1.2 - D. Factors and procedures to be considered in improving e-government

The presentation by Ms. Marie Johnson, Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources, Australia, focused on the establishment of the Business Entry Point (BEP), an information portal for the Government of Australian. Ms. Johnson gave a brief overview of the Australian government structure, which she said was a complex, three-layered system with a federal government, six state governments, two territory governments and 680 local councils at the local level. The BEP was an initiative of the three levels of government.

Small business was said to be Australia's largest employer. It employed 3.3 million people, 67 per cent of which operated from home, and one third were operated by women. In the online environment, 56 per cent of SMEs recovered their investment on technology, but not always at one point in time. The strategic beginnings of BEP were in 1996, when the Australian Government commissioned a report on the burden faced by businesses engaging with government. The recommendations from the Bell Report, involved regulatory reform and technology development, such as developing technological solutions to transform the way in which business interacted with government, for example, single entry points and unique business identifiers.

The BEP operated not just as a web site, it also worked with government to provide solutions online. In addition, BEP was also a transaction hub and provided information on government assistance, as well as hosting key tax-related transactions for the government. During the second phase of the BEP (the transaction phase) the portal began working with the Australian Taxation Office. The take-up rate of online registrations was currently around 75 per cent. That was significant and showed that implementation created demand where there was no such previous demand. It also revealed that businesses only went online to carry out specific tasks, not to browse. Following the success of phase two, the programme started to look around for other transactions that could be managed online through BEP.

While BEP did not reduce the paperwork involved in managing small businesses, one of the benefits of going online was that it exposed the complexity of a policy decision, in that case, the burden on businesses of government compliance. As an example, Ms. Johnson explained that to start a hairdressing business in Victoria, a business operator had to submit information to approximately 27 different government agencies.

In recognition of the burden that placed on small business, BEP developed an online tool, which made available with 5,000 government forms and licenses that were managed through the site. BEP also developed a transaction manager for businesses, which was the first one globally. She discussed the technical model, which combined BEP with intermediaries to provide the transaction manager functionality on their web sites (Figure 3 [PDF 151KB | 1 page]).

Ms. Johnson cautioned against overreliance on portals. Internet users typically did not have government web sites added to their favourites lists, therefore, it was important to find out what businesses had on their favourites list. Those could then be tracked, providing information on where they were going. That then enabled government agencies to post information on those sites as well as their own sites, increasing the chance of reaching their target users. There were 120 third–party organizations using BEP content. Uptake of syndication had increased over time.

The BEP business model was designed to reduce the compliance burden on Australian small businesses (Figure 4 [PDF 183KB | 1 page]). It had been updated over its period of operation to leverage off the information-to-transactions evolution. BEP had developed business cases for specific projects, built primarily through recognizing a specific business need.

Ms. Johnson stated that BEP governance involved all relevant players. The individual projects had their own governance arrangements and collaborative projects that were managed in conjunction with stakeholders. BEP had input to strategic e-government policy, which helped to ensure ongoing cooperation and support from all areas of government. BEP did not pay agencies to put forms online. The project was planned with milestones and the agencies and project members made a resource contribution against the project plan.

In terms of collaborative projects, 70 per cent of B2G transactions took place at the local level, therefore that was where governments had to focus. In Australia, the government enabled that focus through the Demonstration Programme, which partnered with local governments to develop online services. In undertaking collaborative projects, BEP was looking for progressive agencies, industry sectors and projects that could be replicated. Ms. Johnson emphasized the importance of coalitions in e-government delivery. She said companies needed to form coalitions, not cartels. Coalitions created new opportunities as each business added value to the business processes and offerings of the others.

Lastly, Ms. Johnson discussed the 10-point action plan for implementing e-government:

1. Identify the problem: That provided a focus for the rest of the planning process. Identifying stakeholders, formulating evaluation criteria, how to measure success and the processes needed to be sufficiently flexible to take into account the changing circumstances.
2. Governance and strategic leadership: The transition from offline to online services often required a reorganization of administrative practices within government. E-government tended to promote greater interaction and cooperation between government departments and the "silo" approach was gradually breaking down.
3. Developing the business model: That was critical, as egovernment offered an opportunity to refine and enhance the existing offline procedures. The focus should not be on the demand for an online service, but for the potential demand generated.
4. Working with the private sector and intermediaries: Egovernment was seen as a convergence between public and private sector processes. To achieve the real benefits from egovernment there needed to be a commitment to developing ICT infrastructure by the private and public sectors.
5. Replicating, not reinventing or working across jurisdictions: Even though different government agencies had different services and client groups, many of the technological back-end processes were the same. E-government was about learning from others' experiences, replicating and improving processes, since the costs associated with the development of online services were too high to reinvent. Therefore it was necessary to look for opportunities to take a quantum leap and learn from others. Lastly, the business case needed to identify replication opportunities.
6. Understanding business processes – value proposition: Dealing with government was part of the business process. The government needed to take the time to understand key business processes to ensure that e-government or online services were relevant and effective, to identify opportunities for new ways of delivering e-government services to understand the everyday challenges faced by business and market dynamics, that might affect the uptake of e-government services.
7. Underpinning technology: Technology should be used to address the business problem and should be realistic about the technological capabilities of the infrastructure and client group. Opportunities existed to build strategic alliances with technology providers that could add value across a broad range of services and create sustainable long-term models.
8. Measures of success – strategic and operational: That depended on the problem and the planned objective. It was important to get the measurement indicators right. Both quantitative and qualitative information should be measured in order to delve deeper into who and what they were using it for. The quantitative data should be: (a) numbers of users/repeat use, (b) Range of information and transactions and (c) availability/ accessibility. The qualitative data could be: (a) sas the information meeting the business needs, (b) was it meeting objectives of saving time, reducing cost, more accessible, (c) was it scaleable and sustainable and (d) is it consistent with national and international trends.
9. Identifying barriers: There were a number of barriers to implementing e-government. Some of those identified in the Australian case were:
   • Unreal expectations
   • Public sector administrative arrangements or constraints
     – High-level government support including resources
     – Inter-jurisdictional and inter-agency issues
   • Privacy
     – What information needed to be protected - Australia's privacy laws and Thailand’s data protection law sought to provide solutions
   • Authentication
     – Technology/cultural barriers
     – Cost
   • Other legislation
     – Both Australia and Thailand had an Electronic Transactions Act
     
   • The 'Why bother?' factor
   • Do not be limited by perceived lack of demand
     – That did not indicate that there was no need
10. Lessons: The government of Australia had learned some lessons from its e-government programmes.
    • Businesses did not go online for government processes unless there was a value proposition
    • Fully understand the current system before promoting change
    • Start small think big
      – Do not do it all at once
      – Look at certain sectors and practices to focus on first
    • BEP was working to affect the supply and demand of online services
    • It can not operate in isolation
    • It was essential to measure the return on investment
    • Innovation should be based on a sound business case
    • Investment from government was essential
    • Content syndication was the next wave of online innovation
    • Syndication and Transaction Manager moved us closer to machine-to-machine communication
    • The roles of intermediaries would be increasingly important
    • Not just the web but B2B and B2G communications
    • Continuous development of business models and partnerships between stakeholders essential

During the plenary, Ms. Johnson was asked whether businesses in Australia still had to fill out all the compliance forms once many compliance services became available online. She explained that the number of forms had not been reduced and would only be reduced when governments made a policy decision to lessen the compliance requirements on businesses. Instead, the transaction manager of the BEP made it easier to meet compliance and reduced the time it took to fill in forms, but it did not reduce the number of forms.

The issue of integration and whether it had increased since the development of BEP was raised. Ms. Johnson said she believed it was more a question of "what" and "when" rather than "how much". She said not all forms were filled out all the time, and each form was there for a purpose, therefore, it was not easy to integrate them.

The question of the divide between the public and private sectors and how it might be bridged was also discussed. Ms. Johnson said that in the case of the public and private sectors, integration in e-government needed a proper strategy and attitude.