WRITTEN ON October 20th, 2004 BY Nick Creagh AND STORED IN Across the Board
Anyone ever tried to talk to their local authority? Does anyone even know who they are? One of my biggest grips with government is not with central government, but local. Not with the councellors, worthy people though I’m sure they are, but with local services. The simple things of life, like having my bin collected, a pesky wasps nest removed, a tree cut down or an abandoned car removed. Like paying my council tax in a simple and easy way, or talking to a planning officer about what I can and cannot do. Even things like finding out what time the local swimming baths are open, and who can help with a child’s schooling.
But the problem I have is that to find out each of those facts, I have to talk to someone different. Between unitary, metropolitan, district and country councils, LEAs, Health Boards, Police Authorities, and the various sub-departments there-of, I find myself running from pillar to post to get an answer to what I think is a simple question (any of the above questions will do – its not immediately obvious who to go to for most of them). Some of those questions may even involve getting various different answers from several different authorities and trying to work out the truth in the middle.
Between the eGovernment agenda and the Gershon review, there is a great deal of pressure on local authorities to shape up the way they do things. But what I’d want to see isn’t so much each individual authority working better and setting up their own call centre to help me (the typical response to the eGovernment agenda at the local level), but a single place I can go to locally.
It would be nice if, at least on the web, local government would talk to one another.
2 Responses to “Too many cooks?”
Any reason why it can’t be done by postcode? You type it into a main public services page and it returns a screen saying something like …
For postcode XX1 1ZZ,
– planning is provided by XXX district council (with contact details)
– education is provided by YYY county council (with contact details)
– main roads are maintained by YYYY
– streetlights are maintained by WWWW
– libraries are run by QQQQ and your nearest library is at 99 High Street, telephone …
– the fire service is ZZZZ
– the police service is AAAA and your address is covered by FFFF police station, tel …. (but for emergencies dial 999)
– hospitals are operated by BBBB and your nearest A&E department is at …
– refuse disposal is by CCCC and wheelie bins in your street are emptied on Tuesdays between 8am and 11am
– your local district councillors are AB, CD and EF (with contact details)
– your local county councillor is GH (with contact details)
– your MP is IJ (with contact details)
– your MEPs are KL and MN (with contact details)
… and so on.
This is along the lines of what upmystreet.com did but as far as I can see could be operated as a really useful directory of local information.
You could add, for example, council tax rates as well, and local planning information. And you could search for all this info on any postcode in the country — for places of work, a possible new home, etc.
Alan Burkitt-Gray
I can only agree. A few years ago UpMyStreet.com effectively offered to do this for, and in collaboration with, government. The idea was to use postcode-plus-issue to help people be initially indifferent about who the providing body was. This was a major part of the company’s public sector strategy. The first steps were taken with portals such as http://www.somersetonline.gov.uk – an ISB project using central government grant funding, mainly to prove some of the technology and interface design involved. But grant funding is patchy and it proved impossible to find a sustainable joined-up client for this kind of joined-up presentation. Nor did the fledgling intermediaries policy provide an answer. I imagine that direct.gov.uk was seen as the eventual provider of this kind of integrated service. However, I’m waiting to see whether direct.gov.uk commits a kind of category mistake with its “franchises” ie, ‘services for parents’, ‘services for drivers’, ‘services for disabled people’ and…. ‘services for LOCAL PEOPLE!’. Fingers crossed… (I guess it would be useful for William to ask Ian Watmore to spell out the plans, and timetable, for geographically organised online government services.)