United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

All customers of the Survey and Land Registration bureau were not able to use any of our services unless they came physically to SLRB's offices. This was hindering the process of buying maps, charts and other products as people had to physically go to the collection center, pay money in person and collect from the delivery counter.
Since SLRB is the only authority from whom official maps can be purchased as we are the developers and creators in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
Due to this fact the oversees customers were highly affected as their representative had to physically be available in our country to pay and collect the requirements.
The other hindrance which was causing inconvenience was the customers who needed to submit their land registration or survey request applications, lots of the times they face traffic and parking problems and also might forget to bring all necessary documents for their application and would need to make more than round to complete the transaction.
Customers had also to call or come physically to check upon their applications and inquire about their status, againthe parking, traffic and the unavailability of employees to take calls after hours caused great inconveniences.
As SLRB services are aimed towards everybody and that includes citizens, residents, public and private sector and foreign investors, the limitation of having to physically come to our offices during working hours to attain any of our services caused lots of distress and inconveniences for both local and international customers.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
All SLRB customers either citizens, residents, private and public sectors, international customers and investors have benefited from the e-services of SLRB which has been recently launched in our portal www.slrb.gov.bh Thus there is no longer need for distress, frustration and anxiety as the world is moving towards electronic ways of communication, electronically getting connected through using web enabled services is the new game of the world communication. As Bahrain has promulgated electronic government use of its service, it was a mandate set by SLRB to introduce all available products and service to its customers (local, international and citizens). The key benefits resulted in implementing of e-services are: 24x7x365 days of online connectivity towards its esteemed users. Ease of operational costs such as (no distress, anxiety and frustrations to its customers) no need for multiple visits to SLRB for certain relevant services. Convenience and ease of operation as per the customer requirement. Any time information availability. This has also impacted in great ways our operational running costs

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The proposed solution was proposed, piloted and initiated with the blessings of the Project sponsor and our Head of SLRB H.E. Shaikh Salman Bin Abdulla Al-Khalifa. The project overall team supervision and leadership was done bySLRB’s General Director of Resources and Information Systems H.E. Shaikh Mohammed Al-Khalifa. The initiative of the project was overseen by the Project Manager, Hamed Mohamed Abulfatih/ Director of Information Systems who invested considerable time in reviewing, coordinating all project efforts with the internal team and the vendor. The stakeholders of this project were only; Survey & Land Registration Bureau was the main stakeholder’s of this project. Project Sponsor: His Excellency Shaikh Salman Bin Abdulla Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa Project Director: His Excellency Shaikh Mohammed Bin Khalifa bin Abdulla Al-Khalifa Project Manager: Hamed Mohamed Abulfatih Project Core Team Members: Mr. Abdulla Al Moosa / Ms. Mai Al Moosa/ Miss Fatima Al Jiran Project User Acceptance Testers (UAT): Cadastral Survey Directorate, Topographic Survey Directorate, Hydrographic Survey Directorate, Land Registration and Followup Directorate, Technical Affairs Directorate, Human and Financial Resources Directorate Project main Implementers: IDEAS, Bahrain

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The following strategies were followed to design and implement the e-services: All existing IT systems were studied to explore how they can be used as a backend of the e-services, where there was no backend for a service, the system had to be designed and developed from scratch. The information systems directorate had to take a leading role as developing e-services is one of its main responsibilities; we proposed the e-services as a channel to deliver our services and discussed it with higher management. This has been discussed in several meetings with all internal stakeholders and the concerned external stakeholders and the final requirements have been reached, the requirements were then forwarded to our vendor who did the actual development of the e-services, The information systems directorate had to monitor and coordinate with the vendor to ensure that the system has been developed as per terms of reference specifications to ensure that the look, feel and its functionalityare adhered as per specifications. Once the development have finished we did a User Acceptance Test along with proper handover, training and documentation and we coordinated with the vendor to ensure it meets our standards as well as the e-government standards.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The job status e-service of the cadastral survey directorate was developed first because we had a workflow system for that directorate and linking the e-service to that database through an intermediate database was done, the service passes a parameter to the database and gets the response. The job status e-service for land registration was the second service to be developed, but because the land registration directorate had no workflow system, we developed an electronic form that the users had to fill out at the back end. The online applications were developed next and because the look and feel of these applications were mostly similar except for a few attribute changes, all were based on the concept of submitting a request and attaching the necessary documents, thus they were grouped together. The online store which was the biggest and most complex application took the most time to develop, as we had to sit down with the business users and catalogue all the products they sold and captured their thumbnails and a larger picture to be shown on the website. We also had to make an agreement with a CrediMax (a Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait card processing company)and the Ministry of finance in order to accept online payments and deposit the money into the government’s account. Another agreement had to be done with Bahrain Post in order to ship all products in a timely manner.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The main obstacles encountered were from coordination and communication efforts done with the business users and the vendor. The business users kept changing requirements even in implementation phase which caused lots of delays in the project and sometimes they made clashing requirements. The vendor also delayed the project and was not giving the project its full attention, they also were objecting to the constantly changing requirements To overcome these obstacles, a committee consisting of the top management of the business users and Information systems was formed to better collaborate, the committee at first seemed as an obstacle at first due to constant changes in the requirements but eventually turned out to be very fruitful, all problems facing the project were discussed in the meetings and this allowed decision makers to make informed decisions and reach resolutions, any new requirement was discussed in the committee and the information systems directorate explained how each and every requirement can or cannot be implemented and what delays might be caused because of these changing requirements. As for the vendor, lots of communications had to be done to emphasis how important the project was for both the bureau and the vendor in order to convince them to hasten up development of the e-services, the information systems directorate had to do lots of negotiations with the vendor to try and fit all extra requirements within the budget of the project.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
As the actual e-service development was implemented by both the Information Systems Directorate and a vendor we were able to minimize the costs associated with the project. The internal team took care of the backend readiness from servers, storage, web services, databases and the vendor did the website development. We have invested approximately $20,000 to develop the services by the vendor. Our internal team size however consisted of: • Information Systems Director: took care of project management, team and vendor coordination, requirement gathering from top management, overall project supervision. • System Analyst, technical coordinator between SLRB and the vendor, technical coordination between business owners and the Information Systems Directorate, website and e-services testing and administration. • Website Administrator ensured that the website and content are kept up to date and per requirements. • Database Administrator: handled the databases and backend to ensure correct functionality of the e-services. As for the technical resources used: we had a web server installed in the central informatics organization to work as the front end and we used the existing oracle and SQL servers to work as the backend

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The website and e-services were developed using international standards like W3C and OWASP. Microsoft .net standards and full documentation was maintained in the code developed for the project and this ensures that the technology can be replicated and transferred to other government organizations if and when needed. SLRB has its own internal resources that will ensure the sustainability through maintaining and managing efficient usage of its e-services. The backend is continuously monitored by highly trained professionals.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The online store is the first of its kind in a government organization in Bahrain, thus the implementation idea can be replicated by other government agencies, companies and private organizations As always being first caves a route map for others to follow a clean path, the greatest improvement and lesson learned form this experience was to build a unified team of all stakeholders for creating a better product and services forthwith. The team involved contribution was magnanimous towards achieving the best for its company and making Bahrain proud of implementing such unique services.


Institution Name:		Survey and Land Registration Bureau
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Hamed Abulfatih
Title:		Director of Information Systems
Telephone/ Fax:		+973- 17507766
Institution's / Project's Website:		+973-17507792
E-mail:		hamedma@slrb.gov.bh
Address:		Building 119B Road 383 Block 304
Postal Code:		332
City:		Manama
State/Province:
Country:		Bahrain

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information