Understanding e government in edinburgh

Summary & Context

The local e-government environment varies tremendously across the North Sea Region of the EU, with municipal strategies being shaped by very different national, regional and local policy contexts and political and technological agendas. This series of reports summarises the local e-government environment in six municipalities from six different countries who are participating in the Smart Cities Interreg IVb project. The reports allow project partners to review their local e-government context, and helps us identify to common factors across project partners, along with areas of difference between partners. This report summarises the e-government context in Edinburgh, based on interviews with staff from the Council, and identifies factors that they feel shape their local e-government context and their involvement in the Smart Cities project.

As well as a narrative description of the context, this report contains two diagrams:

• Main policy drivers

• Context diagram covering the projects that they feel are most relevant to Smart Cities

• Details of the entities mentioned including links to source material, in English where available.

The information in this document is derived from descriptions supplied by directly by staff at the City of Edinburgh Council (referred to as Edinburgh or CEC from now), supplemented by desk-based research.

The Project Context

Figure 1 illustrates the organisations that Edinburgh has identified as being significant to the City’s involvement in the Smart Cities project, showing the strategies and drivers

The main top level driver for Edinburgh’s participation in the project (along with all project partners) is INTERREG IVB North Sea, funded by the European Union (EU).

The INTERREG initiative is designed to strengthen economic and social cohesion throughout the European Union, by fostering the balanced development of the continent through cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation. A principal aim of the Programme is to expand the scope of territorial cooperation and focus on high quality projects in innovation, the environment, accessibility, and sustainable and competitive communities.

The 2007-2013 Programme connects regions from seven countries around the North Sea, incorporating policy level planning and the long lasting and tangible effects of projects. The North Sea Region Programme 2007-2013 works with cutting edge policy areas in regional development through transnational projects.

Smart Cities is one of the projects funded through the programme. The general aim of the Smart Cities project is to create an innovation network between governments and academic partners leading to excellence in the domain of the development and take-up of e-services. Edinburgh’s involvement in the project’s work is focussed on customer services (WP3), and wireless city (WP4) workpackages.

Project Context Map

No.5

Understanding e-government

in Edinburgh

Key Facts:

Edinburgh

Local Authority in devolvedUK region of Scotland

Populations:

Edinburgh City – 478 000Scotland – 5 194 000

UK – 62 042 000

Edin

burg

hU

KSc

otla

ndEu

rope

ImprovementService

EdinburghPartnership

COSLA

Police, Fire,NHS

I&DEA

BT PLC

● Best practicesharing

Pathfinderreports

Customerfirst

National Infrastructure

CitizenAccount

ScottishServices List

Local Government in Scotland Act

Corporate Strategy

Edinburgh NapierUoE

Smart Cities

European Union Regional Development INTERREG IVB

PORISM

ScottishGovernment

SOA

City ofEdinburgh Council

● Efficiency/Cost saving● Best value● Excellence

● Customer service

ESD Toolkit

Building a Better Scotland

Fig 1:Main policy drivers for City of EDinburgh

NB All items are linked to or supporting Smart Cities

National level – UK, Scotland

The nature of the relationship between Scotland and central UK government is not a federal one: in many cases, the UK and Scottish government will be running their own programmes in the same area; sometimes there is confusion over whether ‘UK’ programmes do in fact also include Scotland, or are intended only for England (or England and Wales). Reflecting this, descriptions of UK and Scottish activities in Figure 1 are interleaved in this section. Moreover, in the case of Smart Cities, there are no UK level departments or projects that are affecting Edinburgh’s engagement with the project.

The Scottish Government is responsible for all local authorities, including Edinburgh. The Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 contained a package of measures intended to support local determination and to deliver better, more responsive, public services. The three core elements are interlinked, Best Value, Community Planning and the Power to Advance Wellbeing. Best Value is a central, enduring foundation for continuous improvement across the public sector and places the emphasis on the customer, while having regard to economy, efficiency, effectiveness, equal opportunities requirements and to the achievement of sustainable development. Edinburgh’s shared services agenda is now being progressed as part of the Alternative Business Models programme, replacing the Pathfinder Reports.

The government allocates local authorities a budget for a three year settlement period at each Spending Review to provide more certainty and stability for local authorities as a result of knowing their individual revenue and capital allocations for three years. When the current government came into office in 2007, ring fencing of local government funding was ended and replaced by the creation of a Single Outcome Agreement (SOA). SOAs underpin the funding provided to local government over the period 2008-09 to 2010-2011. They are agreements between the Scottish Government, Local Authorities and Community Planning Partnerships (CPP)s which set out how each will work in the future towards improving outcomes for the local people in a way that reflects local circumstances and priorities, within the context of the Government’s 15 National Outcomes and Purpose. All of the outcome agreements are uniquely shaped to reflect the needs and circumstances of the areas they cover and designed to ensure local people know exactly what their CPP is committed to provide on their behalf.

I&DeA, the Improvement & Development Agency is a subsidiary of the (English) Local Government Association. It has been used as an inspiration and a resource for the Scottish Improvement Service (IS), which was set up in 2005 help improve the efficiency, quality and accountability of local public services in Scotland by providing advice, consultancy and programme support to councils and their partners. Their purpose is to help councils and their partners to improve the health, quality of life and opportunities of all people in Scotland through community leadership, strong local governance and the delivery of high quality, efficient local services. Stakeholders include the Scottish Government, COSLA and the Scottish Local Authorities.

Porism is a Smart Cities partner. Maintained in conjunction with I&DeA, Porism’s esd-toolkit publishes a list of some 600 customer facing services supplied by councils. The list results from co-operation between the Life Events Access Project (LEAP) and a number of councils, some of whom previously published their own lists. The esd-toolkit is being implemented in Scotland as the Scottish Services List, which has been used as the basis for the A-Z service listing within the Web Services project.

The Improvement Service is coordinating a number of national projects, of which the most relevant to Smart Cities is the National ICT Infrastructure project, which will supports joined up/shared services across Scottish local government as well as the wider public sector. It aims to deliver ‘first time’ public services by re-designing them around customers’ needs, also making use of the Scottish Services List (SSL).

Edinburgh

The City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) has powers over most matters of local administration such as housing, planning, local transport, parks, economic development and regeneration.

The local CPP (qv) is the Edinburgh Partnership, which apart from CEC includes representation from the health service (NHS), police and fire services, regional transport and the local universities, including Edinburgh Napier University.

The Single Outcome Agreement agreed between the Council, the Edinburgh Partnership and the Scottish Government in 2009 now provides the Council’s corporate strategy, replacing the previous three-year corporate plan.

A private company, BT PLC, is responsible for delivery and support of most ICT services to CEC. A ten-year ICT partnership agreement was signed in 2001, focused on achieving the Council’s vision of being recognised as the UK leader in delivering modern, joined up and interactive public services using new technology. This shared vision is encapsulated in the Council’s Smart City ICT Strategy (no relation). In early 2006 a five year contract extension was agreed.

Figure 2 shows how five divisions from three of the city’s six departments are engaged with the Smart Cities project. From Corporate Services, eGovernment and Corporate Communications are working on a revised website, driven by a new content management system (CMS). eGovernment is also working with Customer Services as part of the process change programme to implement customer journey mapping for users of services provided by Revenues & Benefits. Edinburgh Napier is working with CEC to create a case study for wider dissemination though Smart Cities.

Unit

Programmes &Projects

Strategy

Edinburgh Napier

eGovernment

Corp Comms

Librariesand info services

Smart City Vision

● Efficiency& Cost Savings

CMS/New website

Process change

Smart CitiesWP3

Journey Mapping

Wireless

Smart CitiesWP4

● Librariestransformation

● People’s Network

Revenues and Benefits

Customer Services

The Council

● Achieving excellence

● CustomerServices

BT PLC

Fig 2:Projects most relevant to Smart Cities for Edinburgh City

Source information

Table 1

Details of significant entities

Name: DWP

www.dwp.gov.uk/local-authority-staff/housing-benefit

Department of Work & Pensions: Funds Housing Benefits. CEC online service for the Housing Benefits part of its benefits online service and took part in the ‘Tell Us Once’ project.

Name: IDEA

www.idea.gov.uk

Improvement & Development Agency: subsidiary of the Local Government Association (LGA). It was formed in 1998 to work in partnership with all councils in England and Wales, to serve people and places better, to enhance the performance of the best authorities, accelerate the speed of improvement of the rest, and develop the sector as a whole.

Name: Porism Ltd & esd-toolkit

www.porism.com

Porism Limited is a progressive software company located in Brixton, London, developing bespoke database systems for Windows and the web.

Porism’s esd-toolkit (developed in conjunction with I&DeA) publishes a list of some 600 customer facing services supplied by councils in England. It is now being adapted to the Scottish.

Name: Scottish Government

www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/local-government

The Scottish Government is responsible for all local authorities. It allocates local authorities budget for a three year settlement at each Spending Review to provide more certainty and stability for local authorities as a result of knowing their individual revenue and capital allocations for three years.

Name: Single Outcome Agreement

www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/local-government/SOAwww.improvementservice.org.uk/single-outcome-agreements/

Underpins the funding provided to local government over the period 2008-09 to 2010-2011. A central element of the new relationship was the ending of ring fencing of local government funding and the creation of a Single Outcome Agreement.

They are agreements between the Scottish Government and CPPs which set out how each will work in the future towards improving outcomes for the local people in a way that reflects local circumstances and priorities, within the context of the Government’s 15 National Outcomes and Purpose.

Name: Building a Better Scotland

www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/11/20318/47372

Agenda setting document - in 2004. Written under previous government, but some work under this agenda continues.

Name: Local Government in Scotland Act and Community Planning Partnerships

www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/PublicServiceReform/community-planning

The Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 contained a package of measures intended to support local determination and to deliver better, more responsive, public services. The three core elements are interlinked, Best Value, Community Planning and the Power to Advance Wellbeing.

Community Planning is intended to provide “trust within a framework”, empowering and charging local Government, core partners and Scottish Ministers to take ownership and drive forward improvement in local services.

CPPs are intended to impact on the complex long standing issues that face some areas, for example poverty and health inequalities. Reporting on Community Planning is to communities rather than to the Scottish Government.

Name: Best Value

www.improvementservice.org.uk

Set up in 2005 help improve the efficiency, quality and accountability of local public services in Scotland by providing advice, consultancy and programme support to councils and their partners. Their purpose is to help councils and their partners to improve the health, quality of life and opportunities of all people in Scotland through community leadership, strong local governance and the delivery of high quality, efficient local services.

Name: Improvement Service

www.improvementservice.org.uk

Set up in 2005 help improve the efficiency, quality and accountability of local public services in Scotland by providing advice, consultancy and programme support to councils and their partners. Their purpose is to help councils and their partners to improve the health, quality of life and opportunities of all people in Scotland through community leadership, strong local governance and the delivery of high quality, efficient local services.

Name: IS Shared Services

www.improvementservice.org.uk/shared-services

The Improvement Service works with the Local Government National Shared Services Board, councils and other partners on developing shared services strategy and delivering specific collaborative projects.

Nine current areas of work: Development strategy, Pension Pathfinder, Public Information Notices portal, Customer first, Improving together, Diagnostic pathway, Shared workforce planning, Revenues and benefits.

Name: National Infrastructure

www.improvementservice.org.uk/national-infrastructure/

The National ICT Infrastructure supports joined up/shared services across Scottish local government as well as the wider public sector.

Name: Customer First

www.improvementservice.org.uk/customer-first/

It aims to deliver ‘first time’ public services by re-designing them around customers’ needs.

The programme supports the principles of: easier to access, better integrated, local services; effective collaboration across the public sector; better use of public resources; high standards of public service; and willingness to innovate and learn from others.

Name: CRM

www.improvementservice.org.uk/national-crm

National CRM: Customer Relationship support.

Name: Entitlement Cards

www.improvementservice.org.uk/national-entitlement-card

OneScotland Card Management System replaces the interim system that was put in place to support the national concessionary fare scheme. As well as supporting concessionary travel, the new system will allow commercial travel ticketing and other applications, and will allow councils to add products and services to cards that have already been issued.

Name: DNA-Scotland

www.improvementservice.org.uk/core-programmes/customer-first/dna-scotland

Definitive National Addressing for Scotland: The DNA-Scotland Programme aims to establish a single property information source that adheres to common agreed standards and, together with the citizens account, will be used to improve service delivery within Councils and throughout the Scottish public sector. Corporate Address Gazetteers (CAGs) created by Councils will be linked to a national address gazetteer – the One Scotland Gazetteer.

Name: Esd-toolkit – Scotland

www.esd.org.uk/esdtoolkit/Communities/A-ZScotland/ContentView.aspx?ContentType=Content-236

Community of practice developing Scottish Navigation List and Scottish Services List.

Name: A-Z/ Knowledge

www.improvementservice.org.uk/national-entitlement-card

OneScotland Card Management System replaces the interim system that was put in place to support the national concessionary fare scheme. As well as supporting concessionary travel, the new system will allow commercial travel ticketing and other applications, and will allow councils to add products and services to cards that have already been issued.

Name: Scottish Enterprise

www.scottish-enterprise.com

Scotland’s main economic, enterprise, innovation and investment agency. the ultimate goal is to stimulate sustainable growth of Scotland’s economy by supporting ambitious and innovative businesses. Works with public and private sector partners to develop the business environment in Scotland. Delivers a range of dedicated support services locally, nationally and internationally. Relevant to Edniburgh:

* Edinburgh Science Triangle is ranked in the world’s top twenty science parks.

* Edinburgh BioQuarter is a landmark life science real estate development which will establish Edinburgh and Scotland as one of the world’s top ten centres for biomedical commercialisation.

Name: COSLA

www.cosla.gov.uk

Scottish Local Authorities: The representative voice of Scottish local government. Also acts as the employers’ association on behalf of all Scottish councils. As a membership organisation, one of our highest priorities is to maintain and enhance our relationship with member Councils and the key principles

Name: SOLACE

www.solacescotland.org.uk

LA Chief Executives: Scottish Branch of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives & Senior Managers. Founded in 1973, it is the representative body for senior strategic managers working in local government.

Name: Edinburgh Partnership

www.edinburgh.gov.uk/internet/Council/Partnerships/Community_planning/edinburghpartnership

www.edinburgh.gov.uk/CEC/Corporate_Services/CommunityPlanningHome

Leads joint action to address key issues facing people living and working in the city. The Community Plan for Edinburgh 2008 - 2011 sets out the priorities for the Partnership:

– sustainable economic growth

– maximisation of land use and affordable housing

– investment in prevention and care services, health improvement and social inclusion

– environmental sustainability and climate change.

Name: City of Edinburgh Council (CEC)

www.edinburgh.gov.uk

City of Edinburgh Council: Smart Cities partner.

CEC has powers over most matters of local administration such as housing, planning, local transport, parks, economic development and regeneration.

Name: CEC Plan 2007-2011

www.edinburgh.gov.uk/internet/council/council_publications/CEC_corporate_plan__edinburgh_2007

The Council’s Corporate Plan, covering the period 2007-11, was agreed by the City of Edinburgh Council in August 2007. The plan shows how the Council is tackling the strategic issues that matter to the public, improving performance and working with partners to improve services. The plan outlines priorities for the next four years, identifies what the Council will be doing to contribute to Edinburgh’s City Vision, and provides strategic direction for the Council and all those working within the organisation.

Name: BT Public Sector Scotland

www.btplc.com/Thegroup/BTUKandWorldwide/BTRegions/Scotland/Factsandfigures/BTGlobalServices/DevolvedGovernment.htm

The City of Edinburgh Council partnership programme was created in 2001 when a ten-year ICT partnership agreement was signed. It is focused on achieving the Council’s vision of being recognised as the UK leader in delivering modern, joined up and interactive public services using new technology. In early 2006 a five year contract extension was agreed.

The Smart Cities project is creating an innovation network between cities and academic partners to develop and deliver better e-services to citizens and businesses in the North Sea Region. Smart Cities is funded by the Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme of the European Union.

Smart Cities is PARTLY funded by the Interreg IVB North Sea Region Programme of the European Union. The North Sea Region Programme 2007-2013 works with regional development projects around the North Sea. Promoting transnational cooperation, the Programme aims to make the region a better place to live, work and invest in.

9 781907 576157

www.smartcities.infowww.epractice.eu/community/smartcities