Budget transfer from Central Contingency to Chief Minister's Department: Digital Identification Service

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A decision made 23 February 2018:

Decision Reference: MD-TR-2018-0021
Decision Summary Title:	Central Contingency funding in 2018 and 2019 to Chief Minister’s Department for costs associated with build and implementation of a Digital Identification Service		Date of Decision Summary:	16th February 2018
Decision Summary Author:	Head of Decision Support		Decision Summary: Public or Exempt?	Public
Type of Report: Oral or Written?	Written		Person Giving Oral Report:
Written Report Title:	Central Contingency funding in 2018 and 2019 to Chief Minister’s Department for costs associated with build and implementation of a Digital Identification Service		Date of Written Report:	16th February 2018
Written Report Author:	Head of Decision Support		Written Report : Public or Exempt?	Public
Subject: Non-recurring transfer of up to £860,000 in 2018 and 2019 from Central Contingency to the Chief Minister’s Department for costs associated with build and implementation of a Digital Identification service and associated running costs for the first two years, 2018 and 2019.
Decision(s): The Minister approved a non-recurring transfer of up to £860,000 over 2018 and 2019 from Central Contingency to the Chief Minister’s Department for costs associated with build and implementation of a Digital Identification service and associated running costs for the first two years, 2018 and 2019.
Reason(s) for Decision: Article 17(2) of the Public Finances (Jersey) Law 2005 states that the Minister for Treasury and Resources is authorised to approve the transfer from contingency expenditure to heads of expenditure of amounts not exceeding, in total, the amount available for contingency expenditure in a financial year. The current Contingency Allocation Policy (published as R.110/2017) sets the requirement for all allocations from Contingency over £100,000 to be considered by the Council of Ministers prior to submission to the Minister for approval. The Council of Ministers approved this funding of up to £860,000 for the delivery of digital identity as a component of eGovernment at its meeting on 6th December 2017. Failure to invest in the Digital ID service project will require current and future service transformation programmes to develop and/or provide a digital identity service separately. Consequently, this will significantly increase costs and complexity and reduce service quality.
Resource Implications: Central Contingency to decrease by up to £860,000 in 2018 and 2019 and the Chief Minister’s Department to increase by identical amounts. The total of up to £860,000 is proposed to be drawn down as up to £683,000 in 2018 and up to £177,000 in 2019 but the amount for each year may be varied without exceeding the total amount for the two years. This decision does not change the total amount of expenditure approved by the States for 2017-2019 in the Medium Term Financial Plan. There are no FTE implications associated with this funding.
Action required: Head of Decision Support to advise the Policy and Research Officer – Chief Minister’s Department once this decision has been approved.
Signature:		Position: Senator A J H Maclean, Minister for Treasury and Resources
Date Signed:		Date of Decision:

Budget transfer from Central Contingency to Chief Minister's Department: Digital Identification Service

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Treasury and Resources

Ministerial Decision Report

Central Contingency funding in 2018 and 2019 to Chief Minister’s Department for costs associated with build and implementation of a Digital Identification service

Purpose of Report

To enable the Minister to approve a non-recurring transfer of up to £860,000 during 2018 and 2019 from Central Contingency to the Chief Minister’s Department for costs associated with build and implementation of a Digital Identification service and the associated running costs for the first two years, 2018 and 2019.

Background

In Q1 2014 the Corporate Management Board (“CMB”) and the Council of Ministers (“CoM”) received the eGovernment business case, which set out to create an effective and efficient eGovernment model to deliver digital services to its customers.

One of the core deliverables of eGov is a ‘digital identity service’ to “verify the identity of citizens and provide a secure means to authenticate and authorise access to government services”.

Key points from this original business case included:

• a recognition of increasing customer expectations, in particular access to high quality services delivered online. Equally the need for government to create a resilient, secure and up to date technology platform on which to deliver these services. Critically it set out the importance of taking a whole States of Jersey approach to these ambitions, rather than each department pursuing its own course.

• the eGov programme was positioned as an enabling programme within the Public Sector Reform portfolio. As such it was classified as an investment and carried no cashable benefits. Further phases, which were intended to deliver new services on the eGov platform, were positioned as driving out cashable benefits and/or delivering an improved customer service.

An increased understanding of how the Digital Identification service can be delivered led to a revision of the original eGovernment programme estimates and consequently a requirement for further funds was approved by CoM on 10th May 2017.

On 6th December 2017, CoM approved the funding of £860,000 for the delivery of digital identity as a component of eGovernment.

The successful delivery of digital identity as a component of eGovernment is a key enabler to the commencement of digital transformation of the States of Jersey.

The utilisation of the digital identity service, along with other common components delivered by the eGov programme is scalable and can be used by many services and departments to create a common and consistent user experience for both customers accessing and staff delivering services. Examples include submission of applications for benefits, completion of online tax returns, access to medical records and registration to vote.

3. Recommendation

The Minister approved a non-recurring transfer of up to £860,000 over 2018 and 2019 from Central Contingency to the Chief Minister’s Department for costs associated with build and implementation of a Digital Identification service and associated running costs for the first two years, 2018/9.

4. Reason for Decision

Article 17(2) of the Public Finances (Jersey) Law 2005 states that the Minister for Treasury and Resources is authorised to approve the transfer from contingency expenditure to heads of expenditure of amounts not exceeding, in total, the amount available for contingency expenditure in a financial year.

The current Contingency Allocation Policy (published as R.110/2017) sets the requirement for all allocations from Contingency over £100,000 to be considered by the Council of Ministers prior to submission to the Minister for approval.

The Council of Ministers approved this funding of up to £860,000 for the delivery of digital identity as a component of eGovernment at its meeting on 6th December 2017.

Failure to invest in the Digital ID service project will require current and future service transformation programmes to develop and/or provide a digital identity service separately. Consequently, this will significantly increase costs and complexity and reduce service quality.

5. Resource Implications

Central Contingency to decrease by up to £860,000 in 2018 and 2019 and the Chief Minister’s Department to increase by identical amounts.

The total of up to £860,000 is proposed to be drawn down as up to £683,000 in 2018 and up to £177,000 in 2019 but the amount for each year may be varied without exceeding the total amount for the two years.

This decision does not change the total amount of expenditure approved by the States for 2017-2019 in the Medium Term Financial Plan. There are no FTE implications associated with this funding.

Report author : Head of Decision Support	Document date 6th February 2018
Quality Assurance / Review : Director of Financial Planning and Performance	File name and path: L:\Treasury\Sections\Corporate Finance\Ministerial Decisions\DS, WR and SD\2018-0021 - C7 Contingency funding to CMD for Digital Identification Service £859k