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Local Government IT in UseSeptember/October 2009

On the CoverWhy do councils stillput citizen data in thepost?

See Pages 11-12.

Comment 2

News Update 2-6

Green News 3Government claims £7m in savings from greening the government ICT estate.

Total Faith 5If the public sector is serious about Total Place, bold decisions will be needed, says Michael Cross.

A Future Entwined 7Health and social care, separate professions joined by a common patient, says Michael Cross.

e-Forms in a Digital Britain 8The success of a digital switchover for public services will depend on user engagement with the service interface, finds Helen Olsen.

Twitter, Twit, Twho? 9Love it or loathe it, embrace it or ban it, social media is not going to go away, says Helen Olsen.

Special Focus: Open Government 10President Obama wants a government of transparency, collaboration and participation.

GCSX 11-12 Helen Olsen looks at the results of our security survey and asks, why do councils still put citizen data in the post when secure communications exist?

Blue Light for 999 Centres 13Robert Merrick finds the health of government’s new fire and rescue centres is failing.

Emergency Services 14Round up of police, fire and rescue news from the front line.

New Products 15

Contract Round up 16-17

ISSN 1368 2660

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COMMENT

Technology’s battlelines are drawn

As the political elite line up to enterelectoral battle, sound bites and promises of dramatic action are

guaranteed headlines. All parties are now standing up to becounted, and the counting they are doingis that of how much money can be savedby cutting large government ITprogrammes. That many of those inquestion have been visibly failing for years- or are proving highly controversial to thechattering classes - only adds to theevangelical fervour to cut, cut, cut. There is, in truth, much wrong with manygovernment IT programmes. But simplypromising to scrap projects to save moneyis little more than pre-electoral attentionseeking behaviour. Scrapping the much malignedContactPoint database being a case inpoint. Have its detractors forgotten that itis being developed as a direct result of theBichard Inquiry on child protection? Havethey fully costed specifications for asolution to the very real problem – theinability of professionals from differentorganisations working with our mostvulnerable children to contact each other? ContactPoint as it stands may well not bethe perfect solution. But it is better than nosolution as children continue to fall, fatally,between the gaps. As technology is set to play a major role ina UK general election campaign for thevery first time, a white paper from the USlooks at the opportunity for a newgovernment to use technology to deliver‘Open Government’. In the wake ofPresident Obama’s overwhelming electoralsuccess – due in large part to masterfuluse of social media and technology tounderpin his campaign – technology hasbecome both an election tool and an issue. And, whilst few in the sector would notdisagree that suppliers have had thingspretty good for an awfully long time andshould rightly be reigned in, the very realbenefits of technology must not beoverlooked.Technology can make operations moreefficient, more green, more transparentand more personal. As technology advances and the globalpopulation adopts its own ‘commondenominator’ standards, interoperability,engagement and making the most out ofwhat you already have – not just addingthe latest proprietary package – mustbecome the order of the day. Technology is a tool, not a mystical art. Itunderpins the running of the entire publicsector; it is a necessity, not something tobe ‘scrapped’ on a whim.

Helen Olsen, Editor

NEWS UPDATE

Americans accessgovernment via web

The internet is becoming America’sfavourite means of communication with

government. More than 81 millionAmericans logged on to a governmentwebsite in July, representing 42% of the USinternet audience, and most were happywith the experience. “The internet has evolved into an importantchannel for Americans to interact with thefederal government and its agencies,” saidDan Lackner, comScore senior vicepresident.In January president Obama issued adirective stating that ‘Executivedepartments and agencies should harnessnew technologies to put information abouttheir operations and decisions online andreadily available to the public’.Lackner said that federal and stateagencies and departments are now“investing more heavily in their webpresence, making their sites more citizen-centric and easier to interact with”. “They are rapidly adopting and adaptingbest practices from the commercial sectorand applying them to their own initiatives,”he said.Customer satisfaction ratings ongovernment sites ranged from the low 70sto 81% for the Department of Education.

Government Gateway in media spotlight:E-government is back in the headlines

for the wrong reasons following the arrestof a 32-year-old man in London last monthin connection with an alleged theftinvolving the Gateway. The Mail on Sundayreported that ‘criminals managed to steal£1m from the taxman by accessing agovernment computer system and grantingthemselves rebates’. HMRC declined tocomment; however one of the Gatewayproject’s architects, Alan Mather, dismissedas “remote” the idea that the system wascompromised, speculating instead that anidentity fraud may be at the root of the issue.

Councils must crack down on fraud:Councils could save hundreds of millions

of pounds if they dealt more effectively withfraudsters, says the Audit Commission in anew report, ‘Protecting the Public Purse -Local Government Fighting Fraud’. It claimsthat council taxpayers could be losingalmost £2m a week to fraudsters claiming a25% single person discount on their counciltax. www.audit-commission.gov.uk

Criminal data sharing adviser: Homesecretary, Alan Johnson, has appointed

Sunita Mason the government’sindependent adviser for criminalityinformation management. Mason willscrutinise and advise the government onhow to improve the sharing of informationabout criminals between key governmentdepartments and frontline agencies.

The Conservative Party has outlinedplans to scrap the national identity cardscheme and the ContactPoint database

of 11 million children.The detailed plans are set out in ‘Reversethe Surveillance State’, a policy paperlaunched last month by shadow justicesecretary, Dominic Grieve.In addition to scrapping two of the currentgovernment’s most prominent IT projects,the paper calls for the InformationCommissioner to have greater powers, andfor a minister and senior civil servant tohave responsibility for the personal dataheld in each government department.“No-one is suggesting we should notharness IT or surveillance technology tostrengthen public protection,” said Grieve. “But, the government’s approach todatabases and surveillance powers is theworst of all worlds, intrusive, ineffective andenormously expensive.” The Conservatives say they want to restorepublic trust in the use of personal data bythe state. They are also planning to restrictthe storage of DNA records of innocentpeople, after a ruling from the EuropeanCourt of Human Rights. The policy package clearly had town hallsin its sights. It went further than previousreports in setting out how the notorious

Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act(RIPA) would be rolled back, to stop localcouncils spying on residents.It also made it far less likely that councilswill be allowed to easily share data withother public - and private - bodies, if theTories triumph next year.On data-sharing, there will be no repeat ofLabour’s attempt - now shelved - to denyMPs a full vote on which bits of informationcan be swapped, by using regulations.In future, data may flow between localcouncils, the police, NHS trusts, the InlandRevenue, the Driver and Vehicle LicensingAuthority (DVLA), the Department for Workand Pensions (DWP) - and, perhaps, privatecompanies.But, Mr Grieve’s 19-page documentpledged: “Any new powers of data-sharingto be introduced into law by primarylegislation, not by order, so that they areproperly debated and scrutinised inparliament.”Not to be outdone, Liberal Democratshadow chancellor, Vince Cable, in a paperpublished by Reform, has also called for thescrapping of several major IT systemsincluding the ID card scheme, ContactPoint,the NHS IT scheme and the proposed superdatabase - claiming it will save more than£10bn over 10 years.

Opposition parties have IT projects in sights

The government claims to have saved atleast £7m over the past year by making

its IT systems greener.Speaking at the Greening Government ICTconference in London, cabinet officeminister, Angela Smith, said that simplechanges such as extending the life of PCs,making double-sided printing the defaultoption and making sure computers areturned off at night have helped cut thecarbon footprint of central governmentcomputers by 12,000 tonnes – equivalent totaking 5,000 cars off the road.Said Smith, “Information technology is oneof the hidden causes of climate change –worldwide, computers are responsible forthe same amount of carbon emissions asthe airline industry, but few people aretaking action to improve the situation.”Britain took the lead last year byintroducing measures to tackle the hugefinancial and environmental cost of ICT.Smith says that “countries around theworld are now looking to us for advice onhow to follow our lead”.ICT is responsible for up to 20% of carbonemissions generated by governmentoffices. Departments were asked to take 18 key steps including turning off allmachines at night, extending the lifecycleof computers, reusing as much ITequipment as possible and increasingserver efficiency.

First year success stories include:• The Department for International

Development donating old equipment tocharities in developing countries;

• The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)saving £2.35m by replacing 9,500computers and 2,500 printers every fiveyears rather than every three;

• The Home Office saving £2.4m a year byremoving unused IT equipment andimproving efficiency;

• The Department for Work and Pensionswill save 200 million sheets of paper ayear by cutting down the number ofprinters in the department and changingdefault settings to double-sided printing.

Will Day, chairman of the SustainableDevelopment Commission (SDC), said hewas looking forward to seeing levels ofambitions raised further following thesuccess of this first year: “While ICT canprovide solutions to cut energy use andemissions, the SDC’s work on sustainabledevelopment in government found thatgovernment electricity use is still rising,and the proliferation of computers, laptops,chargers and the air conditioning of serverrooms is likely to be behind much of this.“So greening the government’s ICT is anurgent priority, which can save money aswell as minimising energy use andemissions.” www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk


GREEN NEWS

Sheffield surveys energy use: SheffieldCity Council is planning to reduce its

carbon footprint by a further one milliontonnes a year thanks to a new computerprogramme, Surveyor, that will monitorand save power on all council computers,both desktops and laptops. Throughsaving files and ‘powering down’ idle ITequipment in this way the council couldalso save £100,000 on its energy bill.Sheffield is also recycling IT equipmentunder its new green plans. Paul Green,director of information services at thecouncil, said, “This scheme is a verypositive start and ICT’s contribution toenabling carbon reduction will continue tobe a prominent theme in our future ISstrategy.”

Green focus: Senior Ovum analyst,Warren Wilson, says that the ICT

industry must focus on the three distinctand critical roles technology has to play inaddressing climate change: energyefficiency; substitution of low-carbontechnologies for traditional, high-carbonfunctions (eg virtual meetings); and usingICT to monitor, measure, analyse andminimise the impact of manufacturing,buildings, vehicle fleets and operationsthat account for the majority of energyconsumption and carbon emissions.

No choice but green: Organisations willsoon have no choice but to comply

with green IT principles because ofmarket forces, according to a BCS debate.Smart IT organisations must include low-cost software solutions in long-termstrategic plans in order to survive in amarketplace which is moving towardscloud computing and commoditisation ofcomputer resources. www.bcs.org/video

Green desktops: 93% of IT professionalssay that desktop power management hasthe potential to reduce overall IT costs. Infact, for IT professionals who managecomputer power, desktop managementhas surpassed data centre powermanagement in importance, finds a survey by Kace. www.kace.com

Greening technology saves government £7m

NEWS UPDATE

Two e-nations

One fifth of web users now pay theircouncil tax and other council bills online,

finds Oxford Internet Surveys’ latest snapshotof online Britain. The Internet in Britain 2009 contains amixture of good and bad news for ministerslooking back at a decade of efforts topromote e-government. For the first time since the survey launchedin 2003, the proportion of web users whohave gone online to government at leastonce has exceeded 50% - it is now 59%, upfrom 46% in 2007. The survey comments thatthe increase was ‘considerable’ across allinteractions measured. Interestingly, userslooked for information about local councilservices (35%) and central governmentservices (33%) more than they looked forinformation on schools and education (27%). However the institute’s Helen Margettspoints out that the percentage of internetusers interacting with e-governmentremains lower than for e-commerce orgeneral information-seeking. Likewise, thefigures do not suggest any internet-fuelledrevival of interest in politics. “In general, UKfigures contrast with the US, particularlywith soaring online participation in Obama’shighly innovative use of the internet.”The report also shows the digital inclusiongap to be as wide as ever. Between 2007 and2009, the percentage of people with highereducational qualifications using the internetincreased from 90 to 93% - but thepercentage of users among those with onlyelementary education fell from 55% to 49%.Meanwhile, disability remains a strongcause of digital exclusion, despite theproportion of people with a disability usingthe internet rising from 36% to 41%. As foruse, the largest increase since 2007 was inlooking for news - 75%, up from 69%.Women were more likely than men to lookfor health information (73% to 63%).

www.oii.ox.ac.uk/microsites/oxis

Sector dependent on Microsoft: Most PCsin local government are operating in a

Microsoft environment, finds new research.Of the council staff surveyed, all but twopercent said that their PC used Microsoft’sWindows operating system. Microsoft’sdominance on the council desktop was alsoevident when respondents were askedwhich software they used for wordprocessing - with 95% stating MicrosoftWord. It also found that around two-thirds(64%) of those surveyed believe that theirorganisation must increase its use of opensource. ‘Open or closed?’ a report fromPublic Sector Forums, states that ‘aside from web and IT teams, the majority of localgovernment staff are currently unlikely tointeract knowingly with open source in theworkplace’. http://ukgovoss.org

NEWS UPDATE

Councils are basing important decisionson unreliable information, finds theAudit Commission.

It’s report ‘Is there something I shouldknow?’ finds councillors complaining thatthey receive lengthy reports that don’tcontain the information they need. Indeed,less than five percent of councils have‘excellent’ quality data and 65% face‘problems’ sharing data externally.However, with tough financial times ahead,councils know they need to act now toimprove the quality of their data: nine outof 10 think good quality information is a toppriority.Steve Bundred, Audit Commission chiefexecutive, says that giving decisionmakers the information they need will helpcouncils make savings while improvingservices. “This is all the more critical inrecessionary times and some solutionshave little or no extra cost.” But the watchdog fails to highlighttechnology as a potential answer to theproblem of lack of solid evidence to informdecision making.SAS head of government affairs, DavidWaltho, warns that councils will not beable to achieve many of the commission’ssuggestions without focusing first on the‘Information’ inherent in their ‘InformationTechnology’ spend.Meanwhile, Communities and LocalGovernment also published ‘EffectivePartnership Data Management’ (EPDM)over the summer. The EPDM project aimsto develop strategies and approaches tofacilitate data sharing across LocalStrategic Partnerships (LSPs) anddemonstrate the ‘tangible benefits’ fromdoing so. An overriding, and laudable, aim of theproject is to significantly improve servicedelivery and outcomes across an LSP. Theidea is to proactively target service need

using business analytics to identify peoplein ‘intervention campaigns’. Spotting, and tackling, benefit fraud is alsoa key priority. The report estimates savingsof more than £1m in housing benefitoverpayments and fraud from triallingEPDM in just five LSPs. Within the LSPs EPDM data hubs willenable records held in partner databasesto be linked and analysed via ‘controlledsearching’. The idea is that improved datasharing can support LSPs in four keyareas: strategic management,performance management, operationaldelivery and citizen engagement. Whilst the legality of data sharing in thisway remains to be clarified the reportfound a broad and deep consensus acrosscentral, regional and local government thatimproved data sharing is at the heart oftransforming government services. In linewith the ‘Total Place’ pilots there is muchto see of advantage in this approach –using information to inform decisionmaking and cost effective service delivery.But there is much work to do to cross thecultural and legal barriers in doing so. According to Waltho the report “addresses

some key gaps in the otherwise excellentAudit Commission report, whichdeliberately chose to ignore the capacityand capability challenges in IT, and inparticular business analytics, that itsresearch uncovered.“In contrast CLG highlights the vital roleimproved data quality, data integration andpredictive analytics technologies can playin reducing the costs, delay andinaccuracy involved in the current, largely‘manual’ approaches to extracting,analysing, reporting and disseminatingdata from multiple operational systems. “Predictive analytics says Waltho, is“critical to helping local governmenttransform out of reactive ‘fail and fix’ andinto proactive ‘predict and prevent’”.

www.communities.gov.uk www.audit-commission.gov.uk

Staying connected: In the midst ofrecession, people are four times more

likely to cut out holidays or eating out thanto cancel their broadband connection. Andcanny consumers are taking advantage ofthe recession to use their communicationsservices more but pay less for them,according to Ofcom’s sixthCommunications Market Report into the£52bn TV, radio, broadband, telecoms andmobile industries. www.ofcom.org.uk

Mapping our coastal heritage: NewForest National Park Authority is

using SeaZone HydroSpatial detailedmarine mapping aerial photographs, manydating back over 90 years, to undertake anarchaeological assessment of itscoastline in response to changing sealevels. Part of a nationwide programme ofRapid Coastal Zone Assessment Surveyssupported by English Heritage, the studywill help with the development of longterm coastal management plans byidentifying archaeological and historicsites, and protecting them where possibleor making provision for their recordingwhere protection may not be possible.

With its class-leading GIS and gazetteer software, GGP Systems is playing a vital role in improving public services.

Providing the very latest solutions for managing and delivering spatial information, GGP has an unrivalled 16-year track record in successful system implementation and support across the UK public sector.

Call us now on 020 8686 9887

www.ggpsystems.co.uk

Transforming Britain’s public services

Hurst Castle, Hampshireby James Brown

Basic lack of information

OPINION: TOTAL PLACE


Let’s get the important bit out of theway first. To anyone who cares aboutlocalism, the Total Place initiative is

welcome - and extraordinarily exciting,with it. What is there not to like aboutputting local government in the drivingseat of the next phase of reform, acrossthe entire public sector.

To borrow the words of the New LocalGovernment Network, Sir MichaelBichard’s scheme looks like a localist’sdream come true.

As always, there are reservations. I shallraise them not to cast doubt on the valueof the initiative, but to try and get themonto the agenda throughout what,politically, looks like being a veryinteresting year. These reservations alsolay the groundwork for a radical policyproposal, which I shall come to at the end.

The first reservation is about local anddemocratic accountability. Centralgovernment is not currently designed to‘think place’, so vertical and siloed are itsdepartments. Carving up a centralgovernment agency’s operations insidegeographical boundaries will be nothingmore than a cosmetic exercise unless thatcentral agency can learn to let go of theway its services work on the front line.

All our experience of front-office sharedservices schemes involving benefits,criminal justice and the NHS is that this isan extraordinarily difficult culturalchange. To make it will require leadershipfrom the top, and very thick skins whenthe ‘postcode lottery’ stories start flyingabout.

The second is the question of timing.Whether or not we accept the IoD’sassertion that the UK is facing a fiscalcrisis of historic proportions, there is nodoubt that Total Place will forever belabelled the government’s reaction to theIMF’s forecast that government borrowingwill reach 13.3% of GDP by 2010.

Bichard himself has said “The impact ofthe economic downturn means all of thepublic sector needs to find radical newsolutions to not only deliver better valuefor money, but also better local servicesmore tailored to local needs.”

To those of us who lived through the mid1970s, this is worrying. Remember those

signs on public lavatories saying ‘Closedby Denis Healey’s spending cuts’?Whatever political colour of chancellor iswielding the IMF axe this time round isgoing to be a figure of nationalopprobrium - however much we tellpollsters that we want governmentspending to fall now.

The trouble of course is that if we wereserious about Total Place for its ownmerits, rather than as a means to cutspending, we should have created it in theboom years. When there was casharound for new infrastructureinvestments, and when workforce moralewas running at (believe it or not) anhistoric high.

The answer of course is that it took acrisis to get Whitehall thinking alongthese lines, but that doesn’t help us now.

The third reservation, one that will beclosest to LGITU readers’ hearts, iswhether the programme as a whole, andthe pilot projects that so far comprise it, ispaying enough regard to the informationsystems that will be key to making it work.My suspicion is not; certainly if theprospectuses of the 11 pilot projects areanything to go by.

Take Kent, which says it has identifiedthree projects which will delve deeperinto specific local issues in order toidentify new ways of tackling them.

They are Gateway multi-channel - Thisstrategy was based on the explorationand modernisation of the ‘face to face’customer service channel, and has morerecently extended to include serviceimprovements for telephone and webchannel access spanning the wider publicsector and the full range of publicservices. It builds on previous operationaldevelopment and investment made byKent County Council with district andborough council partners.

Single asset management strategy - Thiswill test the scope for the reduction ofduplication of back-office transactionalactivity and the simplification andconvergence of business processesgenerating a reduced requirement forproperty and other physical assets. (Exactparameters still to be specified, butsuggestions include local government,health, police, fire, government

departments and agencies, churches/faiths and voluntary sector.)

Margate Task Force - A number of keylocal partners have come together with acommitment to radically differentapproaches to joint work in two of themost deprived wards. Co-locatedresources will be pooled in a singlemanagement ‘task force’. Key principlesinclude an ‘invest to save’ approachfocused on shared intelligence,prevention, better use of resources andcustomised services.

All of these depend massively oninformation systems, yet the projectdocumentation, no doubt from the sinceredesire not to be seen as an ‘IT project’,glosses over this aspect.

The same goes for Birmingham, anotherpilot authority with the scale and thepolitical will to really make Total Placehappen.

And here’s the real problem. Even if Kentand other authorities with commitments toradical change make a go of the TotalPlace pilots, there is no guarantee thatothers will follow.

In fact, with the usual perversity of localpolitics, Kent and Birmingham’s verysuccess may act as a disincentive. Afterall, most local authorities are not Kent orBirmingham.

The solution? Take a leaf from the Apollospace programme in the 1960s. The moonmission depended on a massive newmulti-stage rocket, the Saturn V. Theconventional approach creating the newbooster would have been to test everysingle component and stage inpreparatory missions, then bring it alltogether when faults had been ironed out.

But NASA realised that no amount oftesting and piloting could ensure therocket was fail-safe in time to meet John FKennedy’s target of a man on the moon by1970. Instead, it opted for the risky ‘all-up’test – building a complete rocket andlaunching it.

In the case of the Saturn V, it worked, andhistory was made. My feeling is, if we areserious about Total Place, we must beequally bold.

Total FaithIf the public sector is serious about Total Place, bolddecisions will be needed, says Michael Cross.

ImplementingDigital Britain

Following a tediously lengthy reshufflingof the ministerial and digitalresponsibility pack, August saw both

Stephen Timms appointed minister in chargeof Digital Britain and publication of theDigital Britain Implementation Plan. Perhaps wisely, in light of an imminentgeneral election, the plan does not set outtiming around every item of the programme- some actions are due for completion bythe end of 2009, some though stretch to‘2012 or beyond’. A number of theproposals require legislation and theimplementation plan proposes taking theseforward in the Digital Economy Bill ‘subjectto parliamentary time’ this autumn. Of particular interest are two of the plan’sprojects: digital inclusion and digitalgovernment. Digital government, led by John Suffolk,promises ‘establishment of G-Cloud’ andidentifies the Cabinet Office’s SarahFogden as leading on the digitalswitchover of public services in 2012 -inviting every government department ‘toidentify at least two such services’ to leadthe process. A ‘double lock’ will also be given to thegovernment CIO for sign off on ITprocurement and accountability. And thereare firm plans for the Office of PublicSector Information and the Office of FairTrading to ‘review progress with OrdnanceSurvey’s strategy’ on a regular basis.’ On the digital inclusion front, Martha LaneFox, champion for digital inclusion, is toreview existing activities to help six millionsocially and digitally excluded people getonline and drive a programme of activity toensure that all have the motivation,opportunity, and capability to benefit fromusing the internet. Ask Consumer ExpertGroup is to report on specific issuesencountered by the disabled and DigitalParticipation is to be driven with £23m fromthe Universal Service provision. Digital Britain remains a joint programmeled by BIS and the department for culture,media and sport. www.culture.gov.uk

ICO’s cause for concern

The Information Commissioner’s Office(ICO) has ordered Coventry City and

Ealing councils to reveal statistics relatingto the numbers of children taken into care,adopted or placed on a specialguardianship or residency order. A request was made to councils acrossEngland for the same statisticalinformation on children. Despite advicefrom the ICO, Coventry and Ealing refusedto release the information, maintaining thatthe material was personal data. Coventryalso maintained that the information hadbeen provided to it in confidence. David Smith, the deputy informationcommissioner, said, “These are commonsense rulings. They highlight the fact thatpublic authorities cannot refuse to releaseproperly anonymised statistical informationjust because the statistics come frompersonal information.”The notices follow a continuing stream ofdata breaches and data losses across thepublic sector. Recent recipients of theICO’s wrath include the London Borough ofSutton (details of children and individualsin social care lost on two unencryptedlaptops and a package of documents),Wigan (theft of laptop with details on mostof the council’s school children), Sandwell(loss of a memory stick containingsensitive personal information relating tofour families), Neath Port Talbot (memorystick with children’s data lost), HighlandCouncil (theft of two laptop computerscontaining the personal details ofapproximately 1,400 individuals, includingmedical information). www.ico.gov.uk

Thieves have taken digital inclusion intoown hands by breaking into the office of

Digital Inclusion and stealing a number ofcomputers. Digital champion, Martha LaneFox broke the news on Twitter: ‘O bloodyhell the #digitalinclusion office has beenbroken into and all computers taken :((‘

Ealing council’s IT system was brought toits knees in May after a PC was infected

with the Conficker D virus via a USB stick–costing over £0.5m in recovery work andlost income while systems were down.

Knowsley joins up

Public healthconsultant, Liz

Gaulton, has takenup the new post ofservice directorfamily support andchildren’s health inKnowsley. The trail-blazing jointKnowsley Council

and NHS Knowsley appointment bringstogether responsibilities for both healthand local authority services for thesupport of families and children andyoung people.“The role recognises that effectivesupport needs to cross organisationalboundaries,” said Gaulton. “It’s animportant move towards greaterintegration in the strategic planning,commissioning and delivery of services,with emphasis on enhanced support tochildren and families.”Knowsley was one of the first boroughsto make ‘director of public health’ a jointNHS-local authority appointment.

Intellect Socitm SolaceIT Excellence AwardsThe 2009 finalists, in what has been astrong field, have been unveiled for thisyear’s Local Government IT ExcellenceAwards. Winners will be announced later thismonth at the Socitm conference inEdinburgh. This year the awards have been brokendown into three categories: SustainableICT, Customer Access, and ServiceTransformation.The finalists are:• Hampshire County Council• Flintshire County Council• London Borough of Hackney• Cheshire West & Chester• Crawley Borough Council

NEWS UPDATE

HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE


The Conservative Party has nailed itscolours so firmly to the cause ofattacking public sector IT that it comes

as a shock to discover in its policydocuments a proposal to create major newinformation systems. In August, a policystatement from the party said that aConservative government would ‘CoordinateIT strategies between health and social careso that the patient (sic) can benefit from ajoined up approach to care across the twosectors.’The statement appears as the last of seven‘policy commitments’ made in response toan independent review of NHS IT.Predictably, most of the commitments dealwith the woes of the National Programmefor IT in the NHS in England: they promiseamong other things to ‘dismantle’ theprogramme’s central infrastructure and toinvestigate the use of web-based personalhealth records. However the independent review - carriedout over a year by an expert panel under DrGlyn Hayes, former chair of the BritishComputer Society’s health informaticsforum - had a much wider remit. Unlike theNHS national programme, whose architectslargely ignored social care, the reviewrecognises that a large and growingcomponent of health care is providedoutside NHS institutions, by people who arenot NHS employees.The review paints a bleak picture of the ITthat currently supports such arrangements.Disconnection begins at the top. The reviewpoints out that the transfer of national policyresponsibilities for children’s social carefrom the Department of Health to theDepartment for Children, Schools andFamilies has led to ‘significant differencesin the national policy frameworks’ throughwhich local authorities have had to developsystems to support adult and children’ssocial care. For adults, this means the (Department ofHealth sponsored) Common AssessmentFramework and Whole SystemsDemonstrator sites to improve services forclients with long-term conditions. For children’s social care, the ‘Every ChildMatters’ strategy attempts to integrate amuch wider range of services, supported bythe development of three separateinformation systems: • ContactPoint (which the shadow justice

minister, Dominic Grieve, has pledged toscrap as part of a programme to ‘reverse

the rise of the surveillance state’); the• Common Assessment Framework

supported by the eCaf IT system; and the

• Integrated Children’s System.

The Association of Directors of Adult SocialServices told the Hayes review of a ‘lack ofclarity of leadership’ in information strategy.Social care has no equivalent to the chiefinformation officer for health, for example.

Attempts to integrate electronic recordsacross health and social care in England goback to the South Staffordshire ERDIPproject in the late 1990s as well as the EpicEC-sponsored programme (for which muchpioneering work on systems was carriedout in Northern Ireland’s system ofcombined health and social care trusts).Such initiatives revealed several levels ofobstacles to integration, from differences interminology to differences in informationgovernance. The evaluation of ERDIP, forexample, found that ‘In social careinformation is available unless instructednot to, whilst in health the opposite applies’.

Witnesses to the Hayes review, includingthe LGA, agreed that this state of affairscannot continue. And despite the currentpolitical panic about security, there wasstrong support for more sharing ofinformation. In its evidence, the LGA pointedout: ‘Concerns about misuse or loss ofpersonal information can easily obscure thebenefits to both individuals and localcommunities that can flow fromproportionate and careful sharing ofinformation between health and socialcare.’

So, assuming this is what is meant by theConservative commitment to coordinated ITstrategies between health and social care,where do we go from here? Good ideasabound, including:

• Mobile technologies for inputting dataand accessing records. The LondonBorough of Greenwich’s Digital Penproject may show the way.

• Client-held records, such as those pilotedby the Association of Directors of AdultSocial Services.

However, as countless local pilots haveshown, cultural tensions still run high. TheBritish Medical Association told the Hayesreview: ‘Social care would need to reachagreed standards of competence [instandards of record keeping] prior togreater sharing.’

The review also points to the sheercomplexity of the matrix of organisationsinvolved - 150 local authorities with socialservices responsibilities, 239 NHS trusts,three central government departments - asan obstacle.

What it does say is that demographicchange, increasingly personalised forms ofcare and the rising tide of long termconditions such as dementia will require theNHS and social care to work together moreclosely. ‘Information sharing will need tobecome the life blood of this relationship.’The review says it should be given higherpriority in the information strategies of bothsectors.

It urges the creation of a high levelmechanism through which the Departmentof Health and the Department for Children,Schools and Families and the NHSManagement Board share their plans andstrategies for information systems ‘so thatat the very least there is a sharedunderstanding of each other’s programmes’and opportunities to create consistency -for example the essential core data items tobe held within a personal health record.

It also calls for stronger leadership from theDepartment of Health to build on thecommitment of local government bystrengthening arrangements for informationgovernance. ‘Mandatory guidance wouldenable the development of nationallyconsistent data standards and definitionsacross all 150 councils with adult socialcare responsibilities.’

Finally, information-sharing between healthand social care should be a mainstreampart of whatever strategy is adopted for thefuture of the NHS national programme. Thisrecommendation is presumably theinspiration for the paragraph about socialcare in the Conservatives’ policy statement.

But there is another recommendation thatwill perhaps be even more widelywelcomed in the local government ITcommunity. While highly critical of many ofthe decisions taken by the NHS nationalprogramme, the Hayes review isunequivocal about the need for somecentral body to accredit systems, supportresearch - and to advise on policy.‘Currently policy makers do not realise thatthere are information requirements toalmost all they do, and an informationstrategy must form part of every policydecision.’

A FutureEntwinedHealth and social care, separate professions joined by a common patient, says Michael Cross.

E-FORMS


As the ‘Digital Switchover of PublicServices Programme in 2012’ kicks off,interest in the latest generation of

intelligent e-forms looks set to rise.

In essence, the switchover strategy aims toensure that public service delivery here inthe UK both keeps pace with users’ expec-tations of new technology and ensures thatthe public sector is ‘efficient and smart’ inprocuring and using ICT systems.

Work to move all public service contentfrom departmental or service specificwebsites to Businesslink.gov.uk andDirectgov has been under way for sometime. And now Sarah Fogden, the Cabinet’Office’s lead on the digital switchoverprogramme, is inviting every governmentdepartment to identify at least two servicesto trail blaze the digital switchover process.

The Cabinet Office is tasked with analysingpublic sector progress on digital channelsto date and developing a roadmap. The‘simple’ brief is to outline how and to whomdigital services will be designed, targetedand implemented, in a multi-channelcontext which addresses digital inclusion.

A list of potential demonstrator pilots for thedigital switchover services is currentlybeing put forward by departments. Criteriastate that these must be designed for ‘easeof use’, be wide ranging in their applicationand ‘improve the customer experience’ –thus encouraging a shift to online channels.

These projects must also be easilyreplicable by other parts of government,must demonstrate their contribution tostreamlining processes and efficiency, andmust be available via one of the three‘supersites’: Directgov, Businesslink.gov.ukor NHS Choices.

Key to the success of engaging those whoare digitally able but not yet using onlineservices, plus those currently excludedfrom the digital world, will be use of widelyavailable technology to deliver engaging,intuitive and trustworthy services.

The latest generation of e-forms technology,on the face of it, look like useful tools forthis process.

Bob Kamall, a senior policy advisor, publicservice reform, at the Cabinet Office saysthat e-forms could play a key part indelivering on the Digital Britain promise toswitch to digital channels from 2012.However, he is keen to point out that theswitchover programme is still in its early

days and that the current economicconditions “will impact on any plans thatdepartments may have for e-forms, whethernew or existing initiatives“.

Indeed, cost savings in the face ofinevitable cuts – whichever political huethey are from – will be fundamental topublic service delivery for the foreseeablefuture and will inevitably influence thedirection of developments. Solutions,therefore, that remove layers of complexityand process – and therefore cost - willundoubtedly find favour.

Whoever leads the next government -despite the current political posturing over‘big government IT projects’ - will be hardpushed to denounce this aspiration toswitch over to more efficient and friendlyonline service delivery. Names and policiesmay well change, but the stark truth is thatthe public sector must deliver more withless, and common sense dictates thatharnessing the ubiquitous technologies oftoday to deliver services and engage withthe population is a necessity.

This is where LGITU’s interest in e-formsrises to the fore. As the first step to a widerpoll supported by UKauthorITy.com andAdobe, LGITU conducted short interviewsacross a number of central governmentdepartments.

A key message coming back from theseinterviews is the view that e-forms ‘wasdone’ in the e-gov programme. And manyviews on the technology are stuck in thatera. However, those using the latesttechnology were keen to highlight just howfar the technology and its capabilities hadmoved on since then.

As Kamall says, “Whilst it was true that the2005 targets got information about servicesonline, there was not a lot of end-to-endservice transformation nor integration intoback-office systems.”

Online forms tended, he says, to be onlineelectronic copies of existing paper basedforms that often required the user to printthem out, complete them offline and postback to the relevant service provider.

In contrast, today’s intelligent forms can pull‘live’ information from relevant sources asneeded, no matter the location of the data.They can ensure security, validatethemselves as citizen or business enterstheir information or service request and,importantly, quickly link into back endsystems to record the transaction – inbuilt

workflow can even start the chain reactionto service fulfilment. But such end-to-end processes bring theirown dilemmas. One respondent said thatthe main barriers to e-form use were legalissues around the need for ‘wet’ signature,identification of the sender, and perhapsmost importantly, culture: “Authorities areused to working in a certain way in thepaper world and want to translate itwholesale into the electronic world.”Another added that “the public sectortendency to try to cover every conceivableeventuality in online services delivery”would be a major barrier: “This leads topublic sector screens often beingcomplicated with guidance... with notesregarding exceptions/exclusions.” This perceived requirement for complexityhas long been part of the public sector – asany citizen or business that has ever tried tofill out official forms would agree. However, there are shining beacons ofexcellence in the sector. The PlanningPortal was mentioned by a number ofinterviewees as an e-forms success storycoming out of the e-gov era. Indeed, since last April it has been possibleto submit an electronic application to anyauthority in England and Wales using astandard national online form, 1App, via thePlanning Portal – replacing hundreds offorms unique to individual authorities. InJuly this year there were a record 15,828planning applications submitted online. And BIS is set to help local authorities meetnew legal obligations by launching ELMS(Electronic Licence Management System)by the end of this year, when EEA memberstates will be required to implement the EUServices Directive. An e-form development,ELMS will be the authority facing side of theUK point of single contact which will enableservice businesses in the UK or other EEAcountries – via the Businesslink.gov.ukwebsite – to quickly get ready to operatehere. The ability of e-forms to provide consistentaccess to services via third parties and puta common front on joint working such asthis is invaluable. So, can this latest generation of e-formstechnology help deliver the next generationof online government to citizen andgovernment to business services?

LGITU’s research is ongoing. To access ourquick poll visit: http://lgitu.co.uk/eForms

e-Forms in a Digital BritainSuccess of a digital switchover for public service will depend onuser engagement with the service interface, says Helen Olsen.


Bans in Portsmouth and Aberdeen oncouncil workers’ access to Facebookhave put social media in the spotlight.

As SOCITM, the society of IT managers,launched a survey into use of socialnetworks Portsmouth announced its banon Facebook after finding that staff spentan average 400 hours on the site everymonth. The ban will also see the Bebo,Twitter and eBay sites blocked - YouTubehad been banned previously. Policy previously had been amended inJuly to facilitate work life balance andallow things like internet banking in staff’sown time, but internet access to socialnetworking sites for non-business use willnow be restricted. And in September, councillors at AberdeenCity Council rejected proposals to allowmembers and staff more access to internetsites, including Facebook, Bebo andTwitter, during work hours. Aberdeenalready restricts access to a number oftypes of website at all times, includinggambling, social networking and illegalsites. Access to other sites, including newsservices, is partially restricted.Jon Mulligan, managing director ofOfficeMetrics, said, “This is absolutelyridiculous. Yes, it’s important to ensure thatemployees are optimising their time atwork – but implementing an outright banon websites such as Facebook is a veryextreme measure that will almost definitelybe detrimental to staff morale.” Mulligan claims that implementing a

blanket ban on social networking sites hasbeen proven to have a negative effect onorganisational productivity – as manyworkers use them to gain valuable industryor competitor information, or even tonetwork with contacts and colleagues.Richard Steel, former Newham CIO andSocitm past president, is also againstbanning the use of social media: “Notbecause I don’t think that there is potentialfor enormous time wastage, but because Ithink it’s a management and organisationalmaturity issue in exactly the same way thatchatting at the water fountain, gazing outof the window or reading printed media atone’s desk are.“As organisations increasingly adopt newways of working - from home, itinerantly,during unconventional times etc - thefixation with how people manage theirworkload becomes increasinglyirrelevant,” argues Steel. “Performanceassessment has to be based on outcomes,rather than hours spent at a desk or loggedinto the business system.”However, the greater danger, says Steel, isfrom reputational damage: ”It is very easyto publish copyright information, libel,reveal confidential information or justmake your organisation look plain silly.”All this should be covered, says Steel, interms and conditions of use. However, headds that flexibility is important along withrecognition that many employees worklonger hours than ‘contractually’ required. Meanwhile, Socitm Insight is asking localauthority IT managers for their views onthe use of social media within localauthorities and the degree to which itposes security threats, drains bandwidth,or causes other problems to councils’ ITsystems and infrastructure.Social media enthusiasts in localgovernment have sometimes blamed ‘IT’for blocking access to YouTube, Facebook,Twitter and other websites they have cometo regard as essential to their work,especially for peer networking,communications, customer insight andcommunity engagement. Socitm wants toexplore whether these blocking policiescome from IT or elsewhere in the council.It also wants to look at how councils areusing social media to improve efficiencyand effectiveness, engage with citizensand encourage virtual communities.Indeed, like many councils, Aberdeen isconsidering creating a Facebook page.

Social networking websites such asFacebook, Linkedin and the micro bloggingwebsite, Twitter, are playing anincreasingly important role both sociallyand in business. Japanese bank Nomura,for example, used Facebook to find andhire about 60 percent of Lehman Brothers’former graduate trainees after its collapse.Martin Warner, of business socialnetworking site, Talkbiznow.com, says thatthis is no surprise, “Social networkingwebsites have quickly become essentialtools in business and this is just thebeginning.” However, a business case put togetherrecently by a Scottish library is interesting,worryingly, for its singular lack of anyfigures or facts. Little, in fact to prove thevalue of adopting the proposal other than‘well everyone else is doing it, it is whatthe public expects’.That may well be, but social mediaproponents should not be above justifyinginvestment - whether money or time - interms of payback and demonstrableincreased value.Social networking is ubiquitous andunstoppable. The public sector doesindeed need to explore the ways in whichsocial media can enable it to engage withcitizens and help transform servicedelivery. But that is no excuse for ignoringthe business case and the very realconcerns of its use within the organisation. As the media industry is finding out, thebusiness model ‘everyone is doing it, useall you want, content is free’ is notsustainable.

Six in ten (63%) IT administrators areconcerned that employees share too

much information on their social networkprofile, putting corporate infrastructures atrisk. Sophos’ research reveals that aquarter of respondents have been victimsof malware, phishing or hacking throughwebsites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Social networks will be used to trackswine flu. Messages left on sites could

help researchers track swine flu outbreaksand other epidemics more rapidly thancurrent techniques allow, say researchersfrom City University London. The data willallow officials to identify hot spots andprovide early warning information.Researchers point out that using data fromGP spotter practices fails to account forpeople who do not access health services.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Twitter, TwitTwho?Love it or loathe it, embrace it or ban it, social media is not going to go away, says Helen Olsen.

Community groups find web voice:The BeVocal.org.uk site went live in

July showcasing the pioneering work ofBirmingham’s social media community.Focusing on ‘how social media is beingused for social good in Birmingham andusing the internet to turn public data intosomething useful’, the site is supported byDigital Birmingham’s Open City project.Pictured are RajRattu, managingdirector ofcommunityconsultancy; JohnHeaven, projectofficer, DigitalBirmingham; andNick Booth, socialmedia consultantand founder ofBeVocal.


SPECIAL FOCUS: OPEN GOVERNMENT

The Open Government mission extendsfar beyond technology, but theunderlying ethos provides an

opportunity for examining how technologycan empower individuals as they interactwith the institutions of government - in theUS or anywhere in the modern, first world. President Obama intends to use OpenGovernment to “strengthen our democracyand promote efficiency and effectivenessin Government”. Traditionally, ICT has been seen as anenabler for delivering effective, efficientpublic services. More recently it is alsobeing seen as a tool for delivering citizen-centric, eco-friendly services. Hovering inthe wings are the issues of participation,democracy and transparency – for all ofwhich technology has enormous potentialto help deliver political aspirations. Yet,despite the much hyped benefits oftechnology many of these goals have yet tobe achieved on a mass populous basis.Why? For Open Government to be realised, allagree that technology needs to be moreuser-centric than system-centric; but theinstitutional and historical character ofgovernment is not conducive to this. Forover ten years the UK government hasbeen attempting to ‘join up’ public servicedelivery. The technology most certainlyexists to do so, but the silo mentality of themany parts to join is a consistent block. A new White Paper from Adobe looks atthe Obama administration’s historicopportunity to use technology to revitalisethe operations of government. OpenGovernment, it argues, can be unlocked bytechnologies ‘evolving before our eyes’. To deliver Open Government, technologymust firstly be user-centric - such that itsupports the people who need or deliverpublic services, rather than simplyenforcing the rules and processes thatguide them. Empowering individuals, itargues, is key to strengthening democracy.And technology is the key to empoweringpeople. This can be done by creating transparencythrough the use of technologies alreadybroadly in use by individuals, by inducingparticipation through intuitive interactions,and by enabling collaboration throughindependent, dynamic technology use. In this charge for open government the USadministration is wrestling with a

conundrum familiar to us here in the UK:open access to information about policies,decisions, programmes and fundingenables government to learn and evolveand engenders trust; but openness doesnot relieve the government of its obligationto robustly protect sensitive, personal andclassified information. A cultural shift is therefore required wheretechnology is seen as the enabler, themeans to the end rather than the end itself.IT systems cannot deliver full transparency,but the employees who run them can.Government can take advantage ofubiquitous technologies in order to enablepublic transparency. It can harnesstechnologies that the public already uses,inside and outside of government, toreduce the burden on agencies andincrease the value of transparency. Sincethe advent of the web an entireinfrastructure has evolved to enable publicaccess to information: HTML, Adobe PDFand Adobe Flash technology. Depending on technologies that are neitherbroadly available nor adopted makes animplicit decision to restrict access to publicservices to those only with the appropriateaccess or skill. In Digital Britain, the gapbetween the digital haves and the digitalhave nots is closing but slowly. We have aduty to provide access to services at thelowest common denominator to make thisbridge as easy as possible to cross. From rigorous standards for clarity oflanguage through to the use of video, textto speech and voice recognition, thetechnology exists across a broad base toconnect with citizens as individuals. Inlooking to deliver transparency in opengovernment, the administration must askitself: Can the public use it? Can the publicfind it? And, most importantly, can thepublic trust it? Meanwhile, knowledge-worker andpublishing tools have evolved to a level ofsophistication and security that publicservants can become the agents oftransparency and engagement. Feedbackcan be solicited and captured acrosschannels from face to face or telephone toblogging, YouTube and Twitter, withlearning incorporated and acted on in aconstructive and continuous process. Security, however, will continue to be athorny issue. Prevailing security modelsaim to keep sensitive data safe inside thefirewall, but this restricts transparency. A

model incorporating encryption or othertools to allow government to keep dataprivate when needed, even when it travelsbeyond its control, is therefore essential todeliver open and engaging government. Engagement is something thatgovernments around the world strugglewith as they urge citizens to participate indemocracy. Whether it be the world ofpolitics or fast moving consumer goods,one fundamental rule should be repeated:people, citizen and civil servant alike, willparticipate only when an experience isintuitive and engaging. An excellent example is the LondonBorough of Southwark, which used opensource development technologies and PDFto make housing benefits claims processesmore intuitive for staff and claimant. Itdelivered substantial results: reducingprocessing time from 36 days to severalhours and staff training time for ‘complex’cases down from two years to two days. Engaging, intuitive technology will alsofoster innovation and collaborative workingacross government. It is critical, however,that this is built on the infrastructurealready available. Low-cost, easy-to-usedevices have created a growing andheterogeneous set of new technologyusers – some of which are users ofgovernment services, others are deliveringthose services. This low-cost, pervasivelyavailable infrastructure is enabling newservice-delivery models and removingbarriers for public service and employeeproductivity. Bottom-up innovation from such userscontrasts vividly with the stereotype ofgovernment bureaucracy and unwieldytechnology megaprojects designed, or, toooften poorly designed, for entiredepartments. But in collaborativeenvironments, successes can be copiedand failures abandoned at much lowercost. A change that fosters a cultural climateand empowers government workers isrequired to take responsibility throughtechnology for delivering efficient services,to engage with citizens and enable all toparticipate in the democratic process.

Open GovernmentPresident Obama wants a government of transparency,collaboration and participation.

To request a copy of the white paper, ‘Anopportunity for US Government - Enablingopen government through technology’,please call 0208 606 1167 or email:[email protected]


DATA SECURITY

As a citizen it is astonishing to learnthat, despite almost two years ofmedia headlines covering the most

basic and unbelievable ‘accidental’ datalosses, local authorities up and down thecountry still consign sensitive citizen data tothe vagaries of Royal Mail - or worse to,unsecured laptops and removable media. From the clutch of stories on the newspages of this issue of LGITU, theInformation Commissioner is no lessexasperated. Four councils have had theirknuckles rapped in the last couple ofmonths alone. LGITU’s summer research looked at whowas sharing what, and with whom, acrossfrontline services when it came to citizendata. With support from GovernmentConnect and our sister online newsservices, UKauthorITy.com and Tomorrow’sTown Hall, LGITU conducted two surveys:one in-depth questionnaire and one quickpoll among those not participating in the in-depth exercise. Both surveys had over onehundred respondents from the breadth oflocal authority types and from across thecountry, with a few police, fire and healthorganisations also participating. Unsurprisingly, over 98% of theseorganisations dealt with citizen data - thosethat did not were in GIS, land charges orland & property gazetteer departments.Almost eight in ten (79%) shared thisinformation with other local authorities orother parts of the public sector.

What is the corporate attitudeto sharing citizen data? The LGA published a set of Data HandlingGuidelines for Local Government lastNovember. These were developed inpartnership with Socitm, and endorsed bySolace and the IDeA, in a bid to stem theflow of data loss from the public sector andfoster a culture of data protection. It was surprising therefore to learn that notall councils had an ‘Information Charter’outlining how citizen data is handled – just40% said their council did. Researcherswondered at first whether this could besimply lack of awareness on the front line,but 23% were quite sure that there was nocharter in place – in direct contradiction ofthe Data Handling Guidelines. Theremainder, nearly four in ten, were unsure.Over nine in ten (93%) however were surethat all personal information was kept

within secure ICT systems – in accordancewith the guidelines. From the detailed survey, however, adisconnect starts to appear between thecentral/high-level view and that in thetechnology and user departments. Lookingat items from the LGA Data HandlingGuidelines, corporate/chief executiverespondents all answered either yes or‘don’t know’ to questions about ICTsystems being specified in line withgovernment data security minimumstandards; their council having a CorporateInformation Risk Policy, and having all thecouncil’s key Information Assets classifiedand allocated an ‘owner’. None of thissubset answered no to these items.In marked contrast, few of the technologyor departmental respondents said ‘yes’ tothe above. This group accounted for 38% ofthe total sample saying either they did notknow or their council definitely did notspecify minimum government datastandards in ICT systems’ procurement. A total of 45%, again all technology ordepartmental respondents, said ‘no’ or‘don’t know’ to their council having aCorporate Information Risk Policy. Twenty nine percent said that InformationAssets were definitely not classified; with afurther 42% not knowing whether or notthey were. Thirty four percent said thatinformation assets were not allocatedowners, with a further 36% not knowingwhether they were or not.In summary, the chief executive group wassaying ‘yes’ to these questions; while themajority of the technology and user groupswere saying either ‘no’ or ‘don’t know’. The intentions are evidently there, but thepractice is not filtering through. One further question highlighted thisdisconnect from the centre: Do councilshave a Senior Information Risk Owner(SIRO) owning information risk? Just onechief exec said no. However, two fifths ofthe technology group and nearly a third ofthe departments said no. In total, 30% ofthe sample said that there was no SIRO attheir council; with a further 32% unsure. Worryingly, in light of the unending streamof data loss and data breach stories in themedia over the last few years, whilst themajority of corporate/chief execs said thatthere was a clear incident reportingmechanism in place for such occurrences,

14% of the sample said that there was not,and 27% did not know. It is disappointing, to say the least, that sofew of those working with sensitive citizendata could answer ‘yes’ to this question. More worryingly, just two thirds (66%) saidthat staff were regularly trained regardingthe sensitivity of citizen information and theimportance of adhering to the correctprocedures for its handling. The answer, of course, should have been100% ‘yes’ in both the above instances.Indeed, not one chief exec respondent saidthat their council did not have such a policyor training mechanism in place. Which, ofcourse, would be the correct answer: allshould have both policy and training.Results from the quick poll verified thisfinding: 63.8% answered yes to the samequestion. But that leaves nearly four in teneither not sure or, worse, definitely surethat their council did not have regulartraining on how to handle sensitive data. One said that training was “piecemeal atpresent. GC is changing this as we arerequired to actively train all staff accessingIT systems.” Another, very honestly,replied: “Policy exists but formal andrecurring training does not.”These results contrast starkly with thefinding that 96% of respondents felt that thelegal requirements of the Data ProtectionAct impacted they way in which theyhandle citizen data. Nearly eight in ten(79%) felt that the Human Rights Act, and94% the Freedom of information Act, hadan impact on the way their council handledsensitive citizen data. It is clear that the importance of keepingcitizen data safe has permeated throughoutlocal authorities. But the practicalities ofensuring that this be so – for example byimplementing the LGA Data HandlingGuidelines throughout the authority – arenot filtering down to the troops.

Is there truly a need to sharesensitive citizen data? Well, 77.1% of the quick poll said that inorder to improve the quality and efficiencyof public service delivery, yes, there was:“Immensely so – for place shaping, servicetake up, increased customer insight,offering of value added services and, mostimportantly, preventative services,” saidone.

Connecting thePublic SectorWhy, asks Helen Olsen, do local authorities still put sensitive citizen data in the post?


DATA SECURITY

Added another: “There is clearly a need,as all headline cases of child abuse couldhave been prevented if agenciescommunicated with each other.”In the long survey we explored the driversfor secure data sharing. Shared serviceswould obviously require secure exchangeof information according to 82%. Mobileand flexible working also required thiscapability in the minds of 81%. For 67% ‘TellUs Once’ and for 61% MAPPA (Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements)required secure exchange. Interestingly, in the long survey, just 13%felt that the new Total Place propositionwould require secure sharing, with almostthree quarters (73%) not sure. When thequick poll was conducted approximatelysix weeks later, however, the situation wasreversed – perhaps more was by thenknown about this new approach - with76.2% saying that, yes, trusted and securedata sharing would be essential in order todeliver ‘Total Place’ public services. Stated one respondent: “Total Place looksat how a whole area approach to publicservices can lead to better services. Inorder to achieve this it requires dataanalysis across the whole area. This datawill come from a range of serviceproviders on a range of different criteria, ieinformation on crime and anti-socialbehaviour. “Unless this data is shared an informedand holistic view cannot be taken onissues such as where services need to bebetter targeted. The approach must beevidenced based and cannot be deliveredby a single agency or group. “It needs a consistent and collaborativeapproach which eliminates duplication andjoins up activity.”It is hard to see how this can be achievedwithout a secure information sharingplatform. GCSX will inevitably play a keyrole - how else can you uniformly andsecurely share necessary information orenable secure joint working across thepolice, NHS, local authority and centralgovernment within an area? The commondenominator, the secure governmentinfrastructure, will, by 2012, become thenext generation Public Service Network. Itis hard to see how the public sector couldjustify missing the opportunity this presentsin tough economic times. However, coming back to the drivers andthe LGA Data Handling Guidelines, it isworth noting that just 58% of respondentssaid that the guidelines would requiresecure data sharing. Which, feel theresearchers, rather misses the point. Indeed, whilst the value of information wasrecognised, researchers detectedconfusion as to what these guidelineswere and how they should be implemented– how information security could bealigned with the business process.

Said one departmental respondent:“Information security is not just aboutconfidentiality. It is also about data qualityand availability, which is the real key tocost-effective frontline service provision.Information security also needs to bealigned to the strategy of the organisationand built into its business process.”But, he added, “Please give clear guidanceon how to allocate a SIRO.”

So who shares with whom? Data was currently shared by 78% of thesample with other local authorities, by 74%with the police, 71% with DWP, 64% withthe Audit Commission, 59% with HMRC,56% with HM Courts Service, 56% withhealth organisations, 51% with schools,47% with CLG, 42% with DCSF, and 47% theMinistry of Justice. The organisations’ databases that mostwould find helpful to have electronicaccess to in their own office were: NationalFraud Initiative (62%), National Blue BadgeRegister (60%), DVLA (59%), National PupilDatabase (54%), Joint Asset RecoveryDatabase (53%), Hospital Leavers &Admissions Database (52%), PersistentOffenders Register (50%), ElectronicPatient Care Records (50%). Interestingly,only just under half, 48%, thought thataccess to ContactPoint would help. Indeed, the potential for serviceimprovements was not lost onrespondents: “If we are to improve healthand social care as a whole there will be aneed to share data across severalorganisations.”One fire authority said that sharinginformation with PCTs “will help us toidentify vulnerable people... and enable usto target them with community safetyinitiatives to help drive down the incidenceof accidental dwelling fire.”There is a definite opportunity forinnovation in the use of data to improveservices. Take the DWP’s CIS - finding andfighting fraud is the obvious use, but whatabout using CIS data to inform a proactiveconcessionary parking service? It couldcheck the status of invalidity benefit andDLA and simply issue a continuation of ablue badge, rather than making theresident go through the whole application– and proof of eligibility – process again.

And how is this shared?Whilst it was encouraging to see that,where appropriate, information was beingshared, in many cases it was disappointingto see that not all use securecommunication routes to share this data. A frankly astonishing 45.7% in the quickpoll shared sensitive citizen data bypost/paper or removable storage media. Inthe long survey, 44% regularly used paper/post/courier and 22% USB/CD/post/couriercombinations to send sensitive citizen data

to other local authorities. Almost three inten (28%) and 12% used these methodsrespectively when sending data to centralgovernment. In light of the constant haemorrhage ofdata loss suffered by the public sector inrecent years this can be described, at best,as unfortunate.Apart from the risk of loss/theft there isalso the unreliability of the post to consider- CRB checks stuck in postal strikes willhold people up from starting jobs. Theinternet goes down, yes, but not as oftenas the post these days. In addition, theGSCX has back up and business resiliencebuilt in to its contracts. There is no reservepostal service waiting in the wings. On a more positive note, however, 54% ofcouncils now use the secure governmentnetwork (GCSX) and 15% a secure point topoint connection when sendinginformation to central government. And41% used the GCSX to share sensitive datawith other authorities. In the quick poll 61.9% said that they usedthe GCSX to share data. Indeed, from thecomments relating to this section it wouldappear that the programme has gainedsignificant traction in recent months. Manyindicated that they would be using theinfrastructure more often once everyonewas connected at the end of September:“Not yet,” said one, “But we will begin toas we have just had our GCSX connectionapproved.” Another said that the networkwas “currently being rolled out throughoutthis authority”. From the end of September there should beno excuse for entrusting sensitive data tothe post or courier either on paper orremovable storage media. Indeed, speaking as a citizen, for all citizendata the preferred option should be asecure communication channel. Everyparent waits nervously for the day those‘lost’ child benefit disks turn up in a pub car park. For local-to-local or local-to-central/otherfrontline services, the secure routesprovided by GCSX and the securegovernment network should be the firstoption considered. Apart from the security, just think of thetime and cost savings. Add in the carbonreduction element and, again, from acitizen point of view, it’s a winner.

The final reportfrom thisresearch,‘Connecting thePublic Sector’,will beavailable inOctober. Torequest a copyemail Helen Olsen: [email protected]

VIEW FROM WESTMINSTER


They are costing more than a billionpounds, but will be up to five years’late when they finally arrive... and it’s

all the fault of technology glitches.Now the controversy is, quietly, the targetof one of the biggest revolts by Labourbackbenchers, with 67 of Gordon Brown’stroops calling for the entire project to bepulled.The issue is the government’s troubledattempts to ensure fire and rescueservices are ready for modernemergencies on the scale of the Londonterror bombings.The solution, according to ministers, is toaxe the 46 fire and rescue centres acrossEngland in favour of just nine regionalcommand centres, boasting ‘state-of-the-art’ technology.For example, the separate control roomsnow used by Merseyside, Cheshire,Lancashire, Cumbria and GreaterManchester fire services will make wayfor a giant base in Warrington.The idea has been hotly-fought for years,with trade unions and opposition partieswarning that staff attempting to respondto emergencies across an entire regionwill lack “crucial local knowledge”.A Commons select committee brandedthe project ‘high risk’ because of theopposition of most local Fire and RescueServices (FRSs).And trade unions protested that a

decision to set up not-for-profitcompanies to run the new centres pavedthe way for part-privatisation of the fireservice.The opposition appeared to be drainingaway until a surprise announcement, justbefore MPs left Westminster for thesummer recess, that the entire projecthad been shelved for ten months.The new timetable means the firstswitchovers - those in Somerset, Devon,Derbyshire and Tyne and Wear - will nothappen until May 2011.And those areas last on the list -Humberside, Kent, North Yorkshire andSouth Yorkshire - must wait until the endof 2012. A full three years away.In many areas, the delay means the newset-up will not be ready for the challengeof the 2012 London Olympics, with all thesecurity challenges that will bring.Making the announcement to MPs, fireminister, Shahid Malik, said that “goodprogress” was being made on buildingthe regional centres and installing newequipment in local fire stations.And there was good news on hi-techdigital radios, which have now beeninstalled in more than two thirds ofEngland’s fire and rescue service vehiclesunder a separate £1bn programme.But, on the control rooms, Mr Malikadded: “In recent months, it has becomeclear that technical problems with

developing the IT system in a way whichwill meet all our and FRS requirementsmean that further time is needed tocomplete the project.“Key Olympic authorities will switch overin time to prepare for the games and thenetwork will provide robust fall-backarrangements for all FRSs over theOlympic period.”There was a hint of conflict with the mainIT supplier - EADS - when Mr Malikpledged “a new approach to delivery togive greater assurance on short-termmilestones and closer engagement withFRSs”.Predictably, the loudest criticism camefrom the Fire Brigades Union, whichcondemned “a scandalous waste ofpublic money when fire brigades arelooking to make major cuts because of a lack of cash”.And the Conservatives were quickly onthe attack, adding: “It is sadly no surprisethat yet another government IT project isover-budget and behind schedule.”Stewart Jackson, the party’s firespokesman, pledged that a Tory victory innext year’s general election would spellthe end for “this bloated project”,warning: “Contractors should take note...”But the government may face troubleeven before then. The 67 Labour MPsbacking the Tories in arguing it is not toolate to think again makes it one of thebiggest revolts - albeit a little-noticed one.The motion poses a difficult question for ministers, by pointing out that firecontrol rooms have been successfullymodernised in Scotland and Waleswithout scrapping most of them.Labour has been accused of an obsessionwith “regionalisation” at all costs, havingset up development agencies, unelectedassemblies with planning powers andgiant health authorities.Meanwhile, what on earth is going on atthe nine ‘state-of-the-art’ centres which,by the way, were originally supposed tobe up and running by 2007 - for £1bn,instead of the current £1.4bn price tag?Well, ministers were quick to denysuggestions they were standing empty, at a cost to taxpayers of £1.5m a month.They are being used for... meetings.

Blue Light for999 CentresThe health of the government’s new fire and rescue centres is failing, says parliamentary correspondent, Robert Merrick.

Answer on e-petitions soon

We are about to find out whether parliament will finally catch up with town hallsby allowing members of the public to e-petition for change.

The vexed issue - a committee of MPs first asked the government to allow it 18months ago - is now wrapped up in wider efforts to restore parliament’s batteredcredibility, post the expenses scandal.Gordon Brown asked Tony Wright, a respected Labour backbencher, to lead a quickall-party inquiry to examine how Westminster can better connect with the public,among other dilemmas.His committee, which must report back by November, was asked to explore ‘howmembers of the public might be able to initiate debates and proceedings in theHouse’.But the stumbling block is cost. Ministers say e-petitioning, as proposed by MPs lastyear, would cost £4m over the course of a parliament - and will only support a“simpler, cheaper form of online communication”.The caution will disappoint enthusiasts who point out that the Scottish Parliamentallows it - and that Bristol and Kingston councils pioneered it as long ago as 2004.

EMERGENCY SERVICES


First for Fife F&RS

Fife Fire and Rescue Service, the first tobenefit from the Scottish Executive’s

programme for communicationstechnologies, has unveiled its new majorincident command unit (ICU) as part of a£5m investment of more than £5m in newrescue equipment and facilities. Developedin partnership with coachbuilder, Cebotec,and technology supplier, ExcelerateTechnology, the ICU will play a major role inimproving the management of majorincidents and achieving interoperabilitywith other emergency services.

Sepura has developed an intelligentsoftware application to help police

officers carry out ‘stop and account’operations more swiftly and efficiently.Developed for its SRH and STP TETRAradios, the application transforms requiredethnicity data into a Short Data Applicationmessage, whilst also sending GPS locationand time stamping directly to a centraldatabase. Officers’ operational status isautomatically updated on the radio displayso that they know, just by looking at thescreen, the latest status communicated tothe control room. www.sepura.com

Steria has signed a 10-year, circa £45mcontract with the Independent Police

Complaints Commission to provide ICT andtelephony services. IPCC chief executive,Jane Furniss, says, the contract “providesus with modern ICT and critical businesssystems” that are “crucial to the ongoingrestructuring and development of theorganisation and will underpin” work beingdone to provide greater frontline resources.

Indico Systems has unveiled its lateststraight-to-server digital recording system

for use within the criminal justice sector.Indico Streaming Server has been usedsuccessfully in Scandinavia and is nowbeing offered on a trial basis to selected UK police forces. www.indicosys.no

Strathclyde Police has gone live with thenext generation of covert policing

technology from ABM. Abmpegasusenables Strathclyde to have a morecentralised view of its entire covertintelligence estate, in addition to enablingvaluable covert intelligence to be passeddirectly to the Scottish IntelligenceDatabase.

Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Servicehas asked Clarity Information Solutions

to use Active Navigation to clean up andreorganise all its unstructured electronicinformation. Prompted by the need toretrieve information quickly in response toFoI requests plus information security,version control and network storageissues, Staffordshire has already identifiedstorage savings of up to 100GB fromdeleting duplicate and redundant data.

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Serviceis set to save a minimum of £50,000

through a new five year contract with NorthYorkshire broadband organisation, NYnet.The contract, valued at £354,000, willinvolve the migration of 15 fire service sitesin North Yorkshire onto the NYnet network– providing double the bandwidth of theprevious supplier.

Audit Scotland says that contingencies planning is being hindered by

shortcomings in information sharing,including different definitions as to whatcomprises an emergency, despite guidancein the Civil Contingencies Act, and use ofdifferent document security systems. Theseare in place for the Scottish Government,police forces and NHS boards, but not forsome local authorities and fire and rescueservices. www.audit-scotland.gov.uk

Surrey Police is implementing anenterprise-wide information

management system from Memex. All keypolice business functions will be joinedunder one platform that will ultimately linkall recorded information and intelligenceacross the force - which includes Memex’score Intelligence, Crime, plus Case andCustody solutions.

The Association of Chief PoliceOfficers in Scotland (ACPOS) is

creating a centralised address gazetteerfor use by all Scottish police services.Deputy chief constable Tom Halpin,ACPOS National Command and ControlProject Executive, said that the award ofthe contract to create this resource was,“a key part of the wider ACPOS businesschange programme and representsgroundbreaking improvements for theScottish police service. “The new system will help us to identifyprecise locations and allocate the bestequipped and nearest police patrol.” Lothian & Borders Police, on behalf of theeight Scottish police forces and theScottish Police Services Authority, isoverseeing the project which will see thecreation, implementation and use of adefinitive national location gazetteerdetailing every property and the locationof all police ‘incidents’ in Scotland.A partnership led by Buying Solutionsprime contractor, Infotech Enterprises,

and partners GGP Systems and Infoshare,will compile data from each of the eightpolice forces, Point X’s Points of Interestdataset and Experian’s QAS Names.Matching, cleansing and validation will bedone by Infoshare against a primarydataset from One Scotland Gazetteer(OSG) - which is made up of address datafrom the 32 Scottish councils. GGP’sgazetteer management software will beused to give officers web-enabled accessto the system across Scotland andintegrate with the new national Control &Command system.

Scottish police to get own gazetteer

Leicestershire Constabulary hasimplemented 300 Panasonic CF-19

Toughbooks to provide officers in the fieldwith 24-hour access to exactly the sameinformation as their colleagues in thestation. Fast and reliable wireless dataconnection frees officers from having tomake journeys back to base to completetime-consuming paperwork – comparableto maintaining up to 200 officers onpublicly visible duty per year according tothe constabulary. Chief superintendentJason Masters described the roll out as,“The biggest step forward in policecommunications since the introduction ofthe two-way radio forty years ago”.

Officers can now access resourcesincluding internal websites, crimerecords, intelligence logs, command andcontrol logs and update information inreal-time whilst in their vehicles.

Leicestershire goes rugged

NEW PRODUCTS


PageOne’s Voiceblast can quickly andsimultaneously send a personalised

voice message to the landline or mobilenumber of all staff. Combined withPageOne’s SmartGroups, which allowusers to set up predefined groups, itoffers a powerful and flexible means ofdelivering high-volume broadcast infor-mation to multiple devices independent of network. www.pageone.co.uk

Mayrise Systems has announced thelatest version of its mapping

software, MapNow. The release offers animproved, more intuitive user interface,configurable views and advancedvisualisation options for the coordinationof street works. It enables users toinstantly locate assets and view detailedservice information on OS maps or aerialphotographs. www.mayrise.co.uk

BT claims that its Broadband EnablingTechnology is capable of providing

online services across long distances.Capable of providing a reliable serviceover lines more than 12 km away from anexchange it could help support roll-out ofthe government’s Digital Britain initiative.John Small, managing director of servicedelivery for Openreach, says that BT is“keen to work with local and regionalauthorities and other bodies with fundingto discuss how the technology can berolled out to their areas”. www.btplc.com

Adobe has launched the Adobe Approved Trust List (AAL) enabling

users to create digital signatures that aretrusted whenever the signed document isopened in Acrobat or Reader 9.0 andabove. Both products reach out to anAdobe-hosted web page to periodicallydownload a list of trusted root digitalcertificates. Any digital signature createdwith a credential that can trace arelationship ‘chain’ back to a certificate onthis list will be trusted by these products.Organisations already working with AATLinclude GlobalSign, SwissSign, VeriSignand the US Federal Common Policy Root.www.adobe.com/security/approved-trust-list.html

McKesson and Point Progress havepartnered to offer an expenses

system specifically designed for NHSorganisations across England and Wales.DX Expenses can help trusts to improveback office efficiencies and deliver costsavings. It provides a record of everyexpenses claim, improving control andenabling trusts to identify trends and waysto reduce expenses. www.mckesson.co.uk

Civica has achieved PA-DSS (PaymentApplication Data Security Standard)

compliance validation for both its ICON e-payments managed service and for localauthorities to use in-house. www.civica.com

The National Association of LocalCouncils has joined forces with

Ordnance Survey to extend the BOLD (thebenefits of licensed data) campaign toparish and town councils. NALC and OSare to promote the Paper Map CopyingLicence, which allows the holder to copyunlimited amounts of OS mapping in paperform to support their day to dayadministration; make copies of mapping ineither paper or electronic form; includecopies of such mapping in print and onweb pages; and use copies of mapping as a part of a professional service.

www.nalc.gov.uk

Anew solution from Ubisys will make it easier for NHS staff to update

Electronic Patient Records (EPRs) sharedby local NHS providers such as hospitalsand GPs. Ubisys is integrating Anoto’sdigital pen and paper technology withSystmOne, a widely used primary caredatabase within the NHS NationalProgramme for IT. Combining digital penand paper saves staff time as they nolonger have to type up handwritten notes.Instead, the digital pen will capturehandwriting as patient forms are filled inand update records in SystmOne.

www.anoto.com/solutions-2.aspx

Talend has joined forces withConnectage.com to help drive the

adoption of open source data integrationsolutions in the UK public sector. Thepartnership aims to help to improve datamanagement within governmentdepartments and local authorities andthus boost productivity and efficiency ofpublic sector services. www.talend.com

Simplifying bus routes

Mobexx has launched Streets Schedule,a bus scheduling system linked to

Google mapping. The software incorporateson-screen mapping tools for placing busstops and routes accurately withoutduplication or overlapping. Efficientschedules can then be built with servicelevels for regular or holiday services. Thescheduler can assign trips to drivers using asimple drag-and-drop action. Compatibilitywith the Google Transit Feed Specificationenables quick production of schedules forweb and print and seamless integrationwith Google Maps gives passengers a one-stop source for online trip planning.www.mobexx.co.uk

GGP Systems has launched the latest version of its geographical informationsystem. It includes advanced spatial data storage functionality, improved data

security and user authentication and support for Windows Vista, Windows 7 andWindows Server 2008. “Inorder to maximise thepotential of geographicinformation as acorporate resource, it isessential that largevolumes of data can besecurely stored andaccessed by authorisedusers,” commented TimMaxwell, founder andmanaging director of GGPSystems.

www.ggpsystems.co.uk

Spatial Technology has launched ISMMapView, an entry level web based

GIS which comes with a fast NationalLand and Property Gazetteer loader andaddress search facility. ISM MapView isaimed at local authorities already usinghigh end GIS that would like to make theirmaps and other data available to all staffat minimum cost. It can access thespecialist maps and data already used byan organisation and has all the toolfunctionality normally associated with anentry level GIS application, including pan,zoom, goto, location search, addresssearch and print. www.spatialtech.co.uk

CONTRACT ROUNDUP


Barnsley MBC has signed a managed ICTservices deal with Civica as part of its

Building Schools for the Future Programme.Civica will also deliver a Virtual LearningEnvironment for the Barnsley LocalEducation Partnership to all schools, bothprimary and secondary, from January 2010.

Basingstoke and Deane Borough Councilis using RandomStorm’s automated

vulnerability assessment tool, iStorm, toenable its IT security team to scheduleregular automated scans of its IT network.

Bromsgrove Council has halved thenumber of complaints it was receiving

since implementing Tagish’s iCaseworkcomplaints and customer feedbackcomputer system. The council hadpreviously been criticised by the AuditCommission for having no such effectivecorporate system in place.

Camden Council is using Check PointSoftware’s disk encryption product to

secure confidential data on its 1400 laptopsagainst theft or data leakage.

Capital Ambition, the RegionalImprovement and Efficiency Partnership

division of London Councils, has workedwith Tagish to develop a new website.

Carmarthenshire and Merthyr Tydfil areworking with Northgate Public Services

to deliver enterprise electronic informationmanagement services.

Central Bedfordshire Council has selectedthe Open Text ECM Suite to deliver

document and records management,integrating with enterprise-wide processesand delivering content over the web.

Community Care Providers Scotland, theassociation of voluntary sector

organisations, is to pilot the Capita Supportweb-based outcome monitoring tool todemonstrate the impact their services haveon people’s lives.

Devon County Council says that it hasmade significant cost savings by using

Citrix GoToWebinar to 50 staff. Devonestimates it has saved £100 per person insix weeks by reducing travel, venue andrefreshment costs. Staff productivity hasincreased by eliminating travel time andcarbon emissions have also been reduced.

Enfield has launched a new website andGoogle-powered search system.

Developed by Jadu, the site supportsdelivery of Enfield’s ‘Access to Services’strategy for 2007 – 2012 by providing betteraccess to a wider range of information forall members of the community.

Environment Agency has selected Limehouse Software from Objective for

its new national e-consultation system. Theplatform goes live as EA starts consultationon the new by-laws to regulate fisheries inEngland and Wales. Limehouse uEngagewill facilitate internal organisationalconsultation as well as externalstakeholder engagement.

Gloucester City Council has cut the timetaken to procure goods by 75% using

COA Solutions’ eProcurement system toreplace an in-house catalogue to monitorthe costs of goods and services fromsuppliers; and staff had to manually key-ininformation when placing an order.

Golden Gates Housing, One VisionHousing and The Guinness Partnership

have all signed contracts for Civica’s publicprotection software, which enablesregistered social landlords to achieve costefficiencies by bringing together staffresources such as anti-social behaviourand customer service into one centralsystem for ASB incidents and cases.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Partnershiphas chosen ntl:Telewest Business for a

£90m fully managed network to transformpublic service delivery across Hampshireand the Isle of Wight. The project willconnect more than one thousand sites,including the partnership’s 15 localauthorities, the fire service, schools,colleges and voluntary organisations.

Harrogate Borough Council is the latestpublic sector organisation to take

advantage of the NYnet network. The maincouncil offices will be provided with asuper-fast internet connection and vastlyimproved connections between satelliteoffices via a dedicated VPN.

Harrow Council and shop4support haveannounced a partnership to implement

an innovative social care eMarketplacesolution in the borough as part of itsongoing development of the personalisationagenda within social care.

Hart District Council has signed a £9.5meight year contract with Capita for a

range of managed services includingcustomer services, IT, financial services,HR and payroll and print services. Theservice will utilise Capita’s existing servicecapabilities in Southampton.

Herefordshire Housing has chosensoftware from 1st Touch to support the

management of its responsive repairsservice and trades colleagues across fivethousand homes in the county. Thesoftware integrates fully with HH’s existingOrchard Housing Management system andsends electronic job tickets directly to 25internal trade colleagues’ PDAs.

Isle of Man is using Liquidlogic’sPROTOCOL Integrated Children’s System

solution for its social services division –whilst the council does not have to complywith DCSF ICS requirements, it wanted topurchase a system meeting the standards.

Leicestershire County Council has appointed Corporate Project Solutions to

roll out the Microsoft Enterprise ProjectManagement 2007 toolset. The council’s ITdepartment is implementing a tailored,structured system of processes andtechnology to facilitate pipelinemanagement, timesheets for progresscollection and resource management.

London Grid for Learning Trust is using the National Land and Property Gazetteer to

provide the addresses for its updatedeAdmissions service for schools acrossLondon. The LGfL manages the admissionsservice on behalf of the 33 Londonauthorities and Surrey County Council.

Luton and Dunstable Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is implementing

McKesson’s eRostering, Open ShiftManagement and Time & Attendancesolution, Horizon OneStaff. It generatesautomated, fair and equitable schedulesthat accommodate individual preferencesand skillsets along with a seamlessinterface with ESR.

Blaby District Council is using GGPSystems’ GGP Synchroniser tool to

provide real-time, corporate wideaccess to essential planninginformation. The tool joins back officedatabases up with front office servicessuch as CRM and council website.Records held within the council’splanning system are automatically linkedto the GIS allowing users across theorganisation to search, view and accessboth current and historical planninginformation from the desktop.

Scottish Councils are transformingtheir major incident handling with

IBM and Frontworks. All 32 councils aredeploying a web-based managementapplication for Emergency Rest Centres,providing a vital information stream forlocal authorities and the police serviceto enable them to assist in reunitingpeople affected by an incident. The newapplication provides easy-to-useregistration and command & controlfacilities for multi-agency staff such aslocal authorities, housing associations,the police and, where required, thevoluntary sector. Staff can access thelatest data at any one time over theinternet, which can be made rapidlyavailable even when traditionalcommunication systems are down.

CONTRACT ROUNDUP


Luton Council has signed the first phase ofa £44m contract with Civica. As part of

the QED Wates consortium, Civica will beprime ICT contractor for the town’s £270mBuilding Schools for the Future programme.

Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Counciland Wrexham Borough Council have

chosen to replace the former Anite PublicSector’s Pericles system with Northgate’srevenues and benefits solution. Followingits purchase of Anite, Northgate is closingdown Pericles and offering clients theopportunity to switch to its own system.

NHS Lothian is the latest organisation tosign up to the One Scotland Mapping

Agreement, giving it access to a range ofOS mapping data to aid the delivery ofpatient services. It is one of 74 Scottishpublic-sector organisations to sign up.

NHS Mid Yorkshire Hospitals hasimplemented an identity management

solution from Salford Software, enabling itto link to the NHS’s Electronic Staff Recordsproviding up to date, same day informationon leavers and joiners to the organisationvia Novell Identity Manager.

NHS National Services Scotland hasselected Lumension to enforce security

policies governing the storage of data onportable storage devices on behalf of the 22Scottish Health Boards. The service neededa solution that would prevent anyone fromstoring patient data or any other healthboard information onto a CD, DVD, USBstick or laptop, without having expressedpermission to do so. Where this method ofdata transfer was sanctioned, it needed toknow that the information was encrypted.

NHS South Birmingham and PathfinderHealthcare Developments CIC have

partnered with Aetna Health Services todevelop new ways of working to improvehealth outcomes. New services include atelephone care management programmeand an online health risk assessment tool.

NHS Worcestershire Acute HospitalsTrust has selected Xerox to provide an

outsourced service for the digitisation andfull management of its health records forthe next 10 years.

Norfolk County Council has signed twocontracts with BT worth a combined

value of £40.2m to provide voice and dataservices to more than 450 schools in thecounty. As part of a £32.9m five-year dealBT Global Services will provide a new corevoice and IP telephony service, bringingunified communications to 20,000 workersat more than 1,000 sites, including counciloffices, schools and libraries throughoutthe county. Some five thousand councilemployees will also benefit from new,secure MobileXpress flexible workingtechnologies being introduced by BT.

North Ayrshire and South Ayrshirecouncils have become the latest

Scottish councils to adopt Lagan’sEnterprise Case Management solution inmoves aimed at improving customerservice to citizens and communities anddelivering cost efficiencies.

North Eastern Purchasing Organisationhas signed a three-year contract with

Comensura for the operation andmanagement of the supply of temporaryagency workers for member authorities -delivering guaranteed savings each year offour percent on participating authorities’annual budget of £16m.

North Hertfordshire Homes is able toblock 93% of spam email, gaining 10-15

hours a week of staff time, by implementinga new Cisco IronPort email securityappliance from Nebulas Solutions Group.

Redbridge has chosen Civica’s movingtraffic parking technology as part of its

overall CCTV infrastructure to capture buslane, parking and moving trafficcontraventions, streamline administrationand simplify communication with motoristsvia an online portal.

Reigate and Banstead Borough Council isimplementing a log management, log

analysis and event management solutionfrom LogRhythm, in order to sign up to thegovernment’s Code of Connection (CoCo) aswell as dramatically streamline how itreports on network activity for forensic andaudit purposes, and to log data searches.

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council haschosen Civica to implement electronic

document management and workflow aspart of a transformation project designed tosave £15m over the next three years. TheEDM and workflow is projected tocontribute in excess of £1m to this figure.

Stevenage Homes has implemented amobile workforce technology system

from 1st Touch for responsive repairs.

The London Common AssessmentFramework (CAF) Protocol has signed a

contract with Me Learning for onlinetraining. The protocol was developed by theGovernment Office for London and CapitalAmbition in partnership with London’s 33 local authorities.

Tower Hamlets has asked Webcredible toundertake a usability evaluation and

accessibility audit on its new website.

Wales Audit Office is implementing anintegrated financial management

system from COA Solutions, incorporatingelectronic document imaging and datacapture software from Version One.

Wandsworth Council, in partnershipwith Jadu, has launched a standards

compliant new website to create greatercustomer engagement.

West Berkshire Council has cut propertycosts by 40% with Timelord, a flexible

working scheme designed andimplemented by Vodafone.The flexibleworking framework is governed by mobilepolicies that are aligned to the needs ofteams working on the ground as well as tothe council’s overall business objectives.

Winchester City Council has deployedEnterprise SSO from Evidian to

simplify access for staff to multipleapplications while increasing security.Supplied by AppSpeed, the Evidian solutionis being used together with two-factorauthentication to secure systems andapplication access in compliance with GSiCode of Connection which the councilachieved in February.

Wolverhampton City Council, SanctuaryHousing Group and Greenwich

Council are using 360 Scheduling andNorthgate to efficiently manage theirhousing repair and maintenance activities.

Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council’sCoastal Defence section is using

historic aerial imagery from theGeoInformation Group to gain a clearerunderstanding of how the coast hasevolved over time. By ascertaining thehistoric position of the coastline -identifying historic land use, habitatextents and management activities thatcould have affected today’s coastline -and mapping sand dune evolution thecouncil hopes to be able to predict thetypes and rates of future coastal change.

South Gloucestershire Council is usingDell handheld devices and Mayrise

software to improve the coordination ofstreet works and assist with safetyinspections. Street works officers andsafety inspectors armed with pocket PCscan carry out routine inspectionsaccessing the latest back officeinformation, such as the Street WorksRegister, in the field. Defects can beautomatically recorded via simple dropdown menus improving both efficiency andthe speed with which defects are resolved.

Bluesky MAYRISE

GGP

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Documents

Local Government IT in Use - September/October 2009 issue