New technologies have the power to enhance democracy and create a new "public sphere", but to date the focus has been largely on e-government as "consumption of electronic services", keynote speaker Kate Oakley told delegates at Maldon.

 

"There is a need to broaden the range of organisations involved with delivering public services to include voluntary organisations, community organisations and citizens themselves", she said.

 

"From the beginning however government policy has said 'things are going to be put online and we as individuals are going to use them'. We have looked to benefits like saving time in using services and boosting efficiency, as in the private sector. But there is a difference in the public sector. I have no children in my local school, so as a consumer I have no interest in it. But as a citizen I have a huge interest".

 

There is not enough citizen input into the creation of services, Oakley said. "Citizens are actually the co-creators of public services, by using them. But this is not recognised."

 

An e-democracy white paper has now emerged from the government, Oakley said, to address issues such as consultation and participation, but it "came quite late and seems like an afterthought". The digital divide was also still a key problem, she said. "There has been a huge amount of work in this area, but it is still a fundamental problem, and a service outlook does not help.

 

Other problems include short-termism in funding of e-government projects. "The burden is to get it right first time, but government takes a long time to develop. It is not known for its efficiency, but that is how it should be – it is known for its justice and equality. New projects should be funded for longer."

 

In developing business cases for technology deployments, the focus is generally too narrow, on immediate outputs, whereas there were often wider benefits to society, she said. "There is a need to look at it holistically and in a reasonable timeframe. We need to worry more about integration into big policy areas such as rural policy and urban policy, and less about being as efficient as First Direct".

 

This new broad, holistic approach was embodied by the new Socitm/Idea report Local e-Government Now, Oakley said. The report contains case studies which demonstrate service improvements, not mere technology deployments.

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"A mixed bag of opportunities and risks" was how Nikos Drakos of Gartner summarised the use of open source software in government.

 

Open source software has a licence ensuring its source code is open; and allowing people to alter and redistribute it. This generally means it is cheaper to use.

 

The public sector has various concerns about implementing open source solutions, although many of these are not well-grounded, Drakos said. It is stable and secure enough for some of the world's busiest web sites such as Yahoo to run on it, he said. And it was a myth that most open source development takes place within unreliable groups of students and hackers – "most development actually takes place within commercial organisations". And some of the non-commercial collaborative communities which develop and maintain open source solutions have major, solid structures, he said. For example the Apache Foundation which oversees the development of the eponymous web server software has been set up as a charitable foundation with a four-level management hierarchy and a board of directors.

 

On the other hand there are some genuine issues to tackle with open source, he said. "There is a big question mark over whether we can ever develop open source solutions to meet all of our IT needs." And the cost issues are not necessarily clear cut, with money saved on licence fees often wiped out by the cost of training staff and integrated new systems with old. In all, he said it was likely that savings from the implementation of open source solutions were likely to be less than 10% of overall costs over the next five years, he said.

 

An interesting side issue for public sector bodies are the ideological aspects of the open source and free software movements, Drakos said. These had been begun to be pushed into the background in recent years as open source software became more mainstream, but were now re-emerging particularly in the context of the developing world. Governments in developing countries are now enacting legislation promoting the use of open source software, particularly in the public sector, he said.

 

Finally, he returned to his 'mixed bag' theme, in saying public sector managers need to "learn to recognise the scare-mongering and the hype surrounding open source. Both are present".

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The Audit Commission views the examination of a council's ICT set-up as a major aspect of assessing its corporate performance under the new CPA scheme, although auditors do not necessarily even speak to an IT director when they make their CPA visits, Helen McMahon of the Audit Commission told delegates at Maldon.

 

Talking ahead of the beginning of CPA visits for district councils for the first time in June – five counties have already been visited – she said: "We will check your IEG statement, and how well your services are supported by ICT. We will look at capacity and investment", she said.

 

"We will look to see that you articulate a realistic vision of e-government, understanding both the potential of technology and what it cannot do. The really good authorities are those that use technology that is fit for purpose, it doesn't have to be the latest technology." Other keys were to demonstrate a 'matrix of leadership' in e-government, showing that it is not just the IT director involved but leading members, other officers and teams, she said.

 

With capacity, she said the basics of identifying priorities; identifying what is needed to deliver; and identifying the gaps between what is needed and what is present are all too often overlooked. "It sounds obvious but I've been to authorities where departments operate in silos and don't know what systems they have elsewhere in the authority".

 

Big projects must be broken down into manageable chunks, and staff must be involved in designing and developing services from the outset and kept informed of developments at all stages, she said. Above all, councils must "be ruthless about local priorities and how ICT can help deliver them – don't get distracted by what's interesting rather than what's important".

 

In a questions from the floor however, one IT director said the Audit Commission had come to his council, and made adverse comments about the e-government programme without anyone on the team speaking to him or any member of his staff. "That rankled", he said. McMahon said that she sometimes did and sometimes did not talk to IT directors when assessing a council, as the assessments focused on corporate governance rather than implementation. But she said someone would certainly look at documents such as the IEG statement and contact relevant people if they had queries.

 

NB Socitm Insight has just pulished a report called Making a difference: an analysis of the ICT contribution to CPA which higlights links between a council's overall performance as judged through the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) process, and its commitment to ICT. 

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There are several strong policy drivers now in place requiring police forces to share information with local government, but the secure technology needed to do so does not exist, Metropolitan Police technical security manager Vince Freeman told delegates.

 

The Crime and Disorder Act was the strongest driver for partnership, alongside child protection laws and the general requirement for joined-up government. But while the police service connects to other criminal justice agencies through the 'CJX' secure network, and with central government departments and agencies via the Government Secure Intranet (GSI), there is no national connectivity with local government, he said.

 

"When officials do presentations on GSI there is always a box in the corner saying local government will connect to it one day. But I don't know if they're really doing anything much about it", he said.

 

This meant that, within London, the Met has to negotiate separate secure connections to the systems of all 33 boroughs, but has no wider links with local government.

 

The system may be rectified in future with upgrades of the GSI, he said, but whatever happens there needed to be a shared policy framework on network security between the police service and local government for information sharing on sensitive criminal investigations to be acceptable.

 

"IT security methods need to form part of the entire infrastructure, not be solution-specific", he said. "At the moment we have some parts of our network protected like Fort Knox where there is no need, and others which should be protected like Fort Knox which have very little security".

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Clive Carmichael-Jones had a sobering assessment of the ever-growing threats to data within large organisations.

 

"If you'd seen what I've seen you would be fairly cynical about IT security", he began.

The range of potential threats and types of criminal or civil case for which computer evidence had turned out to be vital was broad, from theft to murder, he said. "It's important you don't just think that the main external threats are hacking and viruses, and the main internal threat is inappropriate use of computers", he said.

 

The key was to implement a wide-ranging security programme; not to rely on any single technique; and ensure the basics were in place such as a robust computer use policy. If any suspicions arose relating to IT activity, they should be kept confidential for fear of tipping off the perpetrator. "It could be someone in the IT department is the one with the skills to commit a crime, and they will be the one with the skills to erase their traces as well".

 

All investigations into computer systems should be carried out to criminal evidence standards, even if it was initially thought that only a civil offence had been committed, Carmichael-Jones said. "This will pay off. For example a pornography investigation could turn into a paedophilia case".

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Rachel Saunders, senior IT project manager, Bracknell Forest BC
my.bracknell-forest

 

A customisable local portal where citizens can choose the services they want to bring to the fore, and the look and feel of their own home page, was demonstrated by Bracknell Forest project manager  Rachel Saunders.

 

The ‘my.Bracknell-forest’ service tailors some information automatically to the individual user using their postcode, she said. For example planning application and streetworks information relevant only to their vicinity will be displayed automatically.

 

Beyond that, the user can change the layout of their personal service portal page by adding or removing links to services they frequently use, from their council tax account to leisure information. A small menu to all services does remain at the side of the screen, so no information is lost for ever.

 

The scheme was being followed up shortly by a customisable internal home page for the council’s staff, as part of a flexible working programme, Saunders said.

 

Staff will be able to access the ‘BF Anywhere’ service remotely with a secure smart token system and a PIN number, allowing them access to all their work files and all software applications via a Citrix server system.

 

Other developments planned include a new portal for the councils’ members; and a schools portal with content tailored to teachers and education officials.

 

The main problem with all these services was increasing their usage levels, Saunders admitted. “Improving take-up is more difficult than the technology itself”.

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