By John Thornton. Reproduced by permission of eGov Monitor Weekly A major challenge facing e-Government champions in local councils is to make the agenda real and tangible for politicians, citizens and colleagues. John Thornton, Director of eGovernment, at the Improvement & Development Agency describes how the second round of Implementing e-Government Statements, which must be prepared by the end of the month, can be used to get attention. He sees the Statement as the opportunity to publicise the vision and explain how it will be delivered.
Local councils in Scotland will today point to a 440 million pound gap between the Scottish Executive’s Spending Review Calculations for the next three years and the cost of funding core local government services.The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities – COSLA – will give evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s local government committee. COSLA will call for funds to be made available to local authorities on a flexible basis and it has reiterated its view – first stated when the Executive made its all Scotland announcement last month – that interpretation of the figures needed to be treated with caution until further work on the detail had beenĀ done.
The government is beginning consultations on plans to move the 2004 English local council elections – and the polls for the Greater London Assembly – to the same day as the European Parliamentary elections. This would do away with the need to get voters to turn out twice in five weeks.The consultation will also ask for views on weekend voting and at the same time the government is to look at the possible use of initiatives such as all-postal ballots, internet voting and telephone voting, which have been piloted by local authorities, in a combined election if the change of date goes ahead.