Invest to Save Budget

Assisting Customers to use Electronic Services (ACES)

 

 

1.       Brief description of the project

Synergy with other draft ISB4 Expression of Interest

Lewisham Council,  Newham Council and the UK Passport Service submit this application with the community partners identified on the EOI pro-forma. It was only in the very final period of EOI  preparation that Lewisham and Newham were fortunate to establish contact with UK Passport Services, who are also making a submission, and exchanged draft EOIs. It became apparent that there were synergies between the two EOIs, and we discussed joint working. There was not the time available to substantially redraft the respective EOI’s to reflect the established commonality of interest. Lewisham, Newham and the UK Passport Service will discuss synergies more fully during the period between EOI and the date of announcement of successful shortlisted authorities and, thereafter, final submission of bids. Lewisham, Newham and the UK Passport Service seek to take a pragmatic approach to the development of bids for funds, and would welcome any steer from the DTLR on how best to take forward this partnership.

 

The ‘hybrid channel’

We believe we can create a hybrid channel that will be particularly suited to the, elderly, non- English speaking citizens,  those in low-income groups, or those with limited education and learning difficulties. It will aim to provide the best of mediated and non-mediated channels, to access services across geographical and traditional service boundaries. The object is to enable such citizens to engage with modern technology to access on-line services despite the disinterest they may have in technology and the Internet. This channel will provide a stepping stone towards fully authenticated electronic self service for anyone who is not comfortable with new technologies or who requires human assistance in real-time in completion of complex on-line government transactions. 

Lewisham and Newham have considerable experience of a mediated audio-visual channel in the form of Tellytalk. Tellytalk has shown us that people who are not comfortable with technology favour audio-- visual interaction above other form of access except face- to- face interview. We know that for example, elderly persons may be at ease talking on a telephone, but telephone contact is inappropriate if they are forced  to remember lists, and make choices, or review information they have just provided.  On the other hand an elderly person finds it easier to choose and review using a visual list.  A hybrid channel offers both. Additionally, and crucially, the output of the interview is a more easily authenticated transaction, and there is the opportunity to achieve ‘dual control’ of the transaction.

 

UK-Online research has indicated that there is a customer segment fundamentally disinterested in Internet provided services.  The hybrid channel will address this issue and fits into the Lewisham and Newham customer segmentation strategies. We believe that face- to- face interviews will remain a necessary channel for government due to reasons of access, confidence, literacy and the need for occasional face- to- face authentication. The Government Gateway is currently recommending trust policies, which require a face to face interview to initiate a digital certificate. This project will reduce the cost of face to face interviews including those required to initiate a digital certificate.

A requirement for the hybrid channel is that back-end services must be re-engineered to deliver audio- visual contact for public service staff at remote sites, whether working for the Council or other public and private agencies and whether these are inside or outside the council area boundaries. Lewisham and Newham are well placed to do this given their experience with public access videoconferencing.

 

The customer experience in using this channel will be along the following lines:

 

·         Customer sits down in a private area, possibly with a friend, in front of the access equipment

·         A touch screen will offer a choice of web based services presented in a very simple style grouped around life events which may not appear to be internet based to the customer;

·         The customer will be encouraged to navigate through the screens themselves to find out the resolution to their issue. This will include completing forms via a screen based key pad or screen based symbols;

·         The customer will have the option at various stages of making a video call for assistance from a specialist or translator;

·         Once the call has started the specialist can also control the input to data forms and navigate through the screens;

·         The interviewer or customer can print information and scan documents from the customer end;

·         At an appropriate point the customer may be invited to provide authentication using a smart card or digital signature.

·         The interviewer may switch the dialogue and data to another assistant at an appropriate time.

 

Customers have generally been very appreciative of videoconferencing services where they have been designed appropriately and the services have been consistently available. A number of authorities, however, have tried videoconferencing services and abandoned them due to a very low take up. This paper argues that take up will be sustained by:

 

·         Providing facilities which are easier to use than a telephone and as friendly as a normal face to face interview;

·         Improving the backend service allowing service providers to utilise resources  already engaged in delivering telephone services, doing away with the necessity to have costly dedicated staff

·         Ensuring privacy and comfort;

·         Increasing the functions that can be completed in an interview through authentication;

·         Improving the quality of video;

·         Increasing the number of services;

·         Extending the hours of services;

·         Diversifying the locations of facilities;

Government Gateway

Lewisham and Newham believe there is strong synergy between this project and the Government Gateway project. The concept of switching transactions, which includes both data exchange as well as possible audio and video contact, between various providers and the citizens, will require the common agreed authentication between agencies provided by the Gateway. This project seeks both to address the synchronisation of the data, voice and video transaction, and the switching of any combination of those aspects of the transaction, between service providers. In this respect it offers the potential to add significant value to the Government Gateway project.

 

 

2.       Details of partners and their respective contributions

 

·         London Borough of Lewisham

·         United Kingdom Passport Service

·         London Borough of Newham

·         East London and City Health Authority

·         Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham Health Authority

·         Newham Online - key service providers in Newham from the public, private, academic and voluntary sectors

·         A specialist videoconferencing and e-form technology firm

·         A European Investment bank

 

Additionally we know of 17 Local Authorities and 6 National Agencies who have used public access videoconferencing services who could be approached to increase the critical mass of service users.

 

Lewisham will lead on:

 

·         Development of the hybrid channel;

·         Integration of electronic assistants known as avatars;

·         Integration of biometric authentication;

 

Newham will lead on:

 

·         Development of a switched web based video and data service

·         Development of electronic forms which can be integrated with the video call and produce output which is compliant with the government’s interoperability framework.

·         Integration with the Newham smart card project – E-Zee project (ISB round 3)

 

Newham Online will demonstrate broadband operation of the system

across different partner networks.

 

 

Health Authorities will provide  pilot testbeds.

 

The specialist videoconferencing and e-form technology firm has provided technical advice and would be interested in providing solutions to the project requirement.

 

The European Investment bank sees the development of authenticated videoconferencing services as a major growth area and wishes to invest at an early stage in a project that will stimulate the market.

 

The role of the UK Passport Service will be to develop their own on-line application service so that it can be used through the ACES channel.

 

 

3.       Innovative features

The hybrid channel will provide:

·         Web based data exchange linked with an optional video channel for assistance

·        The ability to switch a video call to another assistant and retain data already exchanged

·         Mediated and unmediated services from one device

·         Dual control – the interviewer will have full control over the data, printing and scanning devices, the customer will be able to highlight areas of the touch screen for attention as well as direct the interviewer more generally;

·         Integration with smart cards for authentication. By April 2002 the E-Zee project in Newham will have provided thousands of potential customers with smart cards.

·        Integration of pilots involving biometric techniques for enhanced authentication, and use of digital assistants [avatars] as alternatives to human intervention. Lewisham will leverage work from the European Avanti project [led by Lewisham with ICL, Microsoft and other European municipalities] that is focussed on avatar and biometric recognition development to combat social exclusion.  The term of this major 5^th framework funded project matches that of ISB4.

·         High bandwidth and near broadcast quality video

 

4.       Preliminary assessment of the project’s benefits

The project will:

·         Promote the use of electronic self service by people who are not comfortable with technology or not fluent in the English language;

·         Create better connections with government for the deaf and people with learning difficulties by using a library of symbols and introducing text in accessible colours;

·         Save property and people costs associated with providing face to face interviews for local and national agencies;

·         Provide a cost effective means of both increasing the numbers of non- government locations and the hours of service in which a virtual face to face interview with full authentication can take place;

·         Contribute to the definition of standards for public access videoconferencing in the Government Interoperability Framework. This will include standards for the protocol that must be in place to allow the interviewer to have control of the customer peripherals such as the scanner, printer, second data screen and authentication devices.

·         Contribute to the creation of a critical mass of public access  on-line services

·         Promote sharing of scarce specialists across councils – e.g. translators and sign language experts