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Users of e-government services are satisfied but want improvements, says the EU

Most people who transact with their government online are "satisfied", but few say they actually get an improved service, according to new research by the European Commission. The Commission's study, announced on 1 December 2003, says that overall in Europe, the "quality of public e-services is high". It finds that the majority (80%) of users will recommend public e-services to other people they know.

The most widely reported benefit of e-services, according to the report, is "saving time and gaining flexibility". But few people say they gain much value from e-services compared to other ways of dealing with the public sector.

The report says more work is needed to ensure that e-services deliver real benefits.

"E-services are an improvement because the users can access the service on-line, 24-hours-a-day, instead of only during office opening hours," it says.

"However, service improvements on top of the channel improvements are only experienced by 30-40% of the users. This indicates that public e-services are offline services, which are then provided to users online without further development and optimisation of the services."

While the majority of users are satisfied, 28% report problems with e-services, says the report.

Users' most frequent problem is the difficulty in finding what they are looking for, and webmasters face the task of improving usability. This could be done through better channel integration and by focusing on the most important usability factors on their websites.

Other findings were:

• Most (75%) webmasters and e-service providers do not know how many users they have or transactions are made online;
• Offline information is the most used source to find out about a government website;
• Almost 80% of those asked said e-government saves time and provides flexibility.

Erkki Liikanen commissioner for enterprise and the information society, said: "This survey gives a good insight into the actual usage and benefits of e-government. It provides a helpful guidance for public administrations wanting to improve the quality and the take up of their own online public services".

A total of 28,114 users participated in the Europe wide survey. The figure includes 24,788 citizens and 3,326 companies across 18 European countries. The Commission contacted 3,767 webmasters. The survey is to be repeated next year.

Quelle: Kablenet, 03.12.2003