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E-gov the bigger picture

Government priorities for e-government are changing.

The Treasury, for example, is asking that spending on the e-ervices programme be linked more closely to public service agreement objectives and has begun pressuring departments accordingly. The ODPM consultation paper, Defining e-government priority services and transformation outcomes — published last December and now refined after consultation with the local government community — is one product of this shift of emphasis.

Crucially, the shift has gone as far as linking outcome-based criteria to the next phase of local e-government investment. At the same time, Peter Gershon has been addressing the need for tangible e-government benefits through the efficiency review.

As a result of both of these developments it is clear that we are now moving beyond a context in which the 2005 target to get all services online is shaping activity. The question to be addressed now is what should replace that target as the strategic framework for e-government?

Clearly, the efficiency review has to form a part of the answer. Efficiency gains have always been stressed as a key benefit of e-government and it is right to focus more seriously on what is required to deliver them. That the savings may be real and not just hype is now beyond doubt according to both the Treasury and the National Audit Office in the UK, and the National Office of the Information Economy in Australia.

In an internal study conducted over a year ago, the Treasury identified expected savings in specific service areas in the Department for Work & Pensions and the Inland Revenue. The National Audit Office too, has provided case study evidence of e-enabled savings from both the Land Registry and the Lord Chancellors Department. Even more impressively, the NOIE in Australia estimated e-government related savings from 169 federal government programs of $1.1bn (£430m) in 2002 alone.

Unlocking these savings may not be easy. There are major organisational change issues to be addressed and, as the recent press coverage has indicated, the potential public sector redundancies which are implied are politically sensitive in the run up to a general election. But that said, from the prime minister down this is an administration that has talked of the need for tough choices and it is clearly now time to drive the necessary changes through.

That cannot be the end of the story, however. IT facilitated public service reform has already demonstrated a much wider capacity to deliver benefits. In education, the evidence is mounting of a link between ICT use in schools and improved levels of educational attainment, particularly in the key subject areas of maths, science and English. In a study conducted in 60 schools, the British Educational Communications Technology Association examined the link between pupils' use of ICT and their performance in national tests. In every case except one the study found evidence of a positive relationship between ICT use and achievement.

In health too, the evidence is mounting of a variety of benefits from the deployment of IT. These benefits come in the form of reduced pressure on GP bookings, improved patient information and awareness on matters concerning their own health and more satisfying interactions with health professionals. In trials of health services on interactive digital television in Birmingham, over half of users also actually believed that the new service was having a beneficial impact on their health.

There have been other IT-facilitated successes — such as the London congestion charge scheme which has had a measurable impact on traffic levels in the capital —and other opportunities, such as IT facilitated personalisation of education, and the better co-ordination of children's services through shared electronic children's records, now sit on the horizon.

The key challenge ahead is to set the whole of e-government within a wider notion of 'public value added' which takes efficiency gains, better service experiences for citizens, and improved outcomes into account. For this to work, the government must address three challenges in particular.

First, it must set new targets to go beyond 2005 and link those targets to the new 'triple bottom line' of public value as set out above.

Second, it must ensure funding is allocated to projects that define value in this combined financial and non-financial way.

Third, the government must begin to procure policy and service outcomes and not mere IT inputs from the IT industry. This will require new forms of partnership working, a new and improved evidence base upon which to make risk assessment and business judgements, and a willingness on the part of the IT industry to be partly paid on the basis of outcomes achieved, none of which will be easy.

These challenges are not new but it is important that they are now tackled seriously. We need a much wider recognition that it would be possible to put all services online by 2005 without necessarily improving public services at all. In the absence of a wider notion of public value shaping activity, e-government will be nothing more than a cost reduction exercise and significant service innovation and improvement opportunities will be missed in the process. In the end, the real losers in such a scenario are not just the public services themselves but the citizens who rely on them.

This article is a summary of key findings of Public value and e-government, a report published by the ippr in June 2004.