10 March 2010
Rt Hon Jim Knight MP
The Future of Public Services Online
5th National Digital Inclusion Conference, Vinopolis Conference Centre
Wednesday 10 March 2010
[Check against delivery]
Politicians have flocked to Twitter, MPs are on Facebook and the House of Commons is buzzing with the wisdom of crowds.
As a regular feature at this conference, this is my third year, I am delighted that digital has become so in vogue with my colleagues – as the senior input you have had this year shows.
Today, in politics, if you want to sound like you are going to change the way government works then you casually talk about crowd sourcing and engage ground-breaking web entrepreneurs like Martha or Tom Steinberg to be digital tsars. Of course there is nothing wrong with that.
But you are dealing with the most important bit – inclusion.
As the Smarter Government Minister responsible for digital transformation of public services I want to create a new form of government that is by the people, for the people and with the people.
But by that I don’t mean with some of the people.
There is no merit in crowd sourcing if the crowd is exclusive.
Where is the wisdom of crowds in policy making if the voice of the poorest most socially excluded can not add the wisdom of their experience?
This goes to the heart of my politics; it is a fundamental issue of social justice.
That is why I get angry with journalists when they criticise the Home Access programme as a luxury. They take getting online for granted, their children are plug and play ready – they are the right side of the digital divide. But when the evidence shows that home access improves grades, improves life chances and increases earning potential – then we have to do it.
For me the digital transformation of public services has three key elements, getting people online, improving the customer experience and saving money. Success will sit on these priorities like upon a three legged stool – and it will fall over, we will fail, if any one of these areas is not delivered.
Taking the first leg of that stool, in my view digital inclusion is essential to the smarter government agenda and achieving more for less.
The starting point has to be getting people connected up, putting computers in the homes of 270,000 families from poorer backgrounds, providing access to the internet for the unemployed, and getting up to 20,000 older people online by putting computers in to sheltered accommodation and providing training so residents can make the most of it. Through initiatives like these, we are committed to getting 60 per cent of the 10 million who have never been online connected by 2014.
But that’s just a good start – we have to be more imaginative, more demanding of public services. Digital inclusion is not just about fingers on keyboards or mice, it is about ensuring people have the skills and confidence to use public services online. It is only then that we can think about the services available once people are logged on, about using the internet as a force for good to connect people, to help people, and to enable people to take a greater role in public life.
Which brings me to the second leg of that stool – there is much more that we can do to deliver a better customer experience. Improving data security is vital for developing trust and allowing us to share data so public services can be joined up. If we can get that right and people can develop confidence in Government data security, even amongst the likes of the BMA, then we will be able to make smarter links. So for example, if someone moves house there could be a process online – some of these services are already online – that helps you sort out council tax, rubbish collection, parking permits, as well as find a new doctor and dentist. All of which could automatically appear when you log on to your government account to change your address. We are already working on some of this through the “Tell Us Once campaign”.
This is the future and we are already making some progress, speeding things up, moving with the times. We have begun to draw together government services online developing a single supersite for people who need to access Government services, and I can confirm that from the end of this month the Jobcentre Plus website will move to Directgov, which in turn must and will evolve to better reflect web 2.0.
I am also pleased to be able to tell you that from today a Jobcentre Plus application is available for iPhone and phones using the Google platform. Last month we had over 60,000 visits to the jobsearch site by people using a browser on the iPhone alone – these people will now be able to download the app and have direct access to all of our vacancies. This is just the start we are developing the app so that it will automatically push out notifications of new vacancies in their area and working to make the application available on all mobile platforms. Within a year we hope to have the app better GPS enabled so wherever you are, you will be able to find jobs nearby. Further down the line we will look to develop the app so you can link through to training options and even follow the progress of a claim.
This app has been developed to cater for the new Jobcentre Plus customer. The recession has brought a much bigger range of people through our doors and they need this transformation now. Jobcentre Plus has also adapted to meet their needs in other ways, for example allowing people to claim contributions based Jobseeker’s Allowance online, which in just eight months with little advertising has attracted more than 100,000 applications. Developing our new app is just another way JCP is responding to people’s needs.
We are also keen to open up access to the Jobcentre Plus database through API to third party developers to allow them to create new job search tools, and no doubt create ever more engaging ways for our customers to interact with our services than we in Government can think of.
But Jobcentre Plus is also continuing to support people at the other end of the spectrum, people who don’t have the skills to get online, those who do not have access to a computer at home, who don’t know how to use the internet, people who don’t have an email address. As well as working with UKOnline on that we will also later this year be piloting putting PCs in our jobcentres for customers. We aim to trial this extensively around the UK, with around 200 PCs spread over approximately 50 jobcentres – it’s a modest start but money is tight. There will be free help for customers who have never been used the internet, provided by our staff and partners such as UK Online, as well as support for customers to search for and apply for jobs.
This is important – already 13 per cent of the vacancies Jobcentre Plus advertises only accept electronic applications, that’s around 350,000 jobs a year, restricted to email. By bringing the internet into our jobcentres we hope to break down these barriers and help improve people's chances of getting those sorts of jobs.
Perhaps Government can lead the way in terms of technological innovation, but too often we are following, trying to catch up.
The problem is innovation can be costly – for every Tim Berners-Lee there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people out there with failed inventions, ideas that simply didn’t work out – that’s how good ideas happen, on the back of bad ones.
Of course Governments aren’t allowed to make mistakes. Our responsibilities to public money and personal data mean we have to have more pilots than BA and more trials than the wonderful Arsenal. But that means we lack the agility needed in this fast paced world.
To really make the most of this opportunity we need to do two things. Firstly, government must be allowed to be innovative, we must find ways to be allowed to make mistakes, to try out new ways of working, new ways of communicating with people and we must sometimes be allowed to fail. We still have to be careful with public money and treat people’s data securely but can still be pioneering – it happens in the private sector. We currently live in this strange parallel universe where people are happy to manage their bank accounts online but can’t log in to a centralised Government system and manage their council tax, benefit claims, or even simple things like reporting faulty street lights.
I think we can do this better by using third parties. We are now willing to let go of public data and allow others to reuse it. In January of this year we launched Data Gov – a website which brings together all the datasets collected by Government and allows people to use it – sometimes for purposes that make us politicians nervous.
I have recently downloaded the Asborometer which uses GPS on the iPhone and Android phones to measure levels of anti-social behaviour at your current location, and will tell you how many Anti-Social Behaviour Orders have been issued. Showing colleagues at the House of Commons last week, I discovered Anti-Social Behaviour levels of around 29 per cent – medium levels according to the Asborometer – interesting but with such enthusiastic parliamentary debates perhaps not unsurprising.
But digital inclusion is not just about giving people control over Government data; it is also about giving people control over Government services. It is about enabling people to take a more active role in the decisions and the delivery that affects their lives.
And this is the second thing we must do.
The time for a one way stream of communication from Government to the people has gone. The way we interact is now much more complex – it’s not even just two way with the customer providing feedback – it is a multi-layered web of mutual support, customer led service development and a completely new view of Government as enabler not controller.
To achieve this I cannot tell you the scale of the cultural revolution we need in public service.
But to make digital interaction meaningful we need to invest wholeheartedly in our online relationships. It is not enough to allow people to give their feedback we must allow it to shape services. It is not enough to simply create the space for discussion we must act on it. Real digital inclusion is about the power of the internet to allow people to live as they want to, accessing services at home, at work or on the move. It is about pushing power out so that people can create services not just use them.
This change then doesn’t just become an on-line transformation. As people expect to collaborate in and shape their services on-line they will expect that to happen offline too.
We are living in a revolutionary age in public services and governments have decide whether or not to voluntarily share power with the people who give them power, or wait for them to take it away.
Of course the savings to be made by moving public services online – the third and final leg of the stool – are clearly attractive to Government, particularly in these difficult economic times.
Government could save between £3.30 and £12 for every offline contact moved online, the savings potential is huge. In Jobcentre Plus our contact centres receive more than 100,000 calls per day, even at the lower end that’s savings of more than £350,000 per day!
Online services can mean better services as well as cheaper services – with application forms, tax returns, benefit claims completed online automatically processing information.
This is an agenda I feel passionately about – not just because I think it’s a good thing, not just because the savings to families from doing simple things like shopping and paying their energy bills is estimated to be between £200 and £600, not even because the savings for Government could be almost £1bn a year.
I am committed to this agenda in the end because I believe the benefits of a digitally included Britain far out-weigh any downsides, because I believe, as 4 out of 5 people in a BBC World Service poll do, that access to the internet is a fundamental right.
My parents grew up taking electricity for granted. I grew up taking colour TV for granted. My children have grown up taking mobiles and communication technology for granted.
I was told two weeks ago that “email is what your Dad does”. I am a Dad and even I now communicate with some people almost exclusively through Twitter or Facebook.
Digital is now fundamental to how we work, how we learn and how we communicate. Digital exclusion is now, especially for younger people, profound social exclusion – it means you can’t talk to your friends, can’t communicate with colleagues, can’t build your networks, can’t get a job.
This is by far the most exciting agenda in Government at the moment – it is a total game changer and it feels like it’s up for grabs – I am glad you are all here to help us grasp the big prize.
Thanks very much
