The implications are twofold. One, don't assume you are dealing directly with all your customers. In fact your customers may have a much stronger and trusted relationship with your distributor than with you as a public agency. Second, don't assume that your distributors or the intermediaries between you and your customers have the same characteristics. The intermediaries are likely more knowledgeable and more stable in their relationship with you, and potentially more techno-savvy, than individual customers or citizens.
Partnership cuts both ways.
Once you survey your distribution channel landscape and find potential distributors, several interesting options surface. You may have been overlooking interests you and another set of players have in common. Such partnership doesn't change the fact that an agency still must play a regulatory role and ultimately look out for the broader public interest. Still, the good news is that you may have partners who can help you put a more user-friendly face on your program. Such partners may be able to add a Web front end to a program, the way the tax preparation software industry did for filing income taxes.