VIDEO: eGov is making progress

Wednesday 10 August 2016

Just over a third of the projects making up the States 'eGov' initiative - putting more States' services online - have now gone live.

At an update presentation yesterday, the States' team responsible for eGov said that seven projects are in the initiation stage, 13 are in development, and 11 have gone live.

Amongst the services that have gone live so far are the ability to track buses, pay your rates, pay GST, check parking availability, and the breast-screening programme.

In the development stage is the ability to make sports bookings online, and something called “police mobile working” – a more flexible way for the force to provide some of their services.

At the 'initial stage' is a proposal to computerise the electoral role, and in the long term to possibly provide electronic voting.

The States eGov team says centralising and putting more services online will really benefit Islanders, as you’ll only have to go to one site, and wont find yourself having to fill in endless forms, or having to make phone call after phone call, going from one office to another.

But according to the team the benefits don’t end there.

Being centralised means there shouldn’t be any “doubling up” of staff – one person will deal with enquiries, or the workload will be handled more efficiently the enquiry going to the person that can help, rather than being routed from one member of staff to another.

That could have a number of other spin offs. Either staff numbers can be cut, or staff redeployed allowing them to be involved in more creative work. If numbers are cut it’ll also mean States departments might not need so much office space. That could mean further financial savings.