NEWSLETTER - Breaking Barriers to eGovernment - Overcoming obstacles to improving European public services

Issue No 13. August 2007

Welcome to the thirteenth edition of the newsletter of the "Breaking Barriers to eGovernment" project, funded by the European Commission's eEurope 2005 Modinis programme. In addition to the findings from the project's good-practice case studies and other activities, the newsletter contains news, information and resources.   Our overall aim is to offer expert insights and practical advice on ways of overcoming obstacles to the growth of high-quality and innovative uses of eGovernment capabilities in Europe.

Conference on "Solutions for eGovernment", 31 October, Florence , Italy

The Project will hold its next event, "Solutions for eGovernment", on Wednesday 31 October in Florence , Italy.   The event is open to the public, and if you would like to attend please email your name and affiliation, if any, to: events@oii.ox.ac.uk

Speakers include:

• Professor Bill Dutton, OII, University of Oxford , UK
• Dr Christine Leitner, Danube University Krems , Austria
• Professor Helen Margetts, OII, University of Oxford , UK
• Professor Giovanni Sartor, Law Department, European University Institute, Italy

Progress towards realizing the full potential of eGovernment has been slower and less effective than the technologies' take-up in spheres such as eCommerce. This open workshop of the MODINIS project, Breaking Barriers to eGovernment, will focus on specific legal and organisational solutions to overcome obstacles to eGovernment progression. These solutions will form a set of recommendations to the EC at the end of the Breaking Barriers project in December 2007. The event will be a combination of presentations from academia and practice and small working group sessions that focus on particular solutions for eGovernment.

For more details please see the Breaking Barriers to eGovernment
project website: http://www.egovbarriers.org/?view=events

You can vote for the most inspiring eGovernment good practice to receive the 2007 eGovernment Award
All members registered at epractice.eu can vote for up to 3 different cases that you think should receive the award. The deadline for voting is 20 September 2007, and only portal members who have registered prior to 7 September 2007 will be able to vote. For more information, see http://www.epractice.eu/cases/awards2007

Facebook for eGovernment is now in place - see and be seen
The epractice.eu community now has its own Facebook for eGovernment.  You can browse by country and domain, as well as search by specific criteria.   Learn more at http://www.epractice.eu/people/

The Fourth Ministerial Conference on eGovernment is fast approaching
The Lisbon Ministerial Conference on "Reaping the Benefits of eGovernment" now has conference speakers and daily news are available on the conference website.   For example, did you know that there are now 1,025 votes so far for the 2007 eGovernment Awards Most Inspiring Case Prize?  Learn more at: http://www.megovconf-lisbon.gov.pt/

cc:eGov study
The ee:eGov project focuses on user requirements within the changing environment brought about by the modernising government agenda and policy drivers designed to improve public service delivery through greater use of ICT. The aim is to formulate concrete policy recommendations to assist policy makers and leaders at all levels.
There has now been a series of  'Think Papers' completed for the cc:eGov study, which review key research and policy issues.   The study was launched in June 2006 and being carried out by ECOTEC on behalf of the European Commission's DG Information Society and Media's eGovernment Unit.   Learn more at www.ccegov.eu

Fourth Edition of the Prize to Data Protection Best Practices in European Public Services
The Data Protection Agency of Madrid is organising the Fourth Edition of the Prize to Data Protection Best Practices in European Public Services.   If you are aware of any initiative, experience or project that you think could be a candidate for the award, please contact: apdcm@madrid.org. Candidates could include experiences from any public body. More information is available at: http://www.madrid.org/cs/Satellite?idPage=1109266885515&c=CM_Texto_FA&pagename=APDCM%2FCM_Texto_FA%2FmuestraTextoFA_APDCM&language=es&cid=1142343738468

Introduction

Arvo Ott served as the Head of Department of State Information Systems at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications between 1993 and 2005. His main responsibilities included coordination of the work of information systems in public administration in Estonia, information policy matters, finance and legislation issues, interoperability framework, planning and implementation of strategies and international cooperation in the field of ICT.

From 2005 onwards, Dr. Ott has been working in e-Governance Academy with responsibility for e-governance training programmes and general management.

Barriers to eGovernment

There is still a prevailing perception that eGovernment is primarily technological matter. The main challenge in this field is to break this misunderstanding between high decision-makers in public sector. Furthermore, there is still lack of knowledge of the basics of information society, roles of management in ICT field, needs of redesign processes and organisations. Arguments that the main barriers are related to the restrictions in finance side are simply not true.

There are definitely several strategic issues regarding avoiding digital divide, offering ICT infrastructure services to everyone and everywhere (which might be quite expensive but can be done through the establishment of public-private partnership models), building functioning ICT architectures and eGovernment services etc.     However, the main question is still about leadership, understanding of new possibilities, and management.

"Policy driven development" or "development driven policy"?

While there has been a general consensus by all political parties in Estonia on the goal to transform Estonia into a successful information and knowledge-based society, linkages between policies and concrete eGovernment plans remain unclear. Political backing has been crucial for the regulative environment of some technologies (e.g., Public Key Infrastructure and ID Cards), stating some basic rights in the information society (public information, personal data protection etc.) and applications (e.g., e-voting).

  Estonia has implemented many innovative solutions in the public sphere, however sometimes it is difficult to understand if these projects resulted from approved policies and action plans, or would have emerged anyway and these policies have been adopted post factum.   In most cases a pragmatic approach can be observed, and relations between strategies and actual developments can be described rather as   'development driven strategies' than   'strategy driven development'.

Breaking barriers

The level of take-up of eGovernment services has been influenced by habits of citizens and availability of infrastructure (in the case of Estonia the ICT infrastructure availability is generally very good). In building trust among citizens for the broader use of e-services, the leading force has been the banking sector and telecoms. Also several "killer applications" from government have been essential in driving uptake (for example 86% tax declarations were presented on-line in 2007). Small societies can achieve such fast take-up, and people are expecting eGovernment projects to provide service levels similar to the private sector.  

There are several critical issues at the conceptual level of eGovernment - specially related with trust and data protection issues. For example in many EU countries there are restrictions set by legislation regarding the use of ID numbers of citizens. The main argument here is that in this way it can be guaranteed the personal rights of citizens to privacy. But, this restriction is making barriers to build eGovernment interoperable services. To offer solution to this problem Estonia is using the concept of allowing single ID numbers but at the same offering every citizen e-service regarding how government is using your data.    

• 6 - 7 September 2007, 3rd Conference on eServices in European Civil Registration, Budapest , Hungary.   This event aims to highlight the latest development and upcoming challenges for national civil registration in Europe. It will cover political, economic, organisational and legal aspects of eServices in European Civil Registration and related issues. The conference is organised by the eTen supported RISER project that implemented one of the first Trans-European eServices in European Civil Registration. The RISER service enables address verification from European public registers.   More information is available at: http://194.115.214.218/magnoliaPublic/en.html

• 10 September 2007, ePractice - High Impact services workshop, Brussels , Belgium.   A workshop for professionals in the eGovernment, eInclusion and eHealth domains, focusing on High Impact services.   Registration is now open.   More information is available at: http://www.epractice.eu/workshop/2

• 19 - 21 September 2007, 4th Ministerial eGovernment Conference, Lisbon , Portugal.   Organised by the European Commission and the Portuguese Presidency, Europe's principal eGovernment event this year will underline the importance of eGovernment to Europe and its citizens. The conference will seek to reconfirm the commitment to the targets set in the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan. The conference exhibition will feature finalists from the "European eGovernment Awards 2007" competition, the winners of which will be announced at a special ceremony during the conference Participation at the conference is by invitation only and the number of participants is limited.   More information is available at: http://www.megovconf-lisbon.gov.pt/

• 3 October 2007, Delivering eInclusion - the role of digital literacy, Brussels , Belgium.   The European Computer Driving Licence Foundation (ECDL Foundation) and AGE (The European Older People's Platform) is organising a part a high level workshop entitled   'Delivering e-Inclusion: the role of digital literacy'. As the European Commission prepares its e-Inclusion Communication and Initiative, this workshop aims to give stakeholders the opportunity to discuss and agree on an action plan for digital literacy as a key contribution to the 2008 e-Inclusion initiative.   More information is available at: http://www.age-platform.org/EN/spip.php?article486

• 3-4 October 2007, e-Democracy workshop, Paris , France.   The goal is to allow public and private stakeholders of public services and political life to debate on strategical, political and economical issues of the Digital Society. Last year, 1.800 people from 43 different countries attended the forum.   More information is available at: http://www.forum-edemo.org/article.php3?id_article=1413

• 1-5 October, UBL Conference , Madrid , Spain.   UBL International is a training summit bringing together worldwide Universal Business Language expertise.   More information is available at: http://www.ublconference.com/200710/index.html

• 9-11 October 2007, eGovernment Interoperability - ePractice co-branded workshop, Paris France.   The aim of the conference is to create a forum for discussion between the research community, technology players and public institutions on all aspects of interoperability in eGovernment, from technical as well as from semantic, organisational and socioeconomic perspectives; and the progress of the various European initiatives in the field.   More information available at: http://www.egovinterop.net/SHWebClass.ASP?WCI=ShowDoc&DocID=2736&LangID=1

•   31 October 2007, Breaking Barriers to eGovernment workshop, Florence , Italy.   Progress towards realizing the full potential of eGovernment has been slower and less effective than the technologies' take-up in spheres such as eCommerce. This open workshop of the MODINIS project, Breaking Barriers to eGovernment, will focus on specific legal and organisational solutions to overcome obstacles to eGovernment progression. These solutions will form a set of recommendations to the EC at the end of the Breaking Barriers project in December 2007. The event will be a combination of presentations from academia and practice and small working group sessions that focus on particular solutions for eGovernment.   More information available at: http://www.egovbarriers.org

If you would like to get involved here are a few ways how:

Let us interview you!
The project is looking for senior eGovernment leaders to interview for upcoming newsletters. If you would like to express your views regarding the barriers to eGovernment (or you know someone who would), please contact Elizabeth Muller at: elizabeth.muller@gov3.net  

EC Project knowledge keeps improving
This project keeps improving and evolving. If you would like to contribute articles or web directory items to our continuously updated breaking barriers website and newsletter, please contact: rebecca.eynon@oii.ox.ac.uk

Join the debate
Discuss your experiences of barriers to eGovernment; share ideas, good practice and case studies on our forum at: http://forum.egovbarriers.org/forum11.html

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This newsletter is published under contract with the European Commission, eGovernment Unit, DG Information Society and Media. It may be copied, distributed and used for educational purposes. The views expressed may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission. Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on its behalf is responsible for the use that might be made of the information provided.