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HM TREASURY E-BUSINESS STRATEGY STATEMENT

q This is the Treasury’s summary e-business strategy.  It sets out how the Treasury is contributing to the development of the Knowledge Economy and to the development of efficient, citizen-centred public services using the methods of the information age, and how it is using e-business methods to support its own business.

q    The Treasury’s overall aim is “to raise the rate of sustainable growth, and achieve rising prosperity, through creating economic and employment opportunities for all”.  The opportunities provided by information and communications technology (ICT) are central to achieving this objective.
 

Developing the knowledge economy…

q      The Treasury shares an objective with DTI of increasing the productivity of the economy.  While this objective is being taken forward in a number of ways, there is a strong recognition that ICT offers unprecedented opportunities for modernisation throughout the economy.  The Government has a goal of making Britain the best country for e-commerce by 2002.

• The 2000 Budget contained a series of measures to help promote e-commerce amongst small firms.  This included a £60 million package to help small and medium sized enterprises understand what getting on-line means for their business, helping them actually get on-line, and helping them get the right services once they are on-line.
  
  
• The Budget also introduced 100 percent first year capital allowances until 2003 for investment by small enterprises in ICT assets.  This will help small businesses make capital investment in computers and other e-commerce equipment.
  
  
• The Spending Review 2000 (SR2000) introduced yet further measures.
  

  • The DTI was allocated an additional £190 million over the period 2001-2004 for the Small Business Service to develop the gateway to provide high quality information and advice to businesses, both on-line and through a call centre.  This funding is on top of £20 million from the £60 million Budget package mentioned above, and £10 million from the Invest to Save budget.
    
    
  • DfEE was allocated significant funding to promote ICT skills through a broad range of projects – and in September the PM announced that DfEE would be spending an additional £1 billion on ICT in schools.  The UK’s future competitiveness and the avoidance of a “digital divide” depends on ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to gain the ICT skills they need.
    

q       The Treasury will continue to consider measures to ensure that Britain’s firms remain competitive and are fully able to exploit the opportunities offered by e-commerce.

q       The Treasury also has the responsibility for the legislative framework for financial services regulation. The policy that we have adopted is that for firms and consumers to reap the benefits offered by e-commerce, regulation must be technology neutral. 

• We have ensured that there are no requirements in the new Financial Services and Market Act that might hinder the ability of the Financial Services Authority to communicate with firms electronically. 
  
  
• In our negotiations on financial service directives and policy within the European Union we have supported the country of origin approach adopted in the e-commerce Directive.  We believe that to achieve a single retail financial services market, there is the need to apply consistent, technology neutral rules to similar financial services, no matter how they are sold.

q       The Treasury is involved in taking forward recommendations in the PIU report e-commerce@itsbest relevant to financial services.  We are undertaking an “e-commerce impact assessment” to review the opportunities, threats and barriers in the financial services sector.

Improving Public Services…

q      The digital revolution presents the Government with a major opportunity to transform the way in which the public sector delivers services to the public and to business. The Treasury has a key interest in ensuring that this opportunity is used to improve value for money in public services and deliver efficiency gains. The Treasury's role in this respect complements that of the e-Envoy, who is responsible for leading the drive to put all Government services on line by 2005.

q      The Treasury pursues this role in several ways...

• In SR2000, the Treasury worked with other government departments to develop Public Service Agreements (PSAs) that are a lever for ensuring that public resources bring the intended results.  The PSAs focus on the key improvements to be delivered.  More detailed Service Delivery Agreements (SDAs) are being developed for publication this Autumn which will set out how the improvements will be delivered.  The Treasury’s work goes beyond the headline level into individual programmes, challenging traditional assumptions about the delivery of services.  An essential aspect of this is ensuring that departments use the potential of ICT to realise the potential efficiency gains on offer, and provide higher quality more customer-focused services.
  
  
• In SR2000, the Treasury worked closely with the e-Envoy’s office and DTI on a Cross-Cutting Review of the Knowledge Economy. This considered how best to meet the Government’s key goals of: making Britain the best country for e-commerce by 2002; putting all government services on-line by 2005; and achieving universal internet access by 2005.  Among its conclusions are:
  

  • The development of a list of government services which are a priority for going on-line.  These have been funded as part of SR2000 and are key stepping stones to the 2005 e-government target.
    
    
  • The “dual-key” responsibility.  A ring-fenced allocation for other government e-service delivery projects has been made in SR2000.  Funds can only be drawn down if the e-Envoy advises the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that a Department’s programme is of sufficient quality to release funding and is consistent with the Department’s e-business plan.

q       The work of the Cross-Cutting review went forward to inform the work of the Performance and Innovation Unit’s on electronic service delivery.  The report:  Electronic Government Services for the 21^st Century sets out a comprehensive strategy for realising the full potential of electronic service delivery.  The Treasury will be taking the lead in carrying forward a number of its conclusions.

q       The 1998 Comprehensive Spending Review allocated £2.7 billion to a Capital Modernisation Fund over three financial years 1999-2002 to channel funds to additional innovative projects that improve key services or public infrastructure.  £658 million has been allocated to ICT projects.  Examples include:

• £30 million to fund better joining up of the criminal justice system;
  
  
• £18 million for DfEE to develop an IT system to match jobseekers to employers on-line;
  
  
• £1.1 million to pump-prime various e-commerce procurement initiatives across Government

q       The Invest to Save Budget allocates funds to projects that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public services through partnership between public sector bodies working together to deliver services.  33 projects were allocated £120 million over the three financial years 1999-2002.  A further £210 million has now been provided to extend the programme.  ICT plays a central element in many Invest to Save projects.

q       The Office of Government Commerce, an Office of the Treasury, came into being on 1 April 2000.  OGC’s target is to deliver savings in Government procurement by 2002-03, and benefits arising through e-procurement will be a key component.

q       The Treasury will play a key future role in monitoring the performance of departments against the PSAs and SDAs, and in working with the e-Envoy’s Office to provide resources for well-planned e-government projects.

Supporting the Treasury’s own business…

q The Treasury is committed to having the right tools and the right skills to do its job effectively. Information technology has been a key tool for many years.

q       Our main role is in developing policy and advising Ministers on raising economic performance.

Communicating with the citizen and with business

q      We do however have an important public face in providing information to the citizen and businesses on our policies, in dealing with their requests for information, and in responding to their letters and e-mails commenting on government policy. We have taken a lead in promoting greater openness and transparency through the Code for Fiscal Stability, the Pre-Budget consultation and the monetary policy framework and are starting to prepare for the implementation of the prospective Freedom of Information Act.

• By early 2001 we will have redeveloped our website to make it more accessible and more customer-focussed;
  
  
• We will link it into the UK Online citizens’ portal;
  
  
• As part of our preparation for Freedom of Information, we will develop a departmental publications scheme linked to our Information Asset Register;
  
  
• We are planning an integrated approach to the provision of a range of creative services to the Treasury, including design, editorial and photographic services to produce publications that are more accessible to the public and to business;
  
  
• We are planning to upgrade our Public Enquiry Unit call logging system to provide better performance management of the number and type of calls and better guidance for our customers;
  
  
• We have a well-established electronic correspondence handling system for managing correspondence from the public.  We are planning to improve this and to introduce a more structured system for logging and managing e-mails from the public.

Modern policy making

q       In developing policy, the Treasury needs the widest possible access to information and expertise.

• All Treasury staff have external e-mail addresses and direct access to the internet from their desktops.  By January 2001 we will have upgraded our Office system to the latest standards to make it as robust and easy to use as possible, and to allow easy exchange of documents with other organisations.
  

q       We have a well-established electronic document management system.  The Treasury has now reached the stage where electronic record keeping is seen as the norm.  It is providing visible benefits in making access to information more flexible.

• As part of the Office system development, we will have upgraded the electronic document management system across the Treasury by January 2001 to make it much easier to use.
  
  
• We are developing a strategy for underpinning the document management system with electronic records management capabilities to enable us to meet the cross-government 2004 target.
  
  
• We have produced guidance on how best to manage information electronically and to get the best out of our electronic filing system.  We will be working on ensuring that all key documents are promptly filed in the system.
  

q      Managing and using information effectively is more than just keeping a good audit trail.

• We have joined the Knowledge Network – a project to bring together policy information in a central database and facilitate its use across government and more widely.
  
  
• We are raising the profile of good knowledge management across the Treasury and highlighting our current areas of best practice.
  
  
• We are carrying out a pilot within our Public Services Directorate to assess the benefits to using professional information managers as part of our policy teams.
  
  
• In 2000 we redesigned our intranet to make it the main way in which information is published internally.  We will continue to keep the structure of the intranet under review and promote its use for collaborative working.
  
  
• In 2001, we will invest in a high quality search tool to provide a single access point to information in our electronic document management system, our intranet, the GSI, and sites of particular Treasury interest on the internet.
  

q       The Government Secure Intranet (GSI) website provides enormous opportunities to make communication across departmental boundaries much easier.  We are already using it to share information, for example about the management of public spending, across the government community.   We will promote the use of the GSI across the Treasury and adapt our working practices to use its capabilities.

Supporting the business

q       The Treasury has a range of specialist information systems serving specific needs.  These include the Treasury Economic Model; a model to provide tax-benefit simulations; the public expenditure database system; a system for managing the operation of the Consolidated Fund, the National Loans Fund and related activities; and Finance and Personnel systems.

q       All major business processes in the Treasury are computerised and have been for many years.  We are committed to investing in new systems to ensure we have the right tools for the job.

• We introduced a new public expenditure database system in 1999.
  
  
• We are introducing a new personnel database system in 2000.
  
  
• Projects are underway to replace the Financial management system and the system which manages the Consolidated Fund etc.
  
  
• We are currently procuring a new system to produce commercial-style accounts for the whole of the public sector.

q       Increasingly, these separate systems will be delivered to the people who need access through web-browser interfaces so that they integrate seamlessly with our other business applications.

q       A number of other business processes are currently carried out using the standard office system in a free-form way.  We will review these in 2001 to ensure that we carry them out in the most effective manner.

q       We currently transact electronically more than 90% of standard goods by volume through the Government Procurement Card that was pioneered by the Office of Government Commerce and through on-line ordering from the desktop of stationery, IT equipment and travel.

• We are on course to meet a target to make all payments to suppliers by electronic transfer by the end of 2000.
  
  
• We will participate fully in joint procurement projects.

q       In all our IT related activities we will operate in line with best practice

Supporting our people

q       Information Age government is not just, or even mainly, about technology, but about making sure that people delivering public services have the skills they need and the awareness of what new tools and ways of working can deliver to make change happen for the better, and the environment and culture in which they can pool their knowledge effectively.

• The Treasury will be moving to a refurbished Treasury building in 2002.  We are starting now to plan how the space in the new building will be laid out and will be working with colleagues from across the organisation and with pilot groups to ensure that the layout of the refurbished building and the technology in it complement each other.

q      Effective training in information management and information technology is vital.

• We have made a significant investment in training on our new office system.  Every member of staff has had the opportunity for a minimum of two days training.
  
  
• By December 2000 we will have reviewed the information management components of all our internal training programmes.
  
  
• In November 2000 we will be piloting a multi-disciplinary information management taskforce to work intensively with Treasury business units to help them benchmark their information management practices and use of IT and spread best practice.

q       It is important that we provide good information to our staff about issues affecting the Treasury.  Good signposting is the key to avoiding information overload. In early 2001 we will appoint a communications manager to produce a daily Treasury Bulletin for internal publication on the intranet.

q       To improve our internal networking, by January 2001, we will have implemented a new on-line Office Directory system.

q       We place a high priority on providing technology to help people with disabilities to work effectively.  We will continue to give this due emphasis.

q       A number of disabled users are currently making use of voice recognition software.  We are about to start a pilot to see if voice recognition technology, in its current state of development, offers sufficient benefits to merit wider deployment, and to understand its impact on the working environment.

q       In 2001 we will re-evaluate our remote working facilities with the aim of making access from afar as easy for authorised users as access from the desktop.

Working in a joined-up way

q       The Treasury shares many of its information needs with other government bodies. 

• The GSI provides an effective way of drawing on common sources of information, we will use it extensively and we will encourage its suppliers and other departments to make sure it supports a full range of services. 
  
  
• We also see potential in the shared development of applications that meet common needs:  for example, Ministerial correspondence handling systems, office directories, and knowledge management systems.  

We will work to develop shared solutions to meet our needs wherever it is sensible to do so. 

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