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In an interview with David Moody, CTO of government software supplier Lagan, eGovMonitor explored the role technology in helping local authorities become more effective and efficient in the past few years. Part 1 of 2.

Question 1. Public sector budgets are expected to be slashed to an unprecedented level while demand for services is increasing. This raises a number of issues:

When and how do you think these cuts will really start to impact on local government?

With the huge public spending deficit the UK faces, it’s clear that something has to give. However in the run-up to the UK general election, neither of the main parties wants to focus on where they intend to make cuts. Rather, it’s more about the key services the next government will focus on such as education and health. Once the election is over , we can expect to hear far more detail on where cuts are to be made. Indeed, we should expect an early announcement as soon as the next party is elected – no one in power wants to announce cuts late into their term when thoughts of re-election are to the fore!

Of course the one thing that would be catastrophic for ‘UK PLC’ would be to lose its coveted triple A rating (the lowest risk of default) as assessed by the three major credit rating agencies Moody’s Investors Services, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch Ratings. Without this, the UK’s appeal as a centre of investment will be severely eroded. Gordon Brown’s government has retained this top rating only by announcing plans to reduce debt in the short-term, and all eyes will be on how this has been achieved. Spain has already suffered a downgrade to AA+.

We’ve already seen the USA – which I would say is ahead of the UK in terms of the pain we need to go through on the road to recovery – axe some large-scale projects in order to yield cost savings. Ireland, too, has made swineging €4 billion cuts in what has been billed its most painful budget in a generation.

In the UK, we expect the focus in the future to be on a combination of revenue generation and improved operation efficiency. Fundamentally, it comes down to local authorities striving to achieve more using the same resources. Let me deal with each of these cost-saving aspects separately.

We are already seeing examples of revenue generation in certain councils throughout the UK. With central funding to councils forecast to be cut, councils are being forced to raise revenue in more creative ways while maintaining essential services. Bin collections are just one example: garden waste, or ordinary black bins, may be collected routinely every fortnight, but some councils are now giving the option of a weekly pick-up at an additional cost. Another idea being mooted at local authority level is to levy a surcharge on business parking. So even if an organisation has its own private car park, there could still be a charge to park there.

My feeling is that we’ll increasingly start to see a charge for non-essential services, or options for citizens to select a premium service at a premium fee. This is certainly something that is already being trialled in some areas.

The second strand of savings will come in the form of operational efficiencies. We have already seen a strong focus on streamlining processes at the local government level going back, for example, to the Gershon report and central government’s subsequent transformational agenda. More recently, the requirements of initiatives such as NI 14 have spearheaded a reduction in avoidable contact, encouraging the use of self-service channels such as websites.

There has undoubtedly already been greater focus in this financial year by local authorities on the savings that can be generated through rationalisation and shared services in anticipation of rapid cuts after the next general election.

One other trend that I believe will become increasingly common is the personalisation of budgets, and greater community involvement in how limited resources would be best spent. We’ve seen it in adult social care services already. This should create a win:win situation where citizens get the care they know will be of best benefit to them, and councils make significant cost savings.

Cutting jobs is likely to be a last resort and I see no reason why local government cannot achieve significant savings and increase efficiencies through smart use of technology and by implementing measures to encourage citizens to access council services in ways that are more cost effective.

Question 2. What techniques and technologies have you seen local authorities using to try to address the challenges they face of improving service delivery with reduced budgets? How successful have these been? What would you attribute any lack of success to?

I would say that the two key trends in 2009 – and they will continue throughout 2010 and beyond – have been self service and mobile working. These both dovetail neatly with the need to increase efficiencies and reduce avoidable contact of course.

If we look at self service first, we see that local authorities have successfully improved service delivery by encouraging the public to interact with them via the internet. This reduces "avoidable contact" with associated substantial cost savings. In just one example in the UK, City of York Council is generating annual savings of £378,000 from its web-enabled services.

As well as reducing costs, from the user’s point of view, accessing services via the web can be far preferable. They have 24 hour access to a range of services so can deal with issues at their own convenience.

That said, a poor website can completely defeat the objective. SOCITM warned recently that underperforming websites could be costing councils £11 million every month. This is because if people do not find what they are looking for on a website, they will access council services via far more costly means such as walk-in contact centres. It’s a frustrating situation because the technology is easily available to build highly effective interactive sites that will generate immediate cashable savings.

Turning to mobile initiatives, we can cite plenty of examples where local authorities have successfully enabled field workers to stay "in the field" for longer using mobile solutions. This enables them to focus on the core task for which they are trained rather than returning to base frequently to complete paperwork or collect new job instructions.

At Wyre Borough Council on the Fylde coast, for example, street scene officers are now equipped with Blackberries giving them access to immediate information regarding incidences of fly-tipping which they can investigate immediately. Chichester District Council is saving thousands of pounds in printing and administrative costs annually as a result of issuing refuse collection crews with rugged tablet PCs fitted into their vehicles. Rounds and routes updates are now transmitted directly to the team rather than printed out and updated on the crew’s return.

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 Visit Lagan's Microsite On eGov monitor

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Lagan also has a large customer base in the United States and there we’ve seen some local authorities successfully utilise iPhone applications to allow citizens to report incidents. It seems to be in the nature of iPhone users that they are keen to use such applications, and of course they benefit the local authority by effectively acting as a volunteer member of staff when they report issues – often backed up by photographic evidence.

All this aside, the use of technology needs to fit within a holistic view of service delivery that takes into consideration both what the local authority offers and also what the public – a highly discerning customer - wants. This then allows areas for improvement to be prioritised according to the benefit they can deliver.

The question as to where technology has failed is an interesting one. I wouldn’t say it’s not so much the technology that has failed but rather the approach to technology and what it can deliver. I think we can split failures into three key areas: lack of clear direction from leadership; an unwillingness to think in new ways; and an unwillingness to work with partners. I suppose people are naturally averse to change, or perhaps want to prove they can do it all themselves. However, by working with specialist partners, they will generally achieve far better outcomes sooner. And at the end of the day, it’s against these outcomes that they will be judged.

In the second part of the interview David discusses ROI,  local government performance assessment among other topics.

 Visit Lagan's Microsite On eGov monitor

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