Can technology improve public services?
The major political parties have acknowledged that public spending cuts are unavoidable. It is clear that the forthcoming General Election will be fought in large part on how spending reductions should be achieved and where they should fall.
The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) produced an excellent analysis of the potential scale and strategy of public sector budget reductions entitled After the Downturn that is well worth reading.
The report does not propose that technology is a universal panacea to the fiscal challenge that lies ahead but it does propose redefining the relationship between the citizen and the State as one of its strategic options. A significant enabler to helping redefine that relationship is technology as evidenced by the uptake of the public sector data initiative led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee – data.gov.uk.
Microsoft has a focus on citizen enablement via our Citizen Service Platform (CSP) programme. We are holding a one-day solution showcase with several of our technology partners on the theme of Enabling Digital Government with the Citizen Service Platform (Invitation Code: 3CD5E3) on Wednesday May 26th in London.
Attending this event will help you to understand better how new technology provides the means to deliver public services in a way that maintains their quality but brings down their cost.
Posted by Ian