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Note from the Office of the e-Envoy: How the Government is exploring how a mixed economy might help
deliver key public services
By
Nick
Jones,
Assistant Director,
Innovation and Venturing, Office of the e-Envoy
Innovating in public
services can be a challenge. The Government delivers a huge variety of
public services to millions of UK citizens whilst ensuring a universal
level of service throughout. So how do new ideas take hold within such a
diverse organisation which works to such a broad remit?
In the UK, the government’s
Office of the e-Envoy (Oe-E) is exploring new ways of delivering public
sector services electronically with the aim of creating a mixed economy.
A recently published public consultation document explores the role
e-Government intermediaries might have as brokers between the citizen
and government departments.
The Oe-E, a unit within the
Cabinet Office, is committed to joining up online government services
around the needs of the customer, and is responsible for ensuring that
all government services are available electronically by 2005, with high
levels of use in key services. The Oe-E also sets inter-operability
standards, develops infrastructure and runs ukonline.gov.uk the portal
which provides comprehensive access to government information on the
internet. Providing citizen-centric services is a key theme. Its
programme to deliver better services is home to the e-Government
intermediaries draft policy framework.
The Prime Minister
summarised the whole government reform agenda at one of his recent
monthly press conferences: “Not top down, one size fits all, a sort of
command and control Public Service, but instead setting an enabling
framework and letting local innovation, diversity, choice, services
built around the consumer and the citizen, be of paramount
consideration”.
Intermediaries can be
private or voluntary sector organisations which have well-defined user
bases. They are able to build on customer trust and familiarity, meeting
their needs by incorporating elements of government services with their
own. For example, a car insurer or a motorist organisation could renew a
driver’s annual car tax online for them. The intermediary can
authenticate the user and re-use existing data, such as a
change-of-address notification. It can then present the right
information and payment, making use of its process capacity and
techniques, to government.
This delivers benefits all
round. The driver doesn’t have to stand in a queue to get his car tax
and is able to further liaise with an organisation which he already
trusts and has confidence in. The intermediary strengthens its
relationship with the customer and is able to build up its own service
portfolio. And the government receives better formed data which it can
process more quickly and, of course, better serve the citizen by meeting
him where he interacts online.
Intermediaries can become
involved in the delivery of public services in a variety of ways, as set
out in the consultation document. At a simple level, they can add value
to their customer base by including access to an existing government
service to their product portfolio. At a more complex level, they may
offer a mix of public transactional services and non-public advisory
services, such as those offered by citizen information services.
Many organisations have
segmented their users in order to serve their needs better. Government
is also aware that it needs to manage its channels to citizens and
deliver a mix of services that are tailored to customer needs, and
delivered in the most convenient way. This idea of ‘clustering’ services
around the needs of the customer is key to the broad e-Government
agenda, and to the future role of any intermediaries policy.
Nick Jones is Assistant
Director, Innovation and Venturing, at the Office of the e-Envoy.
For more information on e-Envoy, see:
www.e-envoy.gov.uk
The framework is available
electronically on
www.e-envoy.gov.uk/intermediaries
and www.govtalk.gov.uk.
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