West Sussex County Council
IMPLEMENTING ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT RETURN 20022003 (IEG3)
Proforma
IMPLEMENTING ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT RETURNS 2003 (IEG3)
Foreword by Michael Coleman
Cabinet member for Information Services
West Sussex County Council is committed to continuous improvement of its services. The e-government programme has a vital part to play in achieving improvement and change. We have mainstreamed much e-government activity and we continue to look for new ways to deliver service and community outcomes better. Our local programme is complemented by active participation in national activity, including directorship of a national project, participation in LGoL Programme Board and a wide range of supporting activity.
As an “Excellent” authority the submission of an IEG Statement is voluntary. However we believe it is a critical programme at local and national level and, therefore, welcome the opportunity to benchmark our activity.
We are actively seeking to drop the “e” from the programme as we want to ensure that we consolidate our e-government agenda into all our change and improvement activity. We do not believe that there is a separate “e”-agenda but simply one of improving services and citizen and community outcomes. One consequence of this mainstreaming is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to separately identify resources associated specifically with e-government and this is reflected in our resource table in section 6.
We are managing the programme using formal project/programme techniques, including benefits realisation. This is clearly an implementation programme and we have moved far beyond merely setting a series of “e” aspirations. Implementation is achieved through mainstreaming and, thus, there is a close alignment of change and improvement activity with enhancing service outcomes and delivery.
If there is any distinction between “e” activity and other it may be the use of enabling technology. West Sussex are clearly leading in a number of technology areas (two tier CRM, Transactional Web) but we also recognise limitations and will not lead on activities that do not suit our local context. At the moment activities in that category include smartcards and iDTV. This is a realistic and pragmatic prioritisation of investment.
In the future we will embed further our ability to respond to change and align measurements of success with the achievement of service improvement and broader community outcomes. Our intent is to create an agile, technically enabled organisation that can quickly adjust to changing circumstances and context.
This IEG3 Statement is endorsed by the Cabinet, County Council members and the Chief Executive’s Board
Michael Coleman
PROFORMA CONTENT
1. Priority Services
West Sussex County Council is not implementing a separate e-Government initiative. Instead the County Council regards e-Government as a vehicle for wide-ranging business transformation leading to better access to better services. E-Government is not, therefore, regarded as an activity disconnected from day-to-day business but, instead, it is seen as a catalyst for enabling and promoting far-reaching change and improvement.
The underlying theme of change and improvement in West Sussex is “Better Access/Better Service”. “Better Service” objectives can be understood as being the strategic objectives defined in the County Council strategy, with the e-government programme acting as a key mechanism for achieving those objectives. This is demonstrated through a specific and strong linkage between our e-government programme and the strategy as defined by the e-programme mandate that we described in our IEG Statement 2002. Our IEG2 statement also described the very close alignment of our local strategic objectives with those described as the central/local 7 priorities (CLP7).
The mainstreaming of e-government through alignment with the e-enablement of priority services is also demonstrated by the way in which the County Council has aggregated existing ICT and Change budgets, supplemented with additional investment, to create a means of building and managing a significant investment in change and improvement through a single programme.
As a consequence response to change is becoming “built into the system” and West Sussex will be seeking to lose the “e” from the programme description to reinforce our view that the programme is about fundamental and lasting change and improvement. This is also reflected in our “e-government” work with partners, where we anticipate a fundamental shift towards the partnership acting as a co-ordinating body for the enablement of a range of partnership initiatives as well as developing new approaches to service delivery. This is outlined in a Partnership Statement document shared by all West Sussex local authorities in the West Sussex Accessible Services Partnership (WSASP).
The current “e-government” programme in West Sussex County Council includes 13 sub-programmes involving some 195 projects. These are supported by dedicated sub-programme managers (using OGC MSP method), dedicated Business Change Managers who are tasked with benefits realisation and supported by business improvement consultants, project managers (operating under PRINCE2) and a programme office. Political support is achieved at the highest level from the Council Leader, a designated Cabinet member and a Policy Advisory Group. Scrutiny is achieved through the work of one of the County Council’s Select Committees. Officer involvement at the highest level is through an e-programme board that includes 3 strategic directors as well as key heads of service.
All projects in the e-Government programme address aspects of activity defined by the e-model and range from highly technical work around infrastructure development and improvement to core systems through to non-technical organisational development activity. All these projects are subject to internal “gateway reviews”. These are carried out by a formal e-Programme Assurance Group that tests the business case against e-government priorities and outcomes and also a Design Authority that monitors projects to ensure that there is a strategic fit with e-government objectives and local priorities (including a Technical Design Review for compliance with technological and access standards where appropriate).
The close alignment of activity with central/local priorities is best evidenced through the following table that shows how project activity can be aligned with the CLP7.
CLP / Corporate Activity / Service ActivityRaising standards across our schools / · Business Integration
· CRM
· Help points
· Contact Centre
· Infrastructure enhancement
· EDRMS
· GIS
· Taxonomy Management
· Transactional Webs / West Sussex Grid for Learning, Schools Broadband
Improving the quality of life of children, young people, families at risk and older people / Identification, Referral, Tracking, Children Services, Adult Services, Home Care
Promoting healthier communities by targeting key local services, such as health and housing / Fairer Charging
Creating safer and stronger communities / Crime and Disorder Data and Information Exchange, Street Lighting, Sussex Cameras
Transforming our local environment / Wireless Broadband, Online fault reporting
Meeting transport needs more effectively / Sussex Cameras, Fault Reporting, Kiosks
Promoting the economic vitality of localities / Broadband Strategy
Broader, corporately sponsored activities also have an impact on the CLP7. These activities include the establishment of a joined-up, multi channel approach to access shared with District Council Partners. This is based on a shared CRM solution being implemented into the West Sussex Help Points (face-to-face one-stop-shops) and into the West Sussex Contact Centre (telephone and e-mail). The same CRM system includes integration with key back-office systems and will be used by back-office staff. This solution will provide a more rapid, assured access into core services. Nearly 100 service lines have already been identified for delivery through the Help Points and the County Council Contact Centre. A second phase for the Contact Centre focuses on a wide range of Social Services activity, including aspects of IRT.
A key vehicle for both access and CLP7 service delivery is the West Sussex Transactional Website where numerous citizen-facing services are available online. Since April the monthly visitor numbers have doubled.
In addition to the CLP7 focussed projects the County Council has project activity targeting e-participation, employee transactions, e-procurement and broader knowledge management. It has also instituted a programme that intends to provide potentially all 10,000 members of the non-school workforce with an ECDL qualification.
The County Council is active within a number of the LGoL sponsored National Projects including LAWs (Project Director), CRM (proof of concept), Knowledge Management (workpackage leader in regard to tacit knowledge), Schools Admissions (pilot site), Trading Standards, Fire Services and the Standards Body. In addition the County Council has submitted expressions of interest to e-Innovations (the e-business strand) and has an outstanding ISB Bid for further developing a Shared Intelligence Framework with partners across public services in the county.
In addition to undertaking a mid-term review of the County Council strategy (the outcomes of which will be built back into a revised change and improvement programme) a review of core supporting strategies is being undertaken. This includes the prevailing e-government strategy. The existing strategy (originally published in 2000) has achieved its intent of mobilising the County Council to deal with the challenge of change in a structured, customer and process orientated manner. It is likely that this strategy will be re-named and develop a greater focus on outcomes and, specifically, seek to focus activity onto the concept of “value add” to prevailing social value and the establishment of social capital through even more effective service delivery, the achievement of broader community outcomes and the establishment of greater trust in the integrity of the local authority.
[NB it should be noted that all key e-government decisions are signed off by the e-board or the e-directorate (a smaller body meeting weekly that acts with the authority of the board). All decisions outlined in the IEG3 self-assessment and other sections have been “signed off” by these management bodies]
2. Self-Assessment of Local e-Organisation
ODPM Guidance: You are asked to summarise the plans and progress of your local authority according to the six parts of model of the local e-organisation, as presented in the ODPM’s National Strategy for Local e-Government published in November 2002 (see www.localegov.gov.uk/nationalstrategy). The model provides a checklist of work areas against the e-organisation themes, or building blocks of local e-government - interactions, access channels, trust & connections, enablers, e-business and organisational development. Please refer to www.localegov.gov.uk for further description of the elements of this model, together with associated National Projects. Further information about these building blocks is also available from the I&DeA’s Knowledge website at www.idea.gov.uk/knowledge
Red = Preparation & planning – to include projects that are being planned or being piloted
Amber = Implementation stage – roll out of approved projects
Green = Fully implemented – projects completed & implemented
6
IEG3 Final Guidance
Traffic Light Status: availability against 31 December 2005 target date for local e-government / Status at 31/03/02 / Status at 31/03/03 / Anticipated Status at 31/03/04 / Anticipated Status at 31/03/05 / Anticipated Status at 31/03/06Local e-organisation: / 2001/02 / 2002/03 / 2003/04 / 2004/05 / 2005/06 / Comment
Interactions
Note: The Best Value Performance Indicator (BVPI) 157 provides a measure of the number of types of interactions (or contact) between the citizen and the council that are enabled for electronic delivery as a percentage of those that are available.
· Progress towards 2005 target for the 100% e-enablement of local services / Amber / Amber / Green / Green / Green / WSCC have a staged plan for the achievement of BVPI157, “green” indicates that the plan for 100% achievement is on course.
Access Channels
Note: Access channels are the various routes through which people might contact, or be contacted by, local service providers to undertake electronically enabled interactions.
· Publication of approved strategy for development of access channels / Red / Red / Amber / Green / Green / WSCC are publishing a Customer Strategy, this includes linkage with a revised ICT strategy that, together define an access strategy from (a) the customer perspective and (b) the technological perspective.
· Local service websites (tailored to achievement of transactional status[1] for corporate “.gov.uk” website) / Red / Red / Green / Green / Green / The current version of the West Sussex website is, we believe, a transactional site. The next iteration, due for release in early December 2003 will be based on the outcomes of the LAWs National Project.
· Specialist portals for local authority services in two-tier areas / Red / Red / Amber / Green / Green / The West Sussex LA partners decided some time ago that a “community portal” (using prevailing definitions from 1999/2000) was not appropriate to local circumstances. Instead the WS LAs concentrated on the establishment of a common taxonomy to describe service so that local websites could use consistent meta-tagging (see WSCL submitted to govtalk). Since then WSCC believes that the technological basis for developing syndicated data content (e.g. Online Government Store architecture, LAWs syndication standards, Web Services) are reaching sufficient maturity to make the traditional definition obsolete. Instead WSCC will seek to contribute to community portals through syndication and by involvement in OGS.
· Contact centres (e-enabled & dealing with at least 80% of incoming telephone calls to the local authority) / Red / Amber / Amber / Green / Green / The West Sussex contact centre will go live in September 2004. The first stage will deliver around 100 of the service lines defined by the ESD tookit and deal with 75% of telephone calls made to generic numbers. Later phases will add substantially to that number later in 2004/05 and 2005/06. It will share a common CRM with face-to-face contact points.
· Establishment of fully e-enabled one stop shops for face-to-face customer contact / Green / Green / Green / Green / Green / The LAs in West Sussex have been operating a network of shared Help Points (face-to-face one-stop-shops) since 1992. (97% of residents live within 5 miles of one). The network is in the process of adopting a common CRM system.
· Use of mobile technology for home visits / supported access services / Amber / Amber / Amber / Amber / Amber / There is a general programme of e-enablement throughout the County Council. There are a number of plans, pilots and local implementations of mobile technology to support practitioners who work away from the office (including a substantial programme of e-enabling social services). It is unlikely, however, that all staff who undertake home visits (including 3500 home care workers) will be fully e-enabled by 2005/06.