Impact

- Lower set-up costs have been achieved through shared licenses, products being developed once and shared many times. Partners have been able to develop services that they could not afford and share reusable components e.g. an appointment booking module, a real-time air quality plug-in module.

- Collective procurement economies e.g. search engine software acquired for partners at 12% of the original cost by buying as a partnership (partners could not afford to buy this software individually). A DiTV license was procured for a group of partners for a total of £60k instead of the individually procured licenses that would have totaled £250k.

- Front-line Service economies e.g. one doctor’s surgery using the e@SY developed doctor appointment booking system has seen its average of missed appointment fall from 13% to less than ½ % for those appointments booked online. To put this in context, the NHS loses £180m per year through missed doctors appointments, with each appointment costs approximately £18. One surgery now accepts 44% of its bookings online massively increasing efficiency and freeing resource, not to mention 24/7 convenience for patients using the service. The service has been so successful that it is now being rolled out nationally and e@SY has been asked to supply a national Repeat Prescriptions Service.

- Services that have made a difference to many peoples lives and which have included them in the digital age. Greater accessibility and convenience for clients without prohibitive costs. For example, on cable networks there is no additional cost at all and interactive services can be accessed 24/7. The elderly and infirm do not need to leave their homes. As another example, people seeking jobs request a callback at a time that suits them - the JobCentre pays for the telephone call, searches for jobs, fills in the application and arranges transport for any suitable interview (a complete service) at no cost to the job seeker. These are just a few examples. The Jobs Hotline service also achieved a 10-fold increase in take-up.

Track record of sharing

e@SY worked with the University of Sheffield to document and share best practice and also collaborated with some of the leading universities across Europe, exploring social inclusion and the digital divide.

Lessons learnt

Lesson 1 - Effective Partnership. The partnership is the cornerstone for delivering citizen-centric, rather than supplier focused eGovernment services. Managing the partnership is key to the sustainability of the project as a whole, but also to the success of the individual services provided - the value of which has to be continually re-examined.

Lesson 2 - Exploiting New Technology. Engaging innovators, managing rare technical third-party resources, removing technical roadblocks, turning concept into reality, exploiting third-party IT systems, building imaginative solutions, etc.

Lesson 3 - Branding & Marketing. Learning the commercial aspects of promoting new services and a brand, which is not a traditional strength of the public sector. There are many lessons regarding what to market, when and to whom, using what channel, and getting the feedback that allows the services to be created, evolve, or be retired.

Lesson 4 - Programme & Project Management. The fact there were external dependencies on suppliers and the national project, meant that there had to be more flexibility than usual. Where different levels of administrations are involved with different objectives and timescales even more flexibility is required than usual.