March 2010

In this edition...

On 1 March as usual we published the latest version of Better connected. This year the message is simple and clear. Local government websites are not up to the job of being the channel of first choice at a time when organisations must depend increasingly on self-service to save costs.

Managing websites is, of course, a good test of managing information. Our latest report on this topic is also due out in April 2010. More, overleaf on this topic, and indeed on other reports and initiatives all focused on helping subscribers manage the difficult challenge that faces tomorrow's public services.

Better connected 2010: Council websites up to the job?

Public sector organisations now have to commit to self-service. With severe public sector cutbacks looming after the election, the economics of the web channel being by far the cheapest channel of service delivery make this an inevitability. The same economics also mean that visit failure leads to costly avoidable contact as people turn to the phone, e-mail or even personal visits to find what they are looking for.

In this year's edition we report two perspectives. Our reviewers are professional reviewers who use a 120 question survey and who have a very good understanding of what represents good and bad practice. Website visitors are almost entirely just interested in one task; their idea of good practice is that each visit is successful. The two sets of views are inherently different but should complement each other.

Our reviewers reported little real improvement from 2009. Website visitors to 121 council websites were harsher in their judgements. The average numbers of visit failures increased by 9.1% on top of an increase last year of 13.4%. Strongly correlated with visit failure, visitor satisfaction is dropping - down 12.7% from last year on top of 10.5% from the year before that.

Although these are general trends showing that not everything in the garden is rosy, there is evidence that some council websites do much better than others. For example in December 2009 the lowest web visit failure rate was just 11% compared with an average of 21% and a highest rate of 39%. The best role models are the eleven sites that have been assessed as four star sites in our new ranking system for this year. The target for everyone else is to reach the level that has been reached by Allerdale BC, Brent, Buckinghamshire CC, Cambridgeshire CC, East Sussex CC, Exeter City, Newcastle upon Tyne City, Oxfordshire CC, Salford City, South Tyneside MBC and Worthing BC

This message is too important to ignore. We plan to send out by mid-April a communication for chief executives entitled: What all council chief executives must ask about their website.

Learning from Better connected 2010 - For web managers we also plan to repeat last year's successful event to a sell-out audience in Birmingham, this time going to Manchester on 18 May (more overleaf).

Further information: Martin Greenwood

Managing information: Managing the lifeblood of the organisation

Potentially, good information management could protect UK public sector services from the worst of the financial crisis. Yet organisations pay it scant regard. Compared with money, people and buildings it is the Cinderella resource. Employers offer teams almost no training beyond compliance with
Data Protection and Freedom of Information legislation. Witness the lamentable litany of losses of public data.

Not only is there the potential for harm, but poor management of a precious resource is a wasted opportunity. We must change.

With these words we introduce our latest report in managing information
We argue that it is information (and knowledge) that is important to organisations. Most business managers have little interest in the technology that delivers the information that they need: they simply want the correct information presented in a timely and understandable manner. For the technologist, this means understanding the business and, therefore, the business information requirements, in order to ensure that the necessary application systems, supporting infrastructure and skills are in place.

Given the pressures for action coming from a variety of sources, we look first at the relationship between information and business. Next, we consider the supporting role of information in service transformation before turning to the key competencies required in an organisation that manages its information assets well.

We argue the need for an information strategy interposed between the business or service plan and the technical ICT
strategy. We consider this topic in detail, discussing what this means for the business, the people within it, its partners and its customers. In particular, we discuss the relationship between information strategy and plans for technology (applications, systems, infrastructure and skills), and the role of the governance function.

The role of information is at the heart of transformation. As the public sector faces unprecedented austerity, information will come to
the fore as the single resource that, if managed properly, can bridge the gap between increasing demand and declining resources. It is imperative
that management teams, and not just information professionals, recognise and act upon this capability.

Finally, we look at what an information strategy might look like and how an organisation might develop one

Our report will be launched on 16 April

Contact: Chris Head

The technology challenge in 2010

The hot technology  issue in 2010 is certainly cloud computing, and the proposed G-Cloud (potential savings up to £3.2bn) and the supporting  application store, G-AS (up to another £0.5bn). This is a centre-piece of the Government ICT Strategy launched in January.. We ourselves produced a briefing on the topic in February.

Cloud computing may attract the interest, but there is much more to consider. Usually, the challenge in preparing our annual report is to make sense of a growing complexity of technology trends, products and services. This year, the challenge of the financial crisis affecting the public sector concentrates the mind as we focus on how ICT can save money. 

This year we have developed a checklist of 15 actions which we believe that the head of ICT in every public sector organisation consider. Most will already be working energetically on most of this list. We make no claim that this is any new thinking, but we do urge everyone to think hard about each and ask if they really are doing everything they can.

The actions fall into two groups; those in the ICT domain and those in the business domain. In the first category heads of ICT should be the decision-makers and make things happen. In the second category, heads of ICT should seek to have some influence, because they need to persuade colleagues that investment in ICT will lead to savings in their services.   

We plan to launch the executive briefing by the end of April

Further information: Tony Riding

Application software index (online)

We are pleased to announce plans to merge the Application software index with the E-government register.  This originated in the Local Government Online programme in England in the run-up to 2005 and has since been supported and hosted by Brent Council. Socitm Insight will now be able to enhance the valuable data in the Application Software Register with the sophisticated online facilities of that system. It will be much easier to update data, view and analyse the results.

The new service should enable the much more efficient sharing of information between buyers and suppliers of ICT goods and services in a market place worth over £400m per year (Source IT Trends 2009/10)

We plan for the system to be implemented by July 2010. Look out for a much fuller briefing by 1 May.

Further information: John Serle

Directory of ICT services (Version 4)

This reference document which was first published back in 1994 is nearly reedy for a 4th edition. Its purpose as always is:  

To provide a comprehensive and authoritative guide to help those responsible for ICT management, and their clients, to specify, procure and manage the quality and quantity of services, with reference to existing guidelines and standards.

The first three versions stood the test of time by avoiding references to specific technologies and related terminology, which often has a short life, and by concentrating on the underlying management issues.

This new version supports benchmarking, development of scripts for the help desk, and specifications for bought-in services amongst other uses.  We have also updated it to align with the IT infrastructure library (ITIL), which public and third sector organisations use increasingly to manage this critical service.

We plan for it to be available from www.socitm.net by the end of April

Contact: Chris Head

Events with NHS Choices

Over the winter we completed a series of free half day workshops around England with NHS Choices in helping to improve the content of council websites.

Better connected 2010 (section 2.4) provides a summary of the content and facilities on offer, and the benefits of using the material on council websites. We recommend strongly that you start to syndicate this relevant, high quality and up-to-date content

Further information: http://www.nhs.uk/nhscwebservices/Pages/Localauthorities.asp

Learning from Better connected 2010 May 18, Manchester

We plan to repeat last year's successful event to a sell-out audience in Birmingham, this time going to Manchester.

This event will review the findings of Better connected 2010. It will provide provide delegates with information and ideas to support the latest thinking about the future development of your council's website. We will show how task management can lead to a more useful information architecture. You will be able to hear speakers from three of this year's 11 four star sites; Two will present the detailed story of what they have achieved and how they did this; the third will discuss what's on the horizon for 2010 and beyond (eg use of open data, syndicated content) trends. We will also discuss the impact of using Twitter and Facebook from the council that in January had the highest level of take-up in dealing with severe weather conditions. Finally, we will present the latest developments in Socitm's skills framework for web professionals that in the long-term will help them improve the increasingly critical service that they provide.

Further information (and how to book) www.socitm.net

Benchmarking News

The 2010 programme

Here we show the new programme for benchmarking in 2010 

Channel value benchmarking with Socitm Consulting

Group	Title	Workshop	Date	Venue
4	UK1	Launch	20 Apr	London
4	UK1	Results	22 Jul	London
5	UK2	Launch	16 Sep	London
5	UK2	Results	16 Dec	TBC

Contact: Sandra Milne-Skinner

Benchmarking the ICT service with Socitm Consulting

Group	Title	Workshop	Date	Venue
50	London	Launch	21 Apr	London
50	London	Results	10 Sep	London
51	UK1 & SW	Launch	10 May	Birmingham
51	UK1 & SW	Results	21 Oct	Birmingham
53	Partnerships & outsourcing	Launch	23 Jul	Birmingham
53	Partnerships & outsourcing	Results	4 Nov	Birmingham
54	UK2	Launch	14 Sep	Birmingham
54	UK2	Results	10 Dec	Birmingham

Contact: Roland Waterhouse

Benchmarking user satisfaction

Series	Survey period	Workshop	Venue
34	January to February	13 Apr	London
35	May to June	7 Jul	TBC
36	September to October	9 Dec	TBC

 Contact: Terry Madgwick

Contact points for Socitm Insight:

• For information about the service in general (eg events, work in progress etc), contact Martin Greenwood - tel/fax 01926 498703 or e-mail insight@socitm.net

Other Contacts

• Chris Head (tel: 07880 748299, e-mail chris.head@socitm.net)
• Terry Madgwick (tel:  01483 855288, e- mail terry.madgwick@socitm.net)
• Sandra Milne-Skinner (tel 07717 327796), e-mail sandra.milne-skinner@socitm.net)  
• Tony Riding (tel: 0113 261 2688, e-mail tony.riding@socitm.net)
• Vicky Sargent (tel 07726 601139, e-mail vicky.sargent@socitm.net)
• John Serle (tel 01395 576940) e-mail john.serle@socitm.net)
• Roland Waterhouse, (tel:  01244 678294 e-mail: roland.waterhouse@socitm.net)

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