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1. Following our first technical note that was issued in early August and our September Implementation Newsletter that was issued last week, it is now time for our second technical note to keep you informed of progress and help guide you through to implementation in December. This note complements the information in our monthly Services Directive Newsletter.
2. BIS has produced a Key Tasks list (see Annex A), including deadlines. Explanatory information for some key tasks is included in the technical note, information on other tasks such as SOCITM training, IMI etc was included in the September newsletter and information on other key tasks will follow in subsequent newsletters. Please note that we will be asking you to report on your progress against these tasks on the following dates – 30th September, 16th October, 30th October, 13th November, 30th November and 11th December by returning either the local authority or competent authority monitoring form (see Annex B) to: servicesdirective@bis.gsi.gov.uk with the title “Progress Report”.
3. BIS issued guidance “Implementing payments – ELMS Electronic Licence Management System” on 3rd August, which is available on our website. As it explains, local and other competent authorities that intend to use the BIS forms service will need to set up an account with one of the 4 payment providers that ELMS will be supporting. In order to have this in place by the December deadline, you will need to have started this process by now (see Task 10 in the attached Technical Note). Please note that you will also need to confirm to BIS as soon as possible which payment provider you have chosen by clicking: servicesdirective@bis.gsi.gov.uk (note: this is an email to servicesdirective@bis.gsi.gov.uk with the title “email return 127”, which should not be amended).
4. Article 7 of the Services Directive requires Member States to ensure that certain information is made available to service providers, this covers
While the PSC will cover much of this information, it will not describe the specifics of the application process or give local information on, for example, how to access registers. To be fully compliant, the information listed above is required for each formality that you have to administer – even if it is one for which you will seldom, if ever, receive an application.
5. For local authorities – in order to save local authorities from each writing similar material, BIS has commissioned legal publishers Sweet & Maxwell to produce template web pages for approx 90 formalities within scope of the Directive across the whole of the UK. This material can be used on your website in any way your see fit – to create new pages or to amend existing pages. Instructions on how best to use this material, a more detailed release schedule and the first tranche of approx 20 templates will be available by the end of September on the Community of Practice (COP) forum. (To register for the COP, please go to http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk and search for EU Services Directive and then go to Library, where the templates can be found under “Website Toolkit”.)
The remaining templates will be released in batches up until November.
6. For all authorities – even if you can’t use the whole template, looking at a sample may help you ensure that your own web pages are compliant. BIS will also be releasing branding material and guidelines at the same time that will enable authorities to brand appropriate material with the “EUGO” logo. This is a Europe-wide brand that will apply to all PSC sites as our user research showed that a pan-European branding was a major contributor to user trust and we would encourage authorities to use the new logo if you would find that helpful.
7. Development of the suite of forms that will be available for local authorities to use is nearly complete and we will be issuing a list of forms on the Community of Practice forum by 30th September. Work is also underway on developing forms in respect of other competent authorities. If you are a competent authority other than a local authority that will be using the BIS forms service, please ensure that you return the relevant form design template to Nigel Veitch at businesslink as soon as possible (email: Nigel.Veitch@businesslink.gsi.gov.uk).
8. You may also wish to note that it’s the last chance to look at the latest batch of proposed forms that have been developed for BIS by SOCITM at: http://psc.socitmconsulting.co.uk Although the deadline has passed, we would be very grateful to receive any additional comments that you wish to record on the site.
9. As well as the live ELMS system, a separate familiarisation environment will be made available in early October. This will enable all local and competent authority users to:
If your authority is planning to use ELMS, BIS would strongly recommend that you and your colleagues spend time on the familiarisation environment before you go onto the live system. We will provide further advice on how to access this facility in the October newsletter.
10. As indicated in the September Newsletter, SOCITM will be running ‘Implementing the EU Services Directive’ training courses during October and November in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales for Managers and Supervisors responsible for the day-to-day running of business regulation activities in scope of the Directive. More information can be found at: http://www.socitmlearning.co.uk/showCourse.asp?CourseTypeID=17
11. I hope you find this Technical Note helpful and remember that you can find more information on our website at: http://www.bis.gov.uk/servicesdirective and can contact us via email at: servicesdirective@bis.gsi.gov.uk. In addition, the COP forum can be accessed at: http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk
website: http://www.bis.gov.uk/servicesdirective
Task List | Description | LA | CA | Deadline |
1 | Nominate Primary Liaison Point | √ | √ | 30 April |
2 | Complete Survey (no longer required for local authorities) | × | √ | 29 May |
3 | Generate form definitions | × | √ | 31st July September |
4 | Identify Web Portal Officers (WPOs) | √ | × | 30 September |
5 | Provide URLs to Local DirectGov (LDG) | √ | × | As in technical note below |
6 | Sign up for SOCITM training session | √ | × | 2 October |
7 | Ensure system compatibility to ELMS | √ | √ | 16 October |
8 | Provide formality configuration information | √ | √ | 30 October |
9 | Register for access to familiarisation environment | √ | √ | 23 October |
10 | Provide payment service configuration details | √ | √ | 23 October |
11 | Provide BIS with a list of your public registers | √ | √ | 30 October |
12 | Register to use Internal Market Information (IMI) | √ | √ | 30 October |
13 | Access and use familiarisation environment | √ | √ | 30 November |
14 | Prepare website content in line with the requirements of the Services Directive (Article 7) | √ | √ | 27 December |
15 | Set up ELMS users | √ | √ | 27 December |
16 | Create ‘processing departments’ and assign users to them | √ | √ | 27 December |
17 | Localise formalities (self service configuration) | √ | √ | 27 December |
18 | Test Payment Engine | √ | √ | 27 December |
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If you have already completed form design templates and forwarded them to businesslink then the next step will be to review the draft forms once they are issued to you.
If you need an estimate for the delivery date of your draft form for planning purposes then contact Nigel Veitch (email below)
When do I need to do it by?
The sooner the better but we feel a two week turnaround for feedback is reasonable, therefore you will need to provide feedback within two weeks of receiving.
All questions relating to form development should be sent to Nigel Veitch at: Nigel.Veitch@businesslink.gsi.gov.uk
You will be sent an excel spreadsheet that will list all PSC services applicable to authorities. In the spreadsheet authorities will:
Please note that where X is entered, these services will be delivered through the ELMS website for that authority.
Authorities will be provided with guidance in late September on how to complete the excel spreadsheet.
English councils
If you already use the LDG system to load your URLs you can access the system to upload the spreadsheet.
If you use the esd Toolkit you can continue to use existing mechanisms to load the data from the spreadsheet via esd toolkit.
If you would like to try using the LDG system for uploading please contact: localdirectgov@communities.gsi.gov.uk
The following should be adhered to for uploading data to LDG system/ESD Toolkit:
The excel spreadsheet should be loaded directly into the LDG system or, in the case of English councils, the esd Toolkit can be used as an alternative update method.
Authorities have been sent guidance on payments, which provides details of what is expected. Details of what steps are required to implement payments are covered in section 4 of the guidance (Steps needed to implement payments). However, in summary for those authorities that are currently using one of the four payment providers (Capita, Civica, Northgate, Worldpay):
For those authorities that do not currently use any of these four providers at present, you need to:
Follow procedures provided by the payment providers, configure ELMS, test ELMS and go live by December 2009.
Authorities were sent guidance on 3rd August which details what information is required to implement payments.
To ensure that you are ready to go live in December 2009, you should initiate the processes outlined in Chapter 4 of the guidance document as soon as possible but no later than the first week of September.
As part of the self service facility that will be available on ELMS, each authority will be able to set-up payments. This account will have two elements whereby authorities can configure data. The first part is user configurable by the authority and the second element will require data to be sent to the ELMS central admin team for configuration for each authority.
The details of how this data needs to be delivered are covered in the individual annexes for each payment provider in the guidance document.
You MUST give information on your site in line with Article 7 of the Directive.
The website toolkit will explain in detail what is required; it will also offer branding guidelines
No later than 27th December 2009 but you should start now.
You need to supply LDG with links to your website and this is covered under URL Collection (see above).
