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After a stuttering start the web is starting to make real inroads into communication and delivery of public services. Government targets to get all public services online by 2005 have prompted a frenzy of activity, and some real success stories.

For instance, the Inland Revenue’s online self assessment service is a vast improvement on the paper-based version. It takes a fraction of the time to complete, does all the calculations for you, and allows you to pay extra tax by debit card, or to have any overpayment sent direct to your bank account. It reduces overhead, postage and printing costs into the bargain.

Some departments are also starting to take a more strategic view of the web, looking 5-7 years out in an effort to develop systems which are fit for the long term – something few private sector organisations feel confident in doing.

But in spite of these and other credible efforts, there are still plenty of examples of mediocre or poorly thought through government websites which add little value and fail to join up with offline services. The Guardian highlighted some of the Cinderella government sites recently, including: www.ask-the-football-fans.gov.uk – 867 visits last year, and www.worldheritage.org.uk , just 77 unique visitors.

According to recent estimates, there are more than 2,500 public sector websites in the UK – excluding schools and hospitals. Few receive any significant promotional support and many are linked to individual initiatives rather than a joined up communications strategy. Little wonder then that many are languishing undiscovered in dusty corners of the internet.

So is government still struggling to understand the full potential of the web? And what are the prospects for more joined up public sector web communications and services in the future?

Joined-up government needs joined-up communications
Part of the problem in moving things forward is cultural. Government departments make decisions in a particular way, and that approach is not particularly well suited to the opportunities offered by the web.

Policy is the key building block of government, and policy frameworks are set centrally by ministers in discussion with senior civil servants. Policies are then divided up into programmes. Directorates work on these programmes, which are in turn broken up into projects. Staff working on projects rarely get to raise their heads above the parapet, to see how what they are doing links up with other projects. Decisions are made by making carefully worded submissions, which are passed up the chain of command for approval, then down again for implementation. Nothing gets done until the right signatures are in place.

This approach is clear and easy to understand, but it is also slow-moving. It tends to create a silo mentality, ensuring that communications are not properly joined up. This is manageable in channel or programme specific communications, but can start to come unstuck on the web, where all this information comes together, and inconsistencies become glaringly obvious.

To address this issue properly requires top management backing. At this point, the web is still seen as a middle ranking responsibility within many government departments, with many senior staff a little wary and suspicious of the impact on traditional ways of working.

Departments are beginning to address the problem by raising the profile of communications and by initiatives to circulate and share information more effectively across the organisation through improved intranets and document management systems. But this is just the start. More change is needed, and more is on the way.

Could content management mean the death of the minister’s red box?
An unlikely solution to the problem of how to make government more accountable may be emerging with the recent flood of interest in purchasing new content management systems for web publishing. Government site owners are growing impatient with inflexible hard coded sites and looking to bring in new intuitive CMS systems which give them control over their content.

Following the demise of the ill-fated DotP one-size-fits all government CMS solution, technology vendors are queuing up to showcase their wares, promising that they can take the pain out of getting timely and appropriate content onto the web. What they are frequently not doing is addressing the cultural and organisational change issues, which are likely to drop out of the decision to buy a new CMS. These have the potential to bring about radical change in the way decisions are made and information flows through government departments.

The introduction of workflow into the process for generating website and intranet content offers the potential to dramatically speed up the development of new ideas, by directing them through a defined approval process and then passing them for publication to the relevant target audience within a matter of hours rather than weeks.

If this approach takes hold it could see the flattening out of policy-making structures, and the gradual disappearance of red-boxes and endless document sifting by ministers. Instead they could soon find themselves heading home unencumbered, logging on to their CMS inbox, editing and approving content, and then passing for publication directly.

OK, this may seem a bit blue sky for now, but in 5 years time, it may be the norm for both internal and external communications.

Freedom of Information - No place to hide
Another key driver in the rise of web services within the public sector is the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, introduced in 2000. In the past, public sector information was guarded jealously, and released only on a need-to-know basis.

But since the Act came into force, all public bodies must make some information available as a matter of routine through a publication scheme. In addition, since 1 January 2005, any person has the right to make a request for information held by a public authority, and that organisation must make it available within 20 days.

This means that public organisations must foster a more open information culture, and also find a cost-effective means of responding to FOI requests. Employing armies of people to do this is not an option, if front line services are to be maintained. So once again the web comes to the rescue; but only if websites are well thought through, easy to use and easy to understand.

At the moment we are not quite there yet, but recent initiatives such as the launch of the much improved new Home Office website (www.homeoffice.gov.uk ), go some way towards addressing this need.

Better web services = Better government
So the next challenge for the public sector web community is potentially the big one – bringing the channel into the mainstream and using it as the principal channel for outbound communication with the general public as well as with specialist audiences. As traditional media coverage fragments, so the case for the web taking on this role grows stronger.

The current thrust is towards joining up government services online, making them accessible via a single entry point, www.direct.gov.uk. This seems a good idea in theory, although there is a real risk that the system becomes over-burdened, if direct.gov.uk tries to take on too much. Current traffic levels lag well behind commercial equivalents, with direct.gov.uk attracting 617,000 unique visitors in a single month towards the end of 2005, vs 15.4 million for the MSN portal. It will be interesting to see how direct.gov develops now it is in the hands of the COI, operating under the banner ‘Public services all in one place’.

There are also plans to spend £5 million on an advertising campaign in support of increased take-up of local e-services, under the slogan: ‘Lose the Queues’. This initiative is part of the ‘e-citizen’ programme and will focus on local authorities, it is based on the assumption that current local authority online services can really help reduce waiting times for key services. It should help to drive more traffic to the web, but the undifferentiated nature of the message means that not all visitors will be able to complete the required tasks online.

The web also opens up the potential for more open dialogue with voters, and with lobby groups. Rather than asking our view on a single question, once every five years, government departments could use the web to test public opinion on a wide variety of topics, The Foreign Office is dipping its toe in the water on this with a discussion forum on the ‘Future of Europe’ contained within the new Britain in the EU section on www.fco.gov.uk , which was developed by Rufus Leonard.

The traditionalists may well throw up their hands in horror at this new and unwanted intrusion into the sensitive business of making policy and managing public opinion, but they can only keep their fingers in the dyke for so long.

Risks undoubtedly remain that pressure groups will hijack the system and seek to skew results in their favour. But if politicians really want to engage with the X Factor and Big Brother generations, then greater ‘audience participation’ in the political process is needed and the web (and mobile channels) will play a key role in making it happen!

Summary
So, in summary, the web does have a key role to play in joining up government services and communications, but there is still much work to do in delivering a satisfactory experience to all users in all categories. Good work by leaders in the field is still outweighed by mediocre efforts elsewhere.

Public sector organisations will only start to gain full value out of their investments in the web, when they recognise that third and fourth generation websites require cultural and organisational change as well as investments in new technology. And as anyone who has tried to manage business change in an organisation will know, you have to get backing from the very top, if you are going to make those changes stick, and really start to reap the rewards.

Andrew is client partner for COI, and has over 18 years experience in working with public sector clients, with a particular emphasis on central government departments. Recent public sector digital clients include: Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Land Registry Office, Office of Government Commerce, UK Passport Service, and UK Trade & Investment.

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