6 May 2003

Local e-Government Now, 2003 - Sustaining the Momentum

By Martin Ferguson, Assistant Director, Improvement and Development Agency for local government

We talk about modernising local government by making authorities more accessible, responsive, cost-effective, accountable and inclusive - and we invest in initiatives to electronically enable services and democratic participation. But what is the experience of citizens and businesses, and where are the benefits being felt as the changes begin to take effect?

This new report, the third in the series of our annual reports with the Society of IT Management (Socitm), examines how the lives and businesses of people are being changed for the better as a result of local e-government innovations. The report identifies over 30 examples of leading-edge practice from across the UK's local authorities, measured against the eight shared public service delivery priority outcomes agreed by central government and the LGA:

·	raising standards across our schools;
·	improving the quality of life of o older people   o and of children, young people and families at risk;
·	promoting healthier communities and narrowing health inequalities;
·	creating safer and stronger communities;
·	transforming our local environment;
·	meeting local transport needs more effectively; and
·	promoting the economic vitality of localities

The breadth of examples from across the country makes encouraging reading. In Northampton, the county and borough councils, together with the NHS and The Alzheimer's Society and are finding new supportive and non-intrusive technologies that can support people with dementia, allowing them to live independently as long as possible, and providing relief and peace of mind to their carers.

In Brighton & Hove, satellite technology has been deployed to allow the council and the bus company to track actual movements of buses - with real time information relayed to displays in bus shelters around the city. This has improved the scheduling and running of the buses, but it can also prevent people from waiting at deserted bus stops late at night, not knowing when their bus is going to arrive.

And in Sunderland, the development of community-managed Electronic Village Halls (EVHs) in isolated parts of the city has provided new opportunities for learning, training and social interaction. Critically, the EVHs have been able to provide effective paths from basic skills through to formal, specialised training. The council has worked with local employers to develop the strategy, ensuring that the training on offer meets their skills requirements. This enabled many to obtain jobs in call centres, previously beyond their reach.

As well as a wealth of case studies, the report also includes three 'think-pieces' that analyse and challenge perceptions of e-government now and for the future.

Dr Lawrence Pratchett of De Montfort University argues that authorities cannot easily borrow technological innovations or solutions from the private sector, and that innovation and transformation in local government need to be cast within the unique challenges posed by democratically-led community governance.

Many of the case studies illustrate partnerships that are dependent on community participation in service delivery. Kate Oakley, an independent researcher and writer, agrees that e-government provides new opportunities and a direction for innovation and transformation. However, to be successful, she argues, local authorities must not rush towards the twin nirvanas of efficiency and convenience at the expense of the more traditional values of citizen participation, justice and accountability.

MORI's Andrew Collinge also contributes to the report, with an article that explores the pressures on local authorities to move towards a more customer-focussed approach to service delivery and the technological solutions, which form part of the answer. However, his conclusion is that we are only now beginning to realise the true enabling power of e-government, after a period of testing and experimentation.

Three key challenges for local authorities and their partners emerge from the report.

First, there is a need to bridge the gap between these innovations in service areas and corporate visions, plans and funding streams. This year, the concentration of case studies is on organisations that are using technologies in the front line and seeing real benefits to their communities. However, the research shows that such projects are often disconnected from authorities' corporate plans - including those set out within their IEG statements. In addition, the innovations featured in the report have often been the result of short term, project-based funding, which limits the extent to which they can be sustained or rolled out to other authorities.

Second, councils need to take steps to build capacity for e-government not only within their organisations, but also in the community. This is not solely a matter of training citizens how to use the Internet or developing project management and entrepreneurial skills internally, though these are important. More challengingly, authorities need to lead in the development of the infrastructure to underpin 'new public sphere' for participation in decision-making and service development. As part of this, councils need also to take a lead in guiding, encouraging and supporting community groups to take an active role in shaping new services and managing the futures of their communities.

Finally, it can prove difficult to quantify the benefits that e-government is delivering to the community - and councils must become more adept at doing so. This is not because the benefits are not there, nor because measurement is being ignored. It is because there is not an easy way of isolating the impact of the technologies from the impact of the many other measures that effective service management is putting in place alongside them.

This is actually encouraging, in one sense. Local e-government is not an end in itself, as is stated clearly in the national strategy for local e-government. The deployment of technologies alongside other measures to improve services, alongside better training and better understanding of the needs of the service recipients, is at the heart of the modernisation of government. In these case studies can be found innovations and capacity building, improvements in services and in their support, and modernised ways of operating and planning for the future. The benefits, which the councils featured have often gone to great lengths to capture, are measured in more satisfied service users, in staff who find their jobs more satisfying and more challenging, in citizens and businesses whose lives have been changed for the better, and in communities that feel included, listened to and re-enfranchised.

Copies of Local e-government now, 2003 - sustaining the momentum can be ordered from www.idea.gov.uk or www.socitm.gov.uk from mid-May. Two free copies of the report and accompanying briefing will be distributed to local authorities that are members of the IDeA's e-Champions network. Those who subscribe to the Socitm Insight service will also receive the report and briefing free of charge.