Digital communication with the citizens in England and the experiences with Directgov Copenhagan 14 June 2005

Who’s speaking Me  Managing Partner of gov3 limited  Creator and former Managing Director of Directgov  Former director fo e-communications for UK government gov3  New consultancy helping governments with transformation  Made up of senior personnel from UK Office of the e-Envoy  Andrew Pinder - President

This presentation An overview of what citizen-centric government involves, and the approaches which leading-edge governments are taking towards it Case study in more detail the UK experience via Directgov - which is proving to be highly successful both in achieving high levels of user take-up, and in acting as a driver for transformation within government.

What is citizen- centric government?

Start looking at the world through citizens’ eyes, not government’s eyes

What OECD countries say OECD countries agree that moving from a provider to a user-centric focus should be a major organising principle for e-government. Putting this into practice is much more difficult. In general, people see government as complex and unconnected: they do not know where to go for services and they do not often have contact with government. When receiving government services, users want minimum hassle, ease of access, and consistency. Increasing the take-up of an electronic service therefore requires that governments develop a real user ‘value ‑ proposition’ that can be used to both drive the design of the service, and to explain the benefits to users. Improving rates of take-up of electronic services demonstrates that their value to users is real, as users will only use them if they perceive that they receive a real benefit and not just because of abstract benefits. All this is about putting consumers first

Not what most governments have delivered as “e-government” Thousands of government websites, all organised round structure of government not needs of customer Confusing customers – with agencies competing to provide similar services Replicating the offline offer, rather than exploiting the benefits of technology Incoherent or inadequate branding and marketing Absence of systems to learn about the customers government do have, so they can offer them targeted services

What is citizen-centric government? Citizen-centric government = Directgov Directgov = citizen-centric government Citizen-centric government is driven by IT IT enables citizen-centric government Citizen-centric government is optional Globalisation drives citizen-centric government X X It’s about centralising services X X

Ineffective Fragmented services, mostly just info Government isolated from the rest of life Irrelevant and backward looking Users aren’t there Indifferent You can do your business with government online, and via a single portal But the service experience is fragmented and inconsistent User needs to provide the connections Integrated Government presents a single face - drawing on the supplier base to create a tailored product User needs to state a problem Invisible Government is part of life User doesn’t have to do anything - it just happens

How do you make sure you get above the line, and stay there?

Key principles:  Obsessive and detailed customer understanding  Build services around customer needs, not organisational structure  Use ability of e-channels to build new sorts of customer value  The Internet dramatically reduces the cost of entry - so we should welcome in the competition  Avoid cost duplication - build it once, scale it up The answer we gave to the UK Prime Minister in Spending Review 2002…..

Leaders and followers

United Nations benchmarking shows a wide spread of performance Source: United Nations e-Government Readiness Report : e-participation index covering information, consultation and decision- making, 2: web-government index covering interactivity, transactions and networked presence. E-participation maturity 1 E-service maturity 2 Russia UK US Canada Australia Mexico Chile Austria Estonia Finland Czech Denmark Belgium France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Italy Korea Lux Netherlands New Zealand Norway Poland Portugal Slovakia Spain Sweden Turkey Bahrain Cyprus China Slovenia S. Africa Jordan Latvia Lith. Romania Malta India Croatia Thai Singapore Israel Ireland Brazil. Japan Phillipines Switz Ukraine

USA, Canada and UK Portal Destination USA -Firstgov UK online Canada Clusters UK Directgov Integration

Where we are going Citizens want more Younger citizens think differently and demand more Global business is setting the pace The traditional way of delivering government won’t work in the future We are moving to a citizen-centric public sector

Directgov

Before Directgov Started with a portal online delivery model  Me.gov vision for one-2-one online interaction  High level vision handed to private sector  Delivered ukonline.gov.uk and life episodes  Government focused implementation

Directgov Underpinning principles  Catalyst was lack of take-up  Sum of knowledge strategy  True citizen centric approach  Marketing led  Directgov was output  Successful

USA Firstgov  “Truly citizen-focused portal”?*  “Three clicks to service”  Faces the ‘expanding universe’ problem – websites linked to: 2002 = 77, = 129, = 209,000 * Mark foreman

 ?

WebDiTV Mobile etc One stop e-shop Customer segmented franchises 

Directgov performance Source: UK EgU

The franchise A standalone business unit Responsible for a set of customer needs Acts as the bridge between between citizens, and the horizontal and vertical government structure Built to a new and rigorous business model – with new skill and new ways of doing things Operates in a very tight framework of quality and service standards to ensure consistency across franchises Invisible to the end user of services Capable of operating integrating all levels of government

Dispelling some misconceptions about a single service A single entry point does not have to be a central government entry point Strong branding does not mean that service providers lose their identity Services do not have to sit on a single infrastructure But you can’t have a free for all

Some nuts and bolts

The “soft” nuts and bolts Departmental vertical accountability model makes it hard to advance horizontal initiatives Departments generally optimize for vertical expenditure efficiencies (often departments optimize by program) rather than whole of government efficiencies Significant duplication and fragmentation across government Difficult to establish government-wide ongoing funding models Historical failures of government-wide initiatives erode confidence No single point of responsibility and accountability Lack of “one enterprise” culture and governance Source: Government of Canada

Futurology – where it’s going

Where next? ↔ 2005  Leaders develop more understanding/expertise  Political pressure continues to gather momentum  Followers engage and begin work 2006 – 2010  Point of no return for leaders - becomes mainstream  Customer pressure now significant factor  Key markets develop workable models and realise benefits  Industry wakes up – feels impact (of government pressure)  Globalisation of operating modes and products now taking hold  Second generation products and operating models appear  Followers deliver operating models and products  Acceleration of change in government from new powerbases 2010 onwards  Embedded into the way many governments operate and views itself  Benefits realised by most governments  Third generation business models and service concepts in place  Business re-engineered to deliver this  Customer needs/expectations now the lead driver  Remaining government now aspire to this model  Almost commoditised

END