Business Case

The project issues
The Oxfordshire Gateway portal (“the Gateway”) had been developed in 2004 on behalf of the six local authorities in Oxfordshire, using ODPM eGovernment partnership funding. The hosting and support contract with the technology supplier was due to expire in early 2007, and it was decided to take this opportunity to engage external consultancy to review the current services and to produce a business case for the future direction on the Gateway.

A Project Board was established comprising Jeremy Beach (Chair of the Oxfordshire Gateway Product Board, and Organisational Change Manager at Vale of White Horse DC), Andrew Down (Chair of the Oxfordshire eGovernment Partnership Programme Board, and Head of ICT at South Oxfordshire DC), Penny Harris (acting Product Manager for the Gateway, and Systems and Projects Manager at Cherwell DC) and Kieran Greenstreet (Project Manager at Vale of White Horse DC). A number of consultancy organisations were invited to quote, and Socitm Consulting was selected.

The Socitm Consulting solution
The Socitm Consulting project director, Alun Pritchard, and lead consultant, Malcolm Wylie, met with the Project Board in  September 2006 to start the project, and a Project Initiation Document (PID) was approved shortly afterwards.

We reviewed documents from within the partnership project, Socitm’s knowledge base, and other relevant agencies. We conducted a questionnaire survey with relevant officers in all six local authorities, followed up by interviews and a workshop. We assessed the current Gateway functionality available from the portal website and available via the partners’ websites. We also interviewed the current technology supplier, Cintra UK Ltd.

An important aspect of the assignment was to compare the Gateway with other partnership portals, and this was achieved by means of a questionnaire survey, telephone interviews and functional benchmarking using a number of scenarios. Most of this work was done by Lamorna Spry, who had previous experience in conducting the annual Better Connected website surveys for Socitm Insight.

Our report documented the research, findings and recommendations. The components of the report were:

• Background and executive summary
• Research findings
  • Original objectives
  • Current functionality and quality
  • Current governance, support and marketing arrangements
  • Views of the partners
  • Views of the technology and service provider
  • Comparison with other partnership portals
  • Implications of other portals and initiatives
  • Political context
• Options
• Options appraisal (including benefits, costs, risks and recommended option)
• Recommendations
• Functionality
• Governance and support
• Technology partner
• Roadmap
• Appendices (providing additional detail)

The details of the benchmarking exercise were presented in a separate report.

These documents were reviewed and refined by means of regular reviews of drafts by the project board, and a formal meeting with the Product Board. The final report was reviewed and accepted by the Partnership Programme Board in mid-November, and the recommendations were agreed.

The benefits to the client
The Gateway Product Board members were at full stretch and would have found it very difficult to produce a business case without external help. They benefited from the experience and independence (and of course the additional resource) of the Socitm Consulting team. It was particularly helpful that such good consensus was achieved between the partners at the workshop. The project was completed within the required two month timescale, and was delivered within budget.

Project identification
Client organisation: Vale of White Horse District Council (commissioning authority on behalf of the six Oxfordshire local authorities)
Client contact: Jeremy Beach, Organisational Change Manager, 01235 540449, jeremy.beach@whitehorsedc.gov.uk
Lead consultant: malcolm.wylie@socitm.gov.uk
Project no: 5830