“The present network has served us well so far, but technology has advanced by leaps and bounds and the Internet is very important for the civil service. This is why we have to keep improving the IT systems, keeping security a top priority,” Mr Spiteri Gingell said.
As the IT infrastructure was secure from the beginning it enabled the government to start using Internet in the civil service. It was not easy introducing Internet services in government departments because the technology constitutes a threat to the government,” said Mr Spiteri Gingell.
Most States were sceptical about the use of the Internet at first, mostly because it was feared that these new systems would be accessed by hackers.
According to statistics published in June the computer security institute said the two major security threats to the government come from the Internet (17 per cent) and from trusted parties.
“Security was seen as an additional cost and many governments used to think it was a waste of money. September 11 exposed the vulnerability of such systems and the ease with which such systems could be cracked shocked everybody,” Mr Spiteri Gingell said.
Before IT was introduced in ministries and government departments, around 70 per cent of information used to be stored in hard copy, so-called ‘structured’ files. The rest was ‘mental’ knowledge, shared among employees.
Today, only 20 per cent of the information is stored in ‘structured’ files. Around 50 per cent of information is kept in ‘unstructured’ files – e-mails, electronic documents and so on. The rest is ‘mental’ information.
In February 1999, the government had about 3,000 e-mail accounts. Today there are some 13,000. With 15,000 computer users in the civil service, e-mail is “mission critical” most of the time.
Apart from heading MITTS, Mr Spiteri Gingell also heads the Central Information Management Unit (CIMU), in the Office of the Prime Minister. This unit is responsible for setting standards, policies, devising a strategy for the government’s IT infrastructure, investment and compliance. In simpler words, CIMU is the regulator and MITTS is the operator.
“One of CIMU’s challenges is to find ways in which to store electronic information in a structured manner. While we need to create the electronic counterpart of the traditional filing system, we also have to find a means so that the ‘mental’ knowledge is not lost when the civil servants retire,” Mr Spiteri Gingell said.
The government has a disaster-recovery centre. If something happens to the operations centre in Blata l-Bajda, the system will be up and running within four hours.
“Security is becoming more of a priority because the government is interacting with the community. Until 1997, most technological investment was ‘in-house’, which means it was used for the government departments’ internal operations. There was no technology to provide these services outside government offices,” Mr Spiteri Gingell said.
In 1998, the government committed itself to improve the civil service, using technology to make people’s lives easier and not rely on “back-end” processes.
“Even though the Internet was being widely used, we realised that the service which the government provided had not improved and that the qualitative leap in the civil service had not been made. It was then that Malta embarked on the government on-line project.”
Mr Spiteri Gingell said the vision and strategy to attain e-government was submitted to the minister and this today is the blueprint of all the work that has been done since then. Its implementation started in October 2000.
However, communicating with the community using on-line services meant that the government had to set up a legal framework. Thus, the Electronic Commerce Act, the Data Protection Act and the Computer Misuse provision paved the way for e-government. “Without these laws, e-government could not take off. If I were to present a copy of an e-mail as evidence in court, it is important to know what value the law gives to an e-mail,” Mr Spiteri Gingell said.
Mr Spiteri Gingell, who was also the research officer in the 1990 plan which set the ball rolling, said that “the drive towards ICT in Malta was systematically planned.”
In the late 1980s, a wide-rating programme for the reform of the civil service was adopted and the government started an information system strategic plan with a US$50 million investment.
“The plan established the fundamental structure of inter-operability, consistency, resiliency and information sharing. The result is that we have a citizen-centred infrastructure today,” he said.
Unlike other sectors, the government has been responsible for the multiplier effect whereby people are becoming conversant with technology.
“However, investing in IT is not an end in itself,” Mr Spiteri Gingell said. The main aim of Information and Communication Technology is to bring the government and its services closer to the public and businesses.
“Public kiosks, the government’s on-line services, free e-mail provided by local councils and free Internet access, together with the investment in IT education are all signs of the government’s ‘push’ towards technology. We can now say that Malta is at the forefront in many respects, competing with Germany, the United Kingdom and other countries,” he said.
“Although there has been a major paradigm shift in the way civil service operates, not all people are conversant with technology and I firmly believe that we need to keep the traditional way in which it operates,” Mr Spiteri Gingell said.
Within 10 to 15 years, more government services will be available on-line and more people will become conversant with technology. This means that most government front offices will be amalgamated.
Quelle: Malta Independent
