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E-government  and the challenge of information management

Many local authorities are turning to special Content Management Systems (CMS) to ensure that they achieve their e-government objectives.


E-government involves three key strands: e-service delivery, e-governance and e-democracy. Delivering each of these strands requires that councils have the right kind of technology that can manage and update the sheer volume of information that  is needed.
 
Many local authorities are struggling to maintain their websites. Out of date material, poor control over design and navigation and bottlenecks caused by the time taken for webmasters to update content and graphics are common problems in organisations where there is a ‘manual’ approach to the management of sites.
 
However, increasingly LGOs are turning to Content Management systems in order to manage their information and achieve their objectives, many local authorities are purchasing content and document management systems that have been specially designed to cater for e-government requirements.
 
The great advantage of a Content Management system is that it enables staff to update information, without the need for a knowledge of computer languages such as HTML.
 
One supplier of such a system is Nottingham based EIBS, which has developed a content management solution for public sector organisations, called ‘EasySite’.
 
‘EasySite’ has been adopted by a number of local authorities across the UK as a means of managing their websites and content.
One of the first local authorities to adopt this system was Leicester City Council. The site is now one of the most comprehensive in the country, thanks to the fact that it has over 250 editors across the council who are able to regularly add content to it.
 
Leicester’s ‘EasySite’ system has recently been further upgraded to meet the new standards for accessibility. Under the conditions of the Disability Discrimination Act, all websites now have to be accessible for people with disabilities. The new site also utilises Unicode, which enables the translators at the City Council to enter information onto the site in the range of languages used by the community, such as Urdu, Gudjarati, Punjabi and Hindi, without the need for HTML programming.
 
Leicester City Council’s web manager – Steve Scott, believes that the content management system enables the council to keep the website continually up to date.  “It is very straightforward to use,” said Steve. “It is very popular with editors, because you don’t need to have any technical knowledge. Similarly, staff who do have expertise in web editing are happy to use it, because it also has a number of advanced facilities.
 
“The website has also proven to be a winner with the general public, with over 5 million hits per month.  People have also used the site to vote for things such as the dates of the new school year and other important issues."
 
EIBS has also recently developed special Document Management modules for EasySite, which will enable councils to catalogue any information that they hold.
Document Management systems complement CMS systems as they enable an unlimited number of documents to be captured, stored, indexed and easily retrieved. 

With a Document Management Solution there is actually no need for paper based filing, or the manual retrieval of documents. Any type of document can be uploaded into the system and retrieved easily through a search engine, from most web-enabled devices.
 
When Document Management Systems are combined with Content Management Systems, the result is an extremely powerful and versatile ‘e-Gov’ solution tool that can provide time saving solutions to data management and also the latest requirement to provide information on request under the Freedom of Information Act.
 
To help local authorities to implement e-government and read about best practice, a new website has been developed by the Local E-Government Standards Body (LEGSB) – www.legsb.gov.uk
 
Funded by ODPM the website provides information and guidance to all councils about the standards, with the aim of enabling local authorities, their suppliers and partners to work together to improve their services.
 
Through the new site, local authority employees can also interact with each other through the integrated discussion forum, while members can browse and share thoughts, ideas and information which will form a comprehensive overview about the issues and solutions surrounding e-government.
 
Other features of the LEGSB site include a repository of standards, known as the ‘CUSTODIAN’, which contains information from a variety of sources. This information can be retrieved by the user through searching by categories and sub-categories by themes. The articles are split into several sections, mirroring the mechanisms used by the local e-government standards body, such as guidance, best practice, case studies, consultation, standards and archives.
 
David Bolton, the Sales and Marketing Director for EIBS believes that although the push towards e-government has been hard work for LGOs and solutions providers like EIBS, the benefits are becoming obvious: “We have worked with a number of local authorities over the last few years and by installing content management solutions, they are now able to manage information efficiently and effectively.
 
“These systems are also very interactive and we have developed special feedback forms and ‘voting’ modules for a number of councils to enable the views of the community to be heard.
 
“Our clients are regularly telling us about other features that they would like to see in our systems in the future, many of which we have developed or are in the process of developing.
 
“I have no doubt that over time e-government will become increasingly more important both to the community and to local government organisations and I think that we have only just begun to explore the vast potential of this area of technology.”