Case Study (NSCP)

 

Local E-Government

Client: National Smart Card Project (NSCP)

Background/Objectives

The National Smart Card Project is one of the ODPM-sponsored National Projects and aims to bring together the knowledge and expertise of local authorities and government departments in order to develop and drive smart card solutions across the country.

A number of local authority smart card schemes and initiatives are already in place and this assignment aims to pull them together and join them up to create a model smart card scheme that offers citizens across England access to seamless service delivery using the latest technology.

Over the last year, the assignment's 10 Work Packages have been drawing on current experience and reaching out into new arenas to establish a framework for functional smart card solutions.

The NSCP commissioned Consult Hyperion as independent experts to validate the work to date and develop a smart card Technology Roadmap (TRM). It is the intention that any Local Authority (LA) considering issuing smart cards can use the TRM to understand the technologies and standards involved in smart card issuance and the direction in which they are moving.

Approach and Benefits to Client

It is important to have a well-defined process when drawing up a TRM. Starting with the NSCP vision for smart cards in LAs, this study devised a process to produce a TRM and Action Plan to be reviewed by a peer group and then implemented by Local Authorities.

The study used examples of likely scenarios relating to the key smart card applications framework and covered a period of around 10 years.

Benefits of the NSCP TRM study include:

• a more sophisticated understanding of the technologies
• reduced risk of investment in technology
• knowledge sharing and identification of current gaps in knowledge
• an action plan with around 40 recommendations to focus the currently disparate LA smart card activities in the UK and join up with activities in central government and abroad
• enhanced collaboration between public sector and the smart card industry
• wider communication of the NSCP smart card strategy for LAs both within and beyond the UK
• increased awareness of experiences that might transfer from other sectors such as banking and telecoms

In addition, the TRM acts as a context for and pointer to the results of the deliverables produced by the NSCP work streams.