Return to Agenda

Return to EX6B

ITEM EX6B - ANNEX 5

EXECUTIVE – 22 JANUARY 2002

REVENUE BUDGET AND MEDIUM TERM FINANCIAL
PLAN 2002/03 TO 2005/06

Raising Performance Through E-Government

1. This report provides information in support of the bid for additional resources for raising performance through electronic service delivery (e-gov). It specifically covers improving the relationship with Oxfordshire residents as customers for the Council’s services, in particular through the development of a contact centre.
2. It refers to government policy guidelines and funding arrangements, outlines the implications of developing a contact centre, draws attention to the need to link initiatives to organisational and cultural change, provides an initial response to the request of the Executive for a costed and timetabled plan for developing a coherent ICT strategy and outlines the action being taken to prepare a firm business plan and implementation programme for agreement by the Executive in April 2002, based on the approved electronic government statement, to raise performance and achieve 100% capability of electronic service delivery by 2005.

Government Guidelines And Funding Arrangements

3. The County Council’s implementing electronic government statement (IEG) for ensuring all services are capable of electronic service delivery by 2005 was approved by the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR) in November 2001.
4. The Government has confirmed (subject to the agreement of Parliament) to provide an additional capital grant of £0.2 million to each local authority in 2002/03 to support implementation and earmarked a further payment of £0.2 million in 2003/04 provided satisfactory progress has been made in putting the first payment to good effect.
5. The DTLR will shortly be providing additional guidelines on a draft national Local Government Online strategy linked to the White Paper "Strong Local Leadership – Quality Public Services". The County Council will need to submit a revised IEG statement to the government in September 2002 to take account of these guidelines and obtain the second tranche of funding.
6. The Government has also announced that some additional but unquantified funding may be available for local authorities who included partnership working initiatives in their original IEG statement. District councils are being approached with regard to a joint submission by the of 25 January 2002.

Development of a Contact Centre for Oxfordshire

7. The provision of a contact centre will underpin approved strategies for improving access for all, providing better quality services, improving effectiveness and efficiency and engaging in more productive partnership arrangements.
8. The development will rely heavily on the provision of the Oxfordshire Community Network, enhanced management information systems, an improved web site, greater use of internet and intranet technology and other technical infrastructure initiatives.
9. Research into contact centres is being undertaken having regard to best practice elsewhere. At this stage two particular options have been studied one of which involves externalisation and the other an in-house venture partnership. The in-house approach has particular advantages in that responsibility for customer service delivery is retained within the local authority but enhanced through the use of external expertise. Further analysis is taking place and discussions with the District Councils, Oxfordshire Health Authority and the Thames Valley Police are planned.
10. Moves to "build" the contact centre will provide the opportunity to transform service delivery, and take advantage of the outcomes from existing e-gov projects to raise performance and provide connected and personalised services for customers. Such an approach is essential if maximum benefits are to be derived from the investment in the e-gov strategy and would be consistent with the views of the DTLR that "electronic government is about change management, continuous improvement and business transformation for the whole organisation, with technology supporting the objectives (DTLR: August 2001).
11. Transformation will:-

• result in a customer strategy that is designed for customers
• empower contact centre staff to deal with up to 80% of contacts
• increase the availability of services available on line (virtual self-service delivery)
• provide for the electronic referral of complex issues and service requests to service specialists for attention
• streamline business processes

12. These changes will benefit all users irrespective of how the service request is made – by telephone, letter, in person, computer or ultimately interactive digital television. Increasingly services will be obtained on line (virtual service delivery) with transactions subject to an appropriate level of security.
13. Priorities for transforming service delivery need to be agreed at an early stage so that necessary preparatory work can be undertaken whilst discussions on the type of contact centre are taking place. Likely candidates might include for example.

• services for the elderly (including electronic social care records linked to electronic health records)
• student support system which might be extended to cover other personalised services
• highways services covering potholes, drainage, grass cutting, and street lighting
• consumer services linked to other advice agencies at local, regional and national level
• enquiries about library books request for information or research into local history
• information and services for businesses, for example, fire certificate applications.

13. The overall programme is being managed at Director level through the existing e-gov board. Relevant information is being fed into the Oxfordshire Plan, Community Plan and the proposed Public Service Agreement.
14. The change management programme will need to be supported by a team of officers drawn primarily from existing resources but supported by investment through the budget strategy in 2002/03 onwards. The team will include the e-gov adviser, service representatives, IT manager, programme manager, project leaders, with access to specialist skills covering customer service, marketing, IT, business process re-engineering, financial management, personnel procedures, consultation, training, risk assessment, asset management and legal and contract management.
15. Specialist consultancy has been commissioned from PA Consulting to:-

• help produce a business plan and implementation programme (integrating existing projects with the development of the contact centre to create a coherent programme linked to raising performance)

• provide specialist advice on customer relationship management and the development of the contact centre

• plan the transformation of service delivery
• help to secure a return on investment in terms of quality, productivity or cost savings,

• conduct a review of existing technology projects and assess the available ICT resources, skills, infrastructure and systems to deliver the developing e-gov programme. This work will also include an evaluation of whether existing staffing arrangements (including the operational boundaries between the corporate centre and service departments) are appropriate.

16. Additionally they have been asked to undertake a scoping exercise and provide a financial assessment of the minimum investment needed in 2002/03 to commence the development of the contact centre, consistent with the need to secure full implementation in line with the targets set out in the electronic government statement. Their views will be available prior to The Executive meeting on the 22 January 2002.

Financial Implications

17. The cost of developing the contact centre has been estimated at £4 million over four years. A sum of £0.5 million is included in corporate pressures for 2002/3 to cover staffing, technology, equipment, training and consultancy for the contact centre and associated systems. Anticipated expenditure in the following years has been estimated at £1.5 million in 2003/04 and £1 million in 2004/05 and 2005/06. The views of the consultants will be available before the Executive meeting. In addition £0.25m per annum has been included within corporate pressures for the other customer facing elements of the e–government strategy. The total bid of £0.75m is in addition to the balance available in the New Technology Fund and should be considered as part of the same envelope of resources. It is anticipated that there will be calls on the New Technology Fund to fund the development of systems to support the customer facing elements and for other ICT initiatives.
18. There is an anticipated shortfall in service budgets for ICT due to under-investment in previous years. The Executive have asked that Services bring forward plans for financing proposed ICT investment taking account of capital funding, revenue budgets and sources of external support in order that they can benefit from the E-gov programme.
19. Some work has been undertaken in identifying existing budgetary provision on IT (Annex 1). This information will be fed into this process and the work being undertaken by consultants and the results will be included in the firm business plan to be submitted to the April Executive.
20. The implementation of the e-gov agenda will ensure continuous improvement, help meet the 2% productivity targets in future years as required under Best Value, and provide a return on investment in terms of:

• better quality services
• improved access for all
• improved productivity

• savings

21. Expenditure should be partially offset by sharing some costs with public service partners. Work is also ongoing to encourage partners to sign up to the Oxfordshire Community Network.

Personnel Implications

22. The changes outlined in this report carry significant implications for the training and re-training of staff, recruitment and personnel policies. These will be covered in the proposed business plan.

Return to TOP