Wolverhampton is a good place to die. The city council was one of the first in England to try to save bereaved residents the heartbreaking chore of notifying multiple official agencies of the death of a spouse or another close relative.
All they need do is tell the council's bereavement centre in the Civic Centre. Staff record the information and notify relevant organisations electronically so that the dead individual doesn't continue to get bills for council tax and reminders to return library books.
The idea is not new. A joined-up bereavement service, enabled by IT, was one of the original projects conceived for Britain's first e-government initiative, a scheme called Government.direct, launched in the dying months of John Major's government. A senior civil servant in the Cabinet Office had been struck by the difficulty of notifying officialdom that his father had died, and thought there must be a better way.
It didn't happen, partly because of administrative and technical complexities, but mainly because ministers thought it would be the butt of journalists' jokes. (They were right.)
Wolverhampton's civic leaders are made of sterner stuff. The council launched its bereavement service, originally funded through central government's invest-to-save budget, three years ago. It received further funding as a local government "pathfinder" to develop electronic messages using XML messaging technology and other parts of the e-government interoperability framework.
The council's ambitions include linking the system with those that schedule burials and cremations, as well as with the NHS.
However, the scheme has hit a barrier. The council would like to set up links with national government departments and agencies so that notifications of death can flow seamlessly across official boundaries. However, according to Fahri Zihni, the council's chief ICT officer (who is also president of the IT managers' association SocITM), the law gets in the way. "Civil registration legislation is very long in the tooth and does not allow information about the deceased to be passed on," he says.
The situation is similar to that faced by councils trying to set up one-stop notifications of changes of address. Even when everyone wants to share such information, it is technically illegal to do so.
Zihni says that, although changes in the law are promised, "our level of enthusiasm as a local authority is not replicated by central government priorities". He names the Inland Revenue and the Department for Work and Pensions as dragging their feet in accepting electronic notifications.
The story contains two lessons about e-government. First, projects that make a difference to people don't have to be about ritzy websites. Second, without urgent action by Whitehall to tackle anomalies exposed by local initiatives such as that at Wolverhampton, much good work will go to waste.
But at least when your long-dead grandmother receives a tax demand, you know who to blame.
· See: www.wolverhampton.gov.uk
