North Norfolk District Council has developed an E-Government strategy which includes installing a network of public access Web kiosks in remote areas, and offering local groups the tools to run their own ’micro-sites’ on the Council’s portal.

About

North Norfolk is one of the UK’s most agricultural regions with 100,000 residents spread across some 120 parishes and 200 distinct communities. Whilst the car has for a long time dominated social life in the area, the Internet has also grown in popularity. Currently, almost one in two households in North Norfolk are online. In May 2002, North Norfolk District Council (NNDC) launched ‘Reach Out’ – an E-Government project aimed at capitalising on the popularity of the Web to improve local communities’ access to essential services.

Challenge

For ‘Reach Out’ to be successful, NNDC needed to make it easier for council staff and members of the public, not IT experts, to publish new material on its portal, www.northnorfolk.org. As a result, the content management system (CMS) implemented needed to be flexible, and require little user training whilst also being highly cost effective. Having appointed Capita to develop E-Government applications, such as online council tax account management and car parking pre-payment, NNDC approached Open Text Web Solutions to supply the content management system (CMS) to underlay the entire portal. Its requirements were tight – not only was Open Text Web Solution’s CMS required to interface seamlessly with the Capita-developed E-Government applications, it also had to be easy enough to operate for the Council’s Web team to manage on its own – with minimal training or involvement from the IT department.

As if these demands weren’t stringent enough, NNDC wanted Open Text Web Solution’s help to enable local parish groups and organisations within the district to create their own portals – and redefine E-Government in the process. By extending Open Text Web Solution’s content management functionality to any local community group which wanted to build its own mini-Web site, NNDC hoped to turn North Norfolk into a truly ‘virtual’ community.

• Provides overarching content management for E-Government portal
• Enable council staff, as opposed to IT experts, to easily publish new material to North Norfolk’s Web site

Solution

Funded mainly by around £ 400,000 from the Government’s ‘Invest to Save’ programme and the East of England Development Agency, NNDC chose Open Text Web Solutions to act as the backbone for ‘Reach Out’. Editors simply click on the red dots beside editable items of content, and update it with ease. The entire system is browser-based, so there’s no additional software to install on editors’ PCs – a godsend for the growing numbers of local minisite Web masters, who can easily manage their sites from their homes or offices. Open Text Web Solution’s easy integration of complex database and XML feeds meant that the E-Government applications developed by Capita could be easily incorporated into the portal.

• Easy integration with E-Government applications based on XML and complex database architectures

Results

So successful has ‘Reach Out’ been that the project was awarded a special commendation at the first ever District Council E-Government Innovation Awards, held under the auspices of SOCITM (the Society of Information Technology Management) – the public sector’s top IT association. As well as praising the technical strengths of the portal, North Norfolk received a special mention for its work in encouraging its citizens to get involved - particularly the easy-to-manage parish and community group minisites.

More recently, public kiosks have been provided for more remote villages – installed in local pubs and shops to ensure that everybody is truly ‘connected’ to the rest of the district and the services it offers.

• The portal was awarded a special commendation at the first ever District Council E-Government Innovation Awards
• People can now create their own minisites – ensuring they are up to date regarding important and useful services in the area

Facts & Figures

Customer: North Norfolk District Council

URL: www.northnorfolk.org, www.northnorfolk.org/sheringham/, www.northnorfolk.org/colby/, www.northnorfolk.org/anna/, www.northnorfolk.org/acag/

Project duration: Duration of ‘Reach Out’ development was April 2001 to December 2002, Open Text Web Solutions from March 2002 – May 2002

Site launched: 14th May 2002

Greatest challenge: Integration with back office systems, Open Text Web Solutions with Capita Direct, and most importantly ensuring that the website is secure.

Site scope: Integrate with back end systems within NNDC and allow authoring to be dispersed to different departments/communities within the NNDC.

Server: Computer Model PowerEdge 2650, Vendor Dell Computer Corporation, Dual Pentium III Xeon processors, 2GB RAM, 36GB HD, Windows 2000

Integrated components: Capita Academy Server

Hosting: North Norfolk District Council