Councils could save £5 per transaction using personalised web channels
August 12, 2010, London - Local authorities could harness their existing IT investments to set up citizen-centric service portals and websites that deliver savings of up to £5 per individual transaction, says Civica (www.civica.co.uk), a market leader in specialist systems and outsourcing services that help organisations improve service delivery and efficiency.
The company says that councils are continuing to invest sensibly in re-engineering core business systems as well as in IT infrastructures for citizen-focused sites. It says these advances now need to be combined with web-based front end platforms to drive much wider take-up of personalised online local services - and achieve drastically lower service delivery costs.
Civica says Socitm’s studies have suggested minimum savings of £4.83 per transaction from moving services from face-to-face to online.¹
The company’s comments add weight to the call from Socitm president Jos Creese for personalisation of web interactions by public sector organisations at the recent Building Perfect Council Websites conference in London.
David Roots, Civica’s managing director for local government, believes that the enforced rethink of public finances is making personalised online channels a more compelling proposition: “Large scale adoption of self-administered online services could offer local authorities a practical way to maintain their services while cutting costs steeply in the financial squeeze.
“Councils have made good progress on modernising business systems – personalising local services over the web is a logical extension of that strategy which will help make optimum use of their existing IT investments.”
However, David Roots cautions that councils need to commit to these strategies to make a step change in cost planning for local services by the next financial year: “Many of the elements for online services are in place but local authorities will rapidly need to either drive wider take-up of citizen-focused websites, or connect up front line customer service and back office systems, if they are to gain the critical mass needed for lower cost services in the future.”
He believes that online innovations could bring rapid results while helping support local communities: “Authorities are big repositories of information on local matters that are the key to building direct services to citizens while maintaining community cohesion. Councils are going to have to progress real innovations to maintain services in this emerging age of austerity. Moving appropriate departmental services over to web portals could be the best and the quickest way to resolve the tough ‘service resilience-cost savings’ challenge now facing local government and its partners.”
Notes to editors
¹ Research into online transaction costs has resulted in wide variations in costs. Research by Socitm suggests a range of savings when moving face-to-face transaction to the web, ranging from a minimum of £4.83 to a maximum of £9.56. See discussions at:
http://greatemancipator.com/2009/07/09/channel-accounting/