Ministers are preparing to launch Local Directgov, a postcode search facility for council services, the leading official for local e-government said on 20 September 2005.
Julian Bowrey, divisional manager for local e-government at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), said the service will be a focal point for councils after the existing e-services programme is wound up at the end of this year. Bowrey confirmed that the Treasury has cut the ODPM's e-government budget from £150m to £7m, and said that his division is to become a smaller branch of the department's modernisation and efficiency section.
"The Treasury made it clear that the e-government boom was over," he told Government Computing News. "But we will still end up with a central government resource for Local Directgov and we will be placing an emphasis on common standards."
Local Directgov will give users the "ability to tap into a service by postcode rather than going through a long directory of local authority websites," said Bowrey.
So far, the focus has been on persuading councils to contribute to the service. According to Bowrey the ODPM has just recruited 13 business change managers who will "cajole" local authorities to "plug into Directgov".
The service, which will go live in February 2006 after piloting in November, will work alongside Government Connect as a single sign on for local e-services.
ODPM minister Jim Fitzpatrick will officially launch Government Connect on 3 October in Bolton. Bowrey had earlier told the IDeA e-champions conference in London that his department wants more councils to get involved in Government Connect, but officials are hopeful that the target of all authorities signing up by the end of the year should be met.
Bowrey also said that he is "encouraged" by the progress made on transferring the national e-government projects to council ownership. He hopes that by the end of October over half of the projects will have been transferred to new owners.
Looking back at the e-government programme as it winds down, Bowrey said that progress made so far is a "remarkable acheivement" particularly with "the tight resource constraints and the many competing financial pressures over the last couple of years".
"It's been a complex programme but one that's met all of our needs as a collaborative venture," he said.
He said that councils are on course to meet 98% of the e-government target by the end of the year, although "about four" councils say they will only reach 90% of services online.
Quelle: KableNET, 21.09.2005
