Erkki Liikanen Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society, said: “This survey gives a good insight into the actual usage and benefits of eGovernment. It provides a helpful guidance for public administrations wanting to improve the quality and the take up of their own on-line public services”.
The survey was based on 28,114 users from 18 European countries, which, though a small sample, nevertheless provides interesting results. The study was carried out for the European Commission in support of the eEurope2005 action plan. By focusing on the views of users rather than on the supply side, the study follows a new approach to benchmarking eGovernment called for in the Commission's recent Communication (see IP/03/1300) and taken up in the Council Conclusions on “The role of eGovernment for Europe's future”.
The survey was conducted in 2003 and will be repeated again in 2004.
The survey identifies which on-line public services are currently used by citizens/businesses in the participating countries. It analyses the level of quality of on-line public services; shows the extent to which basic public services are being used and whether these services are responding to the needs and expectations of citizens/businesses in Europe. The survey offers a set of recommendations to public e-service providers in the further development of eGovernment.
Main findings of the report:
- Over all user evaluation
- 65% of the users are very satisfied with the public e-services
- 80% of the users will recommend it to others
- Benefits for the user
- 70-80% saves time and gain flexibility
- Real service improvements are only experienced by 30-40% of the users
- The most important action item in order to improve value for citizens is to provide better help regarding the e-service on the website
- The most important action item in order to improve the value for businesses is to provide a faster service/ reply
- Usability problems
- Usability is still an important issue for improvement of public e-services
- Not being able to find the right service and information is the most common usability problem
- The most important action item in order to improve usability on citizens services is to make the website easier to use
- The most important action item in order to improve usability of businesses services is to make it easier to find the website
- Usage
- 75% of the webmasters/e-service providers do not know how many users or how many transactions they have on-line
- Marketing
- Off-line information is the most used source to inform about the website
- Public PC’s with access to the service and information on other websites is used by almost 60%
