E-Administration, E-Government:

Services for Tomorrow’s Society

   The challenges are

·        Motivate people to get engaged in the government’s policy process and make sure departments have the structures in place to deal with increased participation.

·        Recognise Internet access as a fundamental e-democracy issue, and strive for inclusive access.

·        Make sure people know of and understand how to take advantage of the new opportunities to influence the democratic process via the Internet - and what they can expect from government when participating.

·        Openness – access to public information is a cornerstone of democracy. Provide electronic access to electronically stored information.   

·        Make sure issues are debated in a democratic, inclusive, tolerant and productive way.

Young voters and democracy

The 2001 UK general election gave us the lowest turnout since universal suffrage - only 59% of the electorate was sufficiently engaged in the democratic process to take a stake in choosing their government. However, delve below these headline figures and the warning is even more stark. The detail of the demographics reveal that in the 18-25 age group over 60% did not vote. This group represents the democrats of the future and, if unaddressed, this level of disengagement would pose a threat to the long-term health of our democratic institutions.

Opportunities of ICT (relating to democracy and voting)

Councils throughout England are being invited to try out new methods of voting at the next local elections in May 2002.

Positive experiences around the world include:

·        In March 2000 voters in the Democratic Party Primary in Arizona had the choice of voting by post, online or at a polling station. 80% of those who voted did so online or by post.

·        In Italy those in hospitals or nursing homes are able to cast a ballot on the premises.

·        In 1992 one local authority in New Zealand reverted to voting at polling places and recorded a turnout of 26% compared to an average of 56% in authorities who ran all postal voting.

 E-Government must apply these rules or you will fail.

 But whilst you must not re-invent the wheel, you must also not make the mistake that the way tasks are performed today reflects the business process of tomorrow.

 How do other countries do it?

 What examples of e-govt best practice / systems from overseas are being looked at by UK?

 We have just published an International Benchmarking report, examining e-government in 14 other countries including the G7.  The study highlighted some particularly innovative and advanced e-government developments over the past year, as well as some of the challenges that countries have faced in implementing e-government.

 BBC and France

The BBC website told me two weeks ago that

France is about to launch an electronic government initiative that will give every citizen a personal internet portal allowing them to pay taxes online, register a child for a state school, or be reminded that their regulatory car inspection is due in a month's time. The article went on to say, and I need to stress at this point this is the opinion of a journalist, not me or not me:

“The move aims to streamline the country's notoriously bureaucratic civil service. The new system, titled mon.service-public.fr, is due to be launched on Thursday, but the French will have to wait until 2005 for it to be completed.

Civil Service Minister Michel Sapin has billed it as the second phase of France's move to electronic government.

Countless forms

However, due to technical, regulatory and legal problems, it was not until October 2000 that the website www.service-public.fr was unveiled.

The site offers links to thousands of public information websites, and lets taxpayers make their annual income declaration online.

Its most useful function is that it helps many French men and women avoid trips to the local town hall to pick up one of the seemingly countless forms around which life in France often appears to revolve.

Over one thousand official forms, or 65% of the total, are now downloadable from www.service-public.fr. This, critics point out, is not quite the 100% promised by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin back in 1998.

Software obstacle

A major hurdle facing the designers of the future personal portal is the question of electronic signatures. These have been recognized by French law as legally binding since March this year.

But the software needed to create one is still far too complicated for the average computer user. The government says it is currently studying a number of options to ensure citizens' official transactions are secure.

Because only 20% of French homes have Internet access, the government promises that computer terminals will be set up in town halls, with officials on hand to help citizens complete their online transactions.

Dr Stephen Coleman of the e-democracy programme of the Hansard Society, an independent UK body that tries to promote a better understanding of democracy, says the French initiative is a lot more ambitious than what is happening in the UK.

"But I would want to see it also provide an opportunity for democratic feedback," he adds. "It's good that you can pay your taxes online, but you should also be able to discuss what happens to those taxes."”

 Where does UK stand against its EU counterparts in advancement of e-government?

  The UK works closely with other Member States and with Candidate Countries on advancing e-government across Europe, particularly through the eEurope Action Plan.  The UK also participates in working groups to share experience and good practice on issues such as portals and interoperability

The Citizen portal can be found at - UKOnline.gov.uk

The Portal is designed to respond to the Citizen – it should be pull not Govt pushBeta test service began from beginning of December last year, it was launched in February with a major release taking account of feedback & including new functionality

What is there :Welcome & registration facility giving- personalisation / localisation / language

Some of the services include:

Quick Find - search engine for relevant information

Life Episodes – I will give more detail in a minute

Citizen Space - start of e-Democracy

Say so – this is a consultation / discussion forum

Know How – is about representatives / information on voting / complaining

Further functionality/ service in pipeline plus transactions

UK online programme

Government conducts 5 billion transactions a year with citizens and businesses, spread over 20 large departments, 480 local authorities and 200+ agencies.   The UK online programme aims to make these transactions available on-line in a joined up fashion by the end of 2005.

UK Government Gateway

• The Government Gateway is the cornerstone of the UK Online initiative.  It provides the single route for transactions into back office systems.  It acts as the ‘middleware’ consisting of self contained software and infrastructure that sits between departmental back office systems and front office applications, such as departmental websites, portals (such as ukonline.gov.uk) and commercial applications. 

·        A single web address now gives access to all UK Government information and services online, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. ukonline.gov.uk is the easiest place on the web to get in-depth access to UK Government information and services;

·        www.ukonline.gov.uk is only one aspect of the over-arching UK Online project. This project aims to make all government services accessible on the Internet by 2005 and ensure that everyone in the UK has access to the web by the same date. Other initiatives include the Government Gateway (which will enable people to conduct secure authenticated transactions over the Internet) and UK online centres (giving people access to, and training on the Internet).

·        The UK is getting ready for the new economy: 38% of homes in the UK are online, with 51% of adults having accessed the Internet at home, work or at a public access point.  An additional 3 million households have had Internet access since March 2000, up 11%.  These increases have been encouraged by some of the lowest prices in the world, and the availability of flat rate Internet access packages.  Over the last year users are spending an additional two hours per week online.

·        People are beginning to trust the Internet: 2.3 million more adults are buying online – an increase of 41% from last year.  2 million more are using the Internet’s financial services, including online banking (up by 45%).

·        There are currently around 1900 UK online centres open and there will be at least 6000 by the end of 2002 (including all public libraries), providing community-based access to the Internet and the skills to use it.

·        By the end of 2002 we estimate that over 98% of households in England will be within 5 miles of a public access point, 95% within 3 miles and 78% within 1 mile. 

• The Government is embedding ICT skills training in the education system and investing in infrastructure. So far £1.8bn has been invested in schools' ICT. 

·        Computers Within Reach began on 25 October 2000 with the aim of providing 100,000 low cost recycled PCs to low income families. At the end of October 2001, the first phase of the pilot was closed. Around 24,000 PCs had been delivered by this date.

Now that these things are achieved there are still things we have to keep in mind

Note:

One very advanced Local Authority, Taunton Deane in Somerset has put the following points to me regarding the issues that new players should consider

1 Design needs to be “Citizen-centric” 

2 Multiple channels for accessibility (and via intermediaries)

3. The Portal - not yet truly transactional

(Need to resolve economic model privacy issues)

4. But done for business - via the Gateway - digital certificates being issued through our Chamber of Commerce and using these transactions for Inland Revenue / Customs & Excise and MAFF business transactions.

Economic hurdle and culture/legal hurdle for citizen transactions.

5. For the user, joining up the individual data repositories.

- Using Electronic Government Interoperability Framework (XMA schemes).

6. Other portals / players.

Does Gateway comply with Data Protection?

·        The Data Protection Commission have been consulted at all stages of the Gateway design, and they are content that the Gateway complies with the 7 Data Protection Principles.

Summary.