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Subject: E-Government Bulletin - 02 May 2003
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+++E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN
- ISSUE 136, 02 May 2003.
The email newsletter on electronic government,
UK and worldwide.
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++ISSUE 136 CONTENTS.
01: Call for wholesale review of council law
- e-government hampered by 'silo' legislation.
02: E-Envoy predicts redundancy of role
- policy focus has shifted, says Pinder.
03: Open source savings 'below 10 per cent'
- software solutions 'a mixed bag'.
04: Local standards body imminent
- launch due in next two months.
In brief: 05: Purdah problem - report withdrawn; 06: Costs overlooked
- software blind-spots; 07: Physical cuts - technology over buildings.
Section two: Focus - fire authorities.
08: A game of catch-up? Julie Hill on why fire authorities feel they are
receiving second class treatment from the e-government policymakers.
Section three: Policy - historical perspective.
09: The rhetoric of revolution: Politicians through the centuries have
hailed leaps forward in technology in similar terms - and made similar
mistakes. William Hardy looks at the lessons to be learned from
history.
[Contents ends.]
+SPONSORED NOTICE: RE-ENGINEERING ESSENTIALS.
Casewise presents 'Modernising government through business process
re-engineering', a seminar on 11 June 2003 at the Chesterfield
(Mayfair) hotel in Central London (near Green Park tube).
The event will look at the practical applications of process modelling
tools within UK government. The seminar includes case studies
presented by the Department for Work and Pensions, Westminster City
Council, the City and County of Swansea as well as from PA
Consulting and Deloitte & Touche illustrating how business process
re-engineering has been used by their organisations.
Register or find out more at:
http://www.casewise.co.uk/events/eventdetail.php?id=51
[Sponsored notice ends].
++SECTION ONE: NEWS.
+01: CALL FOR WHOLESALE REVIEW OF COUNCIL LAW.
The incoming president of the local government IT managers' body
Socitm has called for a wholesale review of legislation affecting local
government to remove outdated restrictions on data sharing which are
hampering the development of e-government services.
Farhi Zihni, who is also chief ICT officer at Wolverhampton City
Council, told E-Government Bulletin this week: "There is legislation to
cover everything we do, and some of it goes back several hundred
years.
"The legislation covering civil registration does not allow registrars
to
pass on the identities of people who have died to local authorities, for
example. There is legislation planned in 2004 to change that, but we
don't know it will go through until it has actually happened, and after
that it will take another two years minimum for registrars to put in
place the necessary computer systems.
"So in terms of e-government targets, we will be sitting round for
another three years before we can provide services to our citizens. Now
council tax has got its own legislation which stipulates what you can
and cannot do with data, and it is the same for benefits.
"Legislation is being looked at piecemeal. But somebody somewhere
in government needs to look across the board at all legislation and
start
a programme to rationalise them. Laws historically have been passed
as and when they are required in each walk of life. In the Information
Age, technology is capable of join-up data to provide joined-up
services to those who desperately need them the like benefits
claimants, but there is a legal silo to break down in each area."
Work at Wolverhampton on an 'e-bereavement' service to help
bereaved people inform several official bodies of a death with one
message has already been restricted by current laws, Zihni said, and
another project at Shepway council to exchange citizens' change of
address data between council departments has encountered similar
difficulties (see E-Government Bulletin, issue 12, 8 November 2002).
During his presidency of Socitm, Zihni said he intends to focus on
professional development issues. At the society's spring seminar
earlier this week he unveiled a new scholarship scheme to help put
technology managers through business management courses.
"The objective is to ensure there is representation from people with
ICT experience on more management teams," he said. The scheme will
cover half the course fees for five local government IT managers a year
to take an Masters in Business Administration course with the Open
University. Applications are invited by the end of May.
+02: E-ENVOY PREDICTS REDUNDANCY OF ROLE.
The UK government's e-Envoy, Andrew Pinder, has said he does not
believe his post will continue in its existing form beyond 2005, as the
main tasks of e-government switch from external promotion to internal
process re-engineering.
In an exclusive interview with E-Government Bulletin ahead of the
May publication of the bulletin's first in-depth annual review, he said:
"I can't see [the post of e-Envoy] lasting in its existing form for more
than the next year or two, but some of the functions that we carry out
will either go back to individual departments or will need carrying on
in government.
Pinder said he had always considered the role as a temporary one. In
his interview for the post he had said he wanted to be the last e-Envoy
the government needed, because by the time his contract expired in
2004 much of the work required would be complete, or ready to re-
enter the government mainstream.
"The emphasis of the job is changing from campaigning to get
everyone onto the internet to a much more targeted role, focusing on
digital divide issues [and] on helping to modernise the public sector.
And how you carry out that role probably doesn't look like an e-Envoy
any more."
"When I arrived, everyone was focusing on the 2005 target to get all
services online. I think there's much more focus now on what can we
do to help government departments do the process re-engineering
which people in other sectors have done . . . to help people use
common systems, reuse software and make increasing use of
standards."
NOTE: E-Government Bulletin's first 100-page annual review of the
past, present and future for successful e-government services, 'E-
Government Outlook 2003-04', is due to be published on 20 May,
priced at 245 pounds for public sector and 295 for private sector
bodies. For more information about its contents, and a reader discount
offer of 50 pounds, email [log in to unmask] .
+03: OPEN SOURCE SAVINGS 'BELOW 10 PER CENT'.
Cost savings from the use of open source software solutions in the
public sector are unlikely to exceed 10 per cent of overall software
ownership costs over the next five years, according to one leading
expert.
Nikos Drakos, senior research analyst at Gartner, told delegates at this
week's Socitm spring seminar that while open source software was
generally cheaper to deploy, it was "a mixed bag of opportunities and
risks" characterised by both "scaremongering and hype". Cost savings
were likely to be just 5 to 10 per cent in five years' time, he said.
Problems with open source include "a big question mark over whether
we can ever develop open source solutions to meet all of our IT
needs," Drakos said. This meant organisations have to do some double-
running, creating integration problems. Other costs included training
staff, he said.
In a separate paper on the issue published last week, Drakos says:
"Although open source software has some obvious cost advantages,
enterprises must look at its longer-term cost of ownership. Additional
outlays for maintenance and support may negate any licensing
savings."
On the other hand, many public sector concerns about open source
solutions are not well-grounded, Drakos told Socitm delegates. It was a
myth for example that most open source development takes place
within unreliable groups of students and hackers - "Most development
actually takes place within commercial organisations," he said. Other
potential benefits included using the adaptation of open source
software as a cheaper alternative to developing new software from
scratch.
Clearer benefits are evident in poorer countries, who currently may not
be able to afford to use proprietary software in many public sector
organisations, Drakos says. Argentina, Colombia and Peru are among
nations proposing legislating mandating the use of open source
software wherever possible.
NOTE: For Drakos' paper 'Open-source software running for public
office' enter 'Drakos' in the search box at Gartner's web site
(http://www.gartner.com). And for full reports on Socitm's spring
seminar by E-Government Bulletin editor Dan Jellinek, see:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/soc1
+04: LOCAL STANDARDS BODY IMMINENT.
A national standards body for local e-government is in the final stages
of development, E-Government Bulletin has learned. The body is being
created by the Society of Information Technology Management, the
Improvement and Development Agency, the Office of the Deputy
Prime Minister and Bromley Council.
The project is set to receive parliamentary approval within the next few
weeks, after which staff will be recruited and a web site constructed.
A new body is needed because the main existing public sector
standards development system, 'UK Govtalk'
(http://www.govtalk.gov.uk), is focused on cross-public sector issues,
specifically the development of XML metadata schema.
"Councils have different problems, and they need to be tackled
quickly", a spokesperson for the scheme said this week. For example
councils need to integrate legacy systems for purely local services such
as handling benefits. They also work with standards such as the
BS7666 geographical referencing standard for name and address data,
the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile on GovTalk, version five of the cross-public sector 'e-
government interoperability framework' was released last week (see
http://fastlink.headstar.com/egif1).
++NEWS IN BRIEF:
+05: PURDAH PROBLEM: A comprehensive survey of council's
plans to implement e-government was published in error and hastily
withdrawn by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on 17 April,
during a purdah period before yesterday's local elections. The report
will be posted back up next week. Meanwhile draft guidance for the
third round of council Implementing Electronic Government
statements is due to be published today:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/ieg3
+06: COSTS OVERLOOKED: Less than 45 per cent of government
departments consider the total cost of software ownership such as
upgrade costs before purchasing new software, according to a new
report from the National Audit Office. 'Purchasing and managing
software licences' also found that, while the Office of Government
Commerce has done a good job negotiating central licensing deals with
major software companies, departments are not making proper use of
these:
http://www.nao.gov.uk/publications/nao_reports/index.htm
+07: PHYSICAL CUTS: New technologies could allow public
services to make substantial cuts in the numbers of buildings and
offices they use, including schools and hospitals, according to a
briefing paper from HumanITy, the UK's leading charity on ICT and
inclusion. For example use of smart clothing and monitoring
technology could decrease the need for older people to stay in patient
facilities and nursing homes. 'Infrastructure and the delivery of
services' is at:
http://www.humanity.org.uk/articles/pub_infrastructure.shtml
[Section one ends].
++SPONSORED CASE STUDIES: SHARING E-GOVERNMENT
EXPERIENCE.
In this section, companies highlight e-government partnerships of
which they are proud. Readers interested in exploring these issues are
invited to participate in the Electronic Government Forum in London
on 20 May. Each study will inform a discussion group and sponsors are
offering guest places for public sector readers. For details follow the
links:
+JOINING UP DISPARATE SYSTEMS FOR THE FINANCIAL
OMBUDSMAN SERVICE.
A case study from London Bridge Software on replacing legacy
systems and improving customer service with a fast, flexible system
handling more than 400,000 enquires per year:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/fin1 .
+CRM AND GIS AT TOWER HAMLETS.
An illustration from ESRI (UK) of how the new e-government era has
thrown geographical information systems (GIS), and the land, property
and map data they use, into the spotlight for local authorities
delivering
e-services:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/th1 .
+INNOVATIVE INTERNET SERVICE FOR PARENT/SCHOOL
COMMUNICATION.
A Check Point case study on ParentMail, an innovative service with
safeguarded privacy for parents and children and the scalability of a
secure network infrastructure:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/check1 .
+HAVE YOU GOT A CASE STUDY TO SHARE? Readers from the
private sector are invited to contact us for details and insertion
costs.
Public sector readers are encouraged to nominate private sector
partners who may be interested in being featured. Please email John
Webster [log in to unmask]
[Sponsored case studies end.]
++SECTION TWO: SECTION TWO: FOCUS
- FIRE AUTHORITIES.
+08: A GAME OF CATCH-UP?
by Julie Hill [log in to unmask] .
Fire authorities in England and Wales feel they are playing "catch-up"
with the government's modernisation agenda, after being excluded
from the first tranche of e-government funding that was made available
to local authorities in their areas.
While councils were required to submit their first 'Implementing e-
government' (IEG) statements to the Office of the Deputy Prime
Minister (ODPM) in October 2001, the 50 fire authorities of England
and Wales were only asked to do the same a full year later. At the time
of writing, the ODPM has now received the majority of these
statements, and is expecting to receive 49 in all.
There are other grumbles as well from the fire authorities. "Councils
were gearing up to make their IEG 2 statements last year. That meant
that we had missed out on the initial funding opportunity of 200,000
pounds. And although we were excluded from the first round of
statements, the ODPM tried to impose the rules of IEG 2 on us which
caused us much frustration," says Damian Smith, deputy chief fire
officer at Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service
(http://www.bucksfire.gov.uk) and chairman of the e-government
group at the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers' Association
(CACFOA - http://www.fire-uk.org).
There were further frustrations about the way in which the process was
run by the ODPM and the level of guidance on IEG submission that
was provided to fire authorities. Eventually CACFOA produced its
own template as guidance for its members.
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU - http://www.fbu.org.uk) says the
reason fire authorities have received less favourable treatment is that
responsibility for their oversight has been passed around Whitehall
twice since 2000, moving from the Home Office to the Department for
Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR) and now to the
ODPM. "Each change means that civil servants have to build up their
fire service expertise from scratch," says a spokesperson for the FBU.
"Lots of things have fallen between the gaps and I fear that the e-
government agenda is just one of them."
Paul Sharples is a policy officer in the corporate support group at
Greater Manchester County Fire Service, who helped put together his
authority's IEG statement. Although he says that making the statement
wasn't a big headache for Manchester, the second largest fire authority
outside London, and that the CACFOA template was crucial in this
regard, he questions central government's rationale. "You have to ask
yourself why we weren't included in the first tranche of e-government
statements. Was it an oversight on the government's part? To date, no
one has provided us with an adequate answer to this."
There is also concern about the level of funding that will be made
available to fire authorities. Smith says that fire authorities are
likely to
receive only around 50,000 over two years, as opposed to the 400,000
pounds made available to local authorities. "There is considerable
inequality here," says Smith. "Many of the combined fire authorities
are significantly larger than many of the second-tier district
councils."
Sharples also doubts the government's funding rationale. "One can
only assume that the inequality is down to the fact that fire
authorities
are smaller than most local authorities. But the associated cost of
implementing technology will be the same."
Funding for individual fire authorities to implement their IEG
statements will be allocated from the central pot of the National Fire
Service e-Government Project, announced in April 2002 alongside the
draft national local e-government strategy [log in to unmask]
The national project will also deliver a number of central technical
'products' that can be used by all brigades. At the time of writing,
6,410,000 pounds of funding had been approved by the ODPM to
support the national fire project, subject to parliamentary approval.
Time constraints meant that CACFOA had to submit proposals for
centralised sections of the national project to the same timescale as
fire
authorities' individual IEG submissions, although the association had
originally wanted to analyse local IEG statements and use that as the
basis for the central plan.
In the end, the national fire service project submitted to the ODPM in
October 2002 consists of five streams:
- Knowledge management and data sharing. This project aims to build
an architecture for the capture and sharing of risk information between
fire authorities, local councils and other interested parties;
- Fire safety in the community. This is a project aimed at householders,
the elderly and other "at risk" groups - and the public and voluntary
agencies that support them - to provide safety information for the
community. Citizens will be able to complete a home fire risk
assessment online, request a free smoke alarm or book a fire station to
do a home or community centre visit;
- Fire safety for business. This project will help businesses to
understand what they need to do to comply with new fire safety
regulations which make fire risk assessments their responsibility. It
will enable businesses to carry out "virtual inspections" by completing
online questionnaires and make provision for data sharing with local
authorities and other agencies;
- Firefighter recruitment. This stream will provide information about
job opportunities in the fire service, enable online application and
provide links to individual fire authorities. It will allow the fire
service
to track applicants throughout the recruitment process, cut down on
duplication and monitor the success of recruitment campaigns;
- National fire portal. The fifth national project will be the front end
to
the first four streams, and also provide a gateway to individual
authorities' web sites.
As the focus of the national project illustrates, for fire authorities
the
potential of technology lies in improving their educational and fire
safety role, improving the sharing of information on fire risk with
other
parties and facilitating recruitment. "A lot of people still believe
that
the fire service squirts water at fires and gets cats out of trees,"
says
Smith. "Web-based technologies can help us to communicate our role
better to the community."
Sharples agrees that education is where the principal opportunity lies.
But he emphasises the importance of a partnership approach. "Fire
authorities have to take into account the communities they serve. In
Manchester we have many communities that are seriously deprived and
have no internet access. The most effective way for us to communicate
with citizens therefore is by partnering with local authorities to
provide
information through their one-stop shops."
On the operational side, the fire service already uses computerised
mobilising databases in its emergency control centres and geographical
information systems for incident management. Most fire authorities
now have web sites. But Smith says that there are vast differences
between individual authorities in terms of their use of technology. "A
number of brigades have recognised the potential of technology to
streamline services, make us more efficient and able to focus more of
our resources on the operational side," says Smith. "Others are far
lower down on the implementation curve."
Legacy systems are also a potential obstacle on the road to e-
government. "In local government, many of the costs of upgrading
systems are being met from the centre," says Smith. "But because we
haven't benefited from funding opportunities to date, our transition
from legacy to integrated systems is going to take longer. If this is
really so important to the government, why aren't we being treated the
same as everyone else?"
[Section two ends.]
++SPONSORED NOTICE: ENGAGING THE USER
- E-INFORMATION AND E-SERVICES AT EPI2003.
Usability, accessibility, website design, community websites, wired-up
communities, partnerships, webcasting, and local government
experience of digital interactive television are among the hot topics at
epi2003.
Other sessions cover portals for young people, community languages,
and health and social care issues. The conference - now in its 15th year
- is the place to meet and discuss today's issues in electronic public
information (epi).
Thursday 22 May, National Motorcycle Museum, Solihull,
Birmingham.
Delegate rate #240; voluntary organisations #75.
For more information and to book your place visit:
http://www.spin.org.uk/epi2003
or call 020 8552 9600 for a brochure.
[Sponsored notice ends].
++SECTION THREE: POLICY
- HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE.
+ THE RHETORIC OF REVOLUTION.
by William Hardy [log in to unmask] .
When he delivered his keynote speech to the UK's first international
'e-summit' last November, Tony Blair stressed the importance of IT
for the future of Britain's economy and public services.
In a rhetorical flourish, he pronounced that "Britain, I believe, has
the
potential to become a great technological powerhouse, matching the
great achievements of the nineteenth century industrial revolution with
a twenty-first century information revolution".
Comparison of the 'internet age' with the industrial revolution is
common among politicians and other commentators, but how
meaningful is it, and why is it made? Clearly, when today's politicians
speak about technology in this way, they are eager to associate
themselves with modernity and the quests of the future. And yet,
ironically, they are also being very traditional, in that politicians
have
been making a display of interest in technology since at least the
eighteenth century.
The technologies in question, and the state's policies regarding
invention, have changed; but there is a continuity of rhetoric about
technical progress which has passed from one generation to the next.
If for example we wind the clock back to 1824, we find government
ministers celebrating the steam engine, the time's public icon of
technological change, just as the internet is now. During that year, at
a
meeting in support of placing a statue of the inventor James Watt in
Westminster Abbey, impassioned speeches were made by the Prime
Minister, Lord Liverpool; William Huskisson, the President of the
Board of Trade; and Sir Robert Peel, the Home Secretary.
For Huskisson, the steam engine was "the most powerful instrument in
the hands of man, to alter the face of the physical world" and "a
powerful moral lever in forwarding the great cause of civilization".
Peel concurred, saying Watt's inventions had given the manufacture of
cotton "an energy which effected a complete revolution in the trade".
Such historical reflections can provide a much-needed sense of
perspective on current public debate. Historically, politicians have
often spoken of technology in patriotic terms, keen to point out its
economic or military advantages for the nation. In 1824, Liverpool
urged that the steam engine would be especially beneficial to England
because of the nation's large reserves of coal; hence "we may rest
assured that the permanent advantages of this great invention will be
felt primarily in England". Likewise, in 2002, Blair asserted that the
UK is especially well placed to benefit from IT, gaining a competitive
advantage from the fact that "80% of the world's information is stored
in the English language".
It could be argued that, influenced by this tradition, British
politicians
are more comfortable framing IT within an agenda of national
advantage: they find it harder to accommodate the argument that the
internet undermines the nation state by forging new international
relations.
An even more significant historical parallel is the persistent gap
between rhetoric and reality when it comes to the public discussion of
technology. There is a recurrent tendency among politicians to
overestimate the sudden, 'revolutionary' impact of a given technical
breakthrough; to highlight novel technologies, while neglecting crucial
work in the adaptation and refinement of established techniques; to
eulogise a few great inventors, but overlook the role of the many
unsung innovators who contribute to the evolution of technology; and
to gloss over the numerous failures and false-starts that happen on the
path to technological progress.
To be fair, in his e-summit address, Blair conceded the gradual nature
of technological change by acknowledging the many years before the
initial knowledge of electricity was adapted successfully to the
industrial production line. But this did not stop him from using the
rhetoric of "revolution", speaking of the "information revolution" and
the "revolution in communications and computing".
Many reasons could exist for the distortions that creep into the public
discussion of technology by politicians and others. One obvious factor
is that most of us (including the present writer) are not trained
experts
in the technologies in question - but this does not deter us from
comment! In addition, any commentator seeking to make a public
impact will be tempted to tell a dramatic story of "revolutions" and
"heroes", rather than give a more grey, but realistic, account.
It is also the case that the fame of some of the "great inventors" is
due,
in part, to their being adept and ruthless self-publicists - James Watt
certainly fits this description.
In broader terms, in a technological age, it may be that the public
craves a symbol from the forefront of inventive endeavour, both as an
inspiration, and as a parable for the experience of technical change.
For
this sort of symbol to function, an accessible simplicity is more
appropriate than painstaking accuracy.
The gap between consciousness and reality is not without its costs,
however. As M.C. Duffy, an historian of engineering, has lamented:
"in the heads of school children, teachers, and the general public,
these
misconceptions are bad enough, but in the heads of politicians, civil
servants, university chancellors and - let it be admitted - engineers
themselves, they are dangerous".
One danger that has already been realised is that entrepreneurs gain
unrealistic expectations, speculate rashly, and "go to the wall" in
considerable numbers. The eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
are remembered as a time of British industrial success, but in reality,
for every Watt or Arkwright, there were plenty who chased the dream
of the latest technologies only to see their businesses fail. Sadly,
those
who have speculated and lost on e-commerce in recent years are part of
a long historical tradition.
NOTE: William Hardy is Associate Lecturer in History with the Open
University.
[Section three ends.]
++SPECIAL NOTICE: COUNCIL FORUM
A online discussion forum on the future of local authority web sites is
being hosted by the technology management body Socitm as a follow-
up exercise to its annual council web survey 'Better Connected 2003'.
All E-Government Bulletin readers are invited to participate at:
http://www.socitm.gov.uk/insight/bclive
[Special notice ends].
++END NOTES.
+HOW TO RECEIVE E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN.
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+COPYRIGHT NOTICE.
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ISSN 1476-6310
+PERSONNEL
- EDITORIAL.
Editor - Dan Jellinek [log in to unmask]
Deputy editor - Phil Cain [log in to unmask]
Features editor - Derek Parkinson [log in to unmask]
Reporter - Mel Poluck [log in to unmask] .
- ADVERTISING.
[log in to unmask] .
A searchable archive of our back-issues can be found on our web site:
http://www.headstar.com/egb .
[Issue ends.]
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