Council's e-payment system offers hope to tax payers

Councils have been dragging their feet over offering facilities for online payment, compared with private companies. Last year's annual survey of council websites carried out by the Society for IT Management found that only 38 councils accepted online payments for council taxes, fees and fines.

Yet councils can benefit hugely by moving to online billing and payment, says Andy Wannell, head of financial development and operations with Fareham borough council, Hampshire. "The government says councils should offer online payment of council tax but this is something citizens themselves are asking for," he says. "Providing the take-up is there, it makes the whole billing process significantly cheaper."

Fareham council has launched an integrated e-presentment and e-pay service called Citizen's Account, which will enable local residents and businesses to view and pay all sorts of bills, from council tax to business rates, online. The aim is to provide residents with 24-hour access to any account they hold with the council, together with a full online knowledge base and secure payment facility.

The first Citizens Account services went live in March. They allow citizens to register for online council tax and business tax services. The account provides a daily-updated view of all current balances and charges. Citizens can also see a 10-year payment history, view instalment plans, check payments have been received and print statements. Pulling this information from disparate systems was a significant challenge, says Wannell, and took the council almost four months to complete.

The service was promoted through local newspapers and the authority included information with council tax bills. Adoption has been growing steadily, says Wannell. "It's building up gradually, but if it continues at this rate, we should get a full return on the investment within two years."

As new services are added to the account, the issue of data sharing and extraction will become more difficult for Fareham. "For example, we'd like to create a single business account so business users can see all their relationships with the council in one page - whether they're a supplier, a debtor, a rate payer or whatever," says Wannell. "But we have to work through a lot of data-sharing issues and ensure that the security and confidentiality can be maintained."

Fareham based much of its security and data-sharing policy on work carried out by Bristol city council, which is the lead authority in e-Pay, one of the 23 centrally sponsored local e-government national projects. It set out to improve and extend the way citizens can pay for public services.

"Using the experience of Bristol means that, technically, our project has gone pretty smoothly," says Wannell. "In fact, the biggest headache has been the legal documentation around the contract with the company hosting the service, setting service level agreements and so on. Technically, we have benefited a lot from the lessons other councils have learned."