Government IT systems support the new role of regional offices

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is adapting its systems to suit the expanded role of its nine regional units

The network of regional government offices run by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) is using technology to modernise working practices and to support the growing role of the department.

The nine regional centres, overseen by the ODPM’s Regional Co-ordination Unit (RCU), are responsible for monitoring local-level implementation of central government policies.

Since 1997, the role of the regional government offices has changed. Rather than simply delivering funding into the community, they have become the main source of government information on the way policies and initiatives have translated into the regions.

In their new role, the nine offices are central government’s eyes and ears in the regions, refining and fine-tuning policy, and observing the way that different initiatives and funding help in local communities.

The technology change programme is part of an overall business process reorganistion to reflect the agency’s wider role, RCU head of IT Andy Bentley told Computing.

‘The technology challenge is taking second place to the business challenge,’ he says.

‘What you find now is that various agencies, including the development agencies, do the sharp-end transacting of funds, and government offices have moved more towards an intelligence and strategic policy-related remit.'

The RCU’s IT effort has had to change to reflect this new role, and to keep pace with the growing number of big government departments that also require
its services.

Initially, the unit worked mainly for three major government departments. Its greatly expanded remit now includes more than 10 departments, including the Home Office, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Work and Pensions.

Alongside the RCU’s more complex stakeholders, the unit needs to serve a much broader and more varied business base, says Bentley.

‘There is a massive diversity challenge for us in terms of the types of information we need to assimilate to fine-tune our business,’ he says. ‘With areas such as web sites we have to be a lot smarter these days.’

The technology challenge is one aspect of a larger corporate awareness programme, which includes projects such as the newly unified web site – see box.

The IT team at the RCU has a lot of ground to make up in assessing which technologies are available and which are relevant to the organisation’s needs. It must then establish an effective business case that communicates to staff across the country what the benefits are.

Technology changes have also had to take into account the big alterations in the business attitudes of staff in regional government offices.

It is a considerable cultural challenge to engage all staff, not just the IT people, says Bentley.

Each regional office has its own culture and priorities, all of which need to be taken into account when changes are made.

‘Because previously there was no corporate agenda, you have to map out what you are trying to achieve for the business, and that requires a lot of encouragement and training,’ he says.

Changing and working with all these cultures is the most immediate challenge for the RCU IT team, says Bentley.

‘Business integration is the best challenge of all,’ he says. ‘You can have all the customer information you like, but unless you use it to shape the way
that the business targets customers’ needs, your investment is not as well fashioned as it ought to be.

‘The challenge in terms of integration is about how we use this information to make the business more effective.’

Looking to the future, Bentley says he wants to look at projects such as a customer relationship management system.

‘We have to be a lot smarter,’ he says. ‘We are looking at the potential for customer relationship management and trying to tie up back-end intelligence through the front-end web site.’

He is also looking forward to the point where he can put the whole regional office infrastructure on an on-demand footing.

‘I would like to stop owning infrastructure and to buy services,’ he said. ‘In other words, I want to have a big pipe for my organisation, connected to someone who provides me with all the applications and services I want.’

Bentley wants IT to become a commodity to be ordered according to the organisation’s budget and business requirements, picking off what is needed and receiving it as a packaged service.

‘Such systems solve all contractual and purchasing difficulties, and save time spent on the re-investments needed to keep up with technology,’ he says.

‘Think of it as being like an AOL user,’ he adds. ‘You don’t worry what servers you are running on, and what version of this, that or the other; you just buy an email service.’

Government IT systems support the new role of regional offices

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is adapting its systems to suit the expanded role of its nine regional units

A central system for the Regional Co-ordination Unit
In the past, the nine regional government offices co-ordinated by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister each used different platforms, technologies and publishing
methods to create their web sites.

The ODPM’s Regional Co-ordination Unit (RCU) has established a single central system to contain all nine variations, and to create a common look and feel for the regional offices.

To make sure that all the 3,500 staff in the government offices were fully involved with the new web site system, the RCU IT team organised a series of business forums.

RCU head of IT Andy Bentley says that consultation with all the staff involved was a major factor in carrying out the successful launch of a new unified web site structure, created by content management systems company Mediasurface.

Internal consultations were held in each region with its director, as well as minor business and technology staff, about the strategic direction and what they needed the web site to communicate.

‘We wanted to talk to those who had been engaged in the publishing effort so far to see what we need to do and where we needed to go,’ Bentley told Computing.