At the EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum – TeleCities spring conference in Tallinn, supported by the City of Tallinn, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu’s public sector group presented the findings of its second European benchmark survey into eCitizenship for All 2004, an annual joint initiative of EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum - TeleCities and Deloitte. The survey investigated the status of eCitizenship and eGovernment within European cities focusing on four key challenges: Re-engineering of Local Public Administration, eLearning and Inclusion, eSecurity and eDemocracy and Community Building. A total of 102 European cities from 23 European countries, including 18 cities in new EU member states, participated in the survey.
The survey revealed that eGovernment is now a permanent agenda item of local councils. Some 80% of participating cities have developed an eGovernment policy, including the delivery of services electronically. Cities recognize the need to focus on cost reduction and efficiency by analysing the real needs of citizens and businesses and computerising simple and frequently used services. The current survey shows that the demands of citizens and businesses represent the most important drivers for improvement of electronic services. The increasing focus of cities on the demands of their citizens demonstrates that cities are adopting a more ‘outside-in’ approach to eGovernment, as opposed to focusing on issues such as cost reduction and responding to legislative requirements only.
Key findings:
- Meeting citizens demands: In 2003, primary reasons for implementing eGovernment were cost reduction and responding to legislation. eGovernment now finds itself increasingly on the agenda of local councils. Most cities have programmes, projects or taskforces defined or in place, and some had even created specific senior positions for eGovernment. The current focus of cities is to meet demands of citizens and businesses, with 79% of survey participants citing this as their most important driver of change.
- Drivers of change: eGovernment could reduce external (user) costs by simplifying complicated procedures, typically involving the business community, such as licence and planning applications and tax reporting. Following the satisfaction of the demands of citizens and businesses, the streamlining of internal processes (61%), the increase of productivity (59%), the improvement of performance (59%) and cost reduction (50%) are seen as the most important drivers of change.
- Outsourcing: Outsourcing did not appear to be popular among participants, despite some of their stated objectives. Cities outsourcing eServices or considering outsourcing them were mostly those respondents whose services were at an advanced level.
- Re-engineering of Local Public Administration: The survey showed that the implementation of eGovernment was being driven by citizens’ demands, internal efficiency, effectiveness and productivity. The response to citizens’ demands is a positive shift. It indicates that cities are adopting a more responsive ‘outside-in’approach towards eGovernment.
- eLearning and Inclusion: Life-long learning remained a political issue. In most respondent cities (70%) this was a topic on the political agenda with involvement from a wide constituency of interested and motivated parties. Different approaches have been adopted with a third of cities having a written eLearning strategy, a large number of strategies addressing specific target groups and having a dedicated organisation and resource for eLearning. The initiatives to provide life-long learning opportunities concentrated more on promoting eLearning (67%) than providing it in the homes (37%) or to the community (50%).
- eSecurity: Analysis of the eSecurity survey data indicates certain security precautions are in place with 88% of participants deployed anti-virus software and in excess of 70% using firewalls.
- eDemocracy and Community Building: More than 90% of respondents were in agreement with elected representatives being contactable by e-mail; citizens receiving electronic communications on policy matters and elected representatives to modernise their working practices. However, 57% of participants didn’t expect on-line consultation to raise public expectations and could lead to frustration. 43% had no view on whether all European citizens should be able to vote on-line and 53% suggested that elected representatives couldn’t cope with the number of e-mails they receive.
Commenting on the results of the survey, Chris Newby, Chair EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum – TeleCities and Councillor, Liverpool City Council: “I believe that the eCitizenship for All survey is a clear example of the unprecedented efforts that cities are undertaking to achieve good governance within the context of public sector modernisation. The survey shows that eCitizenship is becoming a meaningful agent of transformation embedded in the culture of the public sector. Its potential goes far beyond early achievements.” Richard Drewes, Deloitte’s European survey leader, added : “The knowledge base created through this process represents a valuable and unique tool for European cities to benchmark themselves against each other and provide scope for bilateral learning and knowledge sharing in the light of the European Commission’s new and comprehensive ICT strategy.”
Tõnis Palts, Mayor of Tallinn and host of the event shared the experience from Tallin: “Our success story is based on technology, talent and tolerance. Tallinn is a multi-cultural city of thousands of enterprising and forward-thinking people who have worked hard to make us one of Europe’s most innovative centres. People can listen to the city council’s sittings in real-time through the internet and obtain information on every item in process. It helps improve the quality and transparency of the public services.”
Summing up, Hans Bossert, Deloitte Chairman Global Public Sector, commented: “In recognition of the importance of eGovernment in raising the efficiency of the public sector, we support the aims of the European Commission. To achieve this, governments must apply principles of good governance, strive for continuous improvement of performance and deliver maximum value for citizens and communities.”
Quelle: EUROCITIES, 22.04.2004
