EURIM Working Group Minutes
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Working Party: |
Theme 02 –
Modernising Government |
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Ref: |
03-T02-Min08 |
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Minuter: |
Emma Fryer |
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Date: |
03/09/16 |
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Circulation: |
Attendees
and Apologies |
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Queries to: |
Emma Fryer,
Tel: 0191 240 3332 Mob: 07714
803 650 |
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Minutes of EURIM’s
Modernising Government Group Planning Meeting - Progress and Forward Plans 16th September
2003, kindly hosted by Intellect, 20 Red Lion Street
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Summary
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Meeting
Objectives
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The objectives of this meeting
were to review the progress made by the four sub-groups of EURIM’s
Modernising Government Group and identify any priorities for future action.
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Progress of Subgroups |
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1. Programme Management:– the subgroup had produced a checklist for
programme review aimed at select committees.
This was approved for publication as a working party occasional paper
with one minor amendment. |
2.
Open Source Software:– the drafting sub-group had finished their work and the paper
was now ready for circulation to seek approval as a working party overview
3. Social
Exclusion:– several submissions had
been received but were not ready for publication. The group had to decide whether their original objectives were
still valid. 4. A new
strategic framework for e-Government :- following a meeting with Douglas
Alexander activity had been held. |
Forward
plans for subgroups
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1. The programme
Management and open source software groups could be closed down once they had
published and disseminated their outputs since they would have delivered on
their objectives.
2. A new remit for a
social exclusion group to be presented to Council.
3. Activity to be
suspended on e-strategic framework until the future of the OeE was resolved.
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Conclusions
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1. EURIM’s Modernising Government group had
delivered on its objectives and could be wound up. 2. Social exclusion activities were not
specific to the Modernising Government remit and could therefore be run as a
separate exercise. 3. When a clear context emerged for a strategic framework for e-Government
this would go forward as EURIM’s primary activity on modernising government
and would replace the generic theme. |
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Meeting Notes
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Action |
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1 |
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Chairman’s Introduction
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1.1 |
TA welcomed everyone and outlined the objectives of the meeting – for the
sub-groups to report back with their deliverables and to tie up any loose
ends.
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2 |
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Checklist for Programme Review
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2.1 |
TA
tabled the Checklist for Programme Review. It had been circulated to both the
sub-group and then to all Modernising Goverment Group members for feedback
and amendments had been implemented and agreed. TA asked for approval to circulate the paper further. |
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2.2 |
PV
said that the paper should refer to the Gateway Review process, since many of
the questions echoed those in the gateway reviews, but less turgidly. TA noted that OGC had already seen the
paper and approved it as constructive. |
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2.3 |
It
was agreed that a sentence would be inserted after OPSR referring to the
Gateway Process, drawing attention to its processes and the need to apply
them to programmes that had not yet been through the Gateway process. |
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2.4 |
The paper would
then be finalised as a Working Party Occasional Paper. |
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2.5 |
It
was agreed that the group would ask Brian White MP if he would put the paper
to Tony Wright to commend it to the Public Administration Select Committee
and identify other committees that it might be useful to. |
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3 |
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Open Source Software |
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3.1 |
CG
reported that the paper had been pretty much signed off by the sub-group and
would be ready for wider circulation after a few minor changes had been made.
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3.2 |
CG
noted that the OSS area was very contentious and he did not want it to become
politicised. |
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3.3 |
CG
confirmed that the target audience was parliamentarians, their research assistants
and journalists. It was reasonably
balanced and readable and although he hoped that they would refer to the
document, he did not expect them all to read it. |
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3.4 |
It
was agreed that It was the kind of topic that P.O.S.T. would have handled well
and therefore two target destinations for it were POST and the House of
Commons Library. |
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3.5 |
EF
agreed to pass the paper to Sarah Pearce for review before circulating it
publicly. |
EF |
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3.6 |
It
was agreed that the paper would be a EURIM Modernising Government Occasional
Paper. |
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3.7 |
EF
agreed to pass the paper to Lord Erroll and Ian Stewart for review. |
EF |
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3.8 |
EF
agreed that the paper would be ready within the next three weeks for Brian
White to review. |
EF |
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4 |
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Social Inclusion / Exclusion |
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4.1 |
EF
gave a brief history of the group and the proposed outputs that had been
circulated. |
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Issues |
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4.2 |
PJ
noted that the IPF was approaching social exclusion from the angle of
bringing together the disability discrimination act and freedom of information
act regarding online services, and how they compound and complicate the
challenges that people are facing. |
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4.3 |
TA
agreed that this was a very important issue both from the legislative
perspective and also a very high political priority. He asked PV what the political drivers
were from EURIM’s perspective. PV replied that MPs like Margaret Moran wanted
to know how IT could be used to help address social exclusion, and believed
that despite its poor track record, it could change things. |
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4.4 |
NP
added that they had to show the relevance of IT for solving these big issues
for politicians and leading to some key political outcomes. Most IT enthusiasts and policy wonks were
from classes that interacted minimally with government. TA observed that e-government had to
better serve the 10% of people that government spent most of its time dealing
with. |
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4.5 |
PJ
felt that the issues centred on making technology usable through features for
accessibility, not just for people with poor eyesight but others for whom
massive adjustments were needed to make technology accessible. There were
also issues bound up with disability discrimination. Social exclusion should be at the
forefront of thinking on service provision and channel strategy. |
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4.6 |
There
were lots of facilities that already existed aimed at improving inclusion of
people with poor eyesight or keyboard skills, they just needed to be evident.
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4.7 |
PV
raised the issue of supporting care workers with mobile IT so that they could
access systems while they were on the move and pass on reliable information
to people about services that were available to them. Lots of joining up was needed to support
service delivery. |
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4.8 |
PJ
reported that an embryonic national project on benefits was seeking to
integrate benefits, which included developing the role of CABs as
intermediaries to help people understand their benefit entitlements. |
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4.9 |
There
were different initiatives under the ODPM and although they had to work with
Inland Revenue for tax credits and with Government gateway to ensure data is
being shared appropriately there appeared to be limited scope for working
together to align agendas effectively and prioritise. |
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4.10 |
LK
noted the issue of intermediaries, which were not raised in the OeE consultation. |
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EURIM activity and role |
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4.11 |
NP
felt that the outputs were too technology oriented and that EURIM was missing
an opportunity to get close to government.
Other groups had not, in the meantime, succeeded so there was still
scope for useful action. |
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4.12 |
IPPR
was leading on public value, Stephen Coleman at the Oxford Internet Institute
was looking at e-democracy issues. |
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4.13 |
SP
felt that social exclusion was an important issue for EURIM as it was
something that parliamentarians took a genuine interest in. It was also a big
priority for the EC. |
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4.14 |
AH
mentioned channel strategy. It was
agreed that EURIM’s role could be to spell out the need for a multi-channel
strategy. |
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4.15 |
SP
felt there was scope for a really useful EURIM briefing on these issues, to
raise scope among parliamentarians, within the government and parliamentary
communities to say that there is a long way to go – Select Committees had not
been heard to ask a government department whether their channel strategy was
targeting socially excluded people. |
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4.16 |
It
was agreed that rather than continuing in its current format a new group
should form around the issues and a business case be submitted to Council for
a new activity, still on social exclusion, on this basis. |
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Audience |
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4.17 |
TA
asked who the target audience was for EURIM outputs on Social exclusion – was
it those responsible for rolling out the new e-government systems? PV
suggested that it should be two-way, to include industry and also researchers
and policy makers so that initiatives were not written off. EURIM was in a good position to say this
as MPs felt strongly about it. |
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4.18 |
SP
noted that there were two potential audiences – those who are positive about
IT and believe it can solve problems, and the sceptics. A line needed to be
drawn between those two. IT can solve
problems when handled in the right way and adequately supported. A very successful initiative by the
Hansard Society using IT to address domestic violence was one instance where
a non-IT enabled part of society used computers productively. |
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4.19 |
TA
noted that government services were targeted at people who were unable to use
them, so the key was to offer effective services in an efficient way to
include all demographics. It was agreed EURIM’s message along these lines
should be addressed to the soon-to-be-appointed Government Communications
supremo. |
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Next Steps |
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4.20 |
TA
noted that these issues could be addressed if someone could be found to drive
activity and a good case could be made to EURIM’s Council. |
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4.21 |
EF
agreed to approach Stephen Chandler and Matt Lambert to establish whether
they were interested in being involved. |
EF |
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4.22 |
PJ
agreed to put together a short business plan for Council that looked to
delivering some change within a six month window. |
PJ |
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4.23 |
It
was agreed that, since social exclusion was a generic issue, it did not need
to operate within the Modernising Government theme. It would be therefore be taken up and treated as a new
initiative and presented as such to Council. |
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5 |
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A New Strategic Framework for
Modernising Government |
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5.1 |
TA
tabled a short report from Jonathan Tamblyn reporting back on his action to
prepare a short report on the UK e-government scene to date and an indication
of the sorts of questions that Members of Select Committee might like to
consider in their future deliberations.
However, the current debate on the future of the OeE and its
implications for the future direction of the UK’s e-government programme
undermined the context of such work.
He therefore proposed to suspend activity until the way ahead for
e-gov was clearer. He had discussed
the issues with Douglas Alexander who felt that there was no need for a key
strategic framework for e-government because it was now embedded in
government processes, but who did concede that government may need help in
communicating this. |
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5.2 |
It
was agreed that activity would be held until January unless feedback from the
PITCOM trip to Washington necessitated the need for more urgent action. |
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6 |
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Group Structure |
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6.1 |
TA
reported that there was a case for reassessing the way in which EURIM Groups
were structured |
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6.2 |
PV
gave an overview of the current activities and the way in which they were
grouped. |
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6.3 |
It
was agreed that e-strategy was the only activity within the theme that was
truly specific to modernising government.
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7 |
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Other issues for the group to consider |
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7.1 |
Addressing the way the public sector should
be managed |
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7.1.1 |
CG
observed that government still needed to learn how to manage the public
sector effectively, which it currently failed to do. Government had to forget ideology and get
on with managing service delivery. Government’s role was changing so that
they were gradually less responsible for direct delivery and interface and
more responsible for managing other agencies. |
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7.1.2 |
It
was agreed that this was a management issue rather than purely an ICT issue,
and therefore should be raised with Tony Colman MP, the chair of the All Party
Management Group. |
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7.2 |
Input to next spending review |
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7.2.1 |
NP
observed that work was already underway on the next spending review and if
EURIM failed to engage on issues or establish a position at this stage when
lots of important decisions were being taken, then an opportunity was being
missed. |
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7.2.2 |
PV
felt that there was a major issue for ITC suppliers – if government did not
perceive IT delivering on policy objectives then this would be reflected in
the next spending review. |
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7.3 |
EURIM Round Table |
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PV
reported that EURIM was shortly to set up a round table of members with the
specific remit of identifying priorities and issues for EURIM action. |
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Attendance Initials
F name
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Surname |
Organisation |
Email |
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Tom |
Abram (Chair) |
Mantix Systems Ltd |
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Emma |
Fryer |
EURIM |
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Chris |
Godwin |
IBM |
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Andy |
Hopkirk |
NCC |
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Paul |
Jackson |
CIPFA |
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Elizabeth |
Kanter |
Nortel Networks |
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Sarah |
Pearce |
P.O.S.T |
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Nick |
Penston |
CISCO |
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Richard |
Sarson |
PITCOM |
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Philip |
Virgo |
EURIM |
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Apologies
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Sue |
Bide |
DTI |
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Sureyya |
Cansoy |
Intellect |
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Jane |
Chittenden |
OEE |
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Peter |
Daniel |
Marconi |
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Steve |
Doughty |
NAO |
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Rebecca |
George |
IBM |
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Nig |
Greenaway |
Fujitsu Services |
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Mike |
Jenkins |
Fujitsu Services |
mike.jenkins@services.fujitsu.com |
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Kieran |
McGuirk |
Fujitsu Services |
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Janice |
Morphet |
ODPM |
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John |
Perkins |
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David |
Rose |
Open Group |
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Rick |
Smith |
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Neil |
Sutherland |
Ordnance Survey |
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Jonathan |
Tamblyn |
LogicaCMG |
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Ian |
Taylor |
MP |
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Henryk |
Trzebiatowski |
Royal Mail |
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