The ambition of the Council is to be recognised as a leader of the community and an excellent Authority by its service users and community, as well as by external assessors. The framework for this is set out in the following strategic statement.
The Council’s Vision is: ‘A Borough that shows pride in its local heritage whilst seeking opportunity and choice for future generations.’
The Council’s Mission is to be: ‘A forward looking, efficiently run Council underpinning the Vision by providing first class services that give the community value for money.’
The key strategic priorities are:
- Value for Money
Providing efficient, cost-effective and relevant quality public services. This includes “to use ICT to increase the public accessibility to our services and to increase efficiency in delivering services”.
- Environment & Heritage
Preserving and enhancing a sustainable environment, both rural and urban, within Guildford Borough.
- Social Cohesion
Ensuring our diverse community can live in safety and with dignity.
- Culture
Supporting a diverse range of high quality cultural activities and facilities.
- Dynamic Economy
Encouraging a vibrant business and knowledge based local economy.
The Council believes that improvement from e-government initiatives and the innovative use of new technology are contributors towards achieving these objectives. The Council aims to provide improved services to all in the Borough in the manner which is most convenient to them.
Achievements
The Council has continued to update all its legacy systems and its technical infrastructure as a foundation for initiatives in customer access and knowledge management. A Customer Access Strategy Group is reviewing the access channels used by residents to contact the Council and will develop and implement a ‘take up’ strategy for the services of the Council and its partners. The Council has also implemented a new Website based on Microsoft Content Management System. Initially this has concentrated on information, though transactional elements are being developed and the Council is one of the first to make available a Benefits claim form which can be completed and submitted on-line. The Council’s GIS continues to develop through a web based system and there were over 20,000 logins to the system in the six months to 30 September 2003.
Aims
A central aim is to take information and service into the community through initiatives such as:
- Targeting texting of information about sport, art, play and special activities and events through txt2U
- E-government kiosks to provide information on Council services. Only five judiciously located kiosks will provide over 60% of the population access to a kiosk within a distance of one mile. A kiosk has been installed in the offices for use by Housing tenants
- Further implementation of the transactional website enabling payments across the services of the Council including, Council Tax and car parking fines.
- Development of comprehensive Freephone services which seek to provide free information twenty four hours a day.
- Comprehensive mobile computing[i] support for Council staff to increase efficiency and reduce travel time and costs. A pilot study is underway.
- Provision of links to remote sites, branch offices and other working areas are provided with the latest information using satellite to overcome lack of broadband[ii] technology.
- Ongoing work with fellow members of Surrey e-partnership to promote e-government facilities throughout the public organisations in Surrey to provide a seamless and consistent service at a time and place convenient to the public.
The following is a summary of how e-government is supporting current and future improvement under the headings of six of the shared priorities for local government identified by ODPM.
Improving the quality of life of children, young people, families at risk and older people
- The Council has created an ‘Anti-Poverty Group’ to assist deprived residents.
- Provision of information via mobile phones has proved very popular with young people, especially for the Spectrum and the Guildford Civic, which is also supported by an interactive website for ticket bookings
- Provision to elderly residents in sheltered housing of an alarm system
- Automatic links to the Primary Care Trust to ensure medication requirements are validated
- Provision of replaced ICT equipment to Voluntary Organisations such as ‘Help the Aged’, Citizens Advice Bureaux and also to Parish Councils
- Liaison with the local Youth Council to enhance the Council’s website
- Links to other public organisations through an extranet and the Surrey E-Partnership
- Plans to assist with a register of welfare organisations forming the base of a community service website
Promoting healthier communities by targeting key local services, such as health and housing.
- Implementation of a choice based letting facility for self-selection of available properties and promotion of affordable housing via a web based system.
- Plan to provide ICT support for single assessment of older people based on mobile computing.
Creating safer and stronger communities.
- Initiative with the Police to create ‘warden areas’ using mobile technology to share information and record incidents (pilot study in progress)
- Implementation of a comprehensive network of CCTV cameras in the town centre and Council offices.
- Provision of a mobile computing support for Council parking wardens.
Transforming our local environment.
- System for automatic air quality monitoring
- Plan to place GIS maps on small ICT devices to assist street based activities, e.g. a mapping layer for contaminated land to assist developers.
Meeting transport needs more effectively.
- Assistance to flexible working by providing staff with access to Council systems via the Internet.
- On-line displays on bus shelter displays showing parking capacity
- System indicating when Park and Ride buses will arrive.
- Operating a Car Share scheme is operated by the Council, which will eventually be extended to the private sector.
Promoting the economic vitality of localities.
- Business forums to promote economic vitality.
- Participation in initiatives for electronic business integration.
- Broadband in rural areas
- Procurement policy to promote use of local businesses.
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RED |
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AMBER |
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RED |
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Conformance with level AA of W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) standards on website accessibility (see http://www.w3.org/WAI) |
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RED |
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RED |
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AMBER |
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AMBER |
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Link to National Land & Property Gazetteer (NLPG) (http://www.nlpg.org.uk)
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99
79% |
79% |
88% |
93% |
100% |
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100% |
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100% |
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100% |
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100% |
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100% |
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100% |
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100% |
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100% |
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100% |
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· £200,000 IEG money in 2002/3 and 2003/4 |
200 |
200 |
200 |
200 |
200 |
It is assumed that the Council will receive further £200,000 grants for financial years 04/5 and 05/6. Guildford Borough Council will rely upon these further central resources to achieve our 100% target. |
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· financial contributions from EU funding |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
We do not anticipate EU funding. |
|
· financial contributions from other sources of Government funding, such as the Invest to Save Budget (ISB) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
This is an unlikely source of funding for Guildford Borough Council. |
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· financial contribution from public-private partnerships |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
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· financial contribution to or from partnership projects undertaken with other organisations, including ongoing project work using ODPM Local e-Government Partnership Programme funding and work with other government departments or agencies that have an element of service e-enabling |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
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· resources being applied from internal revenue and capital budgets to improve the quality of services through e-enablement
|
505 |
555 |
550 |
550 |
550 |
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· other resources (e.g. training) (please specify) |
0 |
0 |
0 |
300 |
0 |
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Sub total |
705 |
755 |
750 |
1050 |
750 |
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· less current and projected savings produced from e-government investment |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
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TOTAL |
705 |
755 |
750 |
1050 |
750 |
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GLOSSARY OF TERMS
[i] Mobile Computing- technology to provide staff access to corporate information via small hand held computers.
[ii] Broadband- fast internet access now available to home users- allows greater use of the internet.
[iii] Self-Assessment of Local e-Organisation- Council's were asked to summarise the plans and progress of the your local authority according to the six parts of model of the local e-organisation, as presented in the ODPM’s National Strategy for Local e-Government published in November 2002 (see www.localegov.gov.uk/nationalstrategy). The model provides a checklist of work areas against the e-organisation themes, or building blocks of local e-government - interactions, access channels, trust & connections, enablers, e-business and organisational development. Please refer to www.localegov.gov.uk for further description of the elements of this model, together with associated National Projects. Further information about these building blocks is also available from the I&DeA’s Knowledge website at www.idea.gov.uk/knowledge.
Not all the elements in the proforma checklist below will necessarily be a part of a local e-government strategy, but Council's are expected to be aware of all of these elements and have taken a corporate position in relation to them. It is recognised that local IEG strategies will reflect local priorities and customer preferences, but Council's are asked specifically to provide accompanying commentary on any areas of the proforma checklist that remain “black” in 2005/6.
[iv] Local e-organisation-
BLACK = Not part of current local e-government strategy or not applicable
RED = Preparation & planning – to include projects that are being planned or being piloted
AMBER = Implementation stage – roll out of approved projects
GREEN = Fully implemented – projects completed & implemented
[vi] Interactions- A measure of the number of types of interactions (or contact) between the citizen and the Council. The Best Value Performance Indicator (BVPI) 157 provides a percentage of those that are enabled for electronic delivery.
[vii] Access Channels- Access Channels are the various routes through which people might contact, or be contacted by, local service providers.
[viii] Corporate- The whole ethos of electronic government is for local authorities to provide a more up to date electronic service to the public in a similar fashion to private organisations.
[ix] Portal- Using web technology, portals pull information together from various sources into one place .
[xi] DDI- Direct Dial Inwards, allows the user to have multiple telephone numbers, without the need to have expensive direct lines. DDI callers go direct to an extension, without the need to be transferred by the operator.
[xii] Most Called Extensions- Main Switchboard, Housing and Health Services, Revenue and Benefit Services & Environmental Health
[xiv] Trust & Connections- For the public sector to share information easily and securely, it is essential to operate within a framework of technical and legislative standards.
[xv] Metadata- Data about data, information known about an image or document in order to provide access to it.
[xvi] BS7799- Comprehensive coverage of security issues, containing a significant number of control requirements-it is the most widely recognised security standard in the world.
[xvii] Protocol- When data is being transmitted between two or more devices something needs to govern the controls that keep the data intact.
[xviii] Enablers- Enablers refers to the computer systems, or ‘middle-ware’, used to support access channel policy and provide the link to core business and information systems.
[xix] Smartcards- A smart card – a type of chip card – is a plastic card embedded with a computer chip that stores and transacts data between users. This data is associated with either value or information, or both and is stored and processed within the card’s chip. The card data is transacted via a reader that is part of a computing system.
[xx] Falls Reduction- attempt by the Council to prevent the number falls by members of the public in properties using their technology.
[xxi] Core Systems- Successful e-government comes from integrating corporate office support and processes with e-enabled services. Core systems refer to the core business processes of the e-enabled organisation..
[xxii] People- This part of the e-organisation model refers to the internal organisation and management practices of the council that are required to help deliver the people changes necessary for e-government.
[xxiii] BVPI 157- Councils are asked to complete the table using the definition of Best Value Performance Indicator (BVPI) 157 for Electronic Service Delivery (Corporate). It is recommended that Council’s validate their local list of interactions against the list of process area interactions for all customer facing local authority services contained in the I&DeA’s ESD toolkit (www.esd-toolkit.org) .
[xxiv] Access Channel Take-Up- In order to demonstrate public take-up of the main e-access channels that the Council is investing in up to 2005/6, Council’s are asked to complete the table detailing actual and forecast figures for numbers of e-enabled payment transactions, plus abandoned vehicles. It is important that e-access channel investment and rollout also facilitates accompanying improvements in the corporate management capability required to monitor and collect such statistics.
[xxv] Delivery of Key Technical Building Blocks & Priority Services- Councils are asked to indicate how key technical building blocks and priority services are to be developed and managed by indicating the relative usefulness of outputs from ODPM Pathfinder Projects, National Projects and/or partnership working with other local authorities and/or use of other means. A sliding scale from 1-5 (i.e. from 1=not useful, to 5=essential) is used. More information about Pathfinder work and National Projects can be found at www.localegov.gov.uk.
[xxvi] Resources- Councils are asked to provide a summary of current and forecast expenditure on implementing electronic government up to 2005/6. This should include the standard elements in the table below and brief commentary on the use of IEG money. (Please note that implementing e-government expenditure refers to investment designed to e-enable local services and to transform their accessibility, quality and cost-effectiveness in line with the 2005 target. Cyclical spend related to the maintenance of the existing ICT infrastructure should not be included).