Local Services portal

FROM: Paul Chapman

What NEED does this meet?
This has a two fold need

1. To allow a low cost distribution of videos about Council Services

2. To allow residents to find out contact numbers and services

3. To allow people wanting to move into an area to find out about the area.

A third need is to allow residents to fill in forms for things like housing benefit, Council tax etc. However, this would require some fairly extensive security elements

What is the APPROACH?
If you've seen movies.com then this is what I'm thinking about for local services. The movies.com motion shows the video element. These are streamed videos, instead of being movie reviews and news it would be information about local services.

Councils should be able to register on the site as providers and a standard interface based on XML.

Eventually if full agreement can be obtained from councils then the site could become self financing by charging councils for various transactions such as council tax applications, housing benefits etc.

What are the BENEFITS to people?
Primary benefit is that residents can find about an area without having to navigate a councils own site which in many ways do not have a standard navigation, and in some cases may not have a standard set of information.

Councils would benefit because the way they provide services would have a 'shop window'

Better ways of providing services can be shown and councils that may not have thought of can see how other councils have solved problems.

Videos with an educational/informative element are cheaper to distribute over the web

What is the COMPETITION?
A service like this has been set up in the US which later failed. Partly because the technology at the time was in it's infancy. The emergence of XML as a standard communications technology means that most technical problems can be solved. In many ways it would be easier to implement the non transactional elements before introducing the more complex chargable transactional element.

Here are some of the US versions

http://access.wa.gov/siteinfo/

http://www.fedworld.gov/

http://www.firstgov.gov/index.shtml

http://www.governmentguide.com/main.adp

In Singapore they have http://www.ecitizen.gov.sg/

The nearest thing in the UK is http://www.ukonline.gov.uk/Home/Homepage/fs/en but this is in no ways as detailed as I am considering. This tells you more about how government works rather than telling you what government does.

The closest thing to what I am thinking of is these two US Sites;

http://www.firstgov.gov/index.shtml

http://www.governmentguide.com/main.adp

What BUDGET & LOGISTICS are required?
Implementation should be in three phases;

1. Information portal.

2. Video streaming of Information

3. Transactional elements of council requirements such as filling in council tax forms, claims for single occupancy refunds, etc;

Generally the information portal elements and the video streaming can use existing technology so it should not be too difficult.

The third phase however needs the agreement with councils so the major problem is political rather than technical.

Phases 1 and 2 would have a low cost as they use existing technology or technology which can be developed comparitively quickly. The third phase would need the agreement of councils and negotiation on the structure of the XML documents which the site would use to report transactions to client councils. However since they should be used to the service by then this should be easier.