Prioritizing e-Services: Lessons from International Experience

As part of the ongoing Joint Economic Research Program in collaboration with the Government of Kazakhstan, the e-Government Practice organized a Videoconference on January 26, 2006, connecting experts from USA, UK and Sweden. The focus of the day was on the prioritization of e-services, a topic very relevant to the design of e-Government programs in order to ensure appropriate resource allocation and high-quality outcomes.

 

The session identified three major approaches that have been tackled in prioritizing e-services:

1.      Centralized top-down: In this approach, a central agency decides upon e-service priorities and mandates a particular group or agency to implement the program. Agencies are governed through this process by detailed regulation. Examples include Korea, Russian regions, Singapore

2.      Decentralized: In this approach, government agencies are perceived as business units, with considerable independence, controlled by goals and performance rather than detailed regulation. E-Service selection in this approach is decentralized to departments, with the central government guiding the process through ‘whips and carrots’. Services selected are chosen at the national level within the overarching framework set for standards governing volume of online services, security, privacy and service quality. At the local level, the drivers are the business goals, and economic feasibility. Examples include most Western countries, but in different forms. Netherlands and Sweden are highly decentralized, but UK is more centralized in direction and oversight.

3.      Goal-oriented decentralized: This approach is becoming an increasingly popular option because of the limitations of decentralized systems. In this version, decentralization is still the approach, but a central unit is empowered as facilitator, in charge of comprehensive frameworks that are introduced into a decentralized system.

 

The trend in the West has moved from decentralized to ‘Goal-oriented’ decentralized management, but individual services are increasingly centralized, e.g. e-banking is replacing bank branches, and in the public sector, call centers are replacing govt. offices. The specific case examples of the UK and that of Fairfax County, USA were explored within the context of goal-oriented decentralization, to contrast service prioritization at the national level with that of the local level.

 

The priority for the UK national e-government program was initially for all services to be offered online by 2005, in a measure to push agencies that were lagging in online service delivery to make progress towards e-government. Despite early progress, the targets were amended over the years to reflect a business case for particular online services, with a shift in focus towards the provision of core services and on citizen take-up. By 2005, however, 95% of government services were made online, with key services achieving high take up rates. The focus at this point, is on the complete transformation of government through e-processes.

 

Prioritization of e-Services in UK uses a 3 pronged approach:

1. Identify key priorities –this involves looking at user benefits, i.e. which services offer the greatest conveniences; Government benefits, i.e. high volume services that would benefit from IT; Strategic fit, i.e. mainstreaming into public service priorities and key government goals; Do-ability, i.e. services that offer quick wins and show benefits early on to create enthusiasm

2. Identify high-level strategic risks of the programs –UK organizes risks into 3 main categories: Risk that the service wouldn’t be delivered; risk that it would be delivered but wouldn’t be used; and risk that it would be delivered but at high costs. All services delivered from the center of govt. fall within one of these categories.
3. Ensure clear accountability in the government structure.

Most major departments in the UK government have CIOs and have formed a CIO council, which makes recommendations for e-services to a higher level ministerial sub-committee and provides a framework for their operation.

 

Fairfax County, VA is a very customer-centric government, focusing on e-localization, which involves understanding the local customer, community and culture, and designing a customized e-service program that reflects this understanding. Citizen participation plays an extremely important role in the County e-government program, and the County Strategic Direction is developed in consultation with constituents, who also have representation on the County CIO advisory committee.  

 

E-Services are prioritized taking into account citizen focus groups and surveys to see what services businesses and citizens need and are responding to. All services are piloted before being rolled out, with test audience responses determining overall service prioritization and expansion. Citizen feedback changes the County e-service program continually.

 

Whatever strategy is chosen, there are 3 basic goals for e-government cited around the globe, for which governments typically want to select/stimulate services:

1.      More efficient government service production

2.      Better services to citizens

3.      Improved transparency and accountability

 

 

Speakers:

• Ã…ke Grönlund, Professor of Informatics, Örebro University, Sweden 
• Graham Walker, The Gov3 Foundation, Former Director of Strategy at the UK’s Office of the e-Envoy.
• David J. Molchany , Chief Information Officer (CIO), Fairfax Country, Virginia

VC Chair:  Deepak Bhatia, Manager, E-Government Practice, World Bank

 

Speaker Biographies (Russian version)

 

 

For more information please contact Jiro Tominaga (TEL: 1-202-458-1922; jtominaga@worldbank.org) or Oleg Petrov (TEL:   1-202-4738861; opetrov@worldbank.org)