IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

IT spending in government departments could be cut back as the extent of the Spending Review begins to be fully understood.

Downing Street expects departments to meet the cuts by earmarking back-office areas to be trimmed, according to the Review (PDF), suggesting that IT budgets will be hit.

The Department for Education is to cut 12 per cent from its non-schools budget, and the government has said that this should be achieved by "cutting administration and back-office costs".

The UK is the most lucrative local-government IT market in Europe, and will continue to be a good source of revenue for resellers even after this year's e-government deadlines have passed.

Analyst Datamonitor has predicted that over the next three years, local councils in the UK will pump an extra $1.22bn into external IT. Spending, which stood at $3.31bn last year will leap to $4.53bn by 2007.

The quality of UK e-government services will be scrutinised in a new study by two national organisations, the Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB) and Socitm Insight, the research arm of the Society of Information Technology Management (Socitm).

St. Helens Council administers local government services including education to 177,000 people in northwest England. The local authority was the first on Merseyside to achieve an ‘excellent’ rating by the UK Audit Commission through the annual Comprehensive Performance Assessment.

The service encourages individuals and companies submitting planning applications to do it electronically.

Since its launch in December 2005 it has led to a rise in on-line planning applications, now 34 per cent of all planning applications which are submitted.

The need to meet Tony Blair's 2005 e-government deadline was a major driver behind the decision to introduce the new system, the council said.

The CRM programme puts the 1 million residents of Staffordshire in a unique position. Even though this type of project has been completed for various city councils, this is the first county district model to be implemented and helps to support the view of Staffordshire as being 'a leading light' with regards to the e-government agenda as laid down by Central Government.

Councils in a UK county are implementing shared IT systems to offer joint services.

Cannock Chase District Council and Stafford Borough Council – who have already said staff are working together on some services – are to pool services on IT and building control from November.

Together this will save £190,000.

The NCC has long been an advocate of the benefit of standards to business. These benefits may be technical; they may be business; they may be both. However, realising these benefits can require a level of discipline that the forces of chaos often militate against. The short term business benefits to this year's P&L account, or in meeting this year's public sector targets tempt one towards the quick fix rather than having an eye to the long view.

Existing guidance is holding back the use of wireless technology across the public sector, according to a policy document released this week.

The latest revision to the e-government interoperability framework (e-GIF) reveals the government is looking to develop standards that will increase the use of wireless technology across the public sector.

The standards, developed by the Royal College of Physicians and NHS Connecting for Health, and backed by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, set out the structure of the clinical content doctors should record on admission, at handover, at out of hours handover and at discharge.

Approximately 14,500 patients will have a summary of the GP record, containing details of name, address, medication history, serious illnesses and allergies, uploaded to a national database unless they choose to opt-out during after an eight week consultation period beginning today. Letters and leaflets explaining the programme will go out in the next few weeks.