The global spend on IT by government (excluding health, education and utilities) was about $3 trillion during the decade of the 2000s, and failures, both partial and total, added up to 60 to 85 per cent, writes Heeks.
The topic is current. For instance, AllAfrica Global Media reported on December 29, 2005 about Nigeria's e-Government products that are ready to be introduced - "eImmigration, elearning, eRegistration, eAuthentication, ePayment, eKiosk and so on."
Computer Business Review (www.cbronline.com) has a story dated December 21 on the announcement by the UK's e-Government Minister, Jim Fitzpatrick, "that innovative projects driving forward e-planning services for the benefit of local authorities, businesses, and individuals, will receive a £500,000 boost."
And www.ameinfo.com reported on December 26 about the gains achieved by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) finding mention in the `e-Government Readiness Report 2005' of the United Nations Online Public Network and Finance (UNPAN). One learns that the UAE gateway www.government.ae "is organised by end-user, providing information, services, and transactions under separate sections for residents, business, visitors, and government."
To facilitate an understanding of e-government systems, Heeks provides an onion-ring model with concentric circles labelled, from the outside to in, environment, organisation, information system, technology and information. He uses `IPOSMO checklist' to capture the stakeholder context. The abbreviation stands for information, technology, processes, objectives and values, staffing and skills, management systems and structures, and other resources. You can add one more O, for `outside world', suggests Heeks.
There is also `CIPSODA checklist,' to summarise the tasks involved, viz. capture, input, process, store, output, decision, action. Part one of the book is on `managing e-Government,' and part two, on implementation. An example of strategic approach is provided in a box that lists the different policies and laws impacting e-Government in the US.
These include the Federal Enterprise Architecture of 2003; e-Government Act of 2002; Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 "requiring security issues to be integrated into IT planning"; and President's Management Agenda of 2001 encompassing five strands, viz. "competitive sourcing, strategic management of human capital, improved financial accountability, budget and performance integration, and expanded e-Government."
Also relevant are the 1998 Government Paperwork Elimination Act; the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act (requiring capital planning for IT investments to link agency objectives and accomplishments); the 1996 Electronic Freedom of Information Act amendment (on `quality and accessibility' of data); and the 1993 Government Performance Results Act, mandating that activities be matched with outcomes.
One of the horror stories is from the UK where, in 2000, the government instituted the `Individual Learning Accounts' scheme aimed to give subsidised training for adults. "Unscrupulous training providers managed to get access to the personal details of trainees who had enrolled onto the scheme. They then used these details in their own training records submitted to government, claiming money for people they had never trained." Plagued by deficient controls, the $400 million project was abandoned a year later.
Another example is from Ireland, where an e-Government project was announced in 1997 "to implement a penalty points system for traffic offences". The system finally stuttered into life in early 2003 with just one of the 68 listed offences (speeding) being operational, informs the book. What was the reason for the tardy implementation? "Politicking by four main agencies involved, viz. the Department of the Environment and Local Government, local authorities, the police, and the judicial system." What is needed perhaps is a penalty points system for babus!
One of the `emerging management issues' Heeks discusses is the length of preservation. "Digital information lasts forever or five years - whichever comes first," is a quote of Jeff Rothenberg in `Computing' cited in the book. "Up to a fifth of the information carefully collected during NASA's 1976 Viking mission to Mars has been lost. Some prisoner-of-war and missing-in-action records and casualty counts from the Vietnam war, stored on US Defence Department computers, can no longer be read."
In contrast, the UK Public Records Office has the 900-year-old Domesday Book of William the Conqueror. It records England's national assets as of 1086. "It can still be accessed today (and understood so long as you can read Latin)."
Ideal read for those keen on results from e-Government initiatives.
Autor: D. Murali
Quelle: The Hindu Business Line, 09.01.2006
