"Most citizens may not know exactly which department does what," said Steven Mak, deputy director of Information Technology Services Department (ITSD). "Many of the them would only know from their own bad experiences with specific departments." Navigating between departments and getting the correct information to complete even simple processes is problematic when faced with the typical bureaucracy of governments. This is an issue of concern among all governments and technology has been identified as one solution for this mammoth headache. "If the government could provide systems that help deliver the information electronically between departments, citizens would not need to go through each department and repeat procedures," said Mak.
Michael Stone, e-government coordinator from the Information Technology and Broadcasting Branch agreed. He described the way the government is structured does not align with citizens' demand for public services.
"Inter-departmental applications will be key [to e-government] services in the future," said Stone.
But given the government structure, building a 'one-stop shop service' will not merely be an IT project, but will involve many political and organizational issues. The Easy Change of Address (ECOA) service was re-launched in April removing the need for an e-cert, which was required in its first incarnation. The issues overcome by the government in delivering this inter-departmental service indicate the challenges involved.
One-stop dreams
The simple ECOA service allows citizens to update their contact addresses to 12 government departments and two business organizations simultaneously from a single Web site.
The response so far seems to be positive. According to Stone, 1,500 transactions were completed within the first month, compared to a monthly average of 100 in the previous service.
"It's pretty encouraging, considering the previous application was not very satisfactory," he said.
Interestingly, technology was not the major hurdle in delivering this service. According to Tony Ma, chief operating office of ESD Services Ltd, the government and commercial service portal manager, "the technology involved in the [ECOA] service is relatively simple". Ma's company created the service interface and the necessary eXtensible Markup Language (XML) messages are sent to each related government body.
Upon receiving, "it's up to each department to handle the XML message," noted Ma. He added while some departments automate XML data processing, others continue to update that information within their system manually.
That is what happens when an XML message reaches the Water Supplies Department. Lorrience Chow, the department's treasury accountant/system, explained the department downloads relevant information from the ESDLife portal daily, and manually updates it into its system.
Chow said the update is not an automated process, but added the ECOA better prepares the department for the new automated billing system, slated for mid-2004 launch. In 2002, only five percent of the address updates were collected through the public services portal.
Internet's importance also seems to differ among departments them-selves. The Registry and Electoral Office is a good ex-ample. As the deadline for voter registration draws near (July 16, 2003), the department is busy persuading voters to update their personal information. However, the de-partment's Web site encourages voters to use the phone Internet. When questioned, a spokesperson for the department said "citizens can choose to use whatever means easiest for them."
Not surprisingly, less than three percent of all the address updates are submitted through electronic means.
Listing the specs
Although technology plays a different role in each individual depart-ment, Mak noted ECOA's significance lies not only in technical standards, but also in technical policies prescribed in the interop-erability framework (IF).
Introduced early this year, IF includes two sets of standards-the technical specifications and data specifications-for each department to follow.
In terms of technical interoperability, the IF has a list of standard product specifications, which Mak noted "provides a good choice for departments." With this open interoper-ability principal, he said departments and the industry benefit in the procurement process. Since all technical standards and specifications are public, he said more vendors and smaller local companies can bid for government tenders.
"That's a win-win situation," said Mak. "For the government, we enjoy more choices and competitive pricing, while more industry players can compete in the government projects to create a level playing field."
Mak said these technical specifications together with the introduction of XML, enterprise application integration software and middleware, makes linking up different systems much easier.
"On the technology side, it [linking systems] is not difficult as most software in the market are able to read the common XML schema," he said. "But since data formats differ within departments, we also need data interoperability."
Making data talk
Mak stated even basic information like addresses could be stored and written very differently among government departments. He stressed that to develop inter-departmental services, data interoperability across departments is crucial.
"Don't underestimate the significance of data interoperability," said Mak. "It can be tedious, but every computer system has their own definition." This increases the work load required to integrate the data, he added, "therefore we need to standardize the data."
To achieve data interoperability, ITSD is currently developing a list of data schemas, which will standardize how information will be stored and defined. Commonly used data schemas within the government are names, addresses, the identification number and the specific format for presenting dates. He said the set of schemas will be stored in a repository, which, by the end of 2003, all departments will be instructed to adhere to.
The repository will start with a set of 20 schemas, but the list will grow as departments start contributing relevant schemas. Throughout the applications development process, if departments create certain schemas or find schemas that are widely used in the industry, they could add those to the repository.
The goal of IF is to create a common platform for data exchange. To ensure this, ITSD constantly reviews and revises the standards, said Mak.
One of the ongoing initiatives is to develop a methodology for data schema design. "The user-friendliness and adoption rate of a schema depends on its design," Mak noted.
Mak said ITSD, together with experts from the Hong Kong University and commercial XML users, has been developing this methodology for designing and managing the data schemas from early this year. The methodology will be available for public consultation within this month, and adoption is expected by the end of 2003.
On the technology side, ITSD has also recently conducted a survey across departments and industries to review the technical specifications of the IF. Mak stated a few updates on product specification are expected in the second version of the IF, which will also be available at the end of this year.
Beyond IF
Despite a continuous enhancement of the IF, analysts said the major challenge of inter-departmental services is beyond interoper-ability.
"It's more than just standards," said Ramez Katf, partner of Accenture's Government practice. "The main concern (of IF) is getting it operational and having departments making use of those standards to create transactions."
Accenture released a global report in April on e-government services. Titled, "e-Government Leadership: Engaging the Cus-tomer," the report measured the breadth and depth of e-government practices in 22 countries worldwide. Despite moving up the ranks to seventh place, Katf said the Hong Kong government is still far from making transactions fully inter-departmental.
"No one has yet taken IF operat-ional," he said. "Many departments are still in the phase of information sharing."
Stone agreed the IF has not brought an immediate impact on inter-departmental services, but stated it will be helpful in the long term as the government continues to develop further ser-vices.
He noted a property-related portal, to be available in the first half of 2004, will integrate a few departments, including the Land Registry Department and Land Department, to provide historical and geographical information of buildings in Hong Kong. Stone added an enhanced business-entry portal, integrating information from the Trade Development Council and Productivity Council, will also be available by the second half of 2004.
Another major initiative for cross-department systems, Stone noted, is the integrated criminal justice system (ICJS). It aims to share information among at least 10 government departments in the judiciary system, including the Police Department, Independent Commission Against Crime, Correctional Service and the Social Welfare. The system is expected to automate the flow of information across these departments during the prosecution process.
Stone stated currently data of the prosecution is often recorded on paper. There are lots of repetition and data entry is tedious, he added. "The system aims to automate the process and reduce human error."
Privacy nightmare
However, such systems, particularly the ICJS, may raise the public's privacy concerns, commented Stone.
"Yes, privacy is an issue we need to address," Stone said. "Of course, only relevant information is made available for the dedicated departments (within ICJS)."
Stone added apart from requiring the system to comply with the Personal Data Privacy Ordinance, it is also an issue that society should debate. "How much data sharing does society want in order to achieve a more effective government?" He noted that balance and social consent is very important.
Security headache
Security is also often an issue that is a concern in all electronic government services. Striking the balance between security and a user-friendly service does not seem to be easy, said Katf.
"This is the challenge everyone has," said Katf. "I think that's an issue a lot of governments around the world are still struggling with."
A good example is the Hong Kong Post e-Cert scheme. "I must admit we are a bit schizophrenic about e-Cert," Stone said. "We need to think hard whether it's necessary to force people to use the e-Cert, because for some time to come, most people won't have an e-Cert. So why force them?"
Inland Revenue Department's new Teletax service bypasses the need for an e-Cert. Stone explained Teletax uses a taxpayer identification number and password to provide a more user-friendly application and an alternative to e-Cert.
"We'd like to migrate more and more services to a common form, because that will make it more useful and worthwhile for citizens," Stone asserted.
"Obviously, they [government] have taken certain advice [regarding security] to heart," said Robert Neely, CommerceNet China Ltd's CEO. After a recent experience of trying to use the Teletax service, Neely said the government has taken the security issue to "the opposite extreme". He said the ESDLife customer service hotline requested him to switch off all firewall and security measures in order to use the teletax service.
"They have decided that you must be totally insecure if you want to submit a tax return," he said. "If it [e-government service] continues to be widely unusable with increasing disrepute, no one is going to waste anymore time using it."
Neely added that the government is apparently struggling to understand the balance between user-friendliness and security.
Resolving disputes
Another issue of concern over cross-department services is the resolution of department disputes. With the introduction of electronic transaction between departments, disputes can occur, noted Mak.
"This issue has often been a priority whenever we develop cross-department project, so this is no different to an offline project," Mak said. "We do have a system to check and balance the operation," he added, referring to the Project in Controlled Environment (PRINCE) methodology.
PRINCE was first developed in 1989 as a UK Government standard for IT project management, but is also used in many non-IT projects. Mak added PRINCE is not the only system the government relies on in IT projects, but the 14-year old methodology has been widely adopted. "We also rely on project coordination mechanisms," he said. "But so far, we have not encountered a problem."
Being one of the first cross-departmental applications, ECOA is just the first step in the government's goal to develop more one-stop services. "Our goal is to allow transactions and information flow between departments to be as easy as sending e-mail," Mak stated.
Stone stressed the process will not be easy, and that a lot of work and commitment is required from all the parties involved. "But you don't have to change the structure of the government in order to provide a one-stop shop," he added.
Quelle: IDG.com.hk
