My colleague Andy Smith, who is Senior Director Public Sector EMEA at Oracle held this presentation together with me at the European Commission, on 12 March 2009.

1. eGovernment in a recession –
improving services whilst driving out costs
Andy Smith
Senior Director, EMEA Public Sector
i2010 unit, DG INFSO, Brussels, 12 March 2009

2. What’s Worrying Governments?
• More demanding citizens
• Demographics – ageing population
• Global Economic and Political Pressures and Changes
• Escalating Social Services budgets
• Welfare
• Social and political change
• Climate Change
• Migrant populations
• Better schools
• Security threats

3. The Government Challenge …
… The Common Denominator
• Governments the world over face the twin challenge
• How do you
• Deliver improved public services and safeguard your citizens………
…….without raising public spending and taxes
• Driving out administrative cost is vital

4. What’s Worrying Governments Now?
From BBC News, 8th January 2009
Mexico takes urgent economy steps
Mexico unveils emergency measures to protect its economy from the
global financial crisis and US recession including freezing fuel prices,
providing $150m to struggling industries and creating thousands of
new jobs.
From BBC News, Thursday 12 March 2009
UK in Recession
The UK economy contracted 1.8% between December and February,
the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) has
estimated.

5. Social Consequences of
Recession
• Hardest for the poor and socially
disadvantaged
Large scale unemployment
•
Rising food and energy costs –
•
increased personal debt
Housing repossessions
•
Hypothermia/early deaths
•
Increase in health inequalities
•

6. Economic Consequences
of Recession
• Financial Pressures become even greater
• Increased demand on services
• Unemployment and welfare benefits
• Health and social care
• Social Housing
• Rising costs of delivering services
• Fuel and energy costs, transportation
• Reduced income to pay for them
• Less money from taxes (less people in work)
• Less money from VAT, fuel, customs etc (as
people spending less)
• Less money from businesses, planning
applications etc

7. Government Choices
in a Recession
• Cuts in Interest Rates and/or boom in Government
spending?
• Tax cuts?
• For businesses?
• For individuals? Direct (on earnings) or Indirect (on
spending)?
• Greater pressure to deliver more for less, but
• Governments are major employers and want to
stimulate, not constrain economy
• Efficiency v Economic regeneration
• Efficiency = less staff and fewer offices,but
• What if that means more unemployment?
• What about Local Communities?

8. Arguments for Governments
Investing in IT in a Recession
IBM CEO Sam Palmisano presented a report to Obama's
transition team … that argues that a $30 billion investment in
universal broadband, health information technology and a
smarter power grid could create 950,000 jobs.
quot;If you build more roads, people don't buy more tires or GPS
systems, but if you build better networks, you create entirely new
business applications.“
Rob Atkinson, president of ITIF
Studies have shown that expanding broadband services create
1.3 jobs for every job created to support such infrastructure.

9. …and trusting Government becomes
more important
New American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) data suggest
that a satisfying experience with a specific government agency
can improve trust in the government as a whole.
“An investment in improving federal services online is
about more than just increased efficiency and cost
savings.
It is an investment in trust and in the government’s
relationship with its citizens.”

10. In turbulent times Governments increasingly
need to focus on…
• Re-establishing trust by good governance
• Making sound and relevant fiscal decisions
• Increasing competitiveness
• Reinforcing their regulatory role
• Further increasing transparency and efficiency
…by leveraging modern technologies and deploying
services more efficiently.

11. Hence the importance of IT strategy
and investment which focuses on
• IT and eGovernment as core business – not an add on
or ‘nice to have’
• Driving out costs as the No1 priority
• Other areas still important, e.g.
• Service Transformation
• Performance Management
• Risk and Compliance
• Shared Services
• Service Directive
• Green and sustainability
• But only if they help Governments drive out cost

12. Service Transformation
Channel Management
Make an Enquiry Contact Management
Request a Service
Make a booking
Permits and Licences, Social Services Business Process and Case
ASBOs , Environmental Services Management
Corporate Correspondence & Complaints
Information Management
Citizen Master Process Analytics
Citizen Insight
Outreach & Personalised
Profiling Segmentation Management
Service

13. Performance Management
• In Cost Conscious
environment
……..
Knowing where you’ve
been is not enough……
• Knowing where you are –
And where you want/need
to be matters more

14. GRC in Government
• Increasingly relevant to PS
• Recent UK Government
Reports:
• Data Handling Procedures in
Government (the O’Donnell
Report)
• Review of Government
Information Assurance (the
Coleman Report)

15. Green - It’s good for the environment…
….and for Businesses/PS Organisations
• DuPont: estimates $3 Billion saving over 2 decades
• Wal-Mart: reducing packaging by 5% in 2008
• UPS: 28 million fewer miles and 3 million fewer gallons
per year
• Oracle: energy costs reduced by 10.5% in one year,
equating to approximately $1 MM
“Green Could be the largest economic opportunity of the 21st
Century” – John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

16. Shared Services Drivers
Central and Multiple Organisation
Management
“How do I manage the complexity of
diverse departments, or multiple public
sector organisations?”
Complexity and Costs
Shared
“How can I spend less money and time
on transaction processing while
supporting better front line services?”
Services
Regulations and Oversight
“How do I avoid expensive and high
profile errors and ensure strong
governance and control?”
Match Resource to Strategy
“How do I ensure resources are
allocated and used in the best way to
meet strategic objectives on an
ongoing basis?”

17. Key Messages
• Government Organisations must quickly adapt to a
radically changing socio-economic environment
• ICT central to transforming public services and driving out
costs – with service transformation, shared services and
back office inegration key priorities
• Technology is there! Political leadership and change
management are needed to fully exploit potential of ICT.
• Oracle ready and willing to work with EU and Member
States to help them exploit the benefits of ICT, drive out
costs ......and improve services

18. Questions & Answers