PA extracts
David Fry says: "Sadly, in many local councils the response to e-government is a poorly thought-through activity designed to 'tick the box' against government objectives, rather than an attempt genuinely to transform services. Local authorities have a big challenge to bring together the work of all their different departments, apply common processes and share services internally before they can collaborate with others. The very best, such as Westminster City Council in the UK, have overcome this challenge and are leading the pack in trying to offer services to other councils. These services could provide the private sector some lessons on customer care."
Veera Johnson-Birt, partner at PA Consulting, concludes: "It's not even about e-government any more. It's just about government."
Full article
On June 1 this year, Jean-Pierre Raffarin took part in a technological experiment. The French prime minister invited the country's citizens to chat with him by mobile phone. Between 7pm and 8pm, people could text in their questions for the premier by SMS message, or using Wap. It was the first time that a European prime minister communicated directly with the electorate in this fashion.
Most of e-government is much less exciting than this. E-government means making the humdrum aspects of administration and making them easier to process, by putting them online or making them accessible in an electronic format. It could be as simple as applying for a fishing licence or as boring as filling in your tax return. The point is that e-government makes essential services more convenient and accessible to citizens and at the same time saves governments money in administration.
Cost savings exert a powerful attraction for any government. Romania recently invested Dollars 2.5m in a new an online auction-based public sector procurement system, using commonplace technology, that the government calculates will save Dollars 80m in procurement costs. That cash will be spent instead on schools and sports, the government has pledged.
Governments also need to keep up with private businesses. People have come to expect the high standard of service - shorter queues, faster turnaround of transactions at a lower cost - that improvements in technology have brought to business. They are thus less willing to tolerate delays and poor service from public bodies, for which they are paying in tax. So better service translates into more satisfied citizens, too.
Bulgarians can now receive a passport in five to ten minutes, thanks to a new IT system that links the passport issuing office with the ministry of the interior, police and criminal justice system for quicker security checks. "People are very pleased with it. When you see it, it makes you ask why it takes two weeks in other countries," says Rudi Richter, sales manager at Hewlett-Packard, which built the system.
These examples show how e-government has changed from its early days, only a few years ago. Then, the focus was on websites that gave citizens access to local and central government information and some basic services, like filling in forms. Now, governments are taking a more holistic approach, maintaining information websites but also joining up services at the back end to make processes smoother. E-government now encompasses a huge variety of IT systems from procurement to the management of identity cards, from electronic patient records to e-voting.
The top country in the world when it comes to e-government is Canada, according to a report from Accenture that examined the use of e-government services throughout the world. Singapore came second, with the US just a whisker behind, closely followed by Australia. A pack of European countries, including the UK and France, made up the remainder of the top ten. Yet separate rankings produced by the Economist placed the UK second in the world in e-readiness, which marked countries on their infrastructure and the contribution of technology to the overall economic environment, based on factors that "indicate how amenable a market is to internet-based opportunities". This shows that countries can be well ahead when it comes to their overall online economy, but their governments may still struggle to keep up.
There is less excuse than ever for failing to keep up. The technology required for e-government systems has grown increasingly straightforward to install and easy to use. "There is a lot of interest in e-government among hardware and software vendors, who sense a market opportunity, which is driving product development," explains Nick Kalispera, director at Intellect, the UK trade body for the IT industry.
Demand for e-government among the general population of developed countries is also high. Most people (between 70 and 74 per cent) would be happy to use e-government services, a survey by Accenture in the UK found, if they thought it would save them time and money. And yet in the same survey fewer than one in ten 10 respondents said they conducted a transaction with government online as a matter of course. Of those who did use government websites, only 7 per cent filed their tax returns online, and only 1 per cent used it to renew their driving licence.
In fact, the great majority - nearly two thirds - used government websites for tourism or leisure information, and 38 per cent went online for health information from government. These findings suggest that the UK government has not yet got the formula right in terms of reaching citizens and encouraging them to look online to fulfil their dealings with the state.
Indeed, less developed countries that have little prior investment in e-government represent "greenfield" sites for the technology, says HP's Mr Richter, and are leaping ahead by installing new systems. E-government is becoming more affordable, even for less-developed regions. For instance, when HP set up Bulgaria's new passport system, the company was paid in a percentage of the revenues that accrued to the government, instead of taking an upfront fee.
Though vendors see a growth opportunity in e-government, they should remember that governments and citizens can be quite different to the private sector. For instance, when Compuware installed a local e-government system in Wales, one of the biggest tasks was in obtaining the participation of the local community. "Local businesses and local people had to take an active role in keeping the portal up to date or it wouldn't have been used," explains Mike Lucas, technology manager at Compuware. The process was longer, and much different, to developing a portal for a private sector client.
Sensitive issues yet to be resolved include whether or not advertising should be allowed on official sites. There is also the vexed question of e-voting. Advocates of e-voting point to pilots showing an increase in the number of votes cast if electronic means, such as voting over the internet or by text message, are available; opponents point to the enormous possibilities for fraud.
Privacy also remains an important factor. While efficient e-government requires information to be shared between many organisations that are linked through back-end computer systems, citizens should not have their personal information bandied about freely among many arms of government. As well as restricting the flow of information to authorised outlets, e-government systems must also be surrounded by a high level of software and hardware security. A successful hack into an e-government system that stole personal information would be the kind of scandal every government dreads. These restrictions can be a headache for architects of e-government systems, but they remain a vital safeguard to privacy campaigners.
While these questions are debated, and appropriate policies put in place, the march of e-business into e-government will continue, as the technology provides a more efficient and a cheaper way of organising many essential systems and services. Veera Johnson-Birt, partner at PA Consulting, concludes: "It's not even about e-government any more. It's just about government."
Questions raised over advertising
Using private sector contractors to build and run websites or back-end systems is fine, but where should commercial involvement end?
For instance, governments can sell advertising space on their websites: Hong Kong does on its main portal.
But some advocate going further. Veera Johnson-Birt, partner at PA Consulting, says: "You could have a range of partnerships with private sector organisations on public sector sites, for services and transactions."
Andrew Pinder, the UK's outgoing e-envoy, sounds more cautious: "We might be open to the idea (of selling ad space), but we have not done anything like that yet. Governments do need to be very sensitive on these issues."
Many governments feel similarly: even Singapore, the US and Canada, three of the most advanced e-governments, eschew commercial advertising on their home page.
This raises questions over how comfortable citizens might be with the idea of private companies selling them goods and services on the back of what they are getting from government.
Next to the form for filling in taxes online, should there be click-through ads for private accountancy services?
Alternatively, if a person goes online to check their state pension provision, should they be offered advice on private pensions as part of the set package?
These are issues of great potential sensitivity, given the extent to which government services impinge on personal issues, from our nationality to our finances to our health.
What the experts say
David Fry, consultant at PA Consulting Group:
"Sadly, in many local councils the response to e-government is a poorly thought-through activity designed to 'tick the box' against government objectives, rather than an attempt genuinely to transform services. Local authorities have a big challenge to bring together the work of all their different departments, apply common processes and share services internally before they can collaborate with others. The very best, such as Westminster City Council in the UK, have overcome this challenge and are leading the pack in trying to offer services to other councils. These services could provide the private sector some lessons on customer care."
