Software Development: IEG
London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority
Brief
Assess the extent to which London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) has implemented e-government.
Business Case
The Government wants all public bodies to provide 100% of their services electronically by 2005. Progress towards this target is measured by Best Value Performance Indicator (BVPI) 157. This measures the number of citizen interactions which are e-enabled.
Our brief was to determine which of the Authority’s interactions were e-enabled, which could be and which should be. Our findings were incorporated into LFEPA’s IEG (“implementing e-government”) statement.
We conducted a series of interviews with senior staff. We reviewed in detail how each department currently interacted with citizens and we identified interactions which should have been taking place which were not’t (e.g. because they were too difficult or expensive). We quantified the number of transactions for each detailed interaction.
A key part of our work was to establish where there could be possible barriers to electronic service delivery, due to legal, technical or personnel reasons. We also looked at the readiness of staff to support change, and highlighted any gaps in awareness, ICT ability or training.
We looked at every department, including Community Fire Safety, Statutory Fire Safety, Service Delivery and Operational Response, as well as the support functions. We took account of any proposed changes (e.g. due to new legislation) which might have impacted on electronic service delivery. We assessed the effect of the existing IT strategy on delivering e-services and of e-government initiatives being pursued by external organisations.
Our report provided detailed information and figures on each interaction and an overall BVPI 157 score. It presented a comprehensive list of projects required to meet the 2005 target. The projects were prioritised according to the potential benefit to LFEPA after taking into account factors such as the ease and cost of implementation, the potential take-up and the return on investment.
Benefits
Our report provided LFEPA with a sound basis for their e-government strategy and contained clear recommendations on how to proceed. |