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Last updated: 27 March 2009
The Government is committed to delivering public services that are responsive to the needs of their users and achieve maximum value for money for the taxpayer.
The 2005 Transformational Government strategy and, more recently, the Service Transformation Agreement published alongside the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review [External website], set out part of the Government's strategy for achieving this transformation of public services.
The 2005 Transformational Government Strategy set out three major change areas for the public sector to make the best use of technology in delivering better public services for people. These are:
Sharing information
Public and private sector organisations need to be able to share information securely in order to provide services that are better tailored to customers’ needs. Data security and integrity must underpin this and were key factors driving the publication of the Information Assurance strategy [External website] in July 2007. Future Transformational Government Strategy will be informed by the conclusions of the O'Donnell review, the Thomas/Walport review and the Poynter review.
This is the second Transformational Government Annual Report, setting out the progress that has been made in the last year. It shows how transformed services are having an impact on people's lives and demonstrates outstanding successes in delivery across the public sector. It sets out the steps the Government is taking to:
Additional information and case studies for the past year accompanying the report can be found at http://www.cio.gov.uk/.
Individuals should have the freedom to access services in the way they choose. By allowing people this freedom the resources available can be better directed to where they are needed most.
Although many individuals may prefer to use the internet to access services there will always be those who prefer to talk face–to–face about complex or sensitive problems. Alongside this, a cross–government programme called Tell Us Once is carrying out a study into the feasibility of people being able to inform central and local government just once about changes affecting them, such as the death of a loved one, the birth of a child or a change of address. Additionally, several councils have now brought a number of services together in one place, preventing the need for individuals to go from one office to another when accessing multiple services.
Evidence suggests that people in the UK prefer phones to face–to–face contact. The 700 public service contact centres handle over 400 million calls per year and of these, many are classed as “avoidable” – those that are repeat calls or calls that result in an unsatisfactory transaction. By reducing the number of these calls, helplines can become more efficient and better able to serve those most in need. The Government now has a performance measurement framework in place against which over 240 call centres (covering over 50% of all calls) are reporting quarterly.
Finding government information and accessing services on the web should be a simple process. In the last year we have moved forward with plans to rationalise the main public–facing sites to just four. A strategy is also being developed to make it easier to search for government information online.
The Government Gateway provides a safe way for citizens and business to use government services online. So far there have been almost 13 million registered users and the service won the 2006 International Identity Deployment of the Year award. Work is also underway to improve websites so they are accessible via leading search engines.
The Government is working to join up services behind the scenes, developing common approaches and identifying ways we can save money and effort. The Cabinet Office has identified an annual savings potential of £1.4 billion in finance and human resources for central and local government. Most large and medium scale departments are now engaged in running shared corporate services within their organisations.
The Cabinet Office, The Office for National Statistics and The Department for Universities, Innovation and Skills have all signed up to Flex, a shared Information Technology Service to government. This system has the ability to save up to £400 million per annum, allow each department to have a flexible approach to their IT provision, save energy and lower their carbon footprint.
The innovative use of Information and Communication Technologies is at the heart of much of the service transformation agenda. As part of the Transformational Government strategy the Government is therefore taking steps to:
Improving skills
Having well-trained and equipped staff in place is crucial to the delivery of major IT programmes. Constantly providing opportunities for those staff to develop and acquire new skills is a major part of the professionalism agenda. There have been exciting developments in the professionalisation of IT staff. The IT profession skills framework is ensuring that staff have the right skills across government to deliver what is needed. Building on the successful IT academy pilots of last year, further workshops have been run and the first Technology in Business fast-streamers have been welcomed into their home departments.
In January 2007 the Government’s IT academy held its first full workshop, “Delivery Through Suppliers”, in conjunction with the Saïd Business School, Oxford. By February 2007 thirty Senior Civil Servants and equivalent delegates had attended. This workshop involved working alongside senior private sector suppliers to find out what motivates them, whilst allowing them to understand the requirements of the Public Sector. More workshops have taken place attracting Senior Civil Servants and Chief Information Officers and more are planned for 2008.
IT Management
Delivering successful IT-enabled business change is tough and there are challenges that will always cause problems and add to the risk of failure, whether in the private or public sector. Since March 2007 projects have been monitored better to help them succeed. The Government's most senior technology official introduced quarterly reporting on the top 30 government IT-enabled change programmes, showing key indicators for each. Ministers will be presented with the results so that they can see where action needs to be taken. Central departments have also introduced portfolio management techniques.
Other processes have been introduced to optimise the use of technology resource across the public sector, both across government and working more closely with public sector strategic IT suppliers. These include enterprise architecture, the champion-challenger process, the network strategy, the performance review process and the Supply Transformation Programme.
This year we are able to show how our expenditure on IT has changed within government departments since 2006.We continue to develop mechanisms for monitoring our expenditure in this area, and our progress has beeninformally welcomed by the National Audit Office. The more effectively this is measured, the more effectively it can be monitored and controlled. This is the first year we have seen a year–on–year comparison and in this time expenditure has increased by 6.6% to £13.234 billion.
Part two of this report shows substantial progress in all areas of public service delivery including health, education, criminal justice, benefits and local government. It also shows progress at the centre of government.