Waverley Borough Council Committee System - Committee Document
Meeting of the Executive held on 28/10/2003
The National Strategy for Local E-Government
IEG3 –
ANNEXE 2
www.
localegov
.gov.uk
The national strategy for local e-government
A checklist for councillors and chief executives
The national strategy aims to set out briefly and clearly the issues that council leaders, members, e-champions, chief executives and senior managers should be considering, the questions they should ask of their organisations and the national framework that is being created to support them.
Local e-government is a core part of the drive to improve and modernise local government. It can help you to:
·
Transform services
– making them more accessible, more convenient, more responsive and more cost-effective.
·
Renew local democracy
-
making councils more open, more accountable, more inclusive and better able to lead their communities.
·
Promote local economic vitality
–
creating a modern business environment can promote jobs skills, jobs and investment in your area.
The Checklist
The checklist gives you a handy way to prompt your council to think through the issues you will need to address – and to consider them in the wider context of your council’s objectives.
Further information, details and guidance can be found at the government’s portal for local government information
www.info4localgov.uk
and at the National Strategy Website
www.localegov.gov.uk
Leadership
1 Who leads e-government in your council?
Have you appointed senior councillor and manager e-champions?
Do you have a strategy to engage service managers and staff?
2 Does your local e-government strategy support:
·
your Community Strategy?
·
your Best Value Performance Plan?
·
your Local Public Service Agreement?
·
your service strategies?
3 Do you regularly review progress against your local strategy?
Transforming services
4 Do you have a customer access strategy?
Does it identify your customers?
Does it set out how they will deal with the council now and in the future?
Does it set targets for the use of each main access channel?
5 How will you help and encourage people to use electronic services?
Are your services easy to use? How could they be made easier?
Do they offer real advantages above traditional services?
Are they secure – and how are you building public confidence in them?
How are you helping your community gain access to technology and skills?
6 Are you building services around customers?
How are you joining up council services?
How are you joining up with other public services and councils?
7 Are you re-designing administrative processes to make your employees’ jobs easier, more productive and more effective?
8 Are you planning to use Pathfinder and National Project products to help transform your services and achieve your e-government target?
Renewing local democracy
9
Are you using e-government to increase opportunities for more people to:
·
Contact your council?
·
Find out what it is doing?
·
Express their views and make decisions on services and plans?
·
Access the information you hold about them?
·
Complain when things go wrong?
·
Debate issues of local importance with you – and with each other?
10 Do your councillors have access to:
·
E-mail?
·
The internet?
·
Information that is comprehensive and easy to use about your area and your council’s
performance – and how they compare to others?
11 Does your e-government strategy promote social inclusion?
How are you making internet access and skills available to all who want them?
How are you using new channels to reach those who have been excluded from services in the past?
Do your electronic services improve access to services for people with disabilities?
Promoting local economic vitality
12 How do you present your area as a place to do business?
Does your website really sell your area?
Can investors use it to do business with you?
13 How do you do business with local businesses?
Can you make orders and payments electronically?
Are you using e-procurement to make it easier for local businesses to work with you?
14 Do businesses in your area have access to a high-speed communications infrastructure?
Are you working with your Regional Development Agency to promote widespread broadband availability?
15 Do you have a plan to increase the ICT skills of your workforce and population?
Delivering local e-government
16 Do you have a delivery plan to support your local e-government strategy?
Does the plan cover all of the resources you will need, including:
·
People?
·
Skills?
·
Money?
·
Technology?
Does it include a clear procurement strategy for the technology and services you will need?
Have you identified the risks in the plan – and how you can manage them?
17 Have you set targets and established ways to measure:
·
The availability of your electronic services?
·
Take up of your services by different delivery channels?
·
The value for money of your electronic services?
·
Progress in joining up services?
·
The participation of more people – and a wider range of people – in local democracy?
·
The contribution of e-government to your local economy?
comms/exec/2003-04/320
