June 2007

WHAT IS TRANSFORMATIONAL GOVERNMENT?

Transformational Government (T-Gov) is a strategy produced by the Chief Information Officer's Council in 2005. It aims to provide technology leadership, covering three main areas. These are:

• Public services
• Government organisations
• Technology

For public services, the transformation is intended to benefit citizens, businesses, taxpayers and front-line staff. For government organisations the transformation is about efficiency, corporate infrastructure and 'freeing resources for the front line', As for technology, this is really a catch-all about delivering technology for government.

However, this in itself is vague. The strategy talks about the 'IT Profession in Government', which will 'support the development of IT awareness and IT-enabled business change management skills'. Transformational Government is basically an acknowledgement that the government needs to use ICT in order to transform itself. However, the strategy document is not specific about what this actually involves, and 'transform' is a strong word.

What about Music Services?

As public services, Music & Performing Arts Services are most definitely affected by Transformational Government. The timing of this is not ideal, as it collides very nicely with changes to the standards fund. This does not seem to be a case of completely re-designing the way services work, it is more about using technology to support what is already there.

For Music Services, 'technology' is a two-sided coin. There is the office side, in which administration staff must have central systems to support the general term-to-term running of the service, and there is also the teaching side. Peripatetic teaching is, by definition, a form of mobile working, and teachers must be given the technology to support their work.

This is part of what transformational government means for music services. An office-side database system is no longer enough. Teachers can use mobile technology to further increase information flow. Better information flow means a more efficient, organised service, which will free up resources for the front line, leading to improvements in customer service; one of T-Gov's biggest agendas.

Parents and schools need access to up-to-date information, and having this available online, alongside a payment system is the perfect solution. Mr Blair is right; it is overwhelming, but we can't pretend it is not happening.

To find out more about T-Gov and other initiatives, come to our Information Everywhere event at the end of June.