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The Connected Government Framework for Local and Regional Government

Enriching the Citizen Connection

11416_MS_Citizen 8/2/06 4:03 pm Page 2

Local government plays a vital rolein all our lives. Whether it is theprovision of education, housingand recreational facilities orcaring for the most vulnerablein our society, local governmentprovides many of the foundationson which our communities are built.In an age of increasing expectationsfor good customer service, localgovernments face challenges notonly creating simple usablesolutions for complex servicesbut also ensuring they reach thewhole of the community, not justthose with online capabilities.

Local government is facing increasing pressure todo more for their communities. With mandatesfrom Central Government and ageingpopulations putting additional strains on supportservices in many parts of the European Union,all set against a background of limited or evenreducing levels of resources and investment,it’s a seemingly impossible conundrum.However, at Microsoft, we believe technologycan help local councils deliver better quality,more cost-effective services even within thesetight budgetary constraints.

Our strategy is to work in partnership with localand regional government to ensure that ourtechnology products and partner solutionsmeet their immediate and longer term needs.Our initiative for achieving this is the ConnectedGovernment Framework (CGF) for Local andRegional Government.

Our objective with the framework is to providelocal and regional government with a clear pictureof where Microsoft technology can enable yourorganisations to deliver the transformationneeded to support increasing citizen expectationsin a managed, controlled and cost-effective way.

The framework consolidates our existingsolutions for e-government around somecommon business challenges and ensuresthat our next wave of developments andinnovation continue to meet expectations.

This document is designed to explain theframework in more detail and in particular ourstrategy for enabling rich citizen connectionsthrough a set of resources known as Digital Cities.

Digital Cities is the name given to a projectdeveloped in Spain, aimed at supporting theadvance of technology into the municipalities.This was developed specifically to enabledelivery of rich citizen connection servicesacross multiple access channels, which canultimately affect the quality and effectivenessof connected services across local and regional governments.

Welcome

Jan MuehlfeitVice President,Public Sector,Microsoft EMEA


The Connected Government Framework is a platform which helps local councils sustain communities while operating in a cost-efficientand compliant manner.

…and the platform that makes it happen

The vision for enriching the citizen connection…

Citizen Connection

1 Constituents can access their personal servicepage on the council Web site showing status oftheir profiles, service relationships and alsothose of children and parents. The sameinformation is supported by the council callcentre and also for making personal visits.

2 Parking meters accept credit cards andauthenticate in real time using Microsoftsecure communication technologies.

3 Information kiosks in libraries and councilbuildings are integrated into the councils’ end-to-end IT systems making it easy to publishinformation on the fly.

4 Swipecard payments can be made at kiosksat the pool, recycling plant, library andother council facilities using Microsoftsecure technologies.

5 Library makes community documents, bookreference data and resources available online.Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tagsintegrated into the database using Microsofttechnologies enable borrowers andcustomers to self check-out books.

6 Microsoft Dynamics CRM enables thedelivery of business processes from a singleconsistent repository supporting a singlereal-time citizen view.

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E-Democracy and Inclusion

7 Live Web casts of council meetings areeasily enabled through Microsoftcommunication technologies.

8 Council Web site shows minutes of committeemeetings and enables citizen search throughrelevant documents on local matters.

9 Local communities can have the councilhost their websites and gather andpublish newsletters and air importantlocal announcements.

10 Citizens can lobby their elected officialsand petition online views affectingtheir community.

11 Council can address specific groups ofcitizens, older people, youth and businessesthrough online forums and communities,and citizens can participate in online votes,and polls.

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“The future of public services has to use technology togive citizens choice, with personalised services designedaround their needs, not the needs of the provider.”

Tony BlairPrime Minister, United Kingdom


“ Today all of the public servicesare within 20 metres of thecustomer service desk. On theWeb I want them to be just asclose to our citizens as if theywere in the town hall, only 24/7,instead of 8 hours x 5 days.”

Luc JolieCEO, Aalters, Belgium

Providing for a rich citizenconnection to council services isa necessity in an era when citizenexpectations, primarily throughtheir interactions with the privatesector (such as bank and onlineretail stores), have increaseddramatically. This offers excitingand new ways for local governmentto drive awareness and adoptionof its services to citizens andbusinesses. There are opportunitiesto explore innovative, costeffective citizen connectionmethods and to transform theperception that citizens have ofthe council, develop newcommunity engagement andconsultation strategies andimprove social inclusion andservice uptake.

In order to understand what is meant bycreating rich citizen connections, we need to understand what is being asked for by our citizens. As expectations from citizens arerising, so is the pressure on councils to workmore effectively as corporate organisations.They want simple processes, less paperworkand fewer interactions. Citizens expecttransparent communication betweengovernment departments, and coordination ofservices across agencies. It’s not unreasonablefor citizens to expect:

• Access to a service or query through thechannel of their choice

• This service to be available at a time thatsuits them

• For the request to be dealt with at the firstpoint of contact

• Their request to be dealt with by the rightperson, quickly and efficiently

• The council to present itself as “oneorganisation” to the citizen

• Council to hold accurate and up to dateinformation about the citizen

• For the council to treat the citizen withrespect and in a professional manner,whatever channel is used.

Citizen connection

Building a true, consistent citizen connectionis a pre-requisite for improving services tocitizens. Providing multiple channels tointeract with government, automating services,and personalising interaction gives individualsand businesses more choice and greatercontrol. However, as the number of accesschannels increases so does the complexity ofdelivering the service vision outlined. Moredisconnected channels, support staff and ITsystems only serves to increase the problemsof poor customer focus and uncontrolled costs.

Technology has too often been applied tocustomer service projects as an after thoughtor as a tactical solution to meet one particularchannel or team’s needs, but now technologymust be used to bridge these challenges.

Technology can play a pivotal role in enablingthis cultural shift within local government –away from organisations that are focused onmanaging and maintaining a complex internalstructure to ones that put the citizen at theheart of the process and providing supportservices designed to deliver that objective.

Microsoft has developed the CGF to simplifyand expedite the transformation needed tomake this a reality. The framework will enablea council to align technology deployments tobusiness objectives and fundamentals, and itcan be deployed in a modular fashion to reducethe impact of change on the organisation.

Real World Problems

Challenges


Innovative service delivery

Delivering a rich, varied and consistent citizenconnection is not just about improving levelsof customer service. Fundamentally it is abouttransforming how the citizen interactions aredealt with, and not just the quality of theengagement itself. Delivering services that arecentred around the citizens’ needs, rather thanthe business of government, is the primaryobjective for embracing a rich citizenconnection strategy.

Correctly applied technology can enhancethe citizen connection in a number of ways,namely that:

• Information provided to citizens andbusinesses is accurate and up to date

• Information and services are availablethrough all access channels

• Transactions with citizens are seamless and automated

• Processes are modelled and deliveredaround citizen needs

• Investment in people and technology ismaximised by consolidating repeatable services

• Costs are manageable and predictable

• Employees have the tools to deliver theirroles effectively

• Significant reductions in fraud and error are possible by closing the processing gap between front line services and backoffice processing.

“ With the launch of these newservices (e-government), thegovernment of Macedonia isproviding our citizens withimportant access to the main services of the publicadministration. We are happy to have worked with Microsoftto develop these tools and I believe that this will bringimportant benefits to thecitizens of Macedonia,”

Vlado BuckovskiPrime Minister,Republic of Macedonia.

“We make errorsas we don’t have a

full picture of what ishappening.”

“It’s frustrating notbeing able to complete

things first time.”

“We are notconsistent in the way we

engage citizens.”

“We can’t seeall activities related to

the citizen.”

“We deliver servicesin a disjointed

fashion.”

“Its impossiblefor people to track

issues across variouschannels.”

“All this duplicationmust cost us dearly.”

“We have nostandard processes

and forms across thebusiness.”


“ Now citizens can use services 24hours a day, 7 days a week. Withone password, they can use a lotof applications all with the samelook and feel. It’s very easy forthem to communicate with thelocal government.”

Bernd LehmannIT Manager, City of Siegburg,Germany

In this section we will focus onhow technology, and specificallyMicrosoft software, can supportthe delivery of a series of richcitizen connections throughmultiple access channels. Today, the majority of directcitizen interactions occur throughthe customer contact centre orover the Internet. Regardless ofwhether the interaction is initiatedand completed over the Internet,face-to-face or over the phone,some basic principles need to be understood and adhered to, if councils are to achieve highlevels of customer satisfaction.

Single citizen view

Microsoft’s commitment to delivering richcitizen connection services is demonstrated bythe development of the Digital Cities platform.This enables a council to quickly develop aportal which allows them to interact withcitizens, businesses and other local andnational agencies.

This solution enables councils to build andmaintain a single view of citizens and developthat relationship throughout the variousinteractions that may occur. This is vital ifservices within the council are to be trulyjoined up, accurate and up-to-date.

Technology, coupled to flexible businessprocesses, allows the business of the council to be transparent to the citizen. This will lead ultimately to higher levels of satisfactionand improved efficiency through smarterworking practices and deeply integratedbusiness processes.

Making it Work

Putting it into Practise

Citizen – Practise


Shared deployment

The Digital Cities platform enables councilsto share a single infrastructure supportingmultiple portals, thereby allowing a number of smaller councils to reduce their costs andshare expertise.

This means that a single deployment of thesolution can effectively be shared across anumber of councils, reducing the costs andensuring consistency in the way that theservices are offered.

Extensible transactional services

The Digital Cities platform includes a set ofcommon transactions to enable the rapidprovision of functions to a council’s citizens,businesses and civil servants. These can also beextended over time as the council builds newfunctionality and creates new services.

Consistent service experience

By using the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform,modified for government services, councils areable to provide a more consistent approach,whether over the Internet, face-to-face or overthe phone.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform enablesbusiness processes to be captured andapplied many times over, and its’ seamlessintegration with desktop applications allowsgreater ease of use for council staff

Ease of integration

The Digital Cities platform has been builtto enable the fast implementation of agovernment portal solution. It is based onstandard infrastructure components and uses open standards to leverage existinginvestments and evolve as new businessrequirements come on stream.

“ Twenty percent of the battle isCRM, the key is to get integrationin the first place, then put theapplication in.”

Simon RileyDirector of ICT,Hatton Borough Council,United Kingdom


Specific Customer Experiences

Real World Examples

“The Digirnet project provides a complete setof e-government services to municipalitieswith less than 5000 inhabitants, and improvesthe performance and productivity of theirorganisations, allowing them to interoperatewith other government agencies and deliver24/7 services through multiple channels.”

Mr. Jaume Torramadé i Ribas,Vice-president of Girona Provincial Councils

Business issue

The county of Girona, Spain, identified that itneeded to make improvements in productivitywithin and between its councils across theregion. This meant focusing on staff productivity,lowering costs and bringing service deliverycloser to citizens and businesses.

Solution

The project provides a platform where 221councils will have citizen, civil servant andbusiness portals that will allow them to interactand integrate with each other to supportimproved services for citizens and businesses.

Benefits

• Shared platform allowed the county to enjoya considerable reduction in the total cost ofownership, operation and maintenance costs

• Productivity improvements because ofreduced mistakes

• Better interaction between the councils andmore efficient interactions with its citizens.

County of Girona, Spain

“The breadth of the solution enables us todeliver rapidly new functionality to citizensand users as required, without significantdevelopment or support costs being incurred.”

Geoff Connell,Deputy Head of ICT, ICT Division, London Borough of Newham

Business issue

The borough council’s existing system couldn’tprovide the flexibility or functionality that theircustomers and staff were demanding. With this in mind, they were looking for aplatform that provided the business withconfidence to concentrate on the cultural andbusiness transformation issues rather than thelimitations of a particular technology solution.

Solution

The Microsoft Local Authority Portal Solutionwas deployed based on the ease of integrationwith existing systems and strong compliancewith Local Government and Accessibilitystandards. It also enabled staff members tocreate content securely for the Web site.

Benefits

Improved service delivery by the council to itscitizens with the ability to:

• Send SMS messages to its customers

• Personalise services

• Authenticate users

• Provide self-help

• Offer high quality integrated e-forms

• Offer accurate and useful search.

London Borough of Newham, UK


“This is a very complex project, the equivalentof 20 or 30 mid-size projects. The mainchallenge with the project is not money orscalability, it’s time. We needed to be very fastwith our development work, and theMicrosoft .NET Framework is by far the besttool for rapidly developing and deployingapplications that have a lot of Web interfacing.”

José Pedro Vincente,Project Manager,Vale do Sousa Digital

Business issue

Early efforts to promote the informationsociety in the region were limited and lackedcoordination; e-government was never seen asa priority. Youth unemployment is a major issuein the region, and local government has thoughta greater push towards a knowledge-basedeconomy and information society could help tomodernise local industry, improve qualificationsand increase job opportunities.

Solution

The Vale do Sousa Digital Project is re-engineering back office processes andrearranging municipal front offices into singlecontact points accessible through multiplechannels. Separate portals for citizens, tourismand enterprises provide a gateway to the regionand all six municipalities.

Benefits

• Simplifies interactions with municipalities

• Greater transparency

• Decision-making support

• Enables rapid development

• Lays foundation of information society.

Public Services, Region of Vale do Sousa, Portugal

“Without agile production and component re-usability we couldn’t have achieved theintegration we have. We’re really excited aboutthis approach. It enables us to do everythingthe Council wants, only more effectively andefficiently. What’s more, the Authority has aplatform that is responsive and canaccommodate our service needs.”

Debbie Haigh,Business Development Manager, ICT, Kent County Council

Business issue

Kent County Council (KCC) was tasked withcompleting its e-government targets, includinghaving all applicable services electronicallyenabled by the end of 2005. KCC also knewthat they had to provide quality end-to-endsolutions that were integrated with front andback office applications to achieve their goal.

Solution

KCC is fully committed to its solutions, providingfull front and back office integration for 57 keybusiness processes. They chose Microsoft’s .NETarchitecture, which allowed them to adopt aservice-oriented approach.

Benefits

• Performance can be monitored throughautomated electronic workflow triggers

• Processes can be more tightly integrated,improving efficiency

• Predefined services once built can then beeasily re-used.

Kent County Council, UK


The citizen connection platform consists of a collectionof technology solutions andbest practices designed to enable local government todeliver highly effective citizencontact portals. In addition,Microsoft partners havedeveloped a series of advanced offerings that extend and enhance this platform.

• Citizen Portal: Institutional Web presence bymeans of an easily adaptable Internet portal.This includes pre-configured templates, forums,online citizen participation surveys, etc

• Employee Portal: Collaboration and municipalintranet portal integrating with internalapplications, thereby realising increases inemployee productivity through joint workingand process automation

• Local SMB (Small and Medium Business)Portal: A Web presence for small andmedium-sized companies that can supporte-commerce capabilities.

Microsoft software

Digital Cities is based on the followingenterprise Microsoft Server Software:

• Microsoft® Windows Server 2003

• Microsoft® SharePoint Portal Server 2002

• Microsoft® SQL Server 2000

• Microsoft® Exchange 2003

• Microsoft® Live Communications Server 2005

• Microsoft® ISA Server 2004

• Microsoft® Customer RelationshipManagement System.

Key customer benefits:

• Developed on Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) products

• Supports open standards

• Cost effective and flexible way to deliver arich citizen connection

• Highly scaleable and supportable to thebroad Microsoft partner community

• Integrates closely with your business systemsto deliver seamless e-services to citizens,businesses and employees.

Solution Summary

Digital Cities components

Digital Cities is a packaged and replicablesolution comprising the following components:

• Reusable Web elements (Web Parts) designedto offer specific functions for the localadministration through the portal

• Microsoft® SharePoint templates as examplesof portal design

• Set-up tools enable the necessary automaticportal installation and configuration

• Extensive and detailed documentation suchas the installation and architecture guide

• Operations and disaster-recovery guide,development and extensibility guide

• Virtual machine with demo portalspopulated with multi-lingual content.

Digital Cities – Architecture


Partner Solution MarketPlace (PSMP) aims to help public sector buyers to identify and getin touch with qualified software developersand solution providers. Simultaneously, it alsoprovides a showcase for independent softwarevendors (ISVs) and system integrators (SIs) topresent proven and bespoke solutions targetedtowards the public sector IT decision makers.All of which is designed to help reach goalsfaster and maximise return on IT investment.

The following list of partners have contributed tothe framework by building around the Microsoftplatform described in the document or providekey solutions for local and regional government:

1eEurope www.1eeurope.ch

Aggresso www.agresso.com

Artemis www.artemiscorp.com

Econet www.econet.de

ESRI www.esri.com

Gasso Gestio Local www.gassogl.com

Getronics www.getronics.com

GoPro www.gopro.net

Hewlett Packard www.hp.com

K2 www.k2workflow.com

Logica CMG www.logicacmg.com

Meridio www.meridio.com

Optevia www.optevia.com

PC Ware www.pc-ware.com

Solidsoft www.solidsoft.com

Visionware www.visionwareplc.com

Our PartnersThe Microsoft Public Sector PartnerSolutions MarketPlace (PSMP) is aone-stop, online, interactive toolto assist public sector buyers toidentify the right solutions fortheir needs. The MarketPlace isan ambitious effort to create anecosystem of technologyproviders – system integrators(SIs), independent softwarevendors (ISVs), and consulting andtraining firms that understand theneeds of governments andgovernmental agencies.

www.partnermarketplace.com

World Class Solutions for the Public Sector

Partner Solution MarketPlace


For further information visit the Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa Web site:

www.microsoft.com/emea/government

© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, the Microsoft logo, Your potential. Our passion., SharePoint and Windows Server are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United Statesand/or other countries. All other trademarks are held by their respective companies.


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