Performance Detailed Report
April 2007
E-government Benefits
Greater London Authority
Audit 2006-2007
Report 11A Page 1 of 16 External audit is an essential element in the process of accountability for public money and makes an important contribution to the stewardship of public resources and the corporate governance of public services. Audit in the public sector is underpinned by three fundamental principles: • auditors are appointed independently from the bodies being audited; • the scope of auditors' work is extended to cover not only the audit of financial statements but also value for money and the conduct of public business; and • auditors may report aspects of their work widely to the public and other key stakeholders. The duties and powers of auditors appointed by the Audit Commission are set out in the Audit Commission Act 1998 and the Local Government Act 1999 and the Commission's statutory Code of Audit Practice. Under the Code of Audit Practice, appointed auditors are also required to comply with the current professional standards issued by the independent Auditing Practices Board. Appointed auditors act quite separately from the Commission and in meeting their statutory responsibilities are required to exercise their professional judgement independently of both the Commission and the audited body.
Status of our reports The Statement of Responsibilities of Auditors and Audited Bodies issued by the Audit Commission explains the respective responsibilities of auditors and of the audited body. Reports prepared by appointed auditors are addressed to the Mayor, the Assembly or officers. They are prepared for the sole use of the audited body. Auditors accept no responsibility to: • the Mayor, any Assembly member or officer in their individual capacity; or • any third party. Copies of this report If you require further copies of this report, or a copy in large print, in Braille, on tape, or in a language other than English, please call 0845 056 0566.
© Audit Commission 2007 For further information on the work of the Commission please contact: Audit Commission, 1st Floor, Millbank Tower, Millbank, London SW1P 4HQ Tel: 020 7828 1212 Fax: 020 7976 6187 Textphone (minicom): 020 7630 0421 www.audit-commission.gov.uk Report 11A Page 2 of 16 E-government Benefits │ Contents 3
Contents
Summary report 4 Introduction 4 Background 4 Audit objectives and scope 5 Main conclusions 5
Detailed report 7 Vision 7 Programme and projects 8 Managing and monitoring delivery 8 Benefits management 12
Appendix 1 – Benefits identification framework 15
Appendix 2 – Action plan 16
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Summary report
Introduction 1 E-government means using the power of information and communications technology to help transform the accessibility, quality and cost-effectiveness of public services. It can revitalise the relationship between citizens and the public bodies who work on their behalf. E-government is more than technology or the Internet or service delivery. It is about putting citizens at the heart of what public bodies do and building service access, delivery and democratic accountability around them.
Background 2 In March 1999, the Government produced a white paper ‘Modernising Government’, which included a new package of reforms and targets. The intention was that by 2002, 25 per cent of dealings by the public with Government, including local government and the NHS, should have been capable of being conducted electronically, with 100 per cent of dealings capable of electronic delivery by 2005. 3 In November 2002, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister published the national strategy for local e-government. This set out a framework of standards, expectations, infrastructure and support within which local innovation and delivery could flourish, a model of local e-government and a range of potential proposals to promote their effective delivery. It emphasised the requirement to join up services around the citizen at the local level and demonstrated the need for collaboration with local providers including health. The target that by 2005 all services should be available electronically remained. However, the expectation is that they would be available through a variety of channels. 4 This e-government agenda does not affect the GLA (the Authority) in the way that it does most other local authorities. The Authority does not deliver the type of services that other authorities can seek to e-enable or that are covered by the priority service outcomes. Despite this, the Authority recognised the potential for new technology to deliver services more efficiently and to join up services across London. It also saw the possibility of increasing information provision and engagement using e-government approaches. Ways in which these might be achieved have been set out in its Implementing e-government (IEG) statements and other strategy documents. 5 The Authority's role in relation to e-government therefore spans across both activity within the GLA group of bodies and pan-London. In the latter role the Authority works closely with the London Boroughs and London Connects to influence and support e-government developments.
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Audit objectives and scope 6 The objectives of this audit review were to: • assess how the Authority's strategic priorities for e-government, including addressing exclusion and diversity issues, are being realised through its own activities and the partnership arrangements in place; • assess how the benefits from e-government projects are realised; and • make recommendations to assist the Authority to improve benefits identification, management and realisation. 7 In making these assessments, we were primarily concerned with the outward facing elements of e-government and not with developments internal to the Authority. The audit did not address the specific e-government plans of the London Development Authority, London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, Metropolitan Police Authority and Transport for London. The review builds upon and extends our previous work on e-government reported in the 2004/05 audit. The fieldwork was undertaken during October 2006. 8 The audit considered the Authority's processes for: • oversight of the e-government programme and projects; • managing and monitoring delivery; and • benefits management. 9 We assessed the arrangements for these at an overall level and also by reference to a small number of specific e-government projects and objectives such as: • London portal; • London smartcard; • single emergency number; and • e-democracy.
Main conclusions 10 Since 2001, the Authority and London Connects have produced a number of documents that discuss aspects of e-government in London and set out some specific activities and projects. However, the overall vision is best set out in the January 2004 report, 'Connecting the Capital'. Now that the centrally driven e-government agenda has moved on, the current thinking, as set out in the new IT Strategy, is to embed e-government within directorate business planning rather than to have an all encompassing e-services plan. This is a reasonable approach but, in the past, the lack of a single e-government plan, clearly owned by the Authority, has made it more difficult to progress some of the Authority's e-government objectives.
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11 Until recently, there was no clear process to ensure that e-government projects were selected to support the strategic aims of the Authority through an assessment of competing priorities. Previously, London Connects led much of the outward-facing e-government work including that related to the expressed aims of the Authority. The Authority did not have direct control over the programme but it has always had a representative on the board of London Connects and could therefore exercise influence through this means. The relationship with London Connects has now changed so that London Connects will only act for the Authority in respect of specific, individually approved projects. As a result, in future e-government projects should more clearly support the Authority's priorities. 12 There are not always clear structures and processes for how the Authority manages and monitors delivery of its e-government objectives. The structures and relationships between different groups are complex. Although the structures, responsibilities and mechanisms for managing and monitoring delivery are clear for internal Authority owned projects, this is less true for outward facing projects led by the Authority or led by other bodies with varying degrees of Authority involvement. The e-government strategy board has a monitoring role but does not regularly review the progress of projects or the achievement of the Authority's e- government aims and objectives. The Authority's ability to monitor has depended more upon the overlap of representation on the various groups than on a programme management structure. The Authority needs clear formalised structures to maximise the likelihood of achieving the desired objectives. 13 At present, the process to ensure that the Authority manages, monitors and realises the benefits of e-government projects is not sufficiently robust. In the past, anticipated benefits were not always clearly identified when projects commenced. For the future, the IT strategy states that organisational benefits will be identified for each programme and realisation of benefits will be captured, monitored and reported to the Technology Strategy Board, as part of the IT programme and project delivery and monitoring framework. However, this does not cover all streams of work. Without a clear benefits management lifecycle approach, operating at programme level, and covering all three streams identified in the IT strategy, the Authority is unlikely to realise fully the benefits and outcomes of its involvement in e-government projects.
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Detailed report
Vision 14 The Authority has not documented its aims and objectives for e-government in a single strategy document. Since 2001, the Authority and London Connects have produced a number of documents that discuss aspects of e-government in London and identify some specific activities and projects. These include: • e-Government strategy for London (London Connects, Dec 2001); • e-Partnership working in London (London Connects, 2003); • Connecting people – Tackling exclusion (GLA, November 2003); and • Connecting the Capital (GLA, January 2004). The last of these most clearly sets out an e-government vision for London and the GLA. 15 The 2001 e-government strategy for London sets out a number of prospective programmes and projects but London Connects prepared this document and not the Authority. At this time, London Connects was working closely with the Authority, and the Mayor effectively endorsed the strategy by virtue of the GLA representative on the London Connects board. 16 Other documents such as the best value review of e-government in 2003 and the London Spatial Development Plan also included comments on e-government objectives. Recurring themes within these various documents include portal and smartcard projects. In addition, the ODPM required the Authority to prepare IEG statements but these focussed on meeting BV157, often through internal activities, and did not cover the broader strategic aspects of the Authority's remit. 17 Now that the centrally driven e-government agenda has finished, the current thinking, as set out in the new IT Strategy, is not to have an all encompassing e-services plan but to embed e-government within directorate business planning. This is a reasonable approach but the lack of a single e-government strategy, clearly owned by the Authority, has in the past, made it more difficult to achieve some of the objectives and to monitor progress. This is explored further in Managing and monitoring delivery below.
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Programme and projects 18 Although some programmes and projects do support strategic objectives of the Authority, there is no clear sense that, in the past, e-government projects were specifically selected to support the strategic aims of the Authority through an assessment of competing priorities. However, this is now changing. In particular, proposals for further development of the Your London portal, regardless of origin, will be subject to a scored assessment that takes into account aspects such as content, funding, support for GLA and partners' business purposes and equality. This should help ensure that proposals are viable and align with Authority priorities. 19 Many of the outward facing e-government initiatives have, until fairly recently, been managed through London Connects. London Connects develops its own annual programme of work that is approved by the London Connects Board and London Councils (formerly Association of London Government) Leaders' Committee. Both the Mayor's e-envoy and the Executive Director of Corporate Resources (EDoCR) are on the London Connects board and thus have input, but the Authority does not approve the programme. Recently the relationship between London Connects and the Authority has become more distanced and London Connects' role in delivering for the Authority has reduced. 20 Some of the initiatives and aims from the various strategic documents dealing with e-government have never been taken forward and developed into projects. For example: a common London approach to the use of public information kiosks; a public access resource centre and telephone help-line; and increased public access to broadband. Some of these may simply have been overtaken by the fast development of public use of the internet or deemed best left to market forces. However, this is not always the case. A consistent theme since the start of e-government has been the pan-London use of smart cards for multiple purposes such as for leisure, culture and schools. Transport for London (TfL) has, of course, been highly successful in the introduction of the Oyster card but there has been no coherent project to further the multi-use aims London-wide.
Managing and monitoring delivery 21 The nature of the Authority is that it does not directly take all the actions required to deliver its strategic objectives. In looking at how the Authority manages and monitors delivery of its e-government objectives we therefore took account of three models: • where the Authority is leading delivery; • where another body is delivering on behalf of the Authority; and • where the Authority is contributing to a project owned elsewhere.
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22 There are a number of structures and processes for how the Authority manages and monitors delivery of its e-government objectives. The structures and relationships between the different groups involved are complex. An e-government strategy board considers e-government issues across the GLA group. This is chaired by the Mayor's e-envoy and it includes director level representation from the GLA, London Development Agency (LDA), London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA), TfL and Metropolitan Police. London Connects is also currently represented. The role of this board is described as setting direction and tone and ensuring engagement and a joined up approach. However, as already stated, the Authority has not set out a joined up strategy for e-government. The e-government strategy board is not a programme board monitoring delivery of programmes and projects. 23 For internal Authority owned projects, the structures, responsibilities and mechanisms for managing and monitoring delivery are clear but this is less true for outward facing projects led by the Authority. The Authority IT Strategy Board (ITSB) is the governance body for the Authority’s technology programmes and reports to the Mayor and the Mayor’s Management Board. The new IT Strategy identifies three work streams. The ITSB is the governance body for two of these (improving outcomes and service delivery across the GLA group; supporting the GLA's role and functions in delivering the Mayor's priorities) but the e-government Board is responsible for monitoring and advising on the third (pan London partnership activities and service delivery). The third stream includes the portal and the single non-emergency number (SNEN) but the categories are not mutually exclusive and some ambiguity remains that could affect how closely different projects are monitored. At present the portal and SNEN have their own boards. 24 Below the IT Strategy Board, there will be programmes with programme boards and projects will be managed with structures using the GLA's own project management methodology, which is broadly consistent with PRINCE2. 25 Structures are in place for the Your London portal, although these are new and not yet bedded in. This is an example of an outward facing e-government project that is now a GLA owned programme. The Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) for the portal is the EDoCR. There is a Your London Advisory Group (YLAG) chaired by the EDoCR with representation from TfL, LDA, London Connects and London Boroughs. The role of YLAG is to advise on content and promote engagement across the partners involved. The terms of reference also say that it will review progress in delivering the annual development programme but it is not the programme board. The programme board is the Your London Steering Group (YLSG) also chaired by the EDoCR. Individual project boards will report to the programme team led by the e-services manager, in turn to the YLSG. It is not clear whether the YLSG will report progress on to the ITSB but any major issues will be escalated directly to the Mayor's Management Board (MMB). The terms of reference for YLAG do not mention the role of the YLSG.
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Recommendations R1 Ensure that the roles and reporting lines for groups involved in ongoing Your London portal development are clear and unambiguous.
26 The Single Non Emergency Number (SNEN) is also an Authority led project. This project is currently only at the proposal stage. The Authority is the accountable body for the proposal and is expected to lead delivery. There is a London Strategic Steering Board although it is understood that this is a 'virtual' group so far and has not yet met. There is also an officer level programme board. The Authority is the accountable organisation but the programme board is chaired by the Director of Information for the Metropolitan Police who acts as Senior Responsible Owner. (Neither the MAF nor the London Wave 2 Proposal identify a Senior Executive or Senior Responsible Owner for the programme.) For bid preparation phase the project manager was at London Connects but this will change for implementation. (At the time of the audit, the Home Office had cancelled the SNEN projects nationally. However, the Authority is hoping to make a case for London to be able to go ahead.) 27 Where another body is leading a development, albeit that it relates to an Authority priority, the processes through which the Authority manages and monitors delivery are not so well defined. The IT strategy does not set out structures for where another body is leading development although the e-government strategy board would still have some monitoring role. An example of this is the portal development up to launch and handover to the Authority.
Recommendations R2 Give explicit responsibility to a group (possibly the E-government Board) to monitor delivery of programmes where the Authority is not leading on delivery.
28 Up to the launch, London Connects ran the portal project. At the start of the development of the portal by London Connects, the Authority had little direct involvement or control. There was a portal board (London Portal Executive Group - similar to the YLAG) in an advisory role but the London Connects board had governance of the project. The London Connects board and the ALG (London Councils) Leaders' Committee approved projects. The Chief Executive collates reports from each project, such as the portal, into a 'traffic light' progress report and presents this to the London Connects Board.
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29 The London Connects board includes the Mayor's e-envoy and the GLA EDoCR. These and the Chief Executive of London Connects are also on the Authority e-government Steering Group and the London Connects' Chief Executive updates the board on progress. The Authority's ability to monitor therefore depended more upon the overlap of representation on the groups rather than a programme management structure. 30 For 2005/06, and following an internal audit report, the Authority decided to formalise the arrangement through a funding agreement between the Authority and London Connects. Under this arrangement London Connects makes regular progress report to the Authority and the Authority releases funds according to progress on delivery. A similar process has been used for London Connects' work on the SNEN bid. 31 The processes for Authority involvement and through which the Authority manages and monitors delivery are not well defined in other cases where the Authority is simply contributing to a project led elsewhere, even though this may support the Authority's aims. From the start of e-government, the Authority recognised the potential for smartcards to offer access to a wide range of services such as culture and leisure across London. TfL have very successfully introduced the Oyster as a pay as you go and travel card but this programme did not cover the possible wider uses and the Authority itself has never established a project to develop these uses. 32 Over the lifetime of the e-government agenda, London Connects has led on various pieces of work connected with smartcards but these have mostly been concerned with producing background information and research documents. Recognising the lack of practical progress made, London Connects has now formed the London Smartcard Executive Group (LSEG) to try to move forward on actual implementations. At the time of audit this group did not include either the Authority or TfL (although we understand subsequently that the GLA e-services manager will join the group) and there is no reporting line into the Authority other than through the mutual attendance of officers at the London Connects Board and the Authority e-government steering group.
Recommendations R3 The Authority should ensure that there is a means of monitoring progress of the London Connects smartcard project.
33 Using technology to promote open access to democracy has been another of the Authority's e-government aims. This has been taken forward through the Practical Democracy in London (PeDiL) project. PeDiL was initiated by the Authority and work commenced with an Invest to save bid (ISB) to ODPM. London Connects made the bid, which showed funding from London Connects, the Authority and the London Borough of Camden. There was originally also a commercial partner but this changed and Camden took on more responsibility for development.
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34 Both the ISB bid and project initiation document describe the project structure without allocating individual to roles and as the project continued, mainly as a joint GLA/Camden project, actual ownership is unclear. A GLA officer took the senior executive role on the project board, although project management was led from Camden, and London Connects was represented in the Senior User role. The project board received regular progress highlight reports and six-monthly reports were also made to the ODPM. The ODPM channelled funding through the Authority. Neither the Authority e-government strategy board nor the IT Strategy Board received highlight reports although the senior executive could brief the Head of GLA Technology Group who attends the IT Strategy Board.
Benefits management 35 At present, there is not a consistent and adequate process to ensure that the benefits of e-government projects are managed, monitored and realised. In the past, anticipated benefits have not always been clearly identified when projects commenced. The new IT strategy states that organisational benefits will now be identified for each programme and realisation of benefits will be captured, monitored and reported to the Technology Strategy Board, as part of the IT programme and project delivery and monitoring framework. However, the ITSB remit does not include pan-London projects. 36 Business case approval for most projects follows normal Authority procedures. A Mayor's Approval Form (MAF) is required to approve a project or to contribute funding to a project led elsewhere. The MAF may constitute the business case for a project. This is seen with the current phase of the Your London portal where a MAF gives approval for the programme and future individual portal projects will be subject to individual approval. For the SNEN project, the MAF that approved the formal Proposal also constitutes the business case and sets out future project management structures. It is essential that projects go through a formal business case approval partly because the business case is usually the first point at which benefits are documented. 37 The original project initiation document (PID) for the portal sets out twenty-three aims but gives no baselines, targets or measures for these. The PID also lists ten objectives for which means of measuring are suggested although no targets are given. For the current phase of development led by the Authority, the MAF does not identify beneficial outcomes other than unquantified efficiencies arising from bodies collaborating. It does not identify benefits for the organisations involved or users/citizens or businesses. However, there is a new project proposal form to be used for individual portal projects. This requires a summary of anticipated benefits and return on investment and is designed to support a scoring mechanism for approvals based on predetermined factors.
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38 The London Wave 2 Proposal for the SNEN includes a section on benefits and identifies a number of benefits nationally, for the London local authorities and for the police. Those relating to the police include targets and measures whereas the others are simply bullet points. Although the document states that the programme will increase efficiency of public services it says that cost is not the driver and no costed efficiencies are included in the benefits. If the programme receives a go-ahead Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will be devised during the implementation together with baseline data prior and post go live to help assess the realisation of the benefits. 39 The Invest to Save bid for PeDiL lists benefits to partners, members, citizens and boroughs. However, there are no baselines, measures or allocation of responsibility to achieve the benefits. A number of possible metrics to evaluate the project are identified which are mostly usage measures. The only potential savings identified are the sums that individual boroughs might spend to achieve the same functionality. The PID discusses benefits but does not actually identify any. One workstream of the project was to identify the measures through which the project may be evaluated. 40 If benefits are not clearly identified at the start of a project, along with how they will be measured, it is more difficult subsequently to demonstrate whether the desired outcomes have resulted, even if new functionality has been delivered successfully. 41 The suggested benefits measures in the PID for the original portal development have not been used to date and the new documentation does not set out monitoring arrangements. Benefits could be monitored at individual project level but projects typically wind down once functionality is delivered whereas benefits realisation necessarily continues beyond this. For this reason benefits management is usually seen as a programme management rather than project management function.
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42 The PeDiL project has been successful in delivering the intended functionality including on-line consultation and 'Casweb' website hosting for community organisations. However, the benefits are unclear. The workstream that focussed on measuring outcomes carried out evaluations and these show that the functionality can be used cost effectively to improve public engagement through consultation and use of Casweb. However, this was largely limited to usage related to LB Camden and it is insufficient to allow the Authority to make a judgement on whether benefits have been achieved. PeDiL is not included in either the ITSB progress reports or London Connects' traffic light reports. Take up of the project outputs has been put in doubt partly because London Connects is now promoting the Voice toolkit for community web sites rather than Casweb Voice includes some functionality supplied by Casweb but Casweb continues to be separately hosted by the Authority. Uncertainty around the propriety of boroughs funding councillors' political activity has also held up use of the Councillors' toolkit. Now that the project has concluded and the Authority resources involved are redeployed, there is a risk that the promotion needed to achieve the benefits will not happen. It is not clear who would make a decision to end support for Casweb and switch to Voice or, alternatively, to promote Casweb for pan-London use.
Recommendations R4 Review the status of the PeDiL outputs and decide whether to promote PeDiL or switch to Voice.
43 Without a clear benefits management lifecycle approach, operating at programme level, and covering all three streams identified in the IT strategy, the Authority is unlikely to realise fully the benefits and outcomes of its involvement in e-government projects.I
Recommendations R5 Business cases should include benefits, quantified wherever possible, along with baselines and metrics. Responsibility for realising benefits should be allocated as part of programme management.
I An e-government benefits self assessment tool can be found on the Improvement network at http://www.improvementnetwork.gov.uk/imp/core/page.do?pageId=1032808
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Appendix 1 – Benefits identification framework 1 To help identify benefits from a project it may be useful include a formal benefits identification process eg through a workshop of stakeholders. Using a standard framework such as shown in the table below to help the analysis to cover all potential benefits.
Benefit types Legislative compliance Improved asset management Increased satisfaction Benefits for staff Support for corporate objectives Improved information Quality of service Cashable Improved planning Non-cashable Improved performance management Benefit recipients Service users Staff Corporate body Stakeholders Partners
2 Benefits can be scored, perhaps with different weightings applied to the various headings, so that an overall benefits score is obtained. This is useful in prioritising between different projects competing for limited resources.
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Appendix 2 – Action plan Page Recommendation Priority Responsibility Agreed Comments Date no. 1 = Low 2 = Med 3 = High 10 R1 Ensure that the roles and reporting 2 Janet Worth Yes These have already been clarified. October lines for groups involved in ongoing 2006 Your London portal development are clear and unambiguous. 10 R2 Give explicit responsibility to a group 3 Janet Worth Agreed in The e-government board has responsibility for non- October (possibly the E-government Board) to part portal projects. The Portal Advisory Group has 2006 monitor delivery of programmes responsibility for portal projects. where the Authority is not leading on delivery. 11 R3 The Authority should ensure that 2 Katherine Kane Yes We now have a representative on the Steering November there is a means of monitoring Group. 2006 progress of the London Connects smartcard project. 14 R4 Review the status of the PeDiL 2 No This project has been taken forward by Camden. outputs and decide whether to promote PeDiL or switch to Voice. 14 R5 Business cases should include 3 Janet Worth Yes This happens as part of the assessment process April 2007 benefits, quantified wherever and we are revising the bid timetable for capital possible, along with baselines and projects in line with the revenue budget process. metrics. Responsibility for realising benefits should be allocated as part of programme management.
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