SNT Consulting helps to deliver on these expectations in two distinct ways:

• Firstly through the delivery of mobile services which make better use of the government information assets, enabling information to be made available to the public when they want it, and in the format they prefer.

• Secondly by delivering best of breed interactive services. These services need not only be seen to offer value, but be consistent in their delivery on that promise.

Government Expectations

The Government has spent the last five years, and will spend the next five to ten years, automating back office processes, delivering information and offering basic services online. These transformations are planned or underway.

The Government needs new means of gaining further savings out of the public sector. One area that is expected to grow and generate cost saving opportunities for Local Authorities is the mobile market. According to a recent Government report, there are potential benefits to be gained worth up to £336 million per year by just delivering services to their own staff.

SNT Consulting helps to replicate these savings and beyond deploying similar services to the public.

These are made up of:

Project Nomad: Keeping Local Authorities Mobile

More and more legislation is being produced to encourage better use of authorities’ resources through the deployment of new technology. We highlight just three…

Gershon

The 2004 efficiency review, Releasing Resources to the Front Line, produced by Sir Peter Gershon, requires every arm of the public sector to achieve efficiency gains of at least 2.5% a year for the three years ending in April 2008. To achieve these gains and more, Gershon recommends making more use of shared services and electronic service channels. The proposals are due to add up to efficiencies worth over £20 billion, which will either directly increase the output of public services or will free resources which can be recycled into front line delivery.

Transformational Government

In November 2005, the Cabinet Office published a long term strategy for transforming the government machine, written by Ian Watmore, then Chief Information Officer. Proposed transformations fall into three strands: government services centered around the user rather than the bureaucracy, extensive use of shared services and more professional management of IT. The timetable for change runs to 2011, by when it will have put in place the mechanisms for "a period of further radical change in the delivery of public services, enabled by technology". This will lead to an era "in which the boundaries between departments, between central and local government, and between public, private and voluntary sectors continue to be less important and less visible to citizens and businesses." Rendering boundaries invisible will require extensive use of IT on the front line, with information shared between different tiers and departments of government.

Varney

In December 2006, Sir David Varney's report, Service Transformation, set out specific proposals for creating customer centered government during the next spending round (2008-2011). The programme stresses the need to reduce the number of government call centres and websites, and to make better use of shared information. Varney observes that: "New digital technology offers new, cheaper, faster self service options for government transactions." In particular, he emphasises the potential of interacting with citizens via mobile phones.