Report from the SOCITM Spring Seminar 2002

Report from the SOCITM Spring Seminar 2002

The well-attended SOCITM spring conference produced an array of expert speakers including David Henshaw, Chief Executive of Liverpool City Council, Mary Winterhausen, local eGovernment expert, Glyn Evans, Head of ICT at the London Borough of Camden and Chair of Socitm's Information Age Government Group and Chris Haynes, adviser to the DTLR Local Government Modernisation Team.

Aside from the now common concerns over funding, the conference showed how thinking on eGovernment had moved on to addressing many issues other than the core technology. Customer focus was a very strong theme as were change, business management and partnering.

The Society also held its 2002 Annual General Meeting, electing Jim Haslem as the new President and Chris Haynes as the second Vice President to Fahri Zihni. Mike Barkway, David Cowan and Kate Mountain were also elected as Directors to Socitm Services Limited (SSL), the commercial arm of the Society. Following recommendations from a strategic review, members voted to bring together SSL and the Society (an unincorporated professional body) into a single legal body and to appoint a Chief Executive for the organisation.

PRESENTATIONS:

David Henshaw showed how strong management and leadership had helped Liverpool become a leading Council from very low in the local authority league table. The combination of technology and sound business thinking, with a focus on the 'customer', cost reduction and service quality have radically transformed the Authority. Teamwork had allowed management to break out of 'silos' of Directorates and as a result of the change process, attain greater job satisfaction. He emphasised that local government was at a crossroads of business improvement or dangerous stagnation. Liverpool has improved to the point that it is now able to offer services to other local authorities.

Mary Winterhausen presented findings from the newly-published 'Local eGovernment Now 2002 - There for the Taking' report, a case study-based research on lessons from existing projects. The report also addressed the funding issue and concluded that: better local government was worth paying for; well developed, e-enabled public services encouraged inward investment and stimulated new business generation; partnerships should be based on mutual understanding, trust and robust legal agreements, and that change had become the new status quo.

Glyn Evans also emphasised that ICT is about change and that eGovernment is a catalyst and enabler for this change. He stressed the importance of delivering tangible results to the public. Customer focus, he said, is about providing choice and individually tailored joined-up services, delivered with efficiency and high quality, which also took into account the principles of equality and justice and empowered the customer and the front line staff.

Chris Haynes discussed e-gov@local, the new DTLR local government strategy consultation, presenting the key elements as well as the tests that would measure the success of the strategy. There was a confident indication that financial contribution from central government may increase significantly in the next couple of years, however, the point that money has to come from savings and improved ways of working was re-iterated. 'Strategic local Partnerships' as well as 'central-local' partnerships were also emphasised including the continuation of the work on the Pathfinder projects. Mr Haynes also noted the second round of the production of the Implementing Electronic Government statements and indicated that the forthcoming Spending Review may allocate some resources to this exercise, which was not expected to be as strenuous for local authorities as the production of the initial strategies. He expected final guidance to be produced in May, hand-in of statements in September and following the evaluation, announcements would be made in January 2003 with the money being allocated in March or April of that year.