1.2 - A. Current status and trends of implementing e-government

Mr. Stephen Braim, Government Programmes Executive for IBM Asia Pacific, suggested that many Governments were not working as well as they could. He said they were frozen in old industrial structures, often not implementing programmes properly and were at a risk of becoming irrelevant and losing the confidence of their citizens. He said the problems were not waste, abuse, poorly designed processes, lack of technology, or even bad management. Those were presenting symptoms. Instead, after 25 years of trying to "fix" government, it was possible to conclude that Governments were not doing the right thing poorly, but in fact, that they might be doing the wrong thing. Yet successful institutions were often the last to change – becoming victims of their past success. The government structure was over 100 years old, and it was not adapting well to the new environment. However, Mr. Braim said that did not mean that Governments were in danger of becoming obsolete, but rather, they would be much less effective unless they made the change to e-governance.

The challenge for government transformation was how to transition from an industrial model of big government – centralized, hierarchal, and operating in a physical economy to one with a new model of governance – adaptive to a virtual, global, knowledge-based, digital economy and fundamental societal shifts.

Mr. Briam stated that changing to a new model of government that was adaptable, fast, virtual and focused on fundamental societal shifts would be key to the future of government. Much of e-government was engaged in one-way sharing of information focused from the centre out, but Mr. Braim said the next wave of e-government should start to think about investment in two-way technology that could take advantage of both channels. Egovernment provided opportunities for more effective information flow back to policy makers, assisting them to become better policy makers, and policy makers that would make them more highly regarded by their constituency.

While much of e-government relied on telecommunication innovations such as bandwidth and speed, there was also a need to focus on how to distribute e-government applications to potential users. E-government access was about providing services to citizens and business in ways that they chose to apply to them, at a time appropriate to them. Further, universal access was essential. Therefore, providers must choose the most appropriate delivery channels.

Mr. Braim said governments should aim for customer-centric use of egovernment, and transformation rather than automation. E-government had traditionally been pushed from the supply side, from governments out. However, Governments could use technology, skills development and organizational transformation to also improve the way the market worked for them. Correspondingly, it must also be focused on customer needs and the demand side.

Mr. Braim emphasized integration and said e-government had impacted on all levels of government. Successful economies were those where a central coordinating agency had been formed to oversee the shift to egovernment. If there was not a uniform approach, e-government was destined to failure. e-government could have effects on policy and programmes objectives through:

• Improved services, e.g. customer satisfaction, burden reduction and savings
• Enhanced economic development
• Improved policy formulation
• Redefined communities
• Increased operational efficiency
• Enhanced citizen participation

Furthermore, e-government could be used as an anchor to drive transformation across the public and private sector and as a tool to drive foreign investment and economic development. Is was important not to over emphasize the role of technology – technology was often a large part of cost, and only a small part of success. To ensure success, Mr. Braim said the following needed to be done (Figure 1 [PDF 150KB | 1 page]):

• Become customer-centric
• Learn how to cope with change
• Develop technical infrastructure
• Collaborate for success
• Work across silos, break down traditional, hierarchical structures
• Develop performance measures

All of those elements were necessary for transforming the Government. The technological infrastructure was the base upon which other changes could be made. For overall transformation in the Government those issues needed to examined in the context of one another.

In his presentation, Mr. Braim provided four case studies of successful e-government:

• The Australian Federal Government's new e-government strategy – better services, better government
• Australia's State Government of Victoria's strategy for information and communications technologies for connecting the State
• The Government of the Republic of Korea's e-government vision and strategy
• Singapore Government's visions and plans

Factors that could impede success included institutional weakness, poor human resources, lack of funding arrangements, local environments, technological and information changes. There were many implementation options, but initially with, Governments needed to:

• Prioritize initiatives across government
• Be citizen-focused and business-oriented
• Get the right governance model-balance central control with facilitation
• Recognize and reward senior managers
• Look for existing solutions – it might not be necessary to invest a lot of money in a new system
• Agree on a satisfactory funding model
• Set the pace – leadership is critical

Mr. Braim provided a summary of the implementation parameters for e-government, which were:

• Vision (Strategy) – Leadership
• Integration – Funding/Finance
• Education/skills – Fostering Demand
• Channel Management Adaptiveness – Partnerships, Business
• Technology (OSS) – Procurement
• Privacy – Security
• Legal Frameworks – Review and Accountability
• Communications – Open Standards
• Customer Focus – Branding

Lastly, Mr. Braim stated that in the future, the role of government could expect to become less intrusive and more invisible; less process and more focused; less centralized and more distributed; less hierarchical and more networked; and less administrative and more productive.

The plenary session commenced with a question on why it was so important to agree on a funding model ahead of implementation. Further to that, the sustainability of projects that relied on government funding was raised. Mr. Braim said it was crucial to know ahead of time where the funding would come from to enable proper planning. That also would help to avoid overlap and encourage integration. In terms of ensuring sustainability for government funded projects, Mr. Braim said it was a question of educating Governments to see the returns on their investments. Many projects also had the opportunity to become self-funding. It was also a question of leadership. The representative of the Government of the Republic of Korea suggested that it might be useful to set up an e-Asia Fund to finance such activities and to establish a Knowledge Partnership Fund to share experiences with other countries.

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