"IT should be viewed as an enabler of public sector productivity, it makes it easier to automate processes and widen access to services," says V Mathivanan, Chief Executive Officer of CrimsonLogic. "However this has to be closely coupled with the willpower to improve the public administration, as well as the determination to streamline the processes, which is the very best hurdle to be overcome." Formerly known as Singapore Network Services, CrimsonLogic was established in 1988 and has delivered a number of successful e-government solutions both in its home market and overseas. Most recently CrimsonLogic has contributed to e-government projects in Australia, Thailand, The Philippines and Ghana. The latter has been cited by the World Bank as an example of best practice.
"E-government efforts in Southeast Asia are picking up, but there is much more growth in the North Asian economies - such as Korea, Taiwan and China," Mathivanan says. "Some parts of ASEAN are seeing rising government spending, notably Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Thailand, but other parts of ASEAN are still in the initial stage of establishing infrastructure to e-enable their economy."
He points to the importance of a strong, central mandate for effective e-government implementation - "politics, lack of willpower and poor infrastructure have been the common challenges for e-government services" - and believes that the advent of the Chief Information Officer role in the public sector has been a catalyst for change.
"The position of the CIO in the public sector is relatively new. For example, Canada appointed the first CIO for the Canadian government only in 1991." notes Mathivanan. "Today other countries such as the United States, United Kingdom and Australia have established a CIO or its equivalent who reports to the highest level of government. In the case of Singapore, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore Government Chief Information Officer plays this role very well, ensuring that all government agencies are kept abreast of the latest relevant technologies. More importantly it prevents duplication of IT efforts in the public sector, just as a private sector CIO would do."
"The role of the IDA is to create guidelines. Although not all information within government is shared, it’s a well known fact that address information can be updated centrally in Singapore," Mathivanan continues. "This is the foresight that comes with central planning. If one agency uses SAP, another uses Microsoft Excel, the citizen doesn’t care, just so long as the system works. Focusing on an agency's internal productivity enhances the effectiveness of customer-facing applications."
Mathivanan sees strong central coordination as a key driver for e-government initiatives, disagreeing with the idea that agencies should be left to their own devices when establishing IT infrastructure. And yet, surprisingly, the end objective of this central coordination is not greater pan-agency collaboration.
"Do you opt for distributed data systems or do you centralise them?" Mathivanan asks rhetorically. "If you end up chasing after a moving target just to try and centralise data, what's the point? Governments need to get a bite at the cherry - they need to be able to have 80 per cent of what is currently possible. That extra 20 per cent isn't necessary. What matters most is the impact the service has on the citizen. Whether it comes via a centralised or decentralised repository, the citizen doesn't care. Different agencies will be at different rates of progress, so trying to engineer greater collaboration as a primary goal misses the point."
"Agencies need to buy themselves time by taking action, rather than by chasing after a moving target," he concludes. "Governments are beginning to understand that an investment in IT is not the end but the means to an end. The goal is to demonstrate ROI within the department and through customer service, just as it is in the private sector. Each government will have its own approach to e-government, but I think the level of understanding of how to roll-out e-government has improved."
Autor: James Smith
Quelle: Public Sector Technology & Management, 18.07.2005
