E-gov must focus on customer experience, not cost cutting: A new survey looking at e-government implementation in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States found that the most successful projects are not those that focus on cost savings as a primary aim. The study, conducted by AT Kearney in association with the Public Policy Group of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), found that agencies can best meet the targets for public sector reform if they focus on offering the best value for money and a positive customer experience. Agencies who focus solely on serving their political masters rather than meeting customers' needs will be unable to deliver the real change that is required. On a pragmatic note, the survey also noted that as older civil servants retire, there will be more opportunities to "reinvigorate with new minds and new thinking" to make governments more capable of effective change. Canada, New Zealand and Australia performed best in the survey, while UK agencies showed room for improvement.
Governments urged to consider open-source software: Free and open-source software (FOSS) could give a particular boost to developing countries, according to the E-commerce and Development Report 2003 from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The UNCTAD report notes that both multinational firms and governments are now using open source software in earnest, and it says that while proprietary software has its place, "Governments should consider their policy position on FOSS in the context of their over-all agenda and their ambitions of bridging the digital divide and using ICT for increased, improved trade and development." Current government users of FOSS named in the report include the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy and the National Security Agency in the US, as well as France's ministries of Defence, Culture, and Economy; Germany's Federal Institute for Agriculture and Food; and Britain's National Health Service. The report, which details open-source initiatives in developing countries from Pakistan to Malaysia, is available on-line.
Guidelines published for UK data sharing:A new UK guide has been published to give government organisations legal guidance on the issue of sharing personal data. Published by the UK Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA), the "Public Sector Data Sharing -- Guidance on the Law" helps agencies determine how and whether they may share data; the ultimate aim is to facilitate the creation of cross-agency services that deliver benefits to the public without contravening their data protection rights. The on-line toolkit also includes guidelines for agencies on how to deal with any complaints from the public about data sharing, and the DCA said it will soon publish additional information, including guidelines on how to develop privacy statements and codes of practice for data sharing. The guide is available on-line from the DCA.
Ontario looks to share information on fires: The Office of the Fire Marshall in Ontario, Canada is set to trial a new on-line service to give fire departments province-wide access to past information about fires. ITBusiness reports that the new service, which will be trialled in certain communities starting in 2004, will act as a universal database to allow fire department heads to see and analyse trends, help with risk assessment, and get a better idea of the resources they require. Ontario has studied similar work undertaken in Atlanta in the US as well as Essex and Hertfordshire in the UK. Eventually the fire marshall's aspiration is to see the application made accessible to more than 500 fire departments across the province.
Searchability of on-line government should be improved: An e-government technical advisory committee has recommended that governments worldwide improve the performance of their networked services by adopting a standard search service. The draft of Search Service Interoperability, published last month by the e-Government Technical Committee of OASIS (The Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), recommends that a standardised search be developed according to the ISO 23950 international standard. The committee isn't recommending that governments replace their current on-line search tools with the new standard facility, but that they include the standard search as a supplementary service. OASIS argues that there is a compelling public policy interest in highly interoperable search services, which would not only enhance the transparency of government, but would also deliver real, government-wide efficiencies, thanks to improved information sharing and the elimination of the need to develop custom "bridges" to merge data from multiple government sources.
Environmental Protection Agency puts database on-line: The Environmental Protection Agency in the US has launched the EPA Science Inventory, a searchable database that lets Web site visitors perform keyword-searches of EPA projects, accessing project abstracts, contact information and links to final reports and related research. The EPA said the on-line resources would be particularly useful for researchers in universities, industry or the legal profession who require access to the EPA's scientific information. The Science Inventory, which is on-line at www.epa.gov/si, is also broken into nine general science topics: aging initiative, contaminated sediments, ecological assessment tools, genomics, tribal science, children's health, cumulative risk, environmental justice and non-indigenous species.
Quelle: Electric News, 03.12.2003
