From: Phil Cain [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 4:57 PM
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Subject: E-Government Bulletin, May 2001
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[Issue starts]
E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN
The Email Newsletter On Electronic Government,
UK And Worldwide.
ISSUE 99, MAY 2001
IN THIS ISSUE:
Section One: News
As one portal shuts, another closes - information sites consolidate
Oxford to open Internet Institute - 15 million UK pounds invested
E-government targets cause confusion - according to new report
SPIN cities - SPIN/SOCITM name best council sites
Online politics site up for election - VoxPolitics.com launches
15 million UK pound procurement IDeA - Government backs <marketplace>
In brief: Webby nominees; KPMG survey; Mind the gap; SOCITM snapshot
Section Two: A fortnight in VoxPolitics
-Overview of e-democracy campaign
-
Section Three: Do you buy it?
-E-procurement analysis
Section Four: Email etiquette
-Best practice
[End of contents]
NEWS:
AS ONE PORTAL CLOSES, ANOTHER SHUTS
Two of the main current online gateways to government information, the
government-run `open.gov.uk` and 'ukstate.com' run by privatised official
publishers The Stationery Office, are about to be switched off.
On 1 July open.gov.uk will merge into the Cabinet Office's UKOnline portal
(http://www.ukonline.gov.uk). The site was created in 1994 by the then
government computer agency CCTA, which from April this year has been
subsumed into the Office of Government Commerce at the Treasury.
The service has been hugely popular, with several kinds of interactive index
to all kinds of public-sector information.
Though the relocation was described as a "planned transition" on the web
site, several open.gov.uk users have contacted E-Government Bulletin to
express concerns that the site could be downgraded.
The OGC said such worries were unnecessary because all of the site's
functionality will be maintained. But the Cabinet Office was rather more
cautious, saying that the precise practical details of the amalgamation of
open.gov.uk into UKOnline are still being discussed.
The OGC flagged up possible changes in a little-read document published
called 'The OGC alignment review' published in November 2000. The document
can be found in the publications section of the OGC site:
http://www.ogc.gov.uk
Meanwhile visitors to UKState.com, launched only last year in a fanfare of
publicity, will shortly be redirected to the Stationery Office's online
bookshop clicktso.com.
According to Julian Fagandini, the managing director of the Stationery
Office's enterprise division, the company has realised it cannot compete
with the government`s own service. But he says the Stationery Office has in
any case been involved with the UKOnline project since its inception through
a relationship with UKOnline contractor BT.
OXFORD TO OPEN INTERNET INSTITUTE
Oxford University has announced it had secured 15 million UK pounds to open
a Internet Institute researching the social aspects of the Internet from
October this year.
Among the sixteen topics to be considered by the Institute are e-democracy
and e-government. Others include the boundaries of the nation state and
privacy and security.
Two thirds of the seed corn money is to come from the Shirley Foundation,
which is custodian of funds worth 28.0 million pounds, with the rest coming
from the Higher Education Funding Council for England.
Future funding is expected to come in the form of research grants and
sponsorship from the private sector. But a spokesman said the long-term
plans of the institute would be up to a director, who is currently being
selected.
For a press release see:
http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/po/010504.htm
E-GOVERNMENT TARGETS `CAUSE CONFUSION4
Rapid change is needed to meet `ill-defined` 2005 e-government targets,
according to a new report from the New Local Government Network (NLGN), the
Local Government Improvement and Development Agency, and consultants
Accenture.
The report calls for clear leadership and the use of creative funding
options, such as public private partnerships, in the effort to meet existing
targets. But the targets themselves do not escape criticism.
Lord Filkin, one of the report's authors, said: "There seems to be
considerable confusion about what the 2005 targets mean. To simply e-enable
existing silos would achieve very little. The 2005 targets need to be made
meaningful by re-expressing them in terms of what they could mean to the
public."
SPIN CITIES
Four councils were yesterday selected from a shortlist of 18 as the best
council websites in each of the UK's four regions.
Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, Dundee City Council, Wrexham County
Borough Council and Newtownabbey Borough Council were named regional winners
in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland respectively.
The winners were announced at the Society of Public Information Network's
Electronic Public Information 2001 conference held in Birmingham yesterday.
The awards were sponsored by SPIN and the Society of IT Management (SOCITM),
were based on the findings of SOCITM/MAPIT's 'Better Connected? 2001' local
authority Web site survey (see E-Government Bulletin, Issue 97).
To see a press release visit:
http://www.spin.org.uk
ONLINE POLITICS SITE UP FOR ELECTION
VoxPolitics, an innovative new online campaign to encourage the growth of
e-democracy, went live last week.
There are four main elements of the campaign (http://www.voxpolitics.com):
the VoxPolitics Primer, which offers practical guidance on using the
Internet to garner votes in the upcoming UK General Election; the
VoxPolitics Manifesto stimulating debate on information age politics; news
and features about the online elements of the UK General Election and
perspectives from elsewhere; and a debating area.
Sponsors include Headstar, the publisher of E-Government Bulletin; The
Stationery Office; and the political think tanks the Social Market
Foundation, the Institute of Public Policy Research, and iSociety, an
initiative of the Industrial Society.
An overview of the VoxPolitics site is given in section two of this issue of
E-Government Bulletin.
15 MILLION UK POUND PROCUREMENT IDEA
The government is to invest 15 million UK pounds a year on a new local
authority procurement project, led by the Local Government Improvement and
Development Agency.
The project, christened the IDeA <marketplace>, aims to build and expand an
online shopping network for public servants to enable them to purchase
goods and services from all their existing suppliers throughout England and
Wales, online.
The scope of procurement transactions could range from placing simple
stationery orders to ordering contractors, building materials and IT
networks for schools.
The local government Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) has joined
forces with Hays and the Canadian electronic Information company, MacDonald
Dettwiler to develop the system.
27.5 billion pounds a year is spent by local authorities on goods and
services. IDeA hopes the new platform will "offer tax payers billions in
savings" through the new procurement scheme which is scheduled to go on line
in autumn this year.
Every minute council officers make orders worth 200,000 pounds. These
figures are hardly surprising since "buying a single hammer will set an
authority back a staggering #70 more in purchasing costs" according to Gary
Richardson IDeA's director of business development.
IN BRIEF:
WEBBY NOMINEES: Nominees in the new government category for this year's
Webby awards include yourcongress.com (http://www.yourcongress.com) and the
City of Sydney (http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au). Watch via live webcast
at www.webbyawards.com
KPMG SURVEY: KPMG's annual e-government survey undertaken by MORI reveals
that 62 per cent of people would now undertake a public service transaction.
See
http://www.kpmgconsulting.co.uk/kpmgsite/research/othermedia/ps_egov0401.pdf
MIND THE GAP: Accenture, the consultancy, has found that e-government
worldwide has a long way to go and that the UK is no more than a visionary
follower. See:
http://www.accenture.com/xdoc/en/industries/government/final.pdf
SOCITM SNAPSHOT: A snapshot of local e-government and development guidance
has been published by The Society of IT Management:
http://www.socitm.gov.uk/egovnow.htm
[Section One ends]
SECTION TWO: FEATURE
-E-DEMOCRACY CAMPAIGN
A FORTNIGHT IN VOXPOLITICS
By Phil Cain [log in to unmask]
It is widely feared that participation in the upcoming UK General Election
will be lower than at any time since the Second World War.
Though the Internet is not a potent political force at present, politicians
have been slow to recognise its benefits as a campaigning tool. To remedy
this a web site and associated email service called VoxPolitics
(http://www.voxpolitics.com) launched last week.
VoxPolitics aims to provide politicians with advice on how they should use
the new media in their election campaigns. The four key elements of this
process are: an online handbook to online campaigning, called the
VoxPolitics Primer; news and features, delivered on the homepage and by
email; a provocative 'Manifesto' presenting some hopes and fears about the
Internet in politics; and a bulletin board which provides an arena to debate
issues arising from the online campaign
(http://www.voxpolitics.com/debate.shtml).
The site launched with contributions from prominent political thinkers,
among them former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Paddy Ashdown who called on
politicians to consider the benefits of a wired democracy.
Sir Paddy said that "just because it [modemocracy] isn't happening as fast
as the visionaries predicted, doesn't mean it isn't happening. Quite the
contrary. The bubble of Internet hype may have burst. But the number of
people using it continues to grow and the scope of their use continues to
widen."
VoxPolitics is backed by E-Government Bulletin publisher Headstar with
sponsorship from The Stationery Office. It is also supported by three
prominent think tanks: the Institute of Public Policy Research, the
Industrial Society and the Social Market Foundation.
In another early contribution to the debate Industrial Society chief
executive Will Hutton says the Internet's long-term transformation of
society will still proceed despite the dot com crash.
Hutton wrote that, "The importance of the net and interactive communication
technology are that, together, they make every organisation more permeable
and porous. They also enable and encourage a trend towards 'deintegrating'
organisations that is already under way."
Meanwhile, Ian Kearns from the Left-leaning Institute of Public Policy
Research think tank attempted to woo politicians into loving the net. He
wrote that digital democracy has emerged against a worrying crisis in
democracy and in this context must be assessed.
Kearns concluded his piece by saying, "The politicians in short, are the
problem. The technology can engage and empower but, without a shift in the
attitudes of politicians, it will not do so."
James Crabtree, one of the directors of the site, contributed a piece
pointing to humour as one of the most important tools in wining over voters.
According to Crabtree online humour leads to 'culture jamming' which he
defines as: "The use and manipulation of existing well-known cultural
reference points, messages and symbols both to amuse and make a telling
point."
Since launching a number of lively debates have developed on the VoxPolitics
debate boards, with some arising from the VoxPolitics Primer and Manifesto
and from stories and features that have appeared on the site. Topics have
included political site connectivity, and more recently the legality or
otherwise of online vote-swapping.
E-Government Bulletin readers, with their insights into the Internet and
governance, are invited to visit the VoxPolitics site and join its email
list. To subscribe to the email either fill in the simple form online or
send a blank email to [log in to unmask]
*Phil Cain, the author of this piece, is a director of VoxPolitics as is Dan
Jellinek the editor of this publication.
[Section Two ends]
SECTION THREE: ANALYSIS
-E-PROCUREMENT
DO YOU BUY IT?
By Phil Cain [log in to unmask]
According to the government's own estimates, 'e-procurement' - the
automation of part or all of the purchase of goods and services - promises
the buyer savings of up to 20%. It is little surprise then that the
Chancellor Gordon Brown, whose department presides over a civil procurement
budget of around 13 billion UK Pounds, has taken it to heart.
Brown's enthusiasm is not inspired by thrift alone. The high costs
associated with the traditional state procurement processes have in the past
put them out of the reach of all but the largest corporations. But by
lowering barriers to entry e-procurement platforms promise to allow many
more smaller, more vigorous companies to bid for government business and
hence boost the small business sector.
Even the major suppliers complain that the existing procurement processes
are unduly costly and time-consuming, both problems electronic systems may
help reduce. Open-tenders can take anything up to five years because the
weeding-out of failed bids is very slow and bids need to be enormously
detailed. Similar deals might be struck in a matter of hours in the private
sector, where immediate need, allied with common sense, often takes
precedence over procedure.
Apart from being ponderous, government procurement processes are often
accused of being insensitive to the needs of private sector businesses. For
example, the disclosures required to take part in an open tender can expose
a company to commercial disadvantage, because they give rivals a glimpse of
its best selling points. In addition, suppliers are often unable to retain
intellectual property rights that have developed, with public sector
purchasers insisting on this being shared with all suppliers during
tendering. In private sector pitches, on the other hand, customers can be
required to sign confidentiality agreements. Electronic systems could offer
a compromise between the need for openness and confidentiality.
Most embarrassing of all for government buyers is that despite the time and
effort spent on choosing bids they have still occasionally made some
expensive mistakes, with notable recent IT flops at the Passport Office and
the Immigration Directorate. Few believe the Internet is a panacea for these
ills, but it offers a useful opportunity to rethink processes.
As part of his own rethink, Brown has amalgamated various previously
separate government procurement-related units and agencies to form a single
550-strong Treasury unit, the Office of Government Commerce (OGC). In one of
the final stages of this process the managed services division the Central
Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) is set to merge with The
Buying Agency to form a trading fund called 'OGCbuying.solutions'.
On its inception on 1 April 2000 the OGC was charged with delivering a total
of 1 billion UK pounds in savings by March 2003 and putting 90% of all
low-value procurement online.
Shortly afterwards Brown committed the OGC to introducing fully electronic
procurement documentation to central government by March 2002. Blair later
implied the rollout of e-procurement will not stop at central government:
"In future, if you want to do business with government, you will have to be
online." Progress towards these targets has recently been called into
question. In February of this year the government admitted the 90% target
for March would not be hit, as just 40% of low value purchases were being
carried out online. However, it said the targets had always been
"aspirational".
At the same time the OGC announced that all central government procurement
projects would have to go through a five stage 'gateway review'. The OGC
estimated the review process would save in the region of 150 million UK
pounds a year, rising to 500 million a year as the scheme beds in.
The OGC has no direct say in the procurement decisions of government
departments outside central government. Instead it must use its control of
Private Finance Initiative (PFI) policy to influence procurement decisions,
particularly those of IT where PFI deals are common.
The OGC will be given another lever on government procurement in April 2001
when it takes over management of IT procurement catalogues previously
handled by the CCTA. Government departments are allowed to buy from
companies or hold tendering processes between companies featured in these
catalogues, called GCat and S-Cat (covering goods and services
respectively), cutting the time taken to make a decision.
As part of the OGC programme these government catalogues have been put
online where they will be gradually turned into fully-fledged virtual
marketplaces. The speed and success with which this transformation takes
place is likely to have knock-on effects for the whole of the government's
online strategy. The rollout of e-government will depend on government
agencies' ability to buy the right technology quickly at a reasonable price.
Putting the catalogues online will also set a precedent for other
departments that are considering the use of online procurement marketplaces
for other products and services. However, as BT's head of e-Government
Charles Lowe says, it is important not to extrapolate the results of one
e-procurement project to another: "No one procurement system works for
everything. In buying an airline ticket or a toilet roll the requirements
from the system are different."
One online asset-financing marketplace, 'WhatRate.com', has decided to delay
plans to serve the public sector because of its expensive special needs. The
company's chief executive Roy Royer said the requirement to advertise all
offers for tender in a European journal played an important role in the
decision to concentrate on small and medium-sized business instead.
According to Royer the desired openness could be achieved at less expense by
posting tenders on their own web site.
Even deciding which marketplace to use is a difficult decision for
government. What conditions should government set before taking part? Should
the government take an equity stake in the marketplaces on which it trades?
What procurement criteria can be applied to this equity purchase? What
happens if other shareholders decide to float the company on the stock
market? Should the buyers (the government) or the sellers (private sector
companies) fund the service? How can you be sure that all potential
suppliers are aware of your requirements?
According to Lowe the potential perils of involvement in online marketplaces
are as diverse as the marketplaces themselves, and so should be assessed
carefully case by case. Public bodies also need to be aware that when they
join such marketplaces they are involving themselves in a commercial
activity where the ground rules are not yet fixed.
The arbiter of fairness in the arena of commercial exchange is not the
Office of Government Commerce but the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). In a
report on e-commerce and competition policy last year
(http://www.oft.gov.uk/html/rsearch/reports/oft308.htm) the OFT said that
under certain conditions 'online marketplaces may tend towards being natural
monopolies'. What will happen as the nation's biggest single buyer takes
this route?
[Section Three ends]
SECTION FOUR: EMAIL
-BEST PRACTICE
EMAIL ETIQUETTE
Email is widely believed to help people within public as well as private
sector organisations share information efficiently, but the problem of email
overload is widely feared. The European Forum for Electronic Business
(http://www.eema.org) has produced the following code to help individuals
and organisations to use email effectively and stop it getting out of hand.
1. Do you need to send it by e-mail at all? E-mail is not always the best
option. Sometimes it is easier to pick up a telephone and talk to the person
especially if the point is complicated. Do not e-mail someone sitting close
to you - ask him or her in person. Up to 15% of office e-mail is
unnecessary.
2. Give your messages a meaningful title. "Meeting" is unhelpful, but
"Meeting tomorrow is cancelled" is.
3. Try to restrict action requests to only one recipient. Messages that are
sent to more than one person might result in it being unclear as to who
needs to take action. Address those who need to be informed but do not have
to take any action as "cc" recipients.
4. Keep your message as brief as possible. Some people get a lot of e-mail
and you can help them by getting to the point quickly.
5. Restrict the number of people to whom you address a message as much as
possible. Do not copy ('cc') more people than strictly necessary.
6. Company directories may contain distribution lists for general use. Many
of these are intended for the distribution of official notices and thus
contain large numbers of employees. Think whether the message should go to
a distribution list at all?
7. Use the "BCC" field instead of the "To" field where you are distributing
messages to several people, and where it is not necessary for each to know
who else has received the message. This will reduce the size of messages.
8. Currency symbols can be changed during transmission. It is recommended
that alpha abbreviations be used instead (e.g. NLG, GBP, USD). For a similar
reason, foreign language characters (e.g. German umlaut) should be avoided.
9. Do not distribute message information within an attached word processor
document where plain text or rich text within the mail message can suffice.
Word processor generated files will typically be significantly larger.
10. Do not send courtesy thank you messages on a day-to-day basis where you
are e-mailing a person regularly.
11. Delete unwanted addressees and change-retained addressees to "cc" status
unless action is required from them.
12. Do not retain original attachments when replying unless this adds to the
clarity of your reply.
13. When replying to a bulletin published on a public distribution list or
bulletin board consider whether your response should be sent to just the
originator of the bulletin or to everyone subscribed to the list.
14. Use file compression software for large attachments. However, be aware
that not all companies have unzipping facilities, so be prepared to
re-transmit "in clear" if the recipient complains.
15. Use the "Urgent" flag sparingly, otherwise its impact will be diluted.
16. Do not use the "Read receipt" indiscriminately. The correct use is as a
check to an important action requested by e-mail. Some messaging systems
allow the use of message "Flags" which will automatically prompt the
recipient to reply after a defined period of time, again use this sparingly.
[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
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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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