Everyone in the UK is to be given a personalised webpage for accessing Government services within a year as part of a plan to save billions of pounds by putting all public services online, Gordon Brown is to announce.

The Prime Minister has previously hailed the potential for the internet to slash the costs of delivering services by reducing paper forms, face-to-face contact with officials, postage, phone calls and building costs.

He is now set to use a speech on Monday to unveil plans to give every voter a unique identifier allowing them to apply for school places, book medical appointments, claim benefits, get a new passport, pay council tax or register a car.

Within another three years, the Times reported, the secure site would include a Facebook-style interactive service allowing people to ask medical advice of their doctor or consult their children’s teachers.

Read article

In the 1990s onward, we heard plenty of discussion around “eGovernment,” and how it would put elected officials and public administrators in touch with their constituencies.

Here it is, more than a decade later in the eGovernment era. Do you feel any more in touch with your elected officials and public administrators? Well, I can fire off an email, instead of writing a letter or calling. And I can apply for a fishing license online. And I can download tax forms from IRS.gov.

But eGovernment did not live up to its promise of increasing citizen participation. eGovernment made government a satisfactory online service provider, but can information technology elevate government to the next level — to that of a forum for participation and information sharing? Can the social networking wave that is emerging help bring about more responsive government organizations?

A new report out of Grant Thornton and FreeBalance says the potential is there, for a number of reasons. “Social networking provides governments with a new paradigm: knowledge release rather than knowledge control. This Government 2.0 approach can harness government knowledge to improve results.”

- Read article
- Download white paper

A new report published jointly today by the British, Danish and Dutch governments challenges the way European institutions make decisions and argues that smart EU regulation must mean that businesses and citizens are put at the heart of all European policy-making.

“The report, “Smart Regulation: A cleaner, fairer and more competitive EU” addresses this and shows how smart EU regulation — that improves consultation with “end-users”, such as businesses and consumers, throughout the legislative process — will support growth and recovery in the current economic climate, maximise the European Union’s social and environmental benefits, while reducing burdens and costs.”

Note the use of the term “end-user“:

“We use the term ‘end-user’ to capture everyone who is affected by regulation – both those who incur costs as a result of compliance and those who receive its benefits. In many cases, these groups can often be the same. People who ‘use’ regulation should be able to understand why it is needed, what its benefits are and that the costs it may impose are necessary and proportionate.

We believe that making end-users central to the policy-making process – by being aware of their needs, seeking their views, using these views and demonstrating the value of their contributions – is the best way to achieve this aim. End-users are best placed to provide relevant, up-to-date information, which can improve the quality of the evidence on which decisions are based.”

The Commission, state the authors, should reinforce and apply user-centric approaches when developing new legislation. This will help ensure that the legislation is well targeted and effective and increase the likelihood of compliance.

USER-CENTRIC APPROACH TO IDENTIFYING REGULATORY BURDENS

There are many examples across the EU where Member States and the Commission can draw inspiration on how to seek views and communicate with end-users:

Kafka (Belgium) – Belgium’s Kafka initiative introduced an online contact point, www.kafka.be where citizens can submit comments on existing regulations and make proposals for their improvement and simplification. The proposals received on the website have formed the basis of a reform programme – the Kafka Plan – for the entire Federal Government. Over 200 specific simplification projects have been implemented under the plan, ranging from the abolition of paper accounts to the improvement of home-working regulations.

Burden Hunters Project (Denmark) – The Burden Hunter project applies user-centric innovation techniques to allow users themselves to identify the red tape that causes them most irritation. Civil servants have conducted visits to businesses to see first- hand the regulatory challenges they face. The user-centric approach allows businesses themselves to set the agenda for regulatory action and help develop solutions to cut administrative burdens. Work is ongoing to deliver results on a range of problems within nine areas perceived as particularly irritating, including government inflexibility, lack of mutual obligation and complexity. The Burden Hunter project has led to identifying a number of new initiatives to cut red tape.

Simplifying Together (France) – France has developed a framework that focuses on ‘life-events’ in order to better understand the burdens faced by businesses. These include key points in the life of a business, such as starting up, moving premises or hiring an employee. Using this framework, and through a broad process of consultation with the users of regulation, they have developed a programme to reduce the number of processes, the cost and the time to navigate these events.

- Read press release
- Download executive summary
- Download report