The quarterly scorecard, released last week, gave top marks to just two agencies -- the National Science Foundation and the Office of Personnel Management. Meanwhile, the e-government efforts of some of the government's biggest departments -- Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice and Homeland Security -- were slapped with unsatisfactory ratings. Only the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development improved their ratings.
Notably, the Office of Management and Budget, which produces the scorecard, earned an unsatisfactory rating for its own e-government status.
The scorecard measures agencies' compliance with the President's Management Agenda, a blueprint released nearly two years ago setting standards for financial performance, budget management, competitive sourcing, human resource functions and e-government efforts. When it comes to e-government, the goals range from improving information sharing with state and local governments, making it easier for businesses to file compliance information electronically, deploying digital signature technology for contract agreements and making more information readily available to citizens via the Internet. Achieving cost savings and other efficiencies are a big part of the agenda as well.
Now, like any good teacher, the OMB isn't scolding its students too much. Another section of the scorecard rates the overall progress agencies are making as they strive to implement the president's management goals. Only the Department of Housing & Urban Development gets an unsatisfactory rating in the e-government category in this section.
In a Web posting, OMB e-government chief Karen Evans pointed out some success stories. Among them: GovLoans.gov, a site for federal loan information; the Department of Labor's GovBenefits.gov site and its new Spanish-language version; and the IRS's free online tax filing initiative.
Government Computer News was one of the few publications to cover the scorecard's release.
E-Government at the Crossroads
Back to the Accenture survey, which looked at an exclusive short-list of 20 nations, mostly in the developed world. The consulting firm reached some fairly pessimistic conclusions, including the fact that many citizens are still not visiting government Web sites.
Accenture noted that "[g]overnments around the world are at a crossroads with their online programs. With few exceptions, their advances in eGovernment maturity have slowed over the last several years. Old strategies have reached the limits of their effectiveness. Governments now find themselves trying to drive high performance -- better outcomes more cost-effectively -- through eGovernment."
The No. 1 conclusion: "eGovernment advances are diminishing. The pace of progress of a number of early leaders has now slowed to the point where many other countries have caught up." Accenture officials told GovExec.com that the trend can only be reversed if "Cabinet-level officials ... provide strong and uniform leadership to ensure improvement in federal e-government amenities."
The Wall Street Journal summed up the report's findings: "Forty-eight percent of Americans using the Internet and 41% of Canadians have rarely or never visited a government Web site. ... Canada ranked first in the survey of Internet-offering maturity, while the U.S. and Singapore tied for second, followed by Australia and six European countries. European countries accounted for 12 of the top 20 countries." Steve Rohleder, head of Accenture's government operating group, told the Journal: "The public-acceptance issue continues to plague e-government." Rohleder "blamed 'mediocre' public acceptance of government sites on poor marketing, privacy and Internet security concerns, and on citizens' general preference for dealing with government officials by telephone or in person. As a result, governments are increasingly insisting that Internet investments produce real savings fast -- a shift that ultimately promises leaner, better government, according to Mr. Rohleder."
Accenture Canada's Graeme Gordon told the The Toronto Globe & Mail that Canada's top ranking was driven by "its relentless pursuit of user feedback [which] allowed it to continue to build what is clearly one of the world-leading customer-focused government on-line programs."
The London Guardian noted that for the first time, Britain ranked lower than France on the Accenture survey, dropping from eighth to ninth place. "Accenture found the biggest barrier to UK take-up of e-government was the inability of users to find the correct website for what they wanted to do," the newspaper noted. Britain is placing a lot of e-gov focus on the launch of its Directgov portal, which the government "hopes ... will eventually allow at least half the nation to book a hospital appointment, check benefit rights or do tax returns online. Local authorities are also developing their own platforms within the site with the aim of helping people find out about schools, dustbins and other services by keying in their postcode."
South Africa came in last on the Accenture list. "South Africa is the only African country in the survey and was competing against First World countries. In this light it's not bad at all," Charles Webster of Accenture told the Johannesburg Mail & Guardian.
Additional coverage of the Accenture survey: Australian IT, Federal Computer Week and Government Computer News.
E-Government Footnotes
- California state Controller Steve Westly last week outlined a number of e-government reform ideas at the Western Region Government Technology Conference, proposals he claimed in a statement could "save as much as $37.5 million a year by making California more efficient at handling everything from tax returns to travel vouchers." But Westly's e-government ideas didn't exactly create a lot of fanfare. An unscientific survey of news organizations (i.e. a quick search of Google's automated news site) called up zero news stories about his e-government agenda.
- Ireland needs to work on making its government Web sites more accessible to persons with disabilities, according to a study conducted by Ennis Information Age Services, an online marketing firm that focuses on accessibility issues. ElectronicNews.net has the news.
- Studying the success of e-government programs is en vogue. A recent study by the business-oriented Bangladesh Enterprise Institute surveyed current e-government initiatives in the south Asian country, concluding that The study found that e-government efforts in can help fight political corruption by promoting greater transparency in government activities, The Daily Star of Dhaka reported.
CNET's News.com reported Monday that 13 members of the House of Representatives are requesting that the General Accounting Office probe the security of e-voting machines. "While the existing data indicate that these machines can be more accurate than outdated punch card voting machines, experts are becoming increasingly concerned that many of these electronic voting machines have other flaws," the lawmakers said in a letter to the investigative agency.
One vocal e-voting critic is Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), who has filed a lawsuit to force 15 Florida counties to use a paper trail if they use e-voting machines in the upcoming elections. According to Federal Computer Week, Wexler took action in response to "an article published May 15 in the Miami Herald, which reported that Election Systems & Software Inc. 'will have to work around a glitch in the machines' auditing systems because the software that would correct it will not be certified by the state in time for the fall elections.'" Meanwhile, Florida officials aren't too happy with the congressman. The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reported last week that "Wexler's federal lawsuit over touch-screen voting machines is helping foster doubts about the upcoming election and is shaking people's faith in the new voting machines, attorneys for Florida elections officials told a judge."
News.com picked up on the "trust" theme in an article published today. Michael Alvarez of the California Institute of Technology said the mounting criticisms of e-voting "adds a huge amount of uncertainty, and a whole level and new types of scrutiny that states will be applying. E-voting machines can only work if people have trust in them, and if we are in a situation where we lack trust, then we aren't going to benefit." News.com's long overview of the whole e-voting debate is worth a read.
In an editorial on Tuesday, The New York Times called on New York officials to join California and other states in advocating for tougher safeguards and paper trails for e-voting machines. Excerpt: "As concerns have grown about the reliability of electronic voting machines, a nationwide groundswell has been forming to demand that the machines produce paper records of votes that voters can check. California will require all electronic voting machines in the state to produce such records by 2006, and Ohio adopted the same rule this month. New York State should have been in the forefront of this movement, but its elected officials have been dragging their feet. If New York acts quickly and resolutely now, however, it can not only protect the reliability of its own votes, but can also help make verifiable paper trails a national standard."
Other Noteworthy Government IT News:
- Richard Clarke isn't a real popular guy at the White House these days, thanks to his tell-all book criticizing what he said was President Bush's single-minded determination to go after Saddam Hussein in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Now Clarke is throwing more barbs at the administration, telling National Journal's Technology Daily that Bush is failing to follow through on his national cybersecurity strategy. "The president signed it, the president issued it, there was the usual amount of lip service to it, but then nothing ever happened for the better part of a year," said Clarke, who served as national cybersecurity czar under Bush until early 2003.
- Washington state's chief information officer has made the leap from the public to the private sector. Stuart McKee is joining Microsoft next month as the company's national technology officer. InformationWeek reported more about the motivation behind the move, including the not-so-surprising news that McKee will make more money at Microsoft: "The 37-year-old Seattle-area native said the decision by Gov. Gary Locke not to seek reelection partly influenced his move to change jobs. McKee also hinted that private-sector pay contributed to his decision." Here's CIO Magazine's profile of McKee.
- Montana is also looking to fill its CIO position. Brian Wolf, "the state's first CIO, is leaving in June to become the chief operating officer of the utility division at the National Information Solutions Cooperative in St. Peters, Mo.," Government Computer News reported. Here is CIO Magazine's profile of Wolf.
- The revolving door continues: The Small Business Administration is losing top e-government official Ron Miller to government contractor SRA International Inc., Federal Computer Week reported yesterday. SBA confirmed the move to the publication. Miller is the former chief information officer of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and also has helped with IT efforts at the Department of Homeland Security.
- State and local governments have more places to shop for IT wares and services. "A final procurement rule that allows state and local governments to buy information technology products and services off the General Services Administration schedules" went live on May 18, Washington Technology reported. The effort is part of goals set forth in the E-Government Act of 2002.
