Woking Borough Council has been working to give trusted voluntary sector intermediaries direct access to records relating to their clients, with their clients' authorisation. Geoff Young, E-Services Programme Manager at Woking outlines the learning points
Woking Borough Council (WBC) has always had good working relationships with its trusted partners. We recognise that if eGovernment services are to reach socially excluded groups, we need the help of our trusted partners, such as the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), other voluntary organisations, and housing associations, to enhance our own arrangements for customer service delivery. For example, Woking CAB deal with 16,500 issues from 6,500 individuals each year, and an estimated 30-40% of these have an interaction with WBC.
In the past, obtaining information from WBC involved many phone calls between Woking CAB and WBC. This required officer time within WBC to respond to the information requests and Woking CAB staff time awaiting information, before being able to help their customers. Both parties were committed to improving this situation.
Woking CAB Pilot
A pilot project in late 2003 provided Woking CAB with the facility to directly access our housing benefit and document imaging systems. This was achieved using a virtual private network and the Council’s thin client technology. We worked with Woking CAB to agree procedures for verifying the identity of Woking CAB clients, security measures and audit trails, which led to the signing of a data sharing protocol.
Whilst this pilot has proven the concept of trusted partner access and has been of significant benefit to both parties, using the display screens designed for council staff is not ideal for volunteers at the CAB. We are now in the process of developing customised screens for use by our trusted partners for access to all appropriate support systems, together with links to the Council’s contact management system. This project is part of the ODPM’s e-Innovations Local e-Government Programme and aims to strengthen the sharing of information between the Council and voluntary sector organisations in the borough.
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We believe that these projects will make a significant contribution to making eGovernment services within Woking truly inclusive
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Partner Infrastructure
In addition to the trusted partner access, the project will also provide updated infrastructure for some of our trusted partners, as well as the development of a community web site. The infrastructure upgrade will involve a number of voluntary organisations based within Provincial House in Woking receiving updated network and telephony facilities. The community web site will enable community groups to develop their own area of the site free of charge. It will offer a range of features including e-forms, simple information publishing facilities and secure sharing of information between group members and partner organisations. The site will provide an easy way for citizens to access a wide range of information relevant to the local community in a single, well recognised location.
We believe that these projects will make a significant contribution to making eGovernment services within Woking truly inclusive.
We are often asked for advice on do’s and don’ts by colleagues in other authorities, and my advice is:
DO:
- Engage with voluntary sector colleagues – you will find them enthusiastic and very helpful. Many of their objectives and much of their customer base are shared with local authorities.
- Recognise and respect their need to be seen as independent from local authorities.
- Keep it simple. Our data sharing agreement was encapsulated in a single side of A4. A data sharing protocol needs to address data protection issues, but this can be done effectively in a straightforward way.
- Recognise that many of the staff within these organisations are part time voluntary workers. The organisations will need your help to provide their staff with support and effective training.
- Appreciate that some staff may feel protective towards the information that they hold about customers. Help them to understand that sharing the information will benefit both them and their customers.
- Recognise the different cultures within each organisation.
- Go for it!!!
DON’T:
- Hide behind rules and regulations. These are all important and need to be addressed, but where there is a will, there is a way.
- Over complicate matters.
Our involvement with our voluntary sector colleagues is continuing and expanding. We are developing e-enabled web based processes for grant applications as well as management to make this complex process easier. Our voluntary sector partners are also engaged with us in working with other public sector agencies on the improved delivery of services for the elderly.
Working with our trusted partners is both rewarding and of significant benefit to both the organisations involved and our customers.