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[MUSIC PLAYING]
ALAN JONES: The Somerset County Council is a big
organization.
But it can't do everything for its community.
What we wanted was a system that led the public to the
answer that they're looking for.
And integrates the public services in Somerset.
We decided to go with Google because the whole world knows
and trusts Google.
People will get to the information they require
quickly and more accurately.
And hopefully first time, every time.
The biggest challenges facing local authorities at the
moment are around managing finances.
It's going to get much, much tougher in the
next couple of years.
Gartner have shown that in the US a normal interaction face
to face or on the telephone could cost as much as $7.50.
Whereas an internet interaction costs in the
region of $0.50.
The taxpayers in Somerset will want to know what did this
cost. Well here's the good news.
We got some money from the regional government to help us
start this thing up.
And the ongoing cost is going to be, in UK money, 2.5 pence
per person per year.
That's about $0.04 per person per year.
With regard to future development, there are just a
couple of examples I would like to give.
One is we'd like to embed within the Somerset Google
translation facilities.
Which will be capable of translating not just phrases,
but whole websites for any of the public bodies in Somerset
into any one of 32 languages.
There are lots of new things happening out
there on the internet.
Facebook has been around a little while.
Twitter is brand new.
There are going to be more.
And this gives us a way in which we could connect those
services together using Google.
And maybe bind them together in some new and exciting way
for our community.
[MUSIC PLAYING]