Abstract
The Online Free School Meals (OFSM) project [1] is an example of transformation through information technology (IT) in local and central government. It brings together several central government departments in England, removes a bureaucratic process for the citizen, speeds up the process significantly, saves money, removes the stigma of benefit claim, and enables automatic audit and renewal [2]. The OFSM project was led by Connect Digitally, the team that introduced online school admissions across England [3]. The project brief was to develop a solution which would check parent/carer eligibility based on minimal criteria across the three central government databases which held the essential data, namely, Her Majesty’s Revenues and Customs (HMRC), the Home Office (HO) and the Department for Work and Pension (DWP). The project resulted in the Eligibility Checking Service (ECS, previously called the Hub) [4] which from three key data items – family name, date of birth, and National Insurance number (NINO) or National Asylum Support Service (NAAS) registration number - can deliver an immediate eligibility response in over 90% [5] of applications via a web interface. The large response from local authorities (LAs) across England and Wales led to over 149 using at least some of the facilities of the ECS [6] and many incorporating the full web service process, saving money, time and delivering a beneficial service for the citizen. This paper looks at the original process, the development of the system, the current take-up and the future of OFSM in England.
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Connect Digitally: The OFSM Project (2012), accessible at http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/1875909/forum/thread.do?backlink=ref&id=4489865&themeId=3008216
School Food Trust: Home page (2012), accessible at http://www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/
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Connect Digitally: OFSM Customer Journeys (2012), accessible at http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/1875909/doclib/document-display.do?backlink=ref&id=490255
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Strickley, A., Spiers, T.: Successful implementation and increase of citizen take-up of e-government: processes, strategies, practice and lessons learned. In: European Conference on e-Government 2012 Proceedings. ACI, Reading (2012)
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Strickley, A. (2013). Data Sharing between Local and National Governments for the Benefit of the Citizen. In: Passey, D., Breiter, A., Visscher, A. (eds) Next Generation of Information Technology in Educational Management. ITEM 2012. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 400. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38411-0_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38411-0_10
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