Cheshire council pilots portal

Vale Royal Borough Council in Cheshire is piloting an internet portal as part of a push to meet the government's target of putting all services online by 2005.

The authority claims it will also lead to significant budget savings by reducing the duplication of paper documents.

"It has been, in IT terms, relatively cheap to implement and within two years it will have paid for itself in terms of paper, stationery and printing, in addition to efficiency benefits," said Steve Downs, head of financial services at Vale Royal.

Six council members are currently testing the portal, which gives secure web browser access from any PC or laptop to council minutes, Lotus Notes email, an intranet, calendaring, and back office systems.

Use of the portal will be extended across the borough once the feedback is checked and any resulting changes have been carried out, Downs said.

"We will first roll it out to all 57 of our councillors and then to all our employees. The aim is to eventually let suppliers and the local community access our services through the portal," he said.

The portal was developed by Novell's services arm using technology from supplier ANS. It uses single sign-on for authenticating and authorising councillors.

Local authorities have been set the target of putting all their services online by 2005.

The government will give each of the 398 authorities in the UK £400,000 over the next two years towards meeting that target.

Vale Royal already has 25 per cent online but they are information-only services, Downs said.

"We will be piloting a transactional service this year when we have identified a service the people will find useful," he said.

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