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Start-up of the Month: A government portal?
Are you mad?

By Seb Janacek

Published: Friday 31 January 2003

You find start-ups in the strangest of places these days. Just a few months ago we brought you one huddled alongside the swanky tailors of Savile Row. But an internet start-up operating within the dusty corridors of Her Majesty's civil service? Surely some mistake, says Seb Janacek...

The UK government's chequered track record with technology is well documented with the e-shenanigans of the Inland Revenue, Passport Office and 1901 Census all coming under heavy criticism in the last 12 months. But little is ever heard about e-government projects that are financed, launched and run successfully. The concept behind the Planning Portal (www.planningportal.gov.uk) is a one-stop shop for all users of the planning system, from agents managing major developments to homeowners wanting to add an extension to the kitchen.

As well as offering up-to-date guidance on planning, the Portal has taken a number of traditionally paper-based processes and made them digital.

Development plans, which lay out council planning guidance, are traditionally hundreds of pages long with billboard-sized maps attached. The plans remain unchanged for up to a decade and are out of date as soon as they're published.

Now, by using GIS mapping techniques and content management software an entire development plan can be published and maintained electronically.

Another service aimed at speeding up the process uses online planning application forms. Applicants are guided through the process with automatic error checking of forms and extensive help. Users can also buy a piece of electronic map and mark it with site boundaries.

Forthcoming Portal features include the ability to track appeals online and a planning news service.

So far, the project has received £3.2m in capital funding from the government's Capital Modernisation Fund and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), with ongoing running costs supported by ODPM, and the Planning Inspectorate. Backers for the project also include the National Assembly of Wales, the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and 147 other stakeholders, many of them local authorities.

The man with the plan is Graham Saunders, Director of Appeals Administration at the Planning Inspectorate's head offices in Bristol.

Saunders claims one of the biggest challenges lay in overcoming the cultural barriers - not only in launching a start-up within the traditionally risk-averse civil service but also in fostering collaboration between central and local government.

"Traditionally, there has been an uneasy relationship between central and local government so we involved users - the local authorities and planners in the private sector - in the development of the project from the offset," he says. "We wanted to make sure the Portal delivers what they actually need - rather than what central government thinks they need."

Around 25 planning, business and IT professionals were involved in extensive work to define the Portal's requirements.

Saunders adds: "It's easy to deliver a project but far more difficult to get people to use it and benefit from using it. The early feedback we received has radically changed the development of the service and the team adjusted accordingly."

The challenge of getting the right structure and the right staff in place was made explicit following consultation with management consultants Opta.

"The team structure proposed was far more complex than we had originally imagined. The required skills set simply didn't exist within the civil service so we looked to the private sector to recruit key staff, in particular from editorial, IT and, most unusually for the civil service, from marketing."

A number of the 18-strong team hailed from dot-coms and new media firms. The team make-up is unique in the civil service and the differences in working cultures have led to some 'interesting' debates.

But payback is already showing. The Portal has attracted a full range of users, with take-up from local authorities and planning agents exceeding expectations.

"We're way ahead of schedule," says Portal marketing manager Simon Ryan. "The interest from local authorities has been phenomenal.

"We set what we thought was a highly ambitious target of 90 local authorities signed on the dotted line by March 2003." By December 2002 the number had sailed past 100.

He claims the sales team has been on the road constantly since September, as attested by the layers of dust covering the keyboards of their office computers.

"We're already looking at taking on more staff to cope with the demand," adds a tired-looking Ryan.

Reaction to the project within the upper echelons of ODPM has been enthusiastic.

Katrine Sporle, chief executive of the Planning Inspectorate and an advocate of using technology to reform public services, says: "I think the more that people look at the Portal, the more we'll see it will emerge as the future of planning. I have no doubt it will have a major impact on planning reform."

A key benefit is the internet's ability to transform traditional government ways of working, both internally and in terms of communicating with the public. Communicating planning developments via the web is surely better than taping paper reports to lamp posts and fences.

Sporle adds: "It lets us get rid of the dry, old documents that can never be kept up to date and instead offer a graphical, interactive medium the public can relate to."

The Planning Portal is on the top tier of the government's electronic transaction services and its progress is being keenly followed by senior ODPM ministers.

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Tony McNulty MP has championed the project since its inception. "The Portal will give the planning system greater transparency, offering the public the opportunity to engage more fully," he says.

"The Portal will also help local authorities to meet the national standards for online government and improved planning services."

Meanwhile, Planning Portal director Richard Goodwin is confident the service can avoid the mistakes of other e-government projects.

"We've avoided the common pitfalls by proper planning and undertaking a gradual roll out of services. There's been no 'big bang'. We've involved customers, users and stakeholders at every step of the way and run pilot schemes ahead of key service launches."

Goodwin stresses the importance that the Portal be self-sustainable and not a drain on public expenses. With the completion of the project the service has to have the right organisation to run it.

Unlike other models of e-government the public's cash is underpinned until the service is self- sustainable, something Goodwin proudly refers to as a "true collaboration between public and private sector".

"It was a conscious decision to test out the concept of the Portal before trying to bring in private finance to offset the risk. However, the possibilities for future commercial partnerships and possibly private sector operation are very exciting."

Goodwin is particularly pleased with the way his team has pulled together, despite its array of skills and backgrounds. Having previously been an architect, journalist and photographer before joining the civil service, he appreciates the integration challenges the team faced.

"It was a case of culture shock, with two different value systems, the public sector Planning Inspectorate and the largely private-sector recruits, coming together in one team. However, the barriers to acceptance are falling all the time. We're enjoying more collaboration between old and new.

"We originally thought we'd have to drag the planning system kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. As it turns out, it's agreed to come quietly."

Do you run or know about a start-up whose story we should be telling? If so, drop us an email at editorial@silicon.com.