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Comments at the end ... The UK's National Audit Office recently released their "Government on the Web II" report <http://www.nao.gov.uk/pn/01-02/0102764.htm>. Further, the more academic site <http://www.governmentontheweb.org> offers copies of the same report and a number of additional supporting articles. Here are some direct links: "The UK's National Audit Office (NAO) commissioned us to produce this report, which surveys progress in implementing e-government in central and local government in the UK." http://www.governmentontheweb.org/access_reports.asp "This report gives the detailed evidence from censuses of central and local government Web sites to back up the Government on the Web II report." http://www.governmentontheweb.org/access_reports_deloitte.asp "Our research team has produced a range of academic papers and conference presentations on the emerging issues of e-government and how we develop our theoretical and empirical understanding of these issues." http://www.governmentontheweb.org/access_papers.asp Including academic papers on ... 'Cultural Barriers to E-Government' 'Policy Learning and Public Sector Information Technology: Contractual and E-Government Changes in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand' 'The Advent of Digital Government: Public Bureaucracy and the State in the Internet Age' 'The Advent of a Digital State and Government-Business Relations' >From the Executive Summary, this really stood out to me: 7. ... In a census of local Web sites undertaken for this study in November 2001 the average local authority in England was found to be delivering just over a quarter of the basic features and facilities which are readily achievable on-line at the present time, with county councils the best performing group. Provision of information for citizens was patchy but links to other organisations were poor. However, some transactional features are spreading, reflecting the emphasis of existing government policy. We conclude that, DTLR's performance indicators cannot clearly measure improvements in the electronic availability of local authority services, or assure their take up or value for money. The types of things they surveyed are listed here: http://www.governmentontheweb.org/downloads/derloitte/Final_Draft_Survey_Document_240402.pdf (What government "e-democracy" indicators would you add to such a survey? They had a number of good ones.) Comments: If you combine the fact that the average UK local government site only has one quarter of the features of the leading UK local governments/what's currently possible with some analysis from Sweden (and my own experience) about local "champions" being the main predictor of excellence in local e-government web sites (the report is in Swedish and I don't if it is online, but I am told this is what a study by a local government employees union found) ... then the challenge to deliver on e-government lies in the ability to identify, support, and resource "champions" within government who can both see and deliver on the promise of e-government. If an empowered champion doesn't exist within your local government, make sure they hire one or inspire one who can knock the bueacratic silos around enough to present the citizens with a useful and responsive web site. I am skeptical of those who think you can make e-government or e-democracy in government work well without one or more people who are willing to go above the call of duty and break through existing work culture. E-Government, particularly portal design and frequently updated cross-government content, is too new a thing to implement without major political leadership and cover for those in the trenches working to make their public services truly world-class. Finally, while the UK e-government has a long way to go to measure their e-government progress, I am extremely envious of the UK and their numeric goals for e-government. I wish my Governor Jesse Ventura would do a "Blair" and set some e-government goals to which his administration can be held accountable. Having a real political stake in the progress of e-government is essential if you want to enable real progress - without competition government web sites will not improve unless they develop their own citizen demand functions. Citizen demand functions will not be build without political and management pressure. Further, I caution the easy course of media action and academic analysis that claims failure simply because high goals haven't been reached. Instead, look around and compare what the UK citizens are getting compared to other places. On the money front, however, clearly some sort of cost/benefit analysis is required. My sense is that most of the savings are difficult to quantify time-saving costs for citizens. Future government resources not spent on A,B,C processes because of e-government will easily shift to X,Y,Z backlogs and never be recaptured in any measurable way. Remember that you can share your comments on this and other posts at: http://slashdemocracy.org/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?forum=15 Steven Clift Democracies Online http://www.e-democracy.org/do *** Please send submissions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To unsubscribe instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please forward this post to others and encourage *** *** them to subscribe to the free DO-WIRE service. ***
