Mobility, Mobility, Mobility - How to Save GBP21.5 Billion

LONDON, England, November 7 /PRNewswire/ --
    - The MDA Asks; Is 'Mobile' the Missing Link in Meeting Costs Saving and Improving the Delivery of Local Government Services?
    The Mobile Data Association (MDA) has today announced the launch of thefirst phase of a study investigating how local government can and mustimprove the delivery of services; principally through the adoption of mobiletechnologies. Since the Cabinet Office launched its TransformationalGovernment strategy in November 2005, it has become clear that to deliverthis and to achieve the target efficiency savings of GBP21.5bn by 2008, theadoption of ICT is essential.
    The MDA's initiative has been backed by the DTI and will be rolled out ina number of phases, in total taking an estimated nine months to complete. Theultimate aim is to foster a better understanding of the potential that mobiletechnology offers in the fulfilment of transformational government.
    Speaking about the investigation, Ed Williams, director of Public Sectormobile technology for the MDA, said: "Mobile technology has rapidly become asuccess story in the commercial sector, with businesses of all sizes adoptingmobile strategies, but the level of implementation in the public sector seemsto have hit a wall in recent years. Our focus is to examine the reasonsbehind the slower adoption, to apply some of the learning from the commercialsector and establish an effective framework for mobile technology adoption."
    The first phase (between October - December) is a research programmewhich will individually contact senior officers and staff (19,000 names) incouncils across the UK to ask them to participate. The objective will be toconfirm known and perceived mobile adoption issues. The output will be areport identifying both the benefits that mobile and flexible workingtechnologies can bring in delivering on the Transformational Local Governmentand Gershon efficiency agendas; and detail the perceived barriers toimplementing such change. This report will be made available free of chargeto all in the Public Sector. The target publication for this stage one reportis January 2007.
    The final phase will see the creation of a model Invitation to Tender(ITT) or blueprint to help other public sector departments approach mobiletechnology roll-out in the most effective way.
    This is the first study of its kind that will look exhaustively at thepotential for mobilising local government services and will be heralded as aturning point for future education and awareness. The only othercomplementary study has been the work undertaken by project Nomad whoseresearch focuses on the benefits achieved by government departments that havealready adopted mobile strategies.
    The project is a joint initiative between the MDA, DTI and project Nomad,who have commissioned Informed Publications, Headstar and journalist andpublic sector expert Michael Cross to undertake the research.
    The Mobile Data Association is a supply-side, technology-neutral, TradeAssociation that is now in its 12th year of operation. We count all of theMobile Network Operators as well as many content providers, aggregators andmobile data solution providers amongst our membership. We aggregate andpublish the SMS texting figures each month as well as organising memberevents on various topics of interest and/or concern.
The Mobile Data Association
For further information, please contact: Paul Doran, Switch Communications, tel: +44-(0)207-819-9333, mob: +44-(0)7768-373-100