The study of e-government’s relevance at the regional and municipal levels carried out by the Agency for Social Information (ASI) under the auspices of Russian e-Development Partnership (PRIOR) has produced the following results. In 2007 56.1% of respondents approved the idea of service provision by governmental bodies through the internet (53% in 2006). 16.1% were against the mentioned above idea, while in 2006 the index amounted to 30%. 500 St Petersburg residents over the age of 18 were questioned.
Availability of IT is in the first place among conditions for IT usage in the dialogue with the government, as mentioned by 40% of respondents. 22% of respondents noted the presence of technical means, such as computers, internet access, etc. Other 10% have chosen the answer “… if the service is inexpensive”.
Only 35% of those ready to use e-services provided by the government paid attention to e-services content. 17.5% in particular mentioned the necessity of e-services. The same quantity stipulated on the access to free and acute information. 20% of respondents marked the importance of reliability of the information provided.
While the sex of the respondents does not influence the answers, the age turns out to be a very important factor, influencing their readiness to use governmental e-services. The young from 18 to 34 (nearly 75%) as well as the middle age from 35 to 44 (more than 50%) approve e-governmental activities. Among the elderly (from 45 to 55) positive attitude slightly exceeds the negative, 40% against 50% correspondingly. Those over 65 steadily demonstrate their negative attitude to the usage of e-services, 20% against 70%.
According to Sergey Chugunov, North-West PRIOR Director General, web-presence of federal and regional public authorities, numerous educational and informational portals is expanding. “The initial infrastructure of the so-called e-government is being built, - he thinks. – And according to leading countries experience one of the determiners is demand for governmental e-services on the part of their potential consumers”.
Mr. Chugunov suggests analysis and calculation of consumers’ opinions and needs should become the main system improvement instrument. Besides, he told the North-West PRIOR initiative to question population on e-governmental services relevance was approved by the regional public authorities responsible for informatization. Possibility of funding such research in other five subjects of the North-West Federal District is at issue. The polls are to be held in all North West regions.
Andrey Chugunov believes “the results of such a research are to prepare the government to work under new conditions using all IT possibilities”. “Our technological potential is higher than Estonia’s, for example, which is fairly considered to be the leader in IT. However, the absence of accurate governmental policies hinders the spread of new models of cooperation between the government and the population”, - assures Mr. Chugunov. The positive example, he thinks, is the system of governmental e-purchase. A system with minimum legal basis was created, that provides procedural transparency and opens a new IT-market.
“The dynamics is becoming positive in general, - Ivan Pavlov, Director of the Institute for information freedom development notes, estimating the results of the poll. – Governmental bodies have started improving their sites content recently, providing the information under the Russian Legislation. The renovated supply results in a new wave of demand. And demand for governmental sites produces anticorruption effect. In the future, when the demand becomes more rigid and deliberate, the quality will improve”.
Mr. Pavlov also positively estimates activities of the Russian Government, which proposes interesting legislative initiatives in the sphere of IT, for example, the bill “Provision of access to the information concerning the activities of governmental bodies and regional public authorities”, which was adopted by the State DUMA in the first reading. The bill’s draft makes it incumbent upon the governmental bodies to provide access to the information, including the usage of web-sites. “Its only weak point at present is the definition “should be…” when speaking about the information due for allocation on the web-sites. So we are going to finish it off in this connection’, Ivan Pavlov says.
In general, as he says, the government demands more scrutiny when considering the order of providing the population with the information. Besides, the government tries to cooperate with non-governmental organizations and take into account their recommendations concerning governmental bodies’ activities in the sphere of informatization.
Quelle/Source: CNews, 06.06.2007
