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

Issue No 15. January 2008

Welcome to the fifteenth and final edition of the newsletter of the Breaking Barriers to eGovernment project, funded by the European Commission's eEurope 2005 Modinis programme. This edition provides key findings and solutions to eGovernment, as well as providing information and resources for you to continue your engagement with the European Commission and our network of experts.  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.

Back in 2005 we started this project to look at how to overcome barriers to eGovernment.  At the time, everyone was talking about the importance of transformation, but few governments had a strong understanding of how to implement this in practice. 

Today, governments have a much better sense of the importance of business change, recognising that technology investments are only as good as the processes that support them.  Barriers still exist, such as the difficulty of understanding customer requirements, of joining up service provision across government ministries and agencies, skill development, and risk management.  Yet even as the focus has shifted the categories of barriers we identified at the beginning of this project remain valid.

One specific challenge that governments face today is the difficulty in spending on the "softer" side of eGovernment.  Even though our understanding of eGovernment has shifted, it remains difficult to justify spending on marketing, change management, strategic expertise, and other business elements required for successful eGovernment implementation.

These issues, and other challenges regarding the practical implementation of eGovernment, are the focus of the new ePractice website (http://www.epractice.eu/home).  Because this is the last edition of this newsletter, the European Commission would like to invite us to continue our conversations about barriers to eGovernment on the ePractice website. 

I would like to thank all of you for your contributions to this newsletter, and I look forward to being in touch!

Elizabeth Muller, Gov3

Final Project Reports Available On–line

Three key research reports have been produced by the Breaking Barriers project team:

• A Legal and Institutional Analysis of Barriers to eGovernment (deliverable 1b);
• Breaking Barriers to eGovernment: A Case Study Report (deliverable 2); and
• Solutions for eGovernment (deliverable 3).

The final versions of these reports and other project outputs are available on the project website: http://www.egovbarriers.org/?view=project_outputs

Conference on "Solutions for eGovernment", 31 October, Florence, Italy
The project, Breaking Barriers to eGovernment: overcoming obstacles to improving
European public services, held its sixth and final workshop on the 31st October 2007 at the Law Faculty at the European University Institute (EUI), Florence Italy. The workshop was held in collaboration with the EUI and co–branded with ePractice.eu.

The workshop provided the opportunity for the project team to gain from the expertise of a number of external academics and practitioners, and to discuss the proposals for solutions for eGovernment they had developed. The sessions following each presentation were most helpful in developing the final set of solutions that will be submitted to the Commission in December 2007. In total, 48 people attended the event from academia, industry and government from Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.

A workshop report, and slides from each of the sessions is available at: http://www.egovbarriers.org/?view=Events&type=pastevents&EventID=6 or via ePractice: http://www.epractice.eu/workshop/breakingbarriers

Introduction

Thomas Beyer is a Managing Director in BearingPoint's Global Public Services business unit.  In this position, he serves as global leader for the Government Administration Competency Program and also leads one of the largest management consulting solution groups in public services.

Successful eGovernment solutions

Mr. Beyer believes that there are three key ingredients to successful eGovernment solutions:

1. Focus on the needs of citizens as well as businesses
2. Assess the feasibility of the individual eServices identified
3. Evaluate the internal and external change management needed to successfully deploy the eService

Many people make the mistake of focusing on the first element, without sufficient evaluation of the second and third – resulting in a solution that is not practical or realistic, especially in terms of change management requirements.

Solutions to specific barriers

Governance and change management
Mr Beyer believes that the issue of "leadership" is really one of "governance".  It's not only about a specific person who can drive reform, but about the broader issues of collaboration, partnership and support, as well as the right financing model and management of the implementation from a project, risk and change management perspective.

Transformation through eGovernment remains a difficult task.  Ten years ago, we were struggling to find and implement the technology.  As we strive to increase the transformation factor of eGovernment projects, today's challenges are no longer technology related but are organizational in nature.  In addition concepts like information sharing and service oriented architecture need to be baked into planning and execution. Adequate project and risk management is critical, yet it can be difficult to get the proper skills for this.  Some governments like the U.S. are more comfortable than others with outsourcing these skills to consulting firms.  European governments are more hesitant to relinquish project control and may prefer to retain project control by building up the necessary skills in house – making training absolutely critical. 

Internal and external change management considerations, training and especially risk management tend to be under–emphasized in eGovernment initiatives.  Governments are prepared to pay for IT and implementation, but are more hesitant to pay for non–traditional elements. 

Financing
The evolution of eGovernment from "Presence, Interaction to Transaction" has created opportunities for innovative business models. Monetary transactions fuel new financing models like Public Private Partnerships (PPP) that can be leveraged by governments to finance new and improved citizen portals.  For example, the Texas Online eGovernment solution (see www.texas.gov) uses an innovative PPP funding model, in which BearingPoint as the private industry partner has made a significant investment in the design, development and operation of the state's eGovernment portal. In return BearingPoint and the State of Texas share in the revenue generated by some of the citizen services that are available on TexasOnline.   

The Texas Online portal offers over one thousand citizen services, with only some services including revenue generating financial transactions.  Renewing a driving license or requesting a birth certificate are examples of revenue generating financial transaction where a convenience fee is added for the online versus an "standing in–line" transaction. A Public Private Partnership requires fundamentally different relationship between consulting company and government – one that is more of a relationship between equal and trusted partners rather than a traditional client–vendor agreement.

The success of a model like TexasOnline depends on factors like the number of citizens driving a high transaction volume, broadband availability and flexibility of the legislative environment to accommodate these new eService concepts. The financing model itself is very flexible and can be modelled to fit different cultural environments. While the addition of convenience fees is acceptable in the US other governments might prefer to share subsidized convenience fees that don't increase the current transaction fee. The specific model will likely vary considerably from one country to the next, but the important thing is that it is a model for transformation.

Digital Divide and marketing
The digital divide is a fact of life.  Not only with regard to people having access to the Internet, but also with broadband access. 

A related issue is that of marketing.  In Mr Beyer's experience, marketing is a critical element to the success of eGovernment.  It is not enough to build a portal – you also must drive awareness and uptake.  Marketing is crucial for this, yet governments tend to be unfamiliar, and even uncomfortable with it.  BearingPoint and the State of Texas have jointly marketed the eServices provided by the portal through brand awareness activities, direct marketing and government–driven promotion activities. Customer satisfaction with TexasOnline is consistently high at 99%.

Trust
Trust is a major driver in the success of not only the adoption of the portal by the citizens but also in the relationship between consulting firm and government. Anywhere in the world trust is something that needs to be created and cultivated. eGovernment portals need to ensure transactions are secure and data and privacy are protected. For example, people in Germany may trust their bank to make automatic deductions, but be wary about providing credit card details online.  In the USA, it may be the opposite. Governments and commercial providers need to rethink their previous customer–vendor relationship and become partners that make decisions together.

Poor technical design
Good technical design is not only about what you want the technology to do today, it is also about what it will need to do in the future.  Not all eGovernment projects today are being built in such a way as to take advantage of information sharing and service oriented architecture.  But what is important is that they have the flexibility built–in to accommodate these elements later down the road.  

Conclusion

We are all at different points of eGovernment development, but we are all headed the same way.  Some countries, such as China, have surpassed the "Presence" stage and are now working on "Interaction".  Others, like the United States and much of Western Europe, have already entered the "Interaction" stage and are now working on processing transactions.  But we are all heading for transformation – even if nobody has really achieved this just yet.

Finconcept.net S.r.l. is a consultancy firm which assists Italian Public Administrations who are faced with the need to bring about major changes to the way in which they operate. Here, they discuss their experiences of eGovernment in Sicily.

Our first real experience in the field of eGovernment was the direct consequence of independent research we had carried out into the extent to which the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption was being applied. The study revealed there were a number of discrepancies between the convention and its actual application in many signatory countries, including Italy.

Based on the study we drafted a project proposal which was designed to ensure the effective respect of the convention through a more efficient interaction of all the administrations involved in the adoption process in Italy: health boards, municipalities, juvenile courts and the Ministry of Justice. The project was presented directly to the Italian Ministry of Justice in June 2003 and subsequently approved in August of the same year. The aims of this project with regard to the adoption process were to:

• Make the adoption procedure paperless, yet legally valid
• Reduce the time necessary for the production of reports
• improve the quality of the reports produced

 
The first application of the model 'Sistema Adozioni' was carried out in the Italian region of Sicily. Initial needs analysis work confirmed many of the challenges that we had expected, but also revealed to us that many of these challenges would be even greater and that we would have to overcome a series of obstacles if we were to see the full realization of the all the objectives. In terms of the eGovernment Barriers project terminology, we identified our main barriers as:

• Workplace and organizational inflexibility (e.g. many people completed handwritten reports and refused to use computers)
• Poor coordination between administrations (e.g. dossiers were often difficult to trace once they left one administration for another)
• Lack of trust, not just in terms of security, but also in terms of what eGovernment really signifies (e.g. "I'm not an IT expert, I can't do that" "The data will be vulnerable to hackers")

Whilst considering these factors we realized that in reality the barriers were for the most part of a human nature and that technology was only of relative importance. This new information bolstered our initial resolve to invest as much as possible in the human resources directly involved in the realization of the project and to invest no more than 30% of the total budget in the IT platform we were to create. From this moment on the platform required was viewed as nothing more than a tool which would allow the users a simple, effective and secure means of transmitting information and the possibility of tracing the workflow of each and every process covered by the project. It was at this point that we began to consider the 'e' of 'eGovernment' to stand for 'empowerment' rather than 'electronic'.

However, these wonderful thoughts needed to be turned into concrete actions in order to obtain concrete results. Our approach was based on four key factors:

• True involvement and participation of stakeholders throughout the whole project
• Clarity of project vision and the sharing of this vision
• Clarity of intermediate objectives (all objectives were realizable within six weeks of their being issued to the workgroups concerned)
• Clear & effective communication 

Clarity of vision was achieved through the utmost transparency at the time of definition with high–level stakeholders ensuring that they were truly behind the project and that they were both able and willing to motivate the right people at the right time should the need arise. This vision was maintained during the following sessions which saw the involvement of operational stakeholders during the telling and selling stages. At this point all involved had a clear idea of what, why and how they wanted to achieve the vision.

The consulting and co–creating phases then tested our ability to listen and react accordingly to the stakeholder representatives. Their suggestions and contributions, where feasible, were integrated into the project actions leading to two very positive effects. Firstly, the development of a relationship of trust with the workgroups, and secondly, the beginning of the transfer of project ownership to the stakeholders. This transfer proved to be a crucial factor in the later stages of the project and a decisive factor when the stakeholders requested the extension of the original project to other related fields.

Being able to see results is important for many people, particularly for those who implement a project, but have relatively little control over the work being assigned to them. For this reason, we adopted an approach whereby all objectives were perceived as being immediately achievable. In cases where a particular workgroup disagreed with the objectives, consultations were arranged in order to allow for the necessary realignment of the group. In this type of situation we found that often referral to the final vision was sufficient to ensure this. As a rule of thumb, no project deliverable deadline was fixed at more than six weeks from the date of its issue.

Indeed, it was often the case that once a group had tested our willingness to truly confer with them they would then take many matters into their own hands, meaning that our role became more that of mentor or facilitator, with the workgroup being responsible for the next set of actions and changes. The real sense of empowerment and ownership were very apparent to all involved. Trust had been earned.

Looking back at the results of the project it is not so much the numbers and figures that gives us real satisfaction. It's true we are proud of having achieved the desired results, but perhaps the most satisfying result was the fact that we had been able to empower the various workgroups and help the individuals within them to become their own masters. The true extent of this sense of power, of being able to make a difference was demonstrated through the fact that the extension of the original model to cover national adoptions and subsequently the extension to all aspects of child protection were initiated to a large extent by the actual users who had been involved in the original project.

Online discussion on solutions to eGovernment
ePractice membership keeps growing!  It now has 44 Countries, 767 Cases, 11665 Members, 2625 News stories, 489 Events, and 654 resources.  This forum will provide an opportunity for all those involved in the "Breaking Barriers to eGovernment Project" to remain active, and continue our discussions.  Join in the debate, add your comments and sign up for the ePractice newsletter at: http://www.epractice.eu.

• 22 January 2008, Gov 2.0, or Truly Transformative Government, Portcullis House, London, UK – For over a decade UK government has been busy moving online. This has made some progress, for example in driver and vehicle licensing, but is yet to take off in terms of usage in the way of some spectacular contemporary Internet examples like Facebook and iTunes. Is this inevitable? Are there good reasons why government and public services do not engage people in the way music, shopping and social networking do? Or is government not yet going about this in the right way, and does the success of the contemporary Internet have important lessons for the design of public services and public engagement? How can we improve value for money, and achieve higher returns on investment, better services and improved operational efficiency? How can we build public trust and protect privacy? Speakers include: Jerry Fishenden (Microsoft), William Heath (Ideal Government) and Tom Steinberg (mySociety). More information is available at: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/events/details.cfm?id=169
• 24 January 2008, Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Proactive Information Event, Brussels, Belgium – FET–Proactive initiatives aim at focusing resources on visionary and challenging long–term goals that are timely and have strong potential for future impact. These goals provide a common strategic perspective and a focal point around which a critical mass of research can be assembled and synergies developed. This information event will include a plenary session followed by 3 parallel sessions on the FET Proactive initiatives to be launched under Call 3 of the ICT research theme under FP7: Science of Complex Systems for socially intelligent ICT (COSI–ICT) ; Embodied Intelligence (EMBODYI); ICT forever yours (ICT–FY).  More information is available at: http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/fet–proactive/ie–jan08_en.html
• 6 – 7 February 2008, Interoperability: Key to international business – The role of ICT Standards, Warsaw, Poland – This conference is organised by three European Standards Organisations – CEN, CENELEC and ETSI – and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The Conference will provide an international platform for business and technical decision makers and other stakeholders to exchange views and anticipate necessary interoperability developments in standardization that will help market–driven solutions.  More information is available at: http://www.interoperabilityconference.org/
• 11 February 2008, Alliance with Users – eGovernment Conference, Brdo, Slovenia – This event is organised by the forthcoming Slovenian EU Presidency. Plenary sessions and presentations of cases will revolve around three main eGovernment policy priorities of the Slovenian Presidency: interoperability; eParticipation and eInclusion; reduction of administrative burden. Participation to the conference is by invitation only, so in case of interest, a clear indication of your motivation should be sent to the conference organisers. This event will be followed by the "eGovernment Services Conference: IDABC and beyond" on 12–13 February 2008 at the same location.  More information is available at: http://egov2008.gov.si/about.php
• 12 February 2008, Open event: ICT Standardisation Policy, Brussels – Given the critical importance of an efficient European ICT standardisation policy, the Commission is organising an open meeting to present and discuss the recommendations of a recent study on "The specific policy needs for ICT standardisation". More information is available at:  http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/standards/cf2008_en.htm

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

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For comments on this newsletter, please contact Elizabeth Muller: elizabeth.muller@gov3.net

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