This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
Listen
Funding to improve public services
16/02/2004
Details of the programmes that will benefit from the £30
million third round of its Modernising Government Fund were
announced today.
The fund is part of the Executive's collaborative
working with service providers to develop innovative
solutions for improving public services. This £30 million
for the next two years will bring spending on the
Modernising Government programme up to £95.5 million over
the four years since the fund was announced.
Minister for Finance and Public Services Andy Kerr
said:
"We have produced guidelines for the Modernising
Government Fund following consultation with our key service
providers. The overwhelming response has been that we
should consolidate and build on the good work and the
priorities already established by earlier rounds of the
fund.
"We need to build on this achievement, providing more
effective and more responsive services to the public,
sharing best practice effectively and avoiding re-inventing
approaches unnecessarily. Just as importantly we can
provide real help to those involved in our front line
services, making their jobs better and more productive as a
result."
One of the core priorities is to provide further support
to the local authority driven Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) programme; giving people better access to
the services that they need, and at a time and place that
is convenient to them - for example, arranging a bulky
uplift, reviewing benefits, applying for a blue badge or
arranging a civil marriage.
The key objective for councils will be to provide
customers with one-stop access to services and to deal with
the customer enquiry at the first point of contact.
Already the councils involved in this programme are able to
deal with up to 80 per cent of transactions in this way
which means less form filling for customers, more online
services, less bureaucracy and less inconvenience for
customers, along with reductions in transaction time and
transaction costs.
Another of the key priorities is to provide electronic
links between local authority social work departments and
the NHS, delivering a secure facility to share and exchange
critical data. One of the major projects will be to
develop an integrated children's services record.
A key objective is to reduce the overhead for
practitioners in tracking down key information and increase
the availability of the real time data that is necessary to
support child protection.
Other projects will evaluate the potential for a
voluntary citizen's entitlement card, utilising the efforts
of all of Scotland's local authorities in developing this
technology whether it be for cashless catering and
registration in schools, or booking recreation and leisure
facilities such as squash courts, aerobic classes or
library lending, or even concessionary fares amongst
others.
In addition the fund will continue to support the
development of a national, geographical, database that can
provide the foundation for improved land and property
management across Scotland.