A key finding which needs to be taken on board both by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the soon to be created eGovernment replacement to the Office of the e-envoy is that the UK's online public services come 8th in Europe - not performing as well (in terms of sophistication) as many other EU contries (see table below for details). The report looks at the progress that Europe is making in providing online services at both the citizen and business level across the 15 EU member countries plus Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.
The objective of the survey is to provide a benchmark for the different European countries to compare progress and share best practice. The survey, conducted in late 2003 for the fourth time, is a core part of the eEurope programme launched by the European Union to bring the benefits of the information society to all Europeans. The measurement criteria used covered the level of on line interaction and the overall availability of public services online.
Whilst the adoption of e-government continues to grow, the pace of this growth slowed between 2002 and 2003. The level of online sophistication grew 7% points and is now at 67% as opposed to 60% in 2002 and 45% in 2001. Austria has made the most progress of any one country in the 12-month period.
In 2003 progress has been such that the research can now focus on the number of public services that are truly fully transactional online. Taking this indicator to look at Europe's progress overall shows that only 45% of services are fully available on line. In this area Denmark, Austria and Sweden lead the way.
Previously in 2002 only Denmark, Sweden, Ireland and Finland showed progress towards two-way interaction, today almost all the countries measured have improved the average level of online sophistication of their public services beyond one way interaction, from the government to the users, towards two-way interaction in both directions.
Key findings of the report, by country:
Online sophistication of public services
| Country | October 03 | October 02 | October 01 |
| Sweden | 87% | 87% | 61% |
| Denmark | 86% | 82% | 59% |
| Ireland | 86% | 85% | 68% |
| Austria | 83% | 56% | 40% |
| Finland | 80% | 76% | 66% |
| Norway | 75% | 66% | 63% |
| France | 73% | 63% | 49% |
| United Kingdom | 71% | 62% | 50% |
| The Netherlands | 65% | 54% | 37% |
| Portugal | 65% | 58% | 51% |
| Spain | 64% | 64% | 50% |
| Italy | 59% | 57% | 39% |
| Belgium | 58% | 47% | 23% |
Twenty basic public services have been identified, eight for citizens and twelve for businesses and the level of interaction ranging from simple online information provided to full electronic transaction based measured. The public services have then been clustered in four key areas:
- Income-generating: services where payment flows from citizens and businesses to the government (mainly taxes and social contributions)
- Registration: services related to recording data as a result of administrative obligations (births, deaths, marriages)
- Returns: services provided by government to citizens and businesses in return for taxes and contributions (eg public libraries)
- Permits & licences: documents provided by governmental bodies giving permission to build a house, to run a business etc.
Countries should be encouraged to do more effort to develop transactional eGovernment applications for non-return services. A higher level of online development of those services will enhance the adoption of eGovernment services by users.
This survey only analyses the results of eGovernment efforts from the perspective of the online availability of public services . In the future the E.C. will make efforts to integrate the results of this study on into a broader perspective of various eGovernment measures: linking service availability; channel selection; back-office fulfilment capability; and service usage and impact of eGovernment.
“Clearly Europe's nation states continue to make good progress in eGovernment. However taking the measure of Europe's progress on services fully available online the picture is rather pessimistic. The EC will want to encourage member states to enhance the number of public services fully available online particularly those aimed at citizens” said Stan Cozon CGE&Y's Public Sector Global Leader.
e-Government: Report on online availability of public services. January 2004
Quelle: PublicTechnology, 30.01.2004
