A new report from The Work Foundation - What ICT? Providing more customer-focused services (PDF 407kb) - examines attitudes to public services and the role of ICT in delivering them.
The report is based on a telephone survey of 1,000 adults and backed up by focus groups that compared the views of low and high income participants.
For me the report held few surprises. Who would be surprised that:
- People become more enthusiastic about using technology as the technology improves and they get familiar with how it works;
- People recognise that the introduction of technology is not always about raising the quality of service (the comment from one participant that: "Social services don’t do old ladies’ shopping any more – they say people can shop on the internet." doesn't need to be true to reflect many of our fears about where the efficiency agenda and eGovernment is leading us);
- People are more inclined to undertake simple transactions online, like paying council tax, than complex and potentially privacy-jeopardising tasks like getting a diagnosis from a doctor?
The findings may not be earth-shattering, but they still demand to be understood and addressed.
There is a lot of truth in the authors' observation that: "ICT is developing so rapidly that findings today about preferred methods of interaction may be out of date next year." In fact it's tempting to simply think that things will just change over time through a 'natural' process of technology evolution and assimilation.
Unfortunately it's unlikely to be that easy! A genuine sea change in the way public services are delivered (in a part enabled by ICT), requires leadership and innovation on the part of the people delivering them, as well as a genuine value proposition for the public. Otherwise, the rather dismal figure, cited in the report, of less than 20% uptake of online services is unlikely to change dramatically.
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