From: Dan Jellinek [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 27 November 2006 12:24
To: egb-html
Subject: E-Government Bulletin, 27 November 2006 - e-voting; critical
national infrastructure; outsourcing; Google maps.
Hello all,
Here is the latest issue of E-Government Bulletin, attached as an HTML file.
For a plain text version of the same issue, see below.
Best regards, Dan Jellinek, Editor.
+++E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN
- ISSUE 227, 27 November 2006.
- Incorporating Future Democracy Bulletin.
IN THIS ISSUE: e-voting; critical national infrastructure; outsourcing;
Google maps, shared services.
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details at the end.
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++Contents: E-Government Bulletin Issue 227.
Section One: News.
01: US E-Voting Machine Glitches 'A Warning To Europe'
- documentary claims to expose holes in security.
02: Brent Adds Google Maps to E-Government Register
- council takes "mash-up" approach to directory.
03: Shared Services Agenda 'Lacks Central Leadership'
- findings of public sector IT managers' report.
04: Under Half of Risky IT Projects Communicated to Auditors
- accountability gap revealed by research.
News In Brief: 05: Please Tony - Downing Street e-petitions; 06:
Confidence Mark - supplier quality standard; 07: Consultation Alert - Have
Your Say.
Section Two: Focus - UK Critical National Infrastructure.
08: Critical Infrastructure Creaks Under The Strain: As more demand is
placed on the UK's communications infrastructure, it is becoming ever-more
vulnerable to accidental or malicious damage. A new briefing from the
Parliamentary IT Committee looks at how a single failure can create a domino
effect.
Section Three: Focus - Outsourcing.
09: Building Strength From The Inside Out: Birmingham City Council
transformation supremo Glyn Evans talks to Mel Poluck about a revolution in
IT services in the city following the outsourcing of its entire IT function
to a joint venture company run by Capita.
[Contents ends].
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[Special notice ends].
++Section One: News.
+01: US E-Voting Machine Glitches 'A Warning To Europe.'
The co-director of a new documentary investigating flaws in the security of
electronic voting machines used in the recent US Presidential mid-term
elections has said the film serves as a warning for European governments
considering introducing e-voting.
The documentary, 'Hacking Democracy', was given its first London airing at a
private screening hosted by E-Government Bulletin at our recent conference,
'E-Democracy '06'
( http://www.headstar-events.com/e-democracy06 ).
It focuses on an attempt to discover how voting machines recorded minus
16,022 votes for Al Gore in Volusia County, Florida in the 2000 presidential
election, and what potential scope there might be for system errors,
malicious damage or corrupt practices.
"What's happening in America is a warning," the film's co-director and
co-producer Russell Michaels told delegates. "This is the opposite of what
is good about e-democracy. It's fascinating to see the tension between what
everyone here [at the conference] is trying to do and what is going on in
the US".
The film shows electronic voting software held on memory cards created by
technology giant Diebold apparently being hacked by a security expert as a
result of software code being accidentally left on a public web server.
According to the film, the numbers of votes for candidates were altered
without leaving a trace of the intervention.
Earlier in the day the Prime Minister's outgoing political strategy advisor
Matthew Taylor delivered a keynote speech challenging the internet
campaigning community to curb "shrill" attacks on those in power and use the
internet to build constructive tools of community engagement and responsible
self-government.
A videoblog of the conference by reporter David Wilcox is live at:
http://digbig.com/4pjrm .
And a report on Taylor's speech has been published by the BBC at:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/mt2 .
+02: Brent Adds Google Maps to E-Government Register.
Brent Council has added a Google Maps
( http://maps.google.co.uk )
interface to E-Government Register
( http://www.egovregister.org ),
the council's comprehensive national directory of local e-government
resources and projects.
Users of the register, which is maintained by Brent with support from the
West London Alliance and London Connects, can now view members of
e-government partnerships, local authority users of particular products and
users of particular suppliers using Google's free geographic interface. The
principal offices for all local authorities have been 'geocoded' with
latitude and longitude and these are displayed as markers on the maps. Users
can click on the markers to obtain more information about individual local
authorities and their work in e-government.
"Google Maps allows users to easily access information about where other
councils are using particular products or are involved in particular
partnerships," says Dane Wright, service development manager in the IT unit
at Brent Council. "This enhances the overall aim of the site, which is to
encourage best practice sharing on e-government between councils."
Now that Brent has experimented with Google Maps on E-Government Register,
it is considering adding the system to its main website (
http://www.brent.gov.uk ) and to BRAIN ( http://www.brentbrain.org.uk ), its
award-winning community site.
For example, residents can already view details of crime incidents in their
local area on BRAIN. Brent is considering representing this information
geographically, although it is aware the results could prove controversial.
"There are practical issues around representing incidents in this way, as it
could highlight high-crime areas and give them a bad reputation," says
Wright.
Meanwhile, the council website currently features a "find your nearest"
function allowing users to search for services by postcode using Multimap (
http://www.multimap.com ), for which the council pays.
The council is also considering setting up a facility to allow people to
upload photos of where they live to an online database. "So if you live on
23 Acacia Avenue, you could see the surrounding area through photos taken by
the public," says Wright. "The idea is that local inhabitants would be able
to see pictures of where they live, those moving into the borough would be
able to check out the surrounding area and we could look back to see what a
particular area looked like at a given point in time, serving as a kind of
local historical archive."
The system would link Google Maps to the council's property gazetteer.
+03: Shared Services Agenda 'Lacks Central Leadership'.
There is a lack of leadership from central government for local authorities
planning to implement shared services, according to a report published this
week by the local government Society of IT Management (Socitm -
http://www.socitm.gov.uk ).
A new requirement to increase sharing of administrative and other services
between public sector bodies to generate cost and other efficiencies was
laid out in the Transformational Government agenda released by the Cabinet
Office's Chief Information Officer Council last year.
However, the government "seems to lack leadership, advice about
implementation, and ideas to take sharing forward in a pragmatic way," the
new report finds.
And although the Department for Communities and Local Government
(DCLG) has issued a number of documents on partnerships and sharing, there
is a lack of information on how to provide leadership and how to begin to
implement shared services, the report says.
The report also offers a range of recent public sector examples of shared
services, to allow councils to assess the potential for sharing; an 'advice'
section for councils to choose from various governance styles and models of
collaboration; and a "maturity grid" to help evaluate organisations'
readiness to share services.
'Modern Public Services: shared services,' is available from Socitm and
costs 150 pounds for Socitm members and 175 pounds for non- members.
+04: Under Half Of Risky IT Projects Communicated To Auditors.
Less than half of all government agencies are communicating the findings of
'Gateway Reviews' of high risk government IT projects to internal and
external auditors, according to a report from the National Audit Office
(NAO) published this month.
There are typically five Office of Government Commerce (OGC) Gateway reviews
during the lifespan of a major project, each undertaken by teams of
independent experts on behalf of the Treasury's OGC.
"The ability of Audit Committees to provide constructive challenge is . . .
weakened in that in only 42 per cent of organisations do internal auditors
get copies of all Gateway Reviews," says the report. Only 26 per cent of
auditors received quarterly briefings, the report says.
The report also finds the government often does not fully and effectively
engage with IT suppliers. It suggests nine key questions organisations can
ask themselves when embarking on an IT project, divided into three
categories: 'ensuring senior level engagement;'
'acting as an intelligent client;' and 'realising the benefits to change.'
It
also offers case studies of successful IT-enabled programmes from both the
public and private sectors globally.
'Delivering Successful IT Enabled business change'
( http://fastlink.headstar.com/na2 ),
is available from the NAO website.
News In Brief:
+05: Please Tony: A facility for anyone to start or sign an electronic
petition to the Prime Minister has gone live on the 10 Downing Street
website, developed by non-profit organisation MySociety.org. Petitions can
be rejected for a small range of reasons, but will still be listed along
with those reasons. Current examples range from 'repeal the Hunting Act
2004' (signatures: more than 10,000) to 'stop heavy goods vehicles using
Wesham as a shortcut' (signatures: 1):
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk .
+06: Confidence Mark: A quality standard for IT supplier
organisations aiming to improve confidence in the technology supply chain is
to be made available in early 2007. Accredit UK will be launched by The
National Computing Centre with the European Regional Development Fund, and
will seek competence in three core
areas: people, process and performance. Initially, the scheme will run in
the West Midlands region only:
http://www.accredituk.com .
+07: Consultation Alert: An online service designed to help citizens
participate in legislative consultation has been launched by the privatised
former government printer The Stationery Office with the Office of Public
Sector Information. "Have Your Say" includes an email alert service where
people can register interest by topic and be informed when relevant
consultations are launched:
http://www.haveyoursayonline.net .
[Section One ends.]
++Section Two: Focus
- UK Critical National Infrastructure.
+08: Critical Infrastructure Creaks Under The Strain.
Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) is the collective term for those
services that are essential to the economic, social and political wellbeing
of the United Kingdom.
According to the Security Service MI5, our CNI can be categorised into 10
sectors: communications, emergency services, energy, finance, food,
government and public services, health, public safety, transport and water.
In our increasingly networked world, new technologies have a major role to
play within all these sectors. In all parts of modern society, major IT
systems are used to manage people and services and communicate internally
and with the outside world. Problems with these systems can cause services
to fail.
For example all three major emergency services are now using a common
"terrestrial trunked radio network" called Airwave from O2, to help them
co-ordinate their activities in tactical situations. However, there are
major concerns about the duration of its back-up power arrangements where a
major power failure represents part of the emergency.
Problems with IT or telecommunications in one part of society can also have
knock-on effects in others, since there is a complex interrelationship
between many parts of the critical infrastructure. For example, a problem
with a power station could lead to inability of someone to access the
emergency services through a telephone; and a fire in a tunnel carrying
phone lines can knock out the local cash machine network.
There is therefore a web of critical services, all interdependent in complex
ways, and all dependent on ICT in complex ways. There is also a potential
hierarchy of problem areas, such that for example power failures could cause
problems across many other areas like health and the food sector. Thus ICT
problems in some areas can be relatively quickly contained, and have few
serious knock-on effects; but in others, most notably in the power and
telecommunications sectors, could potentially trigger a cascade of other
problems with catastrophic results.
While it is true that the internet was originally designed to be resilient
to attack and route communications around points of damage, the physical
restrictions of the UK's small number of internet peering centres or 'choke
points' regulating traffic to and from other countries or between UK
regions, coupled with the slow development of satellite and wireless
alternatives, mean that our communications systems in general are far more
vulnerable to disruption through accidental or malicious damage than many
people realise.
In March 2004 a fire that broke out in a BT cable tunnel in Manchester, that
put 130,000 landlines out of action, disrupted internet services and
disrupted several parts of the emergency services communications network
including Derbyshire and Cheshire police forces and the Greater Manchester
Ambulance service. Many bank cash machines in the area were also closed,
since they make security checks over phone lines, and local shops could not
use credit and debit card machines for the same reason. The incident
highlights the vulnerability of parts of our communications infrastructure,
and demonstrates how a single failure can cascade across multiple areas and
services.
At the same time some organisations that believed they had back-up
communication routes in place should the BT services go down, found that
these alternative routes actually used duct space in the same cable tunnel,
and so were lost as well.
Some analysts are also concerned that there may not be enough 'standby'
routings for telecommunications, after changes in the business rating
valuation system meant that standby lines capable of immediate switchover
were liable to expensive business rates even if they were not being used at
that time. However it is true that business continuity has been accorded
much higher priority in recent years, and the major telecoms companies now
have standby switches and routing apparatus, truck mounted, ready to deploy
in a matter of hours.
The December 2005 explosion at the Buncefield oil refinery, reportedly the
largest peacetime explosion ever seen in Europe, offers another example of
how the IT portion of the CNI can be damaged.
The adjacent offices of the IT company Northgate Information Solutions were
destroyed, with short-term effects including the disruption of an automated
admission and discharge system for Addenbrooke's Hospital.
The company also runs payroll systems for the employers of one in three
Britons, paying out billions of pounds each month. Significantly however, as
reported later by Northgate CIO John Lockett in a CBI guide 'From IT
strategy to IT reality', good business continuity planning at the company
ensured there was little disruption to these services. This is a key
learning point for other organisations: good contingency plans,
well-rehearsed, are an essential element of CNI protection. Public sector
bodies are required to have a business continuity plan, co-ordinated and
shaped through the Cabinet Office Civil Contingencies Secretariat.
The protection of our CNI is an ever-changing and ever more demanding
proposition, and it is necessary to have properly resourced agencies in
place to enforce them. Previously, keeping track of cybercrime was the work
of the National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), but this role has since been
taken on by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA -
http://www.soca.gov.uk/ ).
NHTCU was strong on forging international links but a lack of resources
meant its regional coverage was not comprehensive across the UK, creating
weaknesses in defences in some areas, particularly outside major population
centres. It is too soon to gauge how effective SOCA will be in this field,
but it is not clear that it has been allocated enough extra funds to address
these regional vulnerabilities.
All such issues must be watched closely by Parliamentarians in future, to
ensure the safety of the services most critical to the wellbeing of UK
citizens in the digital age.
NOTE: This article is an edited version of 'Critical Connections Under
Strain', the first issue of 'PITComms', written by E-Government Bulletin
journalists in association with the Parliamentary Information Technology
Committee (PITCOM), a new type of briefing for Parliamentarians on the
politics of information technology from PITCOM. For the full report see:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/pitcom1 .
[Section Two ends]
++Section Three: Focus
- Outsourcing.
+09: Building Strength From The Inside Out
by Mel Poluck.
Birmingham City Council, Europe's largest local authority, last year joined
the growing trend of councils choosing to outsource their IT to the private
sector.
After signing a 10-year, multimillion pound deal with professional services
company Capita, Birmingham's 500-strong IT department has moved to a joint
venture company, 'Service Birmingham'
( http://fastlink.headstar.com/bham2 ),
managed by the technology company.
One clue to the resulting change of focus taking place at Birmingham is in
the recent change of moniker for former Head of Business Solutions and IT
Glyn Evans, who now revels in the title: 'Assistant to Chief Executive on
Transformation.'
The council has broken the task of improving its IT down into small,
progressive chunks. "We have a seven-phase approach to Transformation," said
Evans. Each phase, he said, is made up of a set of tasks. "On an overhead
projector it would look like a map of the underground - every station is an
activity." This comprehensive approach is unique in the public sector,
according to Evans.
One of the first key jobs as Service Birmingham has been to toughen up the
council's inner IT structure. "We've made significant progress, particularly
around the reliability of infrastructure," Evans said. One of the initial
priorities has been updating the old mail servers at the council which are
running Lotus Notes software, "some very ageing."
Since the overhaul, Evans said the council has seen no more than one
instance of server downtime in three to four months. Previously, there would
be two to three occurrences of server downtime a month, he said.
As a further indicator of Birmingham's new "transformational"
approach, Evans and his team have installed a more consistent network
infrastructure. In the past, networking of the council's 1,000 buildings has
taken place on an ad-hoc basis.
"Service Birmingham has, since taking over, put a lot of effort into making
it more resilient so that there are alternative routes to all major
buildings," Evans said. "If one link should fail because, for example,
someone has cut through a cable [or] other reasons such as equipment
failure, people in the building can continue to work because there is a
back-up route."
As for Birmingham's public-facing IT, Service Birmingham has again attempted
to break down the massive task of upgrading it in manageable chunks. "We've
established nine programmes with a major transformational remit," he said.
Five are already up and running.
Some of these focus on adult services, for example, and others are
cross-cutting such as the customer services network, one of the aims of
which, he said, will be to live up to its strapline, "Quick Visit."
Of the five operational IT initiatives, Evans cited some astonishing cost
savings: by year four of the 10-year programme, net savings will total some
65 million pounds. By year six, these will rise to 100 million per year.
Evans said the original overall target of one billion pounds savings through
the formation of Service Birmingham over its 10-year contract period is
still a realistic figure. But Evans admits that initially he shared the
scepticism of his colleagues. "I'm more confident than I was about the one
billion pounds."
Currently, the council is gearing up for a major communications campaign to
convey the message of transformational government to staff through posters
and a DVD. "The challenge in the council is we get too much information.
We're almost self-editing." Evans himself is focusing on formulating the
best method to undertake the task of transformation in the council, he said.
"Transformation is not a new initiative. It's a toolkit to help us do the
change we want to do as a council," said Evans, who is also a board member
of the Cabinet Office's Chief Information Officer Council (
http://www.cio.gov.uk ).
"We're transforming services to embed Transformation in the way the Council
operates, rather than being an add-on."
[Section Three ends].
++Sponsored notice: SustainIT
- National eWell-Being Awards: call for entries.
E-Government Bulletin is working in partnership with national charity
SustainIT on the 2006/07 National eWell-Being Awards, the only awards in the
UK that recognise uses of ICT that deliver social and environmental
benefits. The six categories and three special awards for
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Bulletin, 'Digital Inclusion', 'Age and Disability' and 'Better Ways of
Working'.
Simon Hills, Head of SustainIT, says that "the National eWell-Being Awards
are all about rewarding organisations which use technology in an innovative
way to benefit the environment and peoples' lives.
Winning an award can really help put an organisation on the map and can
encourage others to follow examples of good practice."
The deadline for entries is 30 November 2006. Please register your interest
at:
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[Sponsored Notice ends]
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++END NOTES.
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- EDITORIAL.
Editor - Dan Jellinek
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Poluck Technical Advisor - Nick Apostolidis Additional reporting - Judith
Pope
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