Roadmap development

The project issues
The Northamptonshire Connects Partnership had been established to encourage a joint approach to E-government for all local authorities within Northamptonshire. An initial bid by the Partnership to ODPM had provided funding for a project to establish a county-wide community portal, and now the Partnership sought advice on how best to move forward on other joint projects. Socitm Consulting, jointly with IPF, was appointed to develop the roadmap, taking account of the views and aspirations of the member councils and their respective states of readiness for E-government.

The project started with interviews in each of the member councils, followed by workshops in most of the councils to identify and explore potential opportunities for partnership working. The community portal was the main example of a county-wide shared project, but other examples of joint working between groups of the member councils were also in existence.

In practice, the councils in the partnership were at different stages in their preparations for E-government, and had adopted different approaches – some had started with the technical developments, for example, while others had focused first on customer service issues and service delivery. Because of this diversity of approach, it was clear that between the member councils, virtually all aspects of E-government preparation had been tackled in some shape or form, and that by sharing experience there were important opportunities to streamline the process of completing the E-government preparations.

The Partnership was seeking to identify a major project on which the members could collaborate, with further ODPM funding – and the prospect of a shared, or jointly-procured CRM system was high in the agenda. However, the project identified that only about half of the councils would benefit from such an approach, and some were less prepared than others for this at the time.

The Socitm Consulting solution
Socitm and IPF worked with all of the member councils to map out the stages they had reached in their E-government preparations, and to explore the opportunities for further partnership working. Clear political issues existed within the partnership, some of which could assist joint working, while others could inhibit it.

The timescale for bidding for ODPM funding was tight, and given the relatively short history of the partnership at that time, the recommendation was to devote time to consolidating the partnership, identifying other opportunities for joint working to pursue in the short term, and to build on the work that had been done to implement the community portal (which at that time had not gone live). While there could have been an opportunity to progress rapidly with a CRM procurement exercise, it was not advised, and the partnership's Chief Executives' group agreed with this recommendation.

Uncertainties around the funding availability from ODPM resulted in the partnership cutting short the consultancy project; nevertheless, a detailed roadmap for the partnership was developed, identifying the current position of the member councils, the joint vision which individually and jointly the councils were seeking to achieve, and the work needed to achieve it.

The benefits to the client
For the client, the project provided a pragmatic approach to the development of the partnership, recognising the realities of the situation and the practicalities of what could reasonably be achieved. The detailed roadmap provided a blueprint for moving forward, both jointly and in individual councils.

In separate contracts, Socitm went on to work in some of the individual councils of the partnership and supported the on-going development of the Partnership.

Project identification
Client organisation: Northamptonshire Connects Partnership (lead authority, Borough of Wellingborough Council)
Client contact: Terry Wright, Information and Communications Operational Manager, 01933 231581, twright@wellingborough.gov.uk
Lead consultant: doug.maclean@socitm.gov.uk
Project no: 4457