IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

E-government must start to show that it can offer real benefits to society and the economy, according to EU Information Society commissioner Erkki Liikanen. Speaking in Dublin, where European e-government policy makers are gathering to discuss future strategy, Liikanen said: “We need to be able to demonstrate and measure that e-government does indeed contribute to increasing productivity, inclusion, and openness.” The emphasis up to now has been on the supply side, said Liikanen, noting that e-government expenditure was running at “tens of billions per year.” However, the focus must switch to understanding and measuring the demand for e-government services so that value for money and benefits can be assessed. “We should be able to quantify the cost of e-government,” said Liikanen, asking: “is the money spent on e-government spent well?”

A stronger focus on the demand side was necessary, argued Liikanen, because the public sector is under increasing pressures. These include the expectation that the public sector should help generate growth, the problem of an aging population in Europe, the need to deal with immigration and security issues and increasing pressures for a tight tax regime, with downward pressure on public funding.

“E-government promises to help public administrations to better tackle these enormous challenges, through modernisation and innovation,” said Liikanen. He concluded, “A world-class economy and society needs world-class public administrations. This is the challenge we set ourselves in Europe. Meeting this challenge requires that we develop the capabilities to define, measure and benchmark the contribution of our public administrations.”

The Dublin e-government Ministerial Conference is the third staged under EU auspices, following events in Brussels in 2001 and in Como, Italy, in 2003.

Autor: Stephen Gardner

Quelle: DMeurope, 24.06.2004