E-government workshop 2005 (eGOV05)

Citation

Elliman, T. (2007), "E-government workshop 2005 (eGOV05)", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 1 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/tg.2007.32601baa.001

E-government workshop 2005 (eGOV05)

About the Guest Editor

Dr Tony Elliman is Co-chair of the National E-government Workshop series and Co-chair of the E-government Integration and Systems Evaluation research network (eGISE). His research interests are in IS design, architecture and planning E-mail: tony.Elliman@brunel.ac.uk

E-government workshop 2005 (eGOV05)

This issue brings you a series of articles developed from the papers presented at the first e-government Workshop that was held at Brunel University in September 2005. This one day workshop was the culmination of a growing concern for e-government issues within the Information Systems Evaluation and Integration Group (ISEing) at Brunel.

It is not necessary to rehearse the history of e-government here but the debate within the group at Brunel and with other University colleagues repeatedly identified the development and operation of public sector information systems (IS) as distinct. Despite the trend to thinking of the public sector as a business venture it has several differences and IS projects can be particularly sensitive to them. Once e-government had become a priority within the European Union national agencies and local authorities were mandated to develop appropriate systems. Unlike the private sector, which has choices about where and when to use information and communication technology (ICT), public sector bodies had to meet tight political targets. As a customer I can choose who I will do business with but as a citizen I cannot choose which government agencies I deal with. A commercial venture can target a particular sector of the population but government services must be available to everybody. Although both sectors seek better value for money when they develop IS solutions, the notion of what constitutes good value in the public sector is more complex to define and assess.

In accordance with the UK government's directive all government services were required to be offered online by the end of the 2005 financial year. The aim was to achieve a user-centred public sector that was inclusive to all citizens, that was transparent, and open to both democratic involvement and scrutiny. In short, a more efficient and productive public sectors that that delivered maximum return of investment for taxpayer's money.

Coming at the end of this time scale the first National e-government Workshop at Brunel offered both practitioners and the academic community the opportunity to take stock of what had been achieved. Shauneen Furlong picked up this theme in setting the keynote for the workshop. As an independent consultant who lectures on e-government and project management with the University of Toronto she addressed the achievements in Canada and asked “What next after 2005?” Over the day some 28 papers were presented looking at various issues on the e-government agenda.

Following the workshop several authors were invited to revise their papers in the light of the discussions. These have then be refined through the normal blind refereeing process to produce the series of articles in this issue.

With the requirement to serve every citizen the problem of the “digital divide” is a critical issue for the public sector. In our first paper George Ryder uses a study of the Isle of Man (IOM) and compares it with the rest of the UK in an attempt to verify some of the factors leading to the divide. The technological optimists tend to see the use of on line services as so obviously useful that, once properly educated, people will adopt e-Government. However, the data from IOM contradicts this conventional wisdom and suggests that the problem may be more complex. The debate over the causes of a digital divide and its solution will no doubt continues for some years yet.

The next paper by Zorlu Senyucel also looks the relationship between local authority e-government provision, or the Information Systems Function (ISF) providers, and users by employing structuration theory to expose the relationship. This recognises that the current situation is one of change where both providers and users are seeking new roles and forms of communication. At the national and political level there is still an expectation that the ISF underpin a transformation in the way government works (Cabinet Office, 2005). Zorlu's paper offers an “active agents” framework as a tool for interpreting and understanding the continuing change in relationships between users and providers of the ISF.

Steve Jones, Ray Hackney and Zahir Irani follow on this theme in the third paper – a research note – by looking at the provider-client relationship and the notion of citizen engagement. This goes beyond interactive provision of services by engaging in a continual dialogue about the way services are organised and delivered. Achieving such citizen engagement is perceived to be a critical success factor in e-government initiatives. Based on this Jones et al. generate an action plan for practioners and researchers to develop strong user engagement with the development of the local authority ISF.

In our third empirical study Omiros Sarikas and Vishanth Weerakkody examine the keynote question – what next? – in relation to e-government development in UK local authorities (UKLAs). Irani et al. (2006) establish that the critical step in the growth of e-government comes with the move from interaction to transactional service provision. Most UKLAs have not made this transition and Sarikas and Weerakkody report on the challenges they now face. Their empirical study suggests that they face technical, political, and organisational barriers that must be overcome at this point. Current planning tends to focus on the technical issues of integration, but Sarikas and Weerakkody argue that political and organisational issues must be given equal importance if the next stage of development is to be successful.

The political will behind the e-government initiative sought, and continues to seek, a transformation in government underpinned by technology (Cabinet Office, 2005). In the next paper Mike Grimsley, Anthony Meehan and Anna Tan examine the evaluation of such projects and develop a framework to encompass these broader strategic goals. In particular they look at projects involving voluntary and independent organisation in e-government processes – community development projects. Using the CASweb project (www.casweb.org) as an example they develop an evaluative framework based on four types of “capital”. Each type of capital – infrastructure, environment, human and social – needs to be developed or enhanced by a project if it is to be deemed successful.

In the last paper Sebastian Olbrich and Carlo Simon consider how to handle the regulatory constraints that frame the way government bodies work. Government agencies are established by statute, given precise powers and restricted by in their behaviour by regulations and agreements. Conventional business process and work-flow models do not always capture these constraints clearly enough. Olbrich and Simon present a more formal approach to capturing such constraints and exemplify it in a case based on the German Federal Network Agency.

This selection of papers has ranged from current empirical studies to theoretical models for future systems development. A theme running across them has been the evaluation and planning of systems with the implication that much remains to be achieved in the area of e-government. My I end by recording my thanks to the referees – both practioners and academics – who have helped select, review and refine these papers.

Tony EllimanSchool of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK