Green Hat is helping local government to deliver joined up services and assisting with National Projects for e-Government.

e-Government and Green Hat

Overview FAQ Customer Data Integration Links and Affiliations Downloads

Press Release: Green Hat and SOA transform service delivery at Ealing

Green Hat is developing a members’ portal for the London Borough of Ealing, based on the council’s enterprise middleware solution.

Having successfully completed a pilot project, the web portal for all councillors is set to move into full production this autumn and will provide targeted, personalised and customisable information based on user profile.

The portal enables remote working and provides single sign-on to required applications. It also allows councillors to make follow-up requests directly into the council’s CRM system (until now, these have gone through the complaints team, taking two weeks to process).

The middleware platform, which ties in with Ealing’s security model, is based on a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and Green Hat has already completed integration with the council’s CRM, EDRMS and groupware solutions. Work is in progress to integrate the social care and environmental reporting solutions, and SOA is offering the advantage of reusable components that can be used by other application (e.g. planning applications retrieved by the portal and the content management system).

What is Electronic Government?

"E-Government is not an end in itself. It is at the heart of the drive to modernise government. Modernising local government is about enhancing the quality of local services and the effectiveness of local democracy"

Most importantly, 'customers' of government - public citizens, small businesses and large corporations - need to see a noticeable improvement in government services in order to support the process.

In our opinion, e-government isn't about computers or a simple on-line information system or even Customer Relationship Management (CRM). It is about structural reform, service reform and business process re-engineering. IT is only part of the solution.

The key processes that will be affected include:

  • How local people and companies conduct business with the Council
  • How local people and companies are able to access public information
  • How local people and companies obtain services from the Council
  • How we achieve efficiencies in the Council
  • How local people are informed about the Council
  • How local people are consulted on policy issues
  • How this Council interacts with other public bodies

Building Blocks for e-Government

The application of e-Government must be guided by the vision of a socially inclusive community where services are accessible to all and delivered in efficient and effective ways, taking full account of the differing needs, customs and interests of local people.

Based upon our architectural experience, Green Hat firmly believes that e-Government will require an "enterprise architecture" or "framework" which will serve to integrate disparate processes, services and activities both internally and externally to Local or Central Government.

Green Hat Consulting aims to assist forward-thinking local authorities in their objective to deliver services electronically, which are quicker, easier, cheaper and more accessible and customer-responsive.

Understanding your needs

Green Hat understands the demands on central and local government to improve the spending efficiencies inline with expectations laid down by the e-Government targets including:

  • Priority Service Outcomes
  • CPA ratings
  • BVPI 157
  • Gershon

whilst achieving greater productivity from limited resources. Added to this is the necessity to offer joined-up front line services that are secure, convenient and always available.

Reference Architecture

Green Hat has developed a Reference Architecture which outlines typical services required by Councils to deliver e-Government solutions. We are able to provide advice, solutions and guidance to deliver targets outlined in the IEG process and Priority Outcomes.

Furthermore, the Reference Architecture described below, is future-proof and scalable and includes "hooks" to future initiatives outlined by central Government which include services such as Government Connect and Government Gateway.

Green Hat is working with local and central Government to deliver end-to-end, joined up e-Government solutions.

(click for full size version)

Pragmatic Approach to Delivery: LOB Driven Rollout

Green Hat recognises that Councils are faced with a daunting task in delivering against the numerous e-Government targets. We can help to reduce the complexity of front line delivery and offer suitable solutions to your organisation that will help meet these challenging requirements.

Green Hat recommends that Councils consider a more pragmatic approach to delivering an Enterprise Architecture. We and would advise on the adoption of Line-Of-Business (LOB) driven projects that solve a specific business problem rather than a myriad of complex technology factors.

This LOB-driven effort can be complementary to the long-term Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) blueprint. In fact, real-world business process management and automation is most successful when using a pragmatic incrementalist approach rather than now-discredited big-bang, top-down techniques.