The World Summit Award (WSA) is a global initiative to select and promote the world’s best e-content, started in 2003 in the framework of the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

It is an Austrian initiative to make world leaders aware of the necessity to develop and invest in e-content in order to bridge the digital divide and the content gap.

The award is structured in eight categories: e-government, e-health, e-learning, e-entertainment, e-culture, e-science, e-business and e-inclusion.

Can governments truly boast of services that rival the private sector’s? Leadership in Customer Service: Building the Trust, Accenture’s annual report tracking the evolution of Internet usage and customer service in government, says yes and no.

Accenture interviewed 46 high-ranking government executives in nine countries to assess government services delivery, and concluded that governments using a wide range of technologies and modes of operation are on par with the private sector. Those lacking integrated technologies for robust, online services have a long way to go to reach service delivery matching that of the private sector.

The report also concluded leading governments recognize that true citizen-centricity means removing — through simplification and re-engineering — as much work as possible from the system for citizens.

In addition to improving government services, greater IT automation must also gain the trust of the public, a theme of this report. For e-government to succeed, governments must build trust and comfort with those services, and tap into the public’s preferred modes of communication, whether by telephone or over a network.

• Read full story (Public CIO Magazine)
• Download report (pdf, 8.5 mb, 108 pages)
• Download executive summary in Italian (pdf, 357 kb, 18 pages)

(via eGovernment News)

Asian countries once again dominate e-government ratings, taking three of the top five spots in a global e-government study undertaken by researchers at Brown University. South Korea, ranked 86th last year, earned the top rank, followed by Taiwan, Singapore, the United States and Canada. The study shows that 29 percent of government agencies around the world are offering online services, compared to 19 percent in 2005.

The sixth annual survey conducted by Darrell M. West, director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American institutions at Brown University, and a team of researchers evaluated online government Web sites of 198 countries around the globe. The researchers evaluated government Web sites based on two dozen criteria, including disability access, existence of publications and databases, presence of privacy and security policies, contact information, and the number of online services. The Taubman Center released previous studies of global e-government in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005.

This year’s study reviewed 1,782 government Web sites in 198 countries during June and July 2006. A variety of different sites were analyzed, including executive, legislative and judicial offices as well as such departments and ministries of the government as health, education, foreign affairs, interior, finance, natural resources, foreign investment, transportation, military, tourism and telecommunication.

Researchers found that 94 percent of Web sites have online publications and 72 percent have links to databases. Only 26 percent (up from 18 percent in 2005) show privacy policies and 14 percent present security policies (up from 10 percent in 2005). Software provided by the company Watchfire Inc. assesses whether websites provide assistance for the vision- or hearing-impaired. According to this software, government Web sites are still lagging on disability access. Only 23 percent of sites provide disability access, although this is up from 19 percent in 2005.

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(via E-Government News and Public CIO)

Lately there is a growing trend within governments and public authorities to separate citizen-focused online services from institutional communications, similar to e.g. how a telecom provider separates its customers services from its corporate information.

Here are some of the best examples of governmental service websites we know of. Sites are in English except where indicated.

• Austria: help.gov.at
• Belgium: Vlaanderen.be (in Dutch)
• Canada: Seniors’ Info, Service Alberta, Service Ontario
• Denmark: Danmark.dk (in Danish)
• Finland: Suomi.fi
• France: Service-Public (in French)
• Ireland: Citizens Information
• Netherlands: Overheid.nl (in Dutch)
• Norway: Norway.no
• Portugal: Portal do Cidadão
• Singapore: eCitizen | My.eCitizen
• South-Korea: G4C (Government for Citizens)
• Spain: 060 (national, in Spanish), GenCat Serveis (Catalunya)
• Sweden: Sverige.se (in Swedish)
• UK: Directgov
• USA: FirstGov.gov

It’s been 12 years since the U.S. government went online, writes Robert D. Atkinson in Public CIO Magazine. The first stage of e-government meant a passive presence on the Web based on information, but not citizen interaction. The public sector evolved to the second stage: developing web applications that allowed individuals to interact with government, such as paying parking tickets and renewing drivers’ licenses.

But most governments have been slow to move to the third stage of e-government — creating functionally oriented, citizen-centered Web presences by breaking down bureaucratic barriers. Too often, existing e-government applications are user-unfriendly, designed around agencies’ needs rather than citizens’.

Some in government have pushed hard to get to stage three, but all too often, they’ve faced stiff resistance. By their very nature, governments have a hard time building applications that link together multiple agencies and programs, and an even harder time linking applications that cut across levels of government.

Few agencies see their job as helping users solve problems or access information, including information from other related agencies, other levels of government and even private-sector players. Rather, the default attitude is to present only their agency’s information and applications. As a result, it doesn’t appear that governments acting alone will any time soon make the kinds of fundamental changes needed to bring about true citizen-centered e-government.

Government and the private sector have already engaged in successful partnerships in numerous areas. One of the most widely used is tax preparation and filing. [...]

It’s time to build on this model by empowering for-profit and nonprofit organizations to help citizens and businesses interact electronically with government, particularly in areas that are inherently complex or involve cross-agency and cross-government functions.

To do this, governments must think of themselves less as direct providers of e-government services and more as enablers of third-party integrators that tie together multiple agencies across multiple levels of government to package information, forms, regulations, and other government services and requirements in user-friendly ways.

Moving to this model has the potential to dramatically boost the uptake of digital government services, cut costs for both government and users, and make the experience of dealing with government less frustrating. Intermediaries can play a key role in two kinds of tasks: building and operating function-based portals, and creating digital integration tools.

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Engagement and co-production will grow only out of a deeper, richer understanding of how services relate in practice to people’s everyday lives.

Drawing on the principles and practices of the emerging discipline of ‘service design’, this pamphlet by Demos, the UK ‘everyday democracy’ think tank, argues that the common challenge which all service organisations face is how to create more intimate and responsive relationships with their users and customers.

Drawing on over 50 interviews with service innovators from the public, private and voluntary sectors The Journey to the Interface makes the case for a fresh approach to public service reform – an approach that is less about competition and contestability, and more about closing the gap between what people want and need, and what service organisations do.

From cleaning the streets to checkouts, from looking after our elderly parents to selling us holidays, more than 20 million people in the UK work in the service sector. The so-called ‘service economy’ now makes up 72% of our GDP. And while most of us work in service; all of us depend on it for many aspects of our existence. The giving and receiving of service has become an unmistakable part of everyday life. But this expansion of the service sector has not heralded a service revolution. Too often people’s day to day experiences are alienating and frustrating.

The pamphlet argues that service design can offer policy makers and practitioners a vision for the transformation of public services, as well as a route to get there. It outlines an agenda for action which spells out how service design approaches can be applied systemically.

Download pamphlet (pdf, 2.8 mb, 118 pages)

Planning Portal is not only a successful example of technology enablement in service delivery but could prove to be a tremendous asset for local authorities in their quest to develop and deliver citizen centric services, says eGov monitor.

Just under two years ago, the [UK] Government unveiled its ambition to develop a world class e-Planning Service which would deliver new, more efficient ways of enabling the community to engage in a shared vision for their local area.

This new service would also enable access to high quality, relevant information and guidance as well as streamlined processes for sharing and exchanging information amongst key players.

Since then, e-Planning has made significant progress towards meeting its goals, and it has been recognised as one of the major successes of technology aided service delivery. This is especially true for the Planning Portal, which continues to improve itself and has been recognised through numerous awards.

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The costs of health care have gradually been passed along to the end user; more and more, the information needed to manage our health is within easy reach as well, on the Internet.

The European Union, for instance, last month opened Health-EU Portal, an Internet gateway to reams of data and references on topics from alcohol to toy safety.

While what the site offers is certainly authoritative, don’t be misled by the consumer-friendly labels on the main page, like “My Health” and “My Lifestyle.” For the most part, within these categories you will not find personal health guidance but links to research data, rules and regulations or policy and process information.

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The digital strategy all but ignores older people says David Sinclair from the UK advocacy group Help the Aged and urges the government to correct this through specific targeted programmes for the population over 65 in UK.

Technology offers massive potential for tackling the problems faced by too many older people. It can help deliver better and more focussed services including those which help tackle isolation; poverty; and exclusion; whilst at the same time play a part in helping improve the health of older people.

However, whilst the potential of technology is enormous – it is limited by a large number of factors – imagination; the digital divide; age discrimination; inaccessible services; the lack of support to help older people use technology; the lack of awareness of older people’s issues by service providers and, most fundamentally a lack of involvement by older people in the design of e-services.

As a result, we as a society are missing the real opportunity which technology offers and as a result, older people are becoming more rather than less excluded as a result of the way technology is changing our lives and the public services we rely on. A survey we conducted last year revealed that more than 3 million older people (36 per cent) feel out of touch with the fast pace of modern life.

Only around one in five over 65s have ever used the internet. Most of concern is that the figures for over 65s has not increased over the past 3 years. The most recent figures actually show a fall. This highlights two issues – firstly that the market alone is not and will not deliver internet access for older people and secondly, that we cant just ignore this issue and hope it eventually solve itself. If we look at most other modern media technologies we see a similar pattern of usage – ie it declines with age.

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L’administration numérique au service du citoyen et des collectivités.

E-administration est une initiative du centre de compétences wallon Technofutur 3 – Aéropole.


Online government at the service of the citizen and local public entities.

E-administration is an initiative by the Walloon competence centre Technofutur 3 – Aéropole.

Prévu pour fin 2007, mon.service-public.fr devrait proposer un portail personnalisé pour les usagers intégrant tous les contenus de Service-Public.fr et un accès simplifié aux téléservices. Ce nouveau portail devrait également disposer d’un coffre-fort de données personnelles permettant de stocker des documents administratifs en format électronique, de manière à accomplir les démarches en ligne plus facilement.

Entre avril et juillet 2006, 500 expérimentateurs testeront le portail Mon.Service-Public.fr. Cette expérimentation est destinée à vérifier l’adéquation du portail avec les besoins des usagers. Ce dispositif encore expérimental permet à l’usager d’accéder à un ensemble de services mis en place par un nombre encore limité d’organismes : CNAF, ANPE, Documentation française/service-public.fr, et Éducation Nationale. Pionniers de l’administration en ligne, les expérimentateurs recevront une carte à puce “mon.service-public.fr” ainsi qu’un lecteur de carte afin de tester ce nouveau moyen d’identification. Ils utiliseront la version provisoire du portail et feront part de leurs remarques aux responsables de l’expérimentation. Les résultats de cette expérimentation seront analysés puis une synthèse sera rédigée et communiquée en juillet 2006.

Translation:

At the end of 2007 2007, mon.service-public.fr will be the address of a personalised portal where users can integrate all the contents of Service-Public.fr with a simplified access to online services. The new portal will also contain a virtual personal briefcase where users can store administrative documents in electronic version, thus allowing them to handle their online tasks more easily.

Between April and July 2006, 500 users tested the Mon.Service-Public.fr portal, which allowed us to verify if the portal was adequately addressing the needs of the users. The prototype version of the portal allows users to access a range of services provided by a still limited number of entities, including CNAF, ANPE, Documentation française/service-public.fr, and Éducation Nationale. As e-gov pioneers, the test users received an electronic card “mon.service-public.fr” as well as a reader to test this new identification card. After submitting their remarks to the project leaders, we expect that a synthesis of the results will be available in July 2006.

Adèle vous présente les services en ligne qui vous permettent d’effectuer vos démarches administratives tout simplement depuis votre domicile.

Adèle presents you its range of online services, allowing you to manage your administrative tasks and procedures directly from home.

Online government services such as registering a car, applying for a building permission or paying social contributions, has made big progress, a survey for the Commission finds.

The survey, which is the sixth in a series prepared by Cap Gemini, found that the number of official service providers present online has crossed the 90% threshold in the EU-15 plus Norway, Iceland and Switzerland (‘EU-18′).

More than half of the public administration service providers in the EU-18 and 42% in the new member states offer the same level of service online and offline. For business-oriented services the figures are higher than for those provided for citizens. Companies in the EU-18 can access 74% of all services online; the figure for the EU-10 is 55%. Citizens of the EU-18, on the other hand, can only access 37% of services on the internet; those living in the ten new member states only 33%.

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Access-eGov (Access to e-Government Services Employing Semantic Technologies) is a project partially funded under the IST Programme of FP6 (eGovernment research). A consortium consisting of eleven partners from five countries (Slovakia, Poland, Germany, Greece, and Egypt) led by the Technical University of Kosice will carry out the project between January 2006 and December 2008.

Access-eGov aims at increasing the accessibility of public administration services for citizens and business users by supporting the interoperability among existing electronic and “traditional” government services.

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Your London (www.yourlondon.gov.uk) has received a prestigious Government Computing BT Award, winning the ‘Best Shared Services’ category for the portal’s ‘Report It‘ facility. It’s one of the first and best ‘Web 2.0′ local authority user interfaces, with an AJAX/Local Google implementation to access council information.

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Gencat.net (the Internet website of the Catalan Regional Government) is an example of a radical redefinition of the e-Government portal concept, the first real implementation of Web 2.0 philosophy in Public Administration, fully backed by an explicit policy-driven political strategy focused on a personalized and integrated citizen-centric approach.

Gencat.net is the result of a global strategic refocus based on Web 2.0 of the role of ICT as an enabler for e-Government.

It consists of an impressive reorganization effort to transcend an already implemented “classic” institutional Internet presence: Gencat.net integrating 270 departmental portals and the transactional-oriented Gencat.serveis-cat365 (200 services) as part of a complex interoperability model involving all Public Administrations.

To remove the inherent limitations of such conventional model the Catalan Government decided to heavily rethink the overall e-Government conceptual approach, reconsidering the role of the citizen as contributors and flexible adopters.

After a rigorous multi-dimensional diagnostic and coinciding with the relevant Web 2.0 discussions, the decision was to explore the eventual liaison with the latest technological advances attached to this emerging concept.

A substantial reengineering of the main portal (Gentcat.net) was faced, involving the complete integration (by syndication) of the existing sub-portals and embedding the most advanced searching engine (Google).

The adoption of Web 2.0 philosophy involved rethinking all existing services in terms of the related technologies (such as RSS, wiki, blogs, social networks software) resulting in a radical change of the citizen’s interaction model.

The portal is operational showing an important growth in use and opening a stimulating framework for further innovations.

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