The cutting floor

June 29, 2010

The latest announcement of cuts from the new government appeared on Kable on the 25 June 2010.  The Minister, Francis Maude, is quoted as saying that he wants departments and agencies to slash the costs of their web sites “by up to 50%”. Since “up to 50%” could mean anything between 0% and 49%, it was a strange statement, but at least it’s not more than 50%! He also desires them to move onto a common framework, which is obviously one of the greatest savings.

Francis Maude has identified that the previous government’s instruction to reduce the number of sites has had limited effect and that there are 794 still open, whilst he wants to close 422, which  I calculate would leave 372. However, the COI report quoted in the same Kable report indicates £94million has been spent in the last year on 46 sites, which is a lot of money in anyone’s book. Unsurprisingly one of the new ones is that of businesslink.gov.uk, which I imagine is hosting the notorious EU Services Directive, discussed occasionally over the last six months.

Interestingly, both the Kable and Register reports lead back to the Central Office of Information web site, where they’ve just produced a new report that ties it all together with the Public Accounts Committee recommendations that originally started the cull. The CoI site also hosts the guidance to measuring costs, usage and quality, along with usability (I pointed to these in May 2009).

For local government, rationalizing web sites and at the same time gaining better usage is also a challenge but a major issue I believe is finding a CMS supplier with a licensing model that permits multiple .gov.uk domains without multiplying the cost up in an equivalent manner, so that sharing becomes a real option. If anybody can recommend one, please let me know…

My main grievance with the CoI methodology is that whilst in areas like inclusivity and usage it’s excellent, I prefer employing feedback from all channels to refine the service, not just the delivery mechanism, in this case the web or call centre. I accept central government is different, and they need to remember that too – a lot of local government contact is face-to-face and that should be recorded with the other channels.

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Holiday reading

June 27, 2010

If you are short of a few PDF’s to exercise the brain cells during the long wet summer, take a look at the web site of the 2020 Public Services Trust. The month of June has seen an influx of reports including:

The Future of Joined-up Public Services by Patrick Dunleavy

Reflections on Public Service Reform in a Cold Fiscal Climate by Christopher Hood

Targets, choice and voice: accountability in public services by Deborah Wilson

Citizen engagement: testing policy ideas for public service reform by the JRF and DCLG Empowerment Fund

There are many more, and probably further papers in the pipeline.

As to personal comments I’m a little surprised that an enlightened academic like Professor Dunleavy still uses the expression “mentally and physically handicapped people”, I presume the social model of disability hasn’t reached the LSE yet…I pray that he never writes a paper on the accessibility issues around modern mechanisms of service delivery. Other than that the paper is rather similar in proposing ‘Digital Era Governance’ to his 2008 book on the same topic.

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Building the better web site

June 23, 2010

Not overly keen on performance measures, per se, but as a sometime contributor and member of GovLoop, I was intrigued by a recent submission on that very matter. It’s a presentation by Laura Wesley that I found quite interesting, especially since she appears to have  built up the concept with a deal of co-production.

I believe the presentation and theory worthy of wider discussion. It’s a topic that’s been frequently discussed on the IDeA Communities of Practice and other forums but seems to have dried up a bit recently…

Although the GovLoop site is mainly for US public workers they are very welcoming of those from the UK, so give it a visit you may find it interesting.

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Island of dreams

June 20, 2010

The Head of Civil Service and Permanent Secretary in Singapore, Mr Peter Ho, has outlined the next Singapore e-Government Masterplan. In a speech at the iGOV Global Forum on 14 June 2010, he stated:

” Singapore’s next e-Government masterplan will facilitate and enable this major shift from a “Gov-to-You” mindset to a “Gov-With-You” mindset – to fuel innovation and to encourage co-creation. The vision for the next masterplan is of a collaborative government that co-creates and connects with the people.”

Thus, with Singapore’s excellent record of developing and using electronic government, they are now putting weight behind the concept of co-creation. However, they are not stupid enough to think they can rely purely on that, since they also note that:

“But as we push the envelope to exploit technology, we must also look out for the pitfalls. At the end of the day, technology is just an enabling tool that can equally be exploited for either the good or the bad. For instance, while the Internet provides an excellent platform for disseminating information and getting feedback from the ground, public officers need to develop the instinct to separate the “noise” from genuine feedback. There is also the danger of succumbing to pressure from the vocal minority and doing what is popular as opposed to what is right for the country.”

They are also quite clear that not everyone can or will use e-government and so are allowing for it:

“We also need to be mindful of the new digital divide separating the digital natives and the digital migrants. There may be segments of the population that may not be able to, or prefer not to use, such new media for engaging the government. So we should exploit the new media in such as way that no one is left out or left behind.”

In e-government terms, if no other, Singapore is surely the island where dreams might become reality.

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Not bovvered

June 17, 2010

On the 4th June, whilst helping my wife on the drive of the house, my son left my digital camera on the roof of her car. The pair then drove off realising some fifteen minutes later that they didn’t have the camera. They turned around and looked for it at the site i.e. the road we live on, without finding it.

Being informed that evening of what had happened, I thought that rather than ‘phoning the police of a Friday evening, when they’d be busy with the drunks up town, I’d inform them via their website on the off-chance that a local person might have picked it up and handed it in. Whilst most of the local residents are the salt of the earth, some are the scum off it, so the chances were quite limited.

Where once there was a “report an incident form” on the web site I hade to search around and find a general report form, which stated that although the incoming mail weren’t immediately read, the folder was checked for any reports at least every 24 hours and directed to the right place. So, job done I carried on investigating possible insurance claims.

A little while later an automated response popped into the inbox but that was the last I heard. By the following Thursday evening I was annoyed at not even getting an email saying “not handed in, sorry, incident number 9999″, so I emailed again. This time, along with the automated acknowledgement came an email saying the matter had been passed to the “oic” with a request to contact…

The following Tuesday I found a voicemail on the home ‘phone stating that he hadn’t received the email until nearly midnight, didn’t think I wanted a reply and as there was no record of it being handed in had recorded it on the lost property system.

What’s wrong with the above approach?

1. It took 11 days to get a reply (after chasing six days after the original notification)

2. On the original form it asked how I wanted to be contacted and I’d asked for an email response (not a ‘phone call)

3. Not a sniff of an apology. In fact the officer concerned sound aggrieved that I’d disturbed him!

LESSON for NYP – If public services are going to develop web sites, they need to be for the public’s convenience not theirs.

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