Scotland's Digital Future - Delivery of Public Services

Section Seven: Opportunities for Digital Public Services

The principles and commitments listed in section 5 and the national-level actions set out in section 6 will allow us to:

• build on existing developments in digital public services
• develop new digital public services (or find new ways of meeting needs previously requiring public services)

Digital is a vital resource in delivering the desired outcomes of key reform initiatives. These include:

• health and social care – professionals require a robust digital network that enables data sharing to support integrated health and social care services to the patient
• education – developing a user-centred environment to ensure Scotland's teachers, learners and parents can take full advantage of opportunities offered by digital services
• police and fire reform – protecting and improving local services by stopping duplication of support services and creating more equal access to specialist support and national capacity

We will, in and across sectors, identify further priority areas where digital delivery offers significant opportunities for service reform. We will ensure that where we pursue change programmes and methodologies, e.g. the 3-Step Improvement Framework, we will integrate digital delivery into this improvement.

In taking forward action, the public sector will engage with those from whom we can learn and with whom we can co-operate. We will continue to work with the ICT industry through continued involvement in the governance structures that will support the implementation of this strategy.

In developing our strategy and action plan we will also learn from and align with the actions of other countries and governments. In particular we recognise that citizens and businesses access both UK and Scottish services and, in delivering our ambitions, we will take account of existing digital services and the UK Government's Digital Strategy due to be published by the end of 2012.

Case Study: School Online Payments System

The school online payments system, part of the Customer First Channel Shift Programme, offers parents the option of making a variety of school payments – including school trips and lunch money – via a simple and convenient online system linked to the Young Scot National Entitlement Card ( NEC). It has many positive features and benefits for parents, pupils, schools and councils.

More at: http://bit.ly/QhXBhP and http://bit.ly/QkhGOO

Video at: http://bit.ly/GQLvUH

The Scottish Government will facilitate wider engagement:

with businesses more widely, particularly those who use ICT imaginatively in the development, design and delivery of their own digital products and services

with university researchers through, for example, the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance grouping – this will allow us to be aware of new and anticipated developments in digital technology and to bring service providers together with researchers to devise applications and solutions for service delivery.

In doing so our objective will be to transform how outcomes are achieved through innovative use of ICT.