October’s Local Government White Paper Strong and prosperous communities is to be welcomed in terms of its general direction and policy aspirations, but should also be seen as just one of a wider suite of documents that will need to be considered as a group to assess the achievability of the transformational outcomes it envisages.
This response to the White Paper was presented by Glyn Evans, Director of Business Solutions at Birmingham City Council and Chair of Socitm’s Information Age Government Group (SIAG), speaking at the E-Government after the Local Government White Paper conference in London on 21st November.
Other documents that need to be considered to see the whole picture include some already published, he said, like the transformation and LG transformation strategies, and others that are yet to be published including the Varney Report, the Lyons final report, CSR07 and outputs from the Identity Management Forum chaired by Sir James Crosby.
Only when the full picture emerges from all these documents will it be possible to assess whether the high level aspirations in the White Paper - which are broadly in line with the government’s transformational strategy, strongly supported by Socitm -will be properly enabled.
Socitm welcomes references in the White Paper to the need for councils to ‘challenge traditional methods of delivery (section 7.7) and to ‘increase the pace of change’ with local authorities and other public bodies working together ‘to overcome administrative boundaries that sometimes act as a barrier to service transformation’ (section 7.8) which will mean ‘sharing assets, systems, data, skills and knowledge more effectively……’
On data sharing and identity management, Socitm agrees with the White Paper view (section 3.29) that better management of customer information and data sharing are essential to underpin efforts to transform services to the benefit of the customer. Identity management is the “front end” of better customer service. Too often the onus is on the citizen to prove their identity to government time after time. Improving cross-departmental sharing of data and management of customer information can enable government to provide better designed services, target resources more efficiently and reduce the need for repeated contact.
These issues involve some serious technical and cultural challenges that in Socitm’s view have not yet been met – for example, appropriate infrastructures are still awaited for key areas like identity management, secure transactions and data sharing. Although Government Connect is beginning to move in the right direction, with delivery of a working solution looking much more likely, things are still unresolved on this front.
Socitm also believes there needs to be recognition that 'business transformation' involves more than business process improvement (it could be inferred from the White Paper that the two were the same thing) and that a more radical service reengineering option needs to be included. There must also be greater frankness about blockers to change, as well as demonstration of real determination to overcome them.
Socitm has been suggesting for a number of years that these and other issues detailed in the White Paper ought to have been tackled as foundational elements of the ‘e’ programme rather than as an after thought at the end. Finally, the White Paper presents some of these challenges as being issued from central government to the local government - whereas there is plenty of evidence to suggest that local government has actually taken more significant steps in these directions than have many central government agencies and departments.
‘Nevertheless, the aspirations in the White Paper are generally commendable, and the direction of travel is consistent with that recommended by many in local government for a number of years’ says Glyn Evans. 'We now look forward to the other pieces of the jigsaw that should provide more compelling drivers to achieve the transformed public service infrastructure to which the paper points.'