A nationwide project that aims to improve and develop the ‘e-payments’ options made available to residents by councils has found a new home in Hammersmith & Fulham. Local government minister Jim Fitzpatrick MP made the announcement at the House of Lords last week.
Residents make all sorts of payments to their local authorities, from regular council tax payments to one-off payments for parking or visits to their local leisure centres. Over 256 million transactions are made across the country every year, amounting to a total value of £46 billion.
Hammersmith & Fulham Council (LBHF) has been at the forefront of innovations in e-payments for several years as more and more residents look to pay bills online and over the phone.
Town hall staff in the West London Borough have seen a huge rise in the total number of e-payments, rising from less than 17,000 in 2001 to over 100,000 this year. Now the council is looking to add more services to the online and pay-by-phone system and help other councils nationwide to follow suit.
Cllr Stephen Burke, leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council, said, “Four years after we took our first payment over the phone, using ATP - automated telephone payment, we are now logging 70,000 calls a year and collecting nearly £8million, so ATP is well and truly open for business in Hammersmith & Fulham. Another option for residents is to make payments on-line via our website. We are the council that never sleeps as customers can now pay for a large number of council services by debit or credit card 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. With our new national e-payments role we are now looking forward to helping other councils to take the same strides we have in recent years and push the boundaries of what is possible.”
LBHF will promote the benefits of e-payments nationwide through the regional local authority networks as well as through the regional e-government groups.
E-payments Project Manager, Julian Hubbersgilt, said, “LBHF was a leading partner in the original e-payments project contributing substantial resources to the national project website, including the calculator, which is a key tool in helping local authorities project and report on efficiency savings which are so relevant to the Gershon agenda and are a reporting requirement of IEG Annual Efficiency Savings.”
According to Mr Fitzpatrick the local e-government programme is 'good news for the Government, good news for local government, and most importantly good news for all of us who use, and care about, public services'. He said that the national projects were a key part in making local authorities more efficient.
Mr Fitzpatrick said, “Local e-government is a remarkable achievement. In March 2002 just 26% of council services were e-enabled. Now, three and a half years on, 98% of councils are e-enabled. By offering cheaper self-service options to the e-literate we free up time and resources to provide for those most in need. I congratulate the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and the other project lead authorities for taking on these projects. I hope that the products they develop will be around for some considerable time, repaying our joint investment and providing valuable support for all councils as we move forward on service transformation. We need to continue to use the output of the projects to deliver better, more efficient services for all. I'm confident local government can and will rise to that challenge.”
LBHF will continue to promote the best practice and guidance in the national e-payment project to other local authorities and update the efficiencies calculator in line with changing reporting requirements.
Cllr Burke, concludes, “Residents rightly expect to be able to make payments conveniently and easily and in ways and at times that suit them. This could mean using the Internet to pay library fines, SMS for parking fines or an automated telephone system for school meals. In Hammersmith and Fulham we are now looking to add new services like booking tickets for the fireworks displays and payments for leisure centres cards to the scheme. By adding more and more services to our e-payments system we make the council more efficient which means that council staff have more time to do other tasks rather than filling out forms and resources can be aimed squarely at front line services.”
NOTES TO EDITOR:
LBHF will represent the e-payment project at the forthcoming local e-government regional EXPOs in Leeds (Nov 8); Birmingham (Nov 10); Newcastle (Nov 15); Brighton (Nov 26) where the main topics of discussion will be take up and efficiency.
A report which will summarise the benefits accrued by local authorities from utilising e-payments solutions will be published by LBHF later this year.
