at NHS
information points.
The records form part of a strategy backed by 500 million UK pounds
of extra funding for NHS technology over the next three years. The
total planned investment is 700 million pounds.
Other parts of the strategy - first launched in the 1998 'Information for
health' plan and now updated in a new document, 'Building the
information core' - include Internet and intranet access for all clinical
staff by 2002; and a move to the 'SMTP' standard for email instead of
the old 'X400' system.
However, a further part of the plan, a national system to allow GPs to
book hospital appointment for their patients, came under fire this week
when an investigation by the magazine Computer Weekly warned
over-centralisation of the system could waste up to 140 million
pounds.
'Building the information core: implementing the NHS plan' is at:
http://www.doh.gov.uk/nhsexipu/strategy/overview/
TRANSACTIONS TO COME THROUGH GATEWAY
Three government departments - Customs and Excise, the Ministry of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and Inland Revenue - are poised to
launch online transaction services using a new standard public user
identification system.
The announcement is one of the first outwards signs of progress in the
Cabinet Office's 'Government Gateway' project, which aims to
integrate a range of legacy software systems across government.
The Customs and Excise system already allows users to submit VAT
receipts while MAFF's allows users to apply for certain European
Common Agricultural Policy grants. The Inland Revenue service - due
to go live in March - will handle PAYE year-end tax returns. See:
http://www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/2001/news/010207_internet.htm
G8 OPENS UP 'DIGITAL DIVIDE' DEBATE
The G8 group of industrialised nations has launched a global
consultation process called 'Public Voice' to promote public
participation in addressing the global 'digital divide'.
'Public Voice' feeds into the G8's ongoing 'Digital Opportunity Task
Force' (http:/www.dotforce.org - see EGB July 2000), established by
the G8 leaders last year with members from the public, private and
not-for-profit sectors.
Creative responses from all people regardless of age, occupation or IT
proficiency, particularly from the developing world, are encouraged by
15 February. See:
http://www.thepublicvoice.org/dotforce/comment.html
A widening global digital divide is highlighted in the International
Labour Organization's 'World employment report 2001', which finds
that nearly 90 per cent of all Internet users are in industrialised
countries.
The international trade regime must be sensitive to policies that
encourage growth of technology in the developing world, the report
says. See:
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/support/publ/wer/index2.htm
Finally, the Global Knowledge for Development Forum initiated by
the World Bank with the Education Development Center has launched
a draft final-report for consultation at:
http://www.edc.org/GLG/GDGreport/
Comments are welcomed by 21 February to: [log in to unmask]
NEWS ROUND-UP:
NEW GUIDELINES: Version two of the Cabinet Ofice's guidelines
for UK government web sites will be released later this month. A draft
is currently being circulated among government webmasters for
consultation. Version 1.0 of the guidelines is at:
http://www.e-envoy.gov.uk/egovernment/iagc/guidelines.htm
PEG LAUNCH: The 'Promoting Electronic Government' (PEG)
project, a central-local government collaboration to help local
authorities implement e-government services, is to hold a formal
launch event in Birmingham on 21-22 March. The project has just
completed a series of regional seminars- speakers' presentations from
these events and details of the launch are at:
http://www.eipdg.org
FIT TO DRIVE: Up to a third of UK local authorities plan to use the
'European Computer Driving Licence' (ECDL) within the next year to
train staff in basic computer skills, according to a new report from the
local government IT society SOCITM. The licence scheme originated
in Denmark and was launched in the UK in 1998. For more
information see the British Computer Society's ECDL site at
http://www.ecdl.co.uk/ and the European site at:
http://www.ecdl.com/. The SOCITM report is available from:
http://www.socitm.gov.uk/
E = MC SQUARED: Accessibility, social inclusion and working
partnerships are among topics to be debated at an e-government
conference hosted jointly by the Improvement and Development
Agency for Local Government (IDeA) and the Local Government
Association. 'e=mc2 - managing change together' takes place in
Sheffield on 21-22 February 2001. See: http://www.idea-
infoage.gov.uk
[Section One ends]
SECTION TWO: ANALYSIS
- WALES INFORMATION SOCIETY
SILICON VALLEYS
"I had a very interesting visit today to Llarofti, Wales's first
'Information age town'. The initiative has only been running for 12
months, but I was staggered at the progress they've made.
"Almost 85 per cent of the households have taken up the offer to have
a subsidised PC and all associated hardware installed, which is
excellent news, as the participants have to undergo basic training and
gain a proficiency certificate before they are eligible. This means that
they are able to exploit the opportunities available right from the start.
All schools, libraries and community centres in the town are fully
interconnected."
The above is taken from a 'Cyberdiary' entry marked 22 October 2003
- a voice from the future created by Wales Information Society, an
initiative to raise awareness of the social and economic benefits of
technology supported by the Welsh Development Agency.
Wishful thinking? Perhaps not. According to research carried out in
November 2000 by pollsters MORI (http://www.mori.com) on behalf
of the online financial services company Egg, Wales is already more
wired up than the rest of the UK. Some 43 per cent of Welsh people
use a home computer, nine per cent more than in the next most
connected region of the UK, the South of England.
If this picture is accurate, Wales Information Society (WIS) should
surely take a fair amount of credit.
Since E-Government Bulletin first profiled the project's aims back in
February 1998, it has continued to develop its consensus-based
'Information society strategy and action plan'. The plan focuses on
four main themes: transforming the competitiveness of Welsh
business; the effectiveness of public services; the skill base; and the
quality of life of the people in Wales.
Under these themes WIS has some 40 initiatives or pilot projects
underway involving funds of over 12 million UK Pounds.
WIS Project Manager Ken Howard says: "Over 5,000 individuals and
organisations were consulted in developing the plan with the central
theme of making effective use of information technologies to
transform the economic and social prosperity of Wales."
According to Howard the projects having the biggest impact on the
region include 'Wales smE-Business', "the largest business technology
support programme ever undertaken in Wales" involving more than
100 external consultants working with more than 400 small businesses.
Other major components of the project include the innovative schools
initiative 'Science in Space' (http://www.isset.org/); 'Computers for
Young Enterprise' providing computers to secondary and special
needs schools; and 'Llwybr Strand 6', a six million Pound programme
bringing broadband telecommunications to key areas of rural Wales. A
further pilot scheme with the Institute for Rural Health is testing
'telemedicine' schemes.
Howard says WIS has been successful in "raising awareness of the
need to move away from the previous approach to technology project
development, which was characterised by a plethora of small-scale,
short-term, unsustainable pilot projects, towards large-scale, co-
ordinated, partnership-based programmes, which can make a real
impact." It has achieved all this against an infrastructure of relatively
high unemployment and low skill levels, below average education and
health standards and "too many poorly performing small companies".
The initiative has not been without its problems, however, and others
loom on the horizon.
"Making key decision-makers aware of the benefits of information
technology is a major difficulty. It is also difficult to convince owners
of small businesses that they should invest in the technology to help
make their businesses more competitive. Our future plans to address
this include a major awareness campaign using a mobile training
vehicle."
Finding corporate partners is also a problem, Howard says. "It has
been difficult to engage the private sector in project partnerships,
mainly because of the lack of indigenous large Welsh companies.
Most programmes are funded predominantly by public sector
organisations. We would be keen to develop further links with
multinationals such as Microsoft, IBM and Sun."
Perhaps more worrying are the difficulties the initiative has
experienced in forming partnerships with other public sector bodies.
"There is a reluctance to share experiences, particularly among public
and education sector organisations," Howard says. "Organisations are
scared of their ideas for new projects being stolen. Winning funding is
a highly competitive process."
Funding, indeed, is the thorniest problem of all for WIS.
"Reliance on EU funding and ensuring sustainability of the project has
been a major issue which has taken a great deal of time and effort to
tackle. The board of the Welsh Development Agency has agreed to
commit several million pounds over the last two years to programmes
initiated by WIS. However, the WDA's internal procedures are such
that the WIS team can only be appointed while EU funds are being
received. The EU Regional Information Society Initiative (RISI)
programme will come to an end in 2001, and this is causing major
concern. Discussions are under way to try and find a solution."
Howard is confident that further funding will be secured via a
combination of WDA investment and EU Structural Funds. "People
here are worried about their futures but I'm sure the WDA will find a
way to keep the concept going.
"We have raised the profile of Wales within Europe - the European
Commission regards WIS as an exemplar project and has
recommended that other regions should visit Wales to see what we
have achieved."
The Wales Information Society web site - including the full
'Cyberdiary 2003' - is at:
http://www.wis.org.uk/english/
[Section Two ends]
SECTION THREE - READER RESPONSE
- EMAIL MANAGEMENT
* In our last issue, two readers responded to a December article by
Kevin Carey examining potential email overload and email
management by public bodies. The issue seems to have struck a chord
with many of you, as the responses continued to arrive, including ones
from Professor Margaret Cox and Ian Bailey which we reproduce
below.
If anyone else would like to contribute to this debate, please email the
editor Dan Jellinek on: [log in to unmask]
RESPONSE ONE: NEW MEDIA, NEW INEFFICIENCIES?
* by Margaret Cox, professor of information technology in education
at King's College London and honorary president of the Association of
ICT in Education.
The responses to Kevin Carey's article about email overload (EGB,
January 2001), although useful, did not address some of the more
fundamental problems regarding email in the workplace.
Before email, the number of communications within an organisation
relating to collaborative work was limited largely by the practical
limits imposed by traditional communication media such as letters,
phones and faxes.
But the introduction of email has removed these restrictions and, by
doing so, threatens to create inefficiencies of its own. Research has
shown people can generally only interact frequently with up to six
colleagues a day in the workplace and less frequently with a larger
number, but email traffic now regularly exceeds these limits, causing
problems with continuity of workplace communications and setting
priorities.
Email has also had a detrimental effect on established working
practices. There are six main problem areas, as follows:
1: DESKILLING OF THE WORK FORCE
Trivial and simple operations previously undertaken by a junior office
worker are now being performed by highly-paid senior staff. For
example it is now common for a senior executive to read all their
incoming messages themselves and print out the ones that interest
them.
2: OVER-DUPLICATION OF MESSAGES
Email is now being used to copy a large number of messages
unnecessarily to more people 'for their information', which generates
still more cross-traffic within an organisation.
3: SELF-PERPETUATING AUTOMATIC REPLIES
Automatically-generated replies to messages can trigger a never-
ending communication between email accounts, which can cause
network problems.
4: RAPID RATE OF REPLY
Some people reply to emails in a minute rather than perhaps in a week
by snail mail. This has the effect of increasing the volume of messages
compared with paper-based letters 100-fold, or more in some cases.
5: INEFFICIENT COMMUNICATIONS
Senders are no longer constrained to compose efficient
communications. Letters containing several specific succinct points are
being replaced by as many as 10 emails from each correspondent.
6: EXTENDING THE WORKING COMMUNITY
Because contact details are often published on the Internet, people are
being emailed by complete strangers. Though the contact is usually
made for genuine reasons, the result is an overload of communicators.
My email address-book, for instance, now has more than 800 people
listed in it.
I entirely agree with the previous commentators regarding rethinking
the organisation, but what is also urgently needed is the retraining of
staff to recognise the uses and non-uses of email. To offset the
problems outlined above, I have identified five key solutions:
1: DELEGATING EMAIL TASKS
Secretaries and other support staff should handle incoming and
outgoing emails, as they have traditionally done with paper-based
correspondence.
2: RESTRICTING EMAIL COPIES TO ESSENTIAL RECIPIENTS
People should only send emails to essential recipients and not copy to
many others who only have a slight interest in the matter.
3: RESTRICTING ANSWERS TO ESSENTIALS
Emails should only be answered if they require a response; i.e. emails
should not be sent merely saying 'thank you for the message'.
4: DETERRING THE SENDERS
Systems should be set up to send an automatic reply saying 'mailbox
of recipient is full, please try phoning instead' to anyone who sends a
message to someone with a mail box which has more than 50
messages waiting to be read. This eliminates non-essential messages.
5: CHOOSING THE RIGHT MEDIUM
No large documents should be loaded on to the web. It is not desirable
to spend hours reading screens and printing out large documents many
times over because it is more wasteful and expensive than the
originator getting the item duplicated and sent by post.
RESPONSE TWO: CREATIVE SOLUTIONS
* by Ian Bailey, Head of Strategy and Consultancy, Hertfordshire
County Council.
Here at Hertfordshire County Council we feel fairly confident about
our infrastructure to handle public email contacts: our customer
service centre - operated by Capita - is equipped to handle email as
well as phone.
More worrying is the growing burden of internal email
correspondence, particularly on senior managers. My concern is not
that we are communicating too much, but that we don't do it
effectively.
It would be a shame to see a reaction against email, since too much
information is still better than too little. So how can we retain the
benefits of an easy, open flow of communication without flooding?
Do any readers have any success stories in the creative management of
personal email overload? Have any organisations developed
conventions to make emails volumes less daunting?
[Section Three ends]
SECTION FOUR: SECURITY
- VIRUS PROTECTION
BE WARY, BUT DON'T PANIC
The importance of protecting public sector computer networks from
viruses and other malicious software like 'Trojan horses' is clear: with
information about citizens and public services at risk, no organisation
can afford to take avoidable risks.
Unfortunately this lesson seems to take a long time to filter through:
last year several major public sector bodies were affected by the
widespread 'Love Bug' virus, with some systems such as the email
system of the Houses of Parliament forced to temporarily shut down.
To minimise risk, it is vital to follow 10 basic ground-rules: the golden
rules of virus protection. These rules should be widely circulated
within every organisation, with an exhortation for staff to learn them
and act on them all. They are:
1: KEEP ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE UP-TO-DATE
Most anti-virus scanners are only able to detect and delete viruses
found in their historical databases. So the more often you update the
database, the more protected your workplace is. A daily update is
probably sufficient, but when a virus is known to be on the loose it
would be just as well to set your anti-virus software to download
updates two to three times a day. Some anti-virus software is capable
of identifying and deleting unknown viruses, but even the best of them
boast a success rate of just 92 per cent.
2: NO SUCH THING AS A SAFE ATTACHMENT
Most people are wary of attachments sent by strangers, but few realise
attachments from friends and colleagues should be approached with
caution as well. One should remember that such messages could be the
spawn of a virus. Many infamous viruses like 'Melissa' copied
themselves to the email addresses in the address book of the infected
computer. It is also important to remember is that there is no such
thing as an 'absolutely safe' email attachment format. Even files with
apparently harmless and everyday extensions such as '.gif' (a common
image format) and '.txt' (for plain text files) could harbour a virus.
3: RESTRICT ACCESS TO YOUR COMPUTER
Ideally only you should be authorised to use your computer but, if this
is not the case, you should restrict the access available to others and
limit the operations they can perform. By limiting access to your
floppy discs, CDs, Internet and email facilities you can also reduce
risk.
4: DOWNLOAD SOFTWARE PATCHES REGULARLY
Some viruses exploit bugs or 'holes' in operating systems and software
applications. Though some anti-virus programs can protect you from
this it is advisable to visit software manufacturers' web sites to
download and install the latest 'patches' to repair these holes. It is
particularly advisable to do this with Windows and other Microsoft
products, as these are as popular among virus-writers as users.
5: FLOPPIES AND CDS CAN CONTAIN VIRUSES TOO
Though 85 per cent of IT infections come through email or the
Internet, it is important not to forget that they can be transported by
other means, so always scan floppy discs and CDs before using them
on your computer.
6: EVEN REPUTABLE DISTRIBUTORS POSE A RISK
Just because a product bears the name of a famous software or
hardware company there is no guarantee it is safe. Even Microsoft's
site once featured a Word document infected with a virus called
Concept. The same goes for licensed CDs.
7: COMBINE ANTI-VIRUS TECHNOLOGIES
There are several technologies that, if applied in combination with an
anti-virus scanner, can increase protection. The three most useful are
anti-virus monitors, integrity checkers and behavioural guards.
Anti-virus monitors automatically check every file before it is opened,
executed or installed; integrity checkers vet files, folders and disc
sectors for any modification which could be a virus; and behavioural
guards search for viruses not by recognising their code, but by their
actions.
8: MAKE A VIRUS-FREE START-UP DISC
Sometimes an infected computer cannot be restarted. This does not
mean that a virus has deleted data from your hard drive, it just means
your operating system cannot be loaded anymore. To solve this
problem, you should always keep a virus-free start-up floppy disk
containing an anti-virus start-up program suitable for your operating
system.
9: MAKE REGULAR BACK-UPS
It does not matter what caused your system to malfunction, the only
thing that matters is you may have lost many years of hard work. So it
is advisable to back-up your most valuable data on a disc, magnetic
tape, DVD or CD.
10: DON'T PANIC
Panic can often cause people to make hasty decisions which are more
dangerous than the virus itself. If you think your computer has fallen
prey to a virus you should immediately call in a professional, either
your network administrator at work or the vendor of your anti-virus
software if you are at home.
* Article by Denis Zenkin, head of corporate communications at
Kaspersky Lab, which is due to exhibit at Infosecurity 2001 in April.
See: http://www.infosec.co.uk
[Section Four ends]
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PERSONNEL:
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[Issue ends]
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