IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

There’s much that newcomers to government should learn from the past.

One of the most striking things new White House staffers encounter when they first walk into their offices in the White House or the large, gray Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door is the emptiness. The previous occupants leave no files or other records beyond those retained by career staff in the Office of Management and Budget and other agencies. All policy documents are sent to the National Archives, and the General Services Administration will have cleaned everything else away before the new staffers arrive.

In effect, we saw how in early 2009 the first-ever chief performance officer (CPO) for the federal government was named by President Obama. This signified ownership, and with that ownership we have actually seen progress within the executive branch.

Speakers at the Arizona Virtual Digital Government Summit examined how the pandemic tested existing digital infrastructure systems — and how it demonstrated the need for governments to evolve.

The pandemic accelerated the need for many government organizations to modernize their digital infrastructure, which was a central topic of discussion during the Arizona Virtual Digital Government Summit* earlier this week.

It aims to deliver more accessible citizen services as well as enable greater transparency through broader access to data and empower citizens with new tools.

The City of Chicago announced it is planning to revamp its digital strategy to help deliver more accessible city services.

Led by the City’s Department of Assets, Information, and Services (AIS) the measures will provide more efficient IT systems, enable transparency through broader access to data, and maintain protections for residents’ privacy and security.

Machine learning and process automation help government agencies simplify and accelerate interactions with constituents, which strengthens the public’s trust, says Noel Loughrin, who worked in county government in Southern California for seven years before moving to the private sector. Loughrin is the strategic solutions manager for education and government with Laserfiche, a company that specializes in software for content management, process automation and data analytics.

The pandemic and its sweeping effects took governments by surprise. But when the next crisis hits, there will be no excuse to be unprepared. Here’s the groundwork information technology leaders should put in place now.

No one could have predicted the impact of a pandemic on people, the economy, and governments of all sizes. The people impact is well-documented with COVID-19 infection numbers and worst of all, deaths being reported daily. Time will reveal the impact of shelter in place and social distancing practices on our mental and physical health. Economic impacts are also well documented as unemployment reached record highs in the shortest amount of time in our history. Time will also tell how the structural underpinnings of the economy are affected and changed forever. As for governments, the impacts of COVID-19 happened quickly but are also developing over time. The initial impacts of moving quickly to remote work, stressing government services, and exposing technology deficiencies will soon manifest into long-term structural budget issues that will not fade away anytime soon. Governments that need to modernize technology infrastructure and applications to be ready for the next pandemic will require a significant investment of public dollars. Will governments be ready to invest as their resources tighten and competition for dollars becomes even more fierce?

“Instilling change is 80 percent of it,” said Theresa Beverly, infrastructure transition program manager at IRS. “People are a very big part of it. Basically, they’ve been used to doing work [one way] and it’s been working for them. Now you want [to change it] and make it better, but they say, 'Who asked? It’s working for me.' ”

"The state will not be able to achieve a statewide IT vision until it coordinates the planning that guides each department and agency with that vision." -- The Governor's Task Force on Government Technology Policy and Procurement, 1994.

So it wasn't surprising when Obama's outgoing budget director, Peter R. Orszag, recently told the Center for American Progress, in a speech highlighting Obama's management agenda, that "closing the IT gap is perhaps the single most important step we can take in creating a more efficient and responsive government." It was a bit more surprising when he said: "Indeed, the IT gap is the key differentiator between our effort to modernize and reform government and those that have come before."

The Vermont Institute on Government Effectiveness has spent two years researching state government and working with employees.

It released its report Wednesday detailing 20 different recommendations for streamlining and consolidating the way the state uses electronic technology.

Writers in the first edition of the Group’s ‘Public Sector Bearing’ series include town hall e-Government practitioners who claim the cost of delivering frontline public services have moved up significantly in the last four years without a concomitant uplift in quality where it matters most. Concentration on ‘e’ channels have left areas of highest demand and highest spend relatively untouched, the report suggests.

The "Drive to Excellence" campaign announced by Gov. Tim Pawlenty Monday will succeed if it can deliver on his promise of better state government at a far lower cost. The key will be breaking down walls between departments and agencies, encouraging more innovation. This is easier said than done in any organization, let alone a massive government bureaucracy (remember Al Gore's vaunted efforts to streamline the federal government in the 1990s).

Die laufenden Projekte in Deutschland zur computergetützten Verwaltung ("E-Government") dürfen nach Ansicht des Dienstleistungsunternehmens Materna nicht dazu benutzt werden, überholte und ineffiziente Verwaltungsprozesse zu verfestigen.

E-Government wird zum Thema in der Verwaltung. Der technologische Fortschritt ermöglicht insbesondere durch das Internet neue Kommunikations- und Interaktionswege. Doch welchen Einfluss haben diese auf die Organisationsstrukturen des Staates?

Katy Cuko sprach darüber mit Dr. Tino Schuppan, Verwaltungswissenschaftler und geschäftsführender Vorstand des „Institute for E-Government“ in Potsdam.

The Land Administration Project (LAP), which is estimated to cost at around USD 47.2 million, has three components and will be implemented in selected provinces in Vietnam.

The first component is the modernisation of the land registration system. This component will support the development of an accurate, current and complete information system to support land registration through: completing and updating all cadastral mapping showing all land parcels, updating of all land records, further developing and implementing the computerised land record system, and selected policy studies in support of the land administration system.

Organized by the National Steering Board for Information Technology, the Ministry of Information and Communications, and the International Database Group, the two-day workshop aims to refresh the thinking on e-government on which efforts have been under way for some time now.

There is no need to have a large government when we can use technology to make the system less cumbersome and more transparent.

In the past, when it came to food safety issues, whatever was grown on land was the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture, whatever was farmed in water was the responsibility of the Ministry of Aquaculture and whatever was sold in the market was the responsibility of the Ministry of Trade.

The northern province of Bac Giang will continue stepping up its administrative reform efforts between now and the end of the year to better serve the public, its Department of Home Affairs has announced.

The time for processing administrative procedures in excess of 15 days will be cut by 25-30 percent.

Following a motto of “discipline, integrity, action, service”, Bac Giang will improve the quality of its officials and civil servants, reform the apparatus and build e-government, and better the quality of its public services, creating a fair and favourable business environment and contributing to socio-economic development.

France will provide technical assistance for Vietnam to streamline administrative procedures, improve its business environment and build the e-government and digital transformation under a cooperation programme between the Vietnamese Government Office and the French Embassy in Vietnam released on June 3.

The programme on cooperation in administrative modernisation in combination with digital transformation in 2022-2023 is within the framework of a memorandum of understanding between the Office and the French Ministry of Economy and Finance, on e-government development and administrative modernisation.