From: Dan Jellinek [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 03 March 2008 16:58
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: E-Government Bulletin, 03 March 2008: Shared Services Survey; Facebook and Democracy; Socitm Council Websites Report.
+++E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN
- ISSUE 258, 03 March 2008.
- A Headstar Publication
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IN THIS ISSUE: Shared Services Survey; Facebook and Democracy; Council Websites Report.
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++Special Notice: E-Access '08
- The Accessibility Event of the Year
- 23 April, Central London
http://www.headstar-events.com/eaccess08/
E-Access Bulletin's fourth annual conference and exhibition on access to technology by people with disabilities is on 23 April, sponsored by Fortune Cookie and supported by E-Access Bulletin, RNIB and Ability Magazine.
A fantastic line-up will look at issues surrounding access to the web; e- learning and education; digital TV switchover; accessible books; and employment issues. This is the place for all organisations in all sectors to find out how to comply with the law and how to make the best use of the talents of all your staff, students and service users.
Delegate rates are just £195 for public sector, £295 for private sector and £165 for small charities and non-profits (turnover under £150k).
Book today to guarantee your place, at:
http://www.headstar-events.com/eaccess08/
And for information about sponsoring or exhibiting please email Will Knox on:
[log in to unmask] or call him on 01273 267974.
[Special Notice ends].
++Issue 258 Contents.
01: Shared Services Reaches 60 Per Cent Of Public Sector
- E-Government Bulletin survey sets scene for our online summit.
02: UK Councils Slow To Respond To Email
- But several ranked as 'Excellent' in Socitm's new website report.
03: Facebook Proving Valuable Tool To Boost Democracy
- MP and councillor address London e-participation symposium.
News in Brief: 04: MySociety Double - award-winning charity launches two new websites; 05: Regaining Control - Parliamentarians on information sharing; 06: Portuguese Census - online electoral survey.
Section Two: Focus - Council Websites.
07: The Future Is Modular: This year, one local authority website is so innovative that it merits its own section in the Society of IT Management's annual council websites report. Dan Jellinek gives the impressive 'Redbridge-i' a spin.
Section Three: Parliamentary IT Committee (PITCOM) - Personal Internet Security.
08: E-Criminals Slipping Under the Radar? MPs and Peers debate the question of whether the laws and processes in place to fight electronic crime are too lax.
[Contents ends].
++Sponsored Notice: Britain's Best Local Government Web Sites.
Manchester City Council has transformed their website and won the BT Online excellence awards to become "The Best Local Authority Website in Britain," as voted by over 27,000 members of the public - thanks to their Web 2.0 website, powered by the Jadu Content Management System. Manchester also use the Jadu XForms Professional online enterprise forms system to manage service requests. Winners in other categories include the BBC, Amazon, Google and Tesco.
Lancashire County Council's Children's Services website
'whatnow.co.uk'- another site powered by Jadu - also received fourth place in the 'Best Kids Website' category.
Find out more at:
http://www.jadu.co.uk/ .
[Sponsored notice ends]
++Section One: News.
+01: Shared Services Reaches 60 Per Cent Of Public Sector.
Some 60 per cent of public sector organisations have one or more shared services initiatives underway as of this month, up from 51 per cent last year, an E-Government Bulletin reader survey has found.
Almost all bodies (99 per cent) are now either considering, planning or undertaking at least one shared services project, compared with 85 per cent in our 2007 survey.
However, only 28 percent of survey respondents were aware of a clear policy for shared services within their organisation, lower than last year's figure of 34 per cent. Some 44 per cent of respondents said that their organisation had no clear policy on shared services, up from 39 per cent; while 28 percent were unaware of whether or not their organisation had a clear policy (similar to last year at 27 per cent)
Around half (47 per cent) said their top management team was strongly supporting the shared services agenda, and a further 49 per cent said managers were showing 'some interest'. However 4 per cent reported little interest among senior managers in shared services and 10 per cent said relevant politicians were showing little interest.
Most respondents (90 per cent) believe that sharing services will improve service provision to citizens; since last year however, expectations have fallen with the survey revealing that the number of those who believe that there will be major service improvements has fallen from 52 to 41 percent.
The top three major barriers according to the survey are lack of support from top managers, inter-organisational turf-wars; and problems with data compatibility. In almost all cases the number of respondents identifying an obstacle as a major barrier has fallen since last year, however, with the only exception being 'concerns about accountability to the citizen,' which doubled from 7 to 14 per cent.
Meanwhile the Politech Institute, a Brussels based consultancy, has published "Transformational government and shared services in Europe", containing case studies from the UK and Belgium and details of a pan-European research project. For details contact:
http://www.politech-institute.org/
NOTE: This week Headstar is running an online summit on shared services in the public sector, in partnership with Siemens. If you would like to take part in this online debate please email your details to Jo Knell on:
[log in to unmask] .
+02: UK Councils Slow To Respond To Email.
UK councils are patchy in their responses to email, according to comprehensive new council website research published this week.
The annual 'Better Connected' review of every single UK council website, published by the Society of IT Management (Socitm), includes a 'dummy email' test in which a reviewer tests response time and quality.
This year, more councils responded to the email than last year - 83 per cent compared with 69 per cent. However, only 67 of authorities responded within two working days, compared with 81 per cent last year.
As for response quality, 52 of councils answered the question either satisfactorily or very well, compared with 41 per cent in 2007. Merging the time taken to reply with the quality, the survey found that just 36 per cent replied within two days with a reply that was at least satisfactory.
Assessing the results, the Socitm report suggests councils should "Put a system in place to ensure that email correspondence is handled properly and quality and speed of response is monitored." They should also consider training in handling email for all employees, it said.
Overall, four council websites were adjudged to be 'excellent' this year, obtaining high scores across all main testing categories. They were East Sussex; Gloucestershire; Salford City; and Tameside Metropolitan Borough. A further 17 councils missed the 'excellent'
ranking by just one judging criterion. Last year - the first when this top category was in use - just one council was adjudged 'excellent', Barking and Dagenham.
Accessibility of websites to people with disabilities is an area of surprisingly poor performance this year, with just 37 councils passing level 'A' of the international 'WCAG' standard, the lowest level. Last year 64 councils passed level 'A'. Not one council passed the next level up, level 'AA', even though this is the level specified by central government guidelines as a minimum requirement, and two councils managed to achieve it in 2007. Socitm is set to explore the reasons behind these failures in a separate supplement on website accessibility due out around Easter.
+03: Facebook Proving Valuable Tool To Boost Democracy.
Facebook and other similar online social networks are already proving a valuable tool for community activism and national and local politics, delegates heard at last week's London symposium 'Empowering citizens through technology and participation', hosted by the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE - http://www.icele.org).
The Liberal Democrat MP Steve Webb, himself already a Facebook 'whale' (the term used for someone with more than 1,000 friends on the network), said politicians should look to start small and grow their online networks.
"I discovered that every secondary school in my area has a Facebook group for former pupils, and every village has a group. There are also many students who live in my constituency but study outside, so are away for 40 weeks of the year. But they are always on Facebook."
By inviting as many local people as possible to be his Facebook 'friend' and join his network, Webb said it makes people more receptive to him when he canvasses in person. "If you knock on the door, they are more likely to know who you are, to connect. And if I am holding a meeting and forget to have leaflets printed, even at the last minute I can contact people online and say I am holding a surgery tomorrow, please come."
It is hard to link online activity directly to increased votes at an election, he said, "But people do say that they will vote for you because you seem to work hard and keep in touch."
But he said it takes a lot of hard work to build and maintain a large social network online. "Anyone who thinks they can do Web 2.0 in their spare time can forget it. If you go down this avenue, be prepared to spend some time on it, or pay someone to spend time on it."
Mr Webb's remarks were supported by a local politician on the panel, Bath and North East Somerset Labour councillor David Speirs.
The founder of the B&NES Network on Facebook, Speirs said the network was useful for holding discussions and organising meetings, protests and petitions. His council also had a private restricted access Facebook group for councillors' internal use, he said.
"I can organise a leafleting session and find out exactly how many and who will attend. Councils need to learn from this - there is a need for online forums, and for personalised councillor profiles."
News in Brief:
+04: MySociety Double: The award-winning online democracy charity
MySociety has launched two new websites. 'WhatDoTheyKnow?' is aimed at making it easy for citizens to submit requests to public bodies under the Freedom of Information Act, providing provides users with simple request forms and the ability to browse previous requests:
http://foi.mysociety.org/ .
And 'GroupsNearYou' is a search tool allowing people to find email lists, forums and social networking groups in or relating to their
neighbourhood:
http://www.groupsnearyou.com/ .
+05: Regaining Control: Citizen access to their own information,
ability to change their information and knowledge of how it will be shared is vital to the acceptance and smooth operation of information sharing schemes, according to a new position paper from the joint technology industry-Parliamentary body EURIM:
http://www.eurim.org.uk/activities/pi/PERID_ISPpaper.pdf .
+06: Portuguese Census: The world's first online electoral census is
due to be undertaken by the Portuguese Ministry of Public Administration. The project has been made possible by the electronic identification and authentication features built into the Portuguese 'e- ID' national identity cards, which were introduced in 2007 and offer citizens secure access to e-government services:
http://www.cartaodecidadao.pt/ .
[Section One ends].
+ Section Two: Focus
- Council Websites.
+07: The Future Is Modular
by Dan Jellinek.
- Each year the local government Society of IT Management (Socitm) reviews every single UK local authority website (see also News, this issue). This year, one site in particular stood out from the crowd in attempting - and largely succeeding - in trying out an approach that is so innovative it merits its own little section in Socitm's new 'Better connected' report published today. The following is an edited version of that section.
In creating its website 'Redbridge i' - the 'i' is for interactive - the London borough threw out all preconceptions of what a council website should be like and looked to the best of the private sector web giants - Google, Amazon, eBay - and to the newest concepts of highly customised, user-driven 'Web 2.0' services.
The result went live in June 2007 and represents the culmination of around nine months' work by a five-strong in-house team of programmers, working with full support from Chief Executive Roger Hampson and the heads of the council service areas.
Redbridge i (http://www.redbridge.gov.uk) is imaginative, audacious and superbly functional. Although still work in progress with information and online services in some areas lagging a little behind the fantastic innovation of the basic interface, the website points the way to the future of local government services online.
Building on a content management system and member registration based on Microsoft's .NET Framework, one of the site's most striking features is full customisation of its home page by adding, removing, dragging and dropping individual blocks or 'modules', in a manner familiar to users of sites like Facebook. The rationale is that different site users will have different interests: parents may be interested in activities for children, for example, whereas commuters may be more interested in local transport or roads.
After registering with the site, users can add and remove modules such as local weather or local schools information. Their subsequent activity on the site is used to generate personalised content recommendations based on their interests.
The 'MyPages' module adds a further level of customisation: by clicking on links within the site's main areas, users can add sections to their own list of favourites. The site's information areas such as the education section will also often refer users back to the relevant content 'modules', allowing the site's elements to work together.
Another strong central feature of the site is its close integration of Google mapping, becoming an alternative way of viewing the entire site. The 'i-maps' are highlighted from the home page as a key feature.
If you are a registered user, the first map that shows up has your house in the middle of the screen, marked with a blue 3-D house icon. Layers of information can easily be added to and removed from the map, such as schools, health services and libraries.
Google technology is also used for the search facility, which is unusual in including relevant postings from the site's discussion forums in search results. The discussion forums are another key component of Redbridge i, attracting several hundred postings each month.
Discussion topics include Redbridge's impact on the environment, service issues such as allotments, and seven neighbourhood forums covering issues relating to small local areas within the borough. A private messaging facility has recently been activated, giving registered users the option to respond to messages publicly on the forum or privately direct to the poster or the forum moderator.
The true power and flexibility of Redbridge i can be seen when different features are combined, with, for example, registered users being notified by e-mail of discussions taking place on the forums which are likely to be of interest to them. The council used personalisation to send out an e-mail newsletter before Christmas informing everyone personally what recycling arrangements would be in place over the holiday season in their area, customised using their postcodes.
Future plans include use of Redbridge i as part of a major public consultation process on the council's capital spending programme. The discussion forums will be used to debate and raise specific budget ideas and proposals, and the council is developing an online interactive tool that will give people a feel for what it is like to draw up their own council budget, with spending increases in one part necessitating cuts in another.
At the launch of Redbridge i in the summer of 2007, Chief Executive Roger Hampson said that the site's flexibility "means it can evolve and grow in a direction largely dictated by its audience." How many other authorities can say this?
[Section Two ends].
++Section Three: Parliamentary IT Committee (PITCOM)
- Personal Internet Security.
+08: E-Criminals Slipping Under the Radar?
by Dan Jellinek.
A House of Lords report published in August 2007 suggests that online fraud is a serious and growing problem, attendees heard at a meeting last month of the Parliamentary IT Committee (PITCOM).
Most UK banks have been attacked, with losses from direct online banking fraud reaching 33.5 million pounds in 2006, and the trend is firmly upwards, with losses of 23.2 million pounds in 2005 and just
£12.2 million in 2004, the report finds.
"Why was the House of Lords report produced? Because there is not enough action from government," the Earl of Erroll told delegates. It is difficult to get an accurate picture of the scale of online fraud because the Home Office doesn't have data specifically on 'e-crime', Lord Erroll said. Police databases do not record whether or not crimes are committed electronically, therefore the government cannot evaluate what resources are required, the meeting heard.
The distributed nature of much online fraud creates problems for police forces, Lord Erroll said. Comparatively small amounts of money can be defrauded from individuals, creating the illusion of a small-scale criminal operation, but it often affects thousands of victims and the courts should take account of this when sentencing, he said.
The danger is that organised crime gangs will slip under police radar, said Lord Erroll. Concern about this has heightened since the absorption of the National High Tech Crime Unit - which was purpose- built to assist the police in dealing with e-crime - into the Serious Organised Crime Agency, he said. Some senior police officers recognise the need for a co-ordinated response, said Lord Erroll, praising the efforts of Commander Sue Wilkinson of the Metropolitan Police to raise the profile of e-crime at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).
Liability falls too heavily on individuals at present, and banks take action only if a bank payment is involved, Lord Erroll said. "These might seem like small sums of money, but they can have a huge impact on individuals. A thousand quid could be a month's payment on a mortgage, and if you miss a few of those you lose your home," he said.
If banks were made to take a greater share of responsibility this would give them greater incentives to prevent online fraud by significantly improving the security tokens used for Card Not Present payments.
The financial services industry must also be more open with the public about the scale of online fraud, Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan told the meeting.
"The idea seems to be that the public doesn't need to be disturbed,"
Lord O'Neill said. Other providers of online services could also do more, he suggested. Although we need to avoid being overly prescriptive, we haven't found the right balance with regulation, Lord O'Neill suggested. "We must set the bar as high as possible. We could introduce something like the kitemark [indicating compliance with an industry standard]. The overwhelming majority of companies would soon comply," he said.
In the discussion that followed, Lord Erroll said the UK needs a version of legislation introduced in California that requires organisations to notify individuals when their personal data is inadvertently disclosed.
Problems with apportioning liability in some fraud cases were noted at the meeting. "Should a company be held responsible if someone falls for one of those so-called '419' email frauds?" asked one delegate. The work of campaigns such as Get Safe Online to public raise awareness of such issues was praised by another delegate.
Part of the problem may be that responsibility for tackling internet fraud is spread over several government departments, said Lord O'Neill. "The chances of getting three senior civil servants together in a room are small in my experience. I managed it once, and then the fire alarm went off, but I refused to adjourn the meeting. Luckily it was only a test," he said.
NOTE: E-Government Bulletin publisher Headstar is the official writer and publisher of PITCOM meeting reports and technology briefings for Parliamentarians. To download further meeting reports and briefings free of charge, see:
http://www.pitcom.org.uk .
[Section Three ends]
++END NOTES.
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ISSN 1476-6310
+PERSONNEL
Editor - Dan Jellinek.
Reporter: Majeed Saleh.
Associate Editors - Derek Parkinson, Mel Poluck.
Marketing and Sales Team - Claire Clinton, Jo Knell, Will Knox.
[Issue 258 ends].
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