Along with Capgemini we are holding a one-day workshop on Wednesday June 25th on the topic of ‘The Future of Local Public Services – Delivering the Next Phase of Citizen Service Improvement’ that I thought worth bringing to your attention.
The workshop will be held at Capgemini’s Accelerated Solution Environment (ASE) centre in London and will demonstrate how delivering efficiencies and demonstrating value for money is made possible by new thinking and sharing leading practice. In Capgemini's recent survey and report, The Information Opportunity (Note: you need to register with Capgemini to download the report – it is worth it!), senior public sector executives revealed that they believed better use of information could improve their business performance by 24% – which Capgemini’s research suggests equates to £21 billion in administrative costs across the public sector. The research specific to Local Government showed that this could also radically improve customer service.
You can join us and Capgemini at our one-day interactive workshop to gain insights on how local government could tap into new areas of customer service improvement and identify greater sources of savings. The workshop will also include international and UK best practice examples from leading speakers including Lord Filkin, former Council leader and Government minister in the Home Office and the Department of Constitutional Affairs.
If you would like to get more information about the workshop and request a place, please send an email to lrg@microsoft.com and you will be contacted either directly by myself or a colleague from Capgemini.
Posted by Ian
I know the perceived wisdom is that we should all turn our central heating thermostats at home down by a degree or two to save money and reduce our carbon footprint. Oddly, the opposite is true in the world of IT. According to recent research by Dell, datacentre managers need to stop molly-coddling their servers by keeping the air-conditioning down at 19 degrees C and can turn the thermostat up to 25 degrees C at little or no risk to the operation of their systems.
With oil at $135 a barrel and rapidly increasing energy costs impacting IT budgets, every IT manager is looking for ways to run their operations at lower energy costs without jeopardising customer service and although higher temperatures in the datacentre may make life slightly uncomfortable for the operations staff, the significant savings realised in reduced power consumption by air-conditioning systems could be worth a little personal discomfort.
As well as a watchful eye on energy costs, most IT managers are exploring ways to consolidate and virtualise servers, applications and desktops. On the topic of virtualisation, it's worth mentioning the latest announcement from the Windows Server 2008 team about Hyper-V (the virtualisation hypervisor in Windows Server 2008):
"Microsoft has reached another key milestone in the development of Hyper-V, with a feature-complete version now available for download as a release candidate (RC). You can download the update for Hyper-V RC here and experience the improved stability, usability and performance and also test the support for additional guest operating systems."
It is the last part of that statement from the webpage that I think you will find intriguing – ‘support for additional guest operating systems’ – which will enable you to both run and manage Windows, Linux and other operating systems from your Microsoft virtualised environment.
You can now evaluate the Hyper-V that will be released as part of Windows Server 2008, and finally for today (if I am allowed a shameless plug), you can find out more about the virtualisation capability within Windows Server 2008 at our Live Meeting (webcast) on Tuesday June 3rd from 10:00-11:00.
Our next Live Meeting is on the topic of Windows Server 2008 for the Public Sector, taking place on Tuesday June 3rd 2008 from 10:00 – 11:00.
The major new functionality and capability in Windows Server 2008 that can help you to increase the reliability and flexibility of your server infrastructure will be discussed, along with an an overview of the virtualisation tools, web resources and security enhancements that can save you time and reduce costs while also cutting the carbon footprint of your IT.
Learn how the advanced security and reliability enhancements, such as Network Access Protection (NAP), help to protect your server environment and ensure you have a solid foundation on which to build a more efficient, reliable and cost-effective IT infrastructure.
This Live Meeting will be both informative and educational and will help you to see the ‘wood for the trees’ in terms of how Windows Server 2008 can address many of the IT efficiency and effectiveness challenges that all public sector organisations need to address.
You can read our case study to discover how Warwickshire County Council is already realising the benefits possible with Windows Server 2008 and bridging the digital divide for more than 250 schools in their area, while also cutting costs and providing anytime, anywhere access to software solutions for all students and staff.
Gareth Hall, our Windows Server 2008 guru here in the UK, will be presenting so register for this Live Meeting in advance here then all you need to do on the day is logon to view and listen to the meeting online and find out how you can improve the value of the IT within your organisation.
Audio will be streamed online but there is also a backup telephone number that can be used if necessary:
Dial: (0118) 909 2000 Participant code: 1796572
To save time before the meeting, we recommend that you check your system in advance to make sure it is ready to use Microsoft Office Live.
Posted by Amanda
Auld Reekie is neither an insult nor a profanity. It is a traditional epithet for Edinburgh and refers to what you used to see of the city from the surrounding hills during the era of wood and coal fires, with the plumes of smoke over the city seen as a sign of prosperity for the citizens of Edinburgh. The coal fires are now long gone so there is no clearly visible indicator of how the citizens of Edinburgh are prospering.
Although not a visible indicator, one measure of prosperity where IT is making a big difference to the citizens of Edinburgh is council tax. Throughout Scotland, council tax has been frozen for the current year by the Scottish Government. In addition, as I discovered when I was visiting the City of Edinburgh Council recently, more efficient IT is helping to save the equivalent of £40 from the council tax bill of every citizen of Edinburgh.
This amounts to a whopping £9 million in IT efficiency savings, which has been realised through the City of Edinburgh’s Smart City business transformation programme that they are implementing in partnership with BT and Microsoft to deliver more effective public services to citizens.
Take a look for yourself at the City of Edinburgh Council Smart City vision video and read the in-depth case study here
In his most famous work, Almagest, astronomer and mathematician, Ptolemy (AD100-170), expounded the view commonly held for centuries that the Earth does not move and is at the centre of the universe. It took until the 16th century and the Polish astronomer Copernicus to prove that the Earth revolves around the sun.
So, why the astronomical theme? Well, I think there are parallels to be drawn with the current attitude towards online citizen identity management in Government. The 'Ptolemaic' viewpoint advocates that Government determines the information citizens need to provide to confirm they are who they say they are before being provided with access to online Government services. The 'Copernican' viewpoint puts the citizen at the centre of online identity management.
The 'Copernican' perspective is the one clearly recommended by Sir James Crosby in his recent report on Identity Assurance for the Prime Minister. You can read more in Jerry's blog (Microsoft's National Technology Officer) including the very pertinent statement from Sir James that "it's the consumer's identity (no-one else's) and identity systems must recognise this fact."
On a less philosophical and more practical note, you can find out more about our approach to online identity management for the public sector in our forthcoming workshop that's being held in association with Milton Keynes Council:
You can register online or by phone: 0870 166 6645 (Event ID: 1032379575)
A while ago I wrote about the announcement of the work that Microsoft were doing to develop a DAISY XML translator. The DAISY Consortium was set up to help those with visual impairment (or ‘print disabilities’) to access digital content easily, and enhance their use of the materials. We’ve been working with DAISY to develop a Word plug-in which allows Open XML documents to be translated into DAISY XML, which has become a globally accepted standard for digital talking books – for example, it’s used by the RNIB’s Talking Book Service.
DAISY stands for Digital Accessible Information System, which lets you work with digital content in many ways, synchronising audio with display output, generating braille versions, or allowing text to speech conversion.
The free Word Add-In has now been released, and adds a “Save as DAISY XML” option to the Word menu. The convertor is released as an open source project, and can be downloaded from the Open XML Community site. The beauty of this software is that it makes a specialist facility available within the core of Office – offering a broader reach for solutions that help visually impaired learners users. It makes it easier for you to be able to prepare materials in a way that could be used by all citizens with visual impairment problems.
The Save as Daisy XML function works with Word 2007, Word 2003 and Word XP.
According to the Treasury press statement on Monday this week, the Treasury Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has demanded that government needs to have a ‘better bang for our bucks’. I could be concerned that a Treasury Secretary does not appear to comprehend which currency we are using but instead I shall join her in her use of colloquialisms by ‘doing the math’ on government efficiencies achieved so far and committed in the latest spending review:
£23 billion
£30 billion
£5 billion
£1.4 billion (there is some debate on this particular figure you can read here)
That makes an impressive £59.4 billion for re-investment in delivering better public services since the efficiency drive started with the 2004 Gershon Review.
One of the most interesting aspects of how these savings are achieved is how Local Authorities in particular are using IT to drive up efficiency and drive out unnecessary costs. Two recent examples include the City of Edinburgh Council, which has realised £9 million in savings (equivalent to £40 per council tax payer), and Wakefield Metropolitan Borough Council, which has realised £4 million in savings through better use of IT and implementing innovative new ways of working.
...that just leaves another £59.27 billion to find but as my grandmother used to say, in less inflationary times, look after the millions and the billions will take care of themselves.
Saving money and being 'green' are issues at the top of most government department's agendas and Wakefield Metropolitan District Council has achieved both these things while also providing more flexible working and improved working environments, and enabling better collaboration.
Wakefield's WorkSmart change programme is transforming and modernising the way council officers and elected members work together to deliver services to citizens. They are cutting costs by reducing the number of buildings they operate and saving 127,000 travel miles a year, equating to 35 tonnes of carbon, by enabling their e-services staff to adopt some level of home working.
The WorkSmart programme is being supported by a Microsoft Services Premier Support agreement, which has enabled Wakefield to deploy the latest technologies and provided them with their own Technical Account Manager to advise and guide them through the change process.
You can read the full case study on the deployment project or read more on the environmentally friendly elements of the story on the LocalGov website.
Recently we published a case study on software as a service (SaaS) for benefits reporting at East Lothian Council. You can read the full story here but the gist of it is that they have saved 30 person days a year with the new service, are delivering DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) reports 6 months earlier than previously and are providing a better, more consistent and faster service to benefits applicants.
More than 300 local authorities and all 408 benefits authorities are using the service, which is provided by our partner, SunGard Public Sector, and means East Lothian Council can now easily comply with government reporting requirements. Colin Shand, Head of Revenues and Information and Communications Technology at East Lothian Council, says of the solution: “After three years’ experience working with SaaS, we’ve noticed a world of difference. Previously, it took us a week to create a monitoring report. Now, we can produce it at the touch of a button, in a graphical format with no need to import figures into spreadsheets. It also means that instead of tracking three or four items, we can measure a whole range of performance indicators.”
If you'd like to find out more about how your council can benefit from SaaS, you can email us on lrg@microsoft.com, or reply to this blog, and someone will be in touch. You can also read more of our customer success stories on our case studies website.
According to a study by the IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research), voter turnout at local elections has fallen by a tenth since the 1980s. With little more than a third of registered electors actually voting in most local elections, the turnout tends to be lowest in poor inner-city areas where there is a high proportion of young people.
As this letter shows (and yes, it is a genuine example of primary school children being engaged in local politics), the starting point to engage young people needs to be a positive, assertive view that they do want to be involved in the democratic process and want to believe their participation can make a difference. So, is the answer simply to encourage more elected politicians to embrace eDemocracy with their own websites, blogs, and pages on social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube?
Yes...and no. Like embarrassing parents playing air guitar, too many politicians leap on YouTube or start blogging thinking it will help them look more trendy and in touch with 'youth' culture. In several cases, these ad-hoc attempts to embrace new ways of communicating have resulted in a deluge of less-than-complimentary feedback and even malicious defacing of sites.
At a recent Policy Forum and Planning session held by Bromley Council I enjoyed a presentation from a representative of ICELE (International Centre for Excellence in Local eDemocracy), which had many excellent examples of how both local and central Government, as well as individual elected politicians, are using technology effectively. One clear lesson from the examples you will see at ICELE is the commitment to empower citizens in the community to report problems and expect action to be taken. Love Lewisham is an excellent example that has resulted in satisfaction with street cleaning being 11 points higher than the average for London. I encourage you to take a look at the ICELE site for inspiration on how eDemocracy is happening very successfully and for initiatives that you can emulate.
I also hope that ‘Coombe Hill Juniors’ got an answer to their question about what the government does with the tax...so that their early interest in democracy is rewarded.