Earlier this month, Accenture ranked Canada first in "e-government maturity" compared to 21 other countries, including the United States. Graeme Gordon, partner at Accenture's government practice, attributed Canada's top ranking to its "focus on self-examination and its relentless pursuit of user feedback".
But as Ottawa's Government On-Line (GOL) initiative enters its next phase, there are many challenges that need to be overcome before businesses can reap lasting rewards from it, local experts say.
While the federal government has done a good job creating alternative access to existing programs, not much has been done to harmonize service delivery across programs, departments or jurisdictions, said Greg Lane, director of business development at Deloitte in Ottawa.
The best way to describe the current state of affairs, he said, is to look at libraries before they had a standardized way of cataloguing books. At that time, librarians would place books wherever they felt made the most sense, said Lane. However, this could mean having 50 copies of the same book floating around different sections of the same building and no one would know.
The digital divide between jurisdictions can be especially problematic for small and medium-sized businesses that deal with different levels of government, said Jonathan Hopkins, senior manager at Deloitte, adding SMEs may encounter unnecessary overlap when it comes to applying for permits or licences.
In fact, the next big hurdle for GOL is not technology, but realizing the additional gains in productivity SMEs could achieve if the government was more efficient and effective in the provision of electronic services, said Lane.
Public servants working on the GOL initiative are aware of this challenge and are working to address it, said Christine Desloges, director general of government online initiatives at Public Works and Government Services Canada.
They have conducted focus testing, client surveys and an Internet panel to identify what services users would like to access online, she said, adding public servants have also mapped out the habits of certain user groups to consider which services should be bundled.
"The important thing is to get as much as possible in a one-stop shop," said Desloges, adding Ottawa has partnered with some provincial governments, such as those in Ontario and Prince Edward Island, as well as municipal governments, such as the City of Brockville, to pilot some bundled service offerings.
Industry Canada has also been gauging the needs of businesses, said Gordon.
After getting input from businesses, that department is close to launching a project called BizPal that aims to create a one-stop business licensing shop for all levels of government, he said.
The "vertical silos" that still remain among some government departments represent a business opportunity for the high-tech sector, IBM Canada president Ed Kilroy told the Ottawa Business Journal last October during GTEC Week.
"If you think about it from a software (context) and if you think about firms that are adhering to open standards, it's really driving the interoperability they need. (Governments) need to adhere to sets of open standards so information can be passed back and forth between applications and between departments," he said at the time.
Kilroy pointed to the efforts of Social Development Canada, which oversees the modernizing services for Canadians (MSC) project. That initiative concentrates on the delivery and handling of SDC transactions, such as the distribution of employment insurance, Canada Student Loans and pensions.
"We plan to provide a seamless experience for Canadians" who, in the past, have had to "knock on three different doors" for a service, said Ninon Charlebois, director general of the government online foundation projects at SDC. "Instead, more efforts will be made to cut across all programs and deliver programs the way the public wants them, according to their own specific needs."
Nonetheless, such efforts seem to be in the infant stages and are still relatively few in number, insiders said.
But as these efforts increase, the government is more likely to track down shortcomings and improve upon them, said Lane.
"What you really want is to have all programs that apply to an individual or company (integrated) so they are fully informed of their options and they don't have to go searching. That's the dilemma. Part of GOL is a discovery process. As we go online, we're exposing the challenges we have to face."
Quelle: Ottawa Business Journal, 17.05.2004
