National Electronic Government: Comparing Governance Structures in Multi-Layer Administrations (Routledge Research in Information Technology and Society)

National Electronic Government

Advances in information and communications technologies have made a significant contribution to the modernisation of public administration. Governments all over the world vie to achieve ambitious targets and commission countless surveys to measure their success. Now, having solved most technical problems, joining up fragmented administrations becomes the crucial task of user-friendly advanced e-government. This book is one of two volumes presenting a comparative study to evaluate the success of the implementation of e-government in the UK, US, France, Germany, Finland, Australia and Japan. This particular volume examines national strategies and their institutional framework of coordination and cooperation by focusing on the relevant players, the interplay of administrative levels and the types of control used by them. It focuses especially on the approaches to coordination and cooperation that enable cross-jurisdictional applications in federal and non-federal states and highlights emerging patterns by comparing the national approaches. Drawing on literature on comparative public administration and comparative law, this book makes an important contribution to our understanding of advanced e-government. It will interest students and researchers of electronic government and public administration in general. Martin Eifert is a senior research fellow at both the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research and the Centre for Research on Law and Innovation, Hamburg University. Jan Ole Püschel is a junior researcher at the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research, Hamburg University.

Routledge research in information technology and society

1. Reinventing Government in the Information Age International practice in IT-enabled public sector reform Edited by Richard Heeks 2. Information Technology in Government Britain and America Helen Margetts 3. Information Society Studies Alistair S. Duff 4. National Electronic Government Comparing governance structures in multi-layer administrations Edited by Martin Eifert and Jan Ole Püschel 5. Local Electronic Government Edited by Helmut Drüke

National Electronic Government Comparing governance structures in multi-layer administrations

Edited by Martin Eifert and Jan Ole Püschel

First published 2004 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2004 Martin Eifert and Jan Ole Püschel, selection and editorial matter; individual contributors, their chapters All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data National electronic government : building an institutional framework for joined up government : a comparative study / Martin Eifert, Jan Ole Pèuschel (eds). p. cm. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Public administration–Information resources management. 2. Internet in public administration. 3. Electronic government information. I. Eifert, Martin, 1965– II. Püschel, Jan Ole. JF1525.A8N364 2004 352.3’8’02854678–dc22 2004000798 ISBN 0-203-46307-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-67192-9 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–34065–9 (Print Edition)

Contents

Notes on contributors Acknowledgements List of abbreviations 1 Comparative public administration and comparative law as a resource for learning: an introduction

viii xi xii

1

M A RT I N E I F E RT

Complexity of e-government beyond the vision and the need for mutual learning Applied comparative public administration and applied comparative law as an opportunity for learning Specific methodological problems of applied comparative science Generic categories of guidance and control as suitable points of reference in comparative science 2 Electronic government in Britain

1 3 4 8 13

L AW R E N C E P R AT C H E T T

Introduction Administrative framework and jurisdiction National strategy for local e-government Conclusions 3 Electronic government in Finland

13 14 23 40 46

E S A H Y Y RY L Ä I N E N

Introduction Administrative framework and jurisdiction National electronic governance strategies Conclusions

46 47 61 76

vi

Contents

4 Electronic government in France

82

G E O RG E S C H AT I L L O N

Administrative framework and jurisdiction E-government in France Conclusion

82 88 113

5 Electronic government in Germany

116

M A RT I N E I F E RT

General administrative framework and jurisdiction in Germany Framework of and approaches to cooperation and coordination 6 Electronic government in Japan

116 125 136

T S U N E H A RU YO N E M A RU

Introduction National e-government strategies Pillars of Japanese strategies toward e-government and e-municipalities Applications of e-government and e-municipalities Players Implementation control/guidance Some concluding remarks 7 Electronic government in Australia

136 144 157 163 170 172 173 182

N I C O RO E H R I C H A N D M A R K A R M S T RO N G

Introduction The different tiers of government Government agencies Roles of the different governments Cooperation between different tiers of government Cooperation within government Infrastructure for e-government E-government strategies Electronic signatures Who coordinates e-government?

182 182 184 186 187 188 191 193 198 202

8 Electronic government in the United States

211

M A RT I N H A G E N

Introduction Administrative structure and distribution of powers

211 211

Contents vii National e-government strategy Conclusion 9 Electronic government as a challenge for cooperation between different levels of public administration: lessons learned

216 234

243

M A RT I N E I F E RT A N D J A N O L E P Ü S C H E L

Introduction E-government in the face of the need for cooperation Fields and instruments of cooperation in progress Communal umbrella organisations with central functions Conclusions

243 244 249 259 260

Index

266

Contributors

Mark Armstrong is co-author of the chapter on e-government in Australia. He is Director of the Network Insight Institute, and Infocoms Adviser, Allens Arthur Robinson. He has written and edited several media and communications books, including Broadcasting Law and Policy in Australia, Telecommunications Law: Australian Perspectives and Media Law in Australia. He was editor and principal author of Communications Law and Policy in Australia for ten years. He has chaired or been a member of various editorial boards and boards of communications organisations. He was previously Chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation board, Chairman of the Broadcasting Council, and a full-time member of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal. He was a member of the Telecommunications Advisory Panel, the Copyright Convergence Group and the Victorian Premier’s Multimedia Task Force. Dr Georges Chatillon is the author of the French report. He is Maître de conferences and Director of a Ph.D. programme at Paris-I University, an internet law, French government and OECD expert, a scientific coordinator, and organiser of three international conferences about internet law: ‘L’internet e le droit’ (September 2000); ‘Droit de l’internet – approches europeennes et internationales’ (November 2001); and ‘L’administration electronique au service des citoyens’ (January 2002). The reports of the conferences have been published by Legipresse and Bruylant publishing companies. George Chatillon is co-author of six books about internet law. Dr Martin Eifert LL.M. is the author of the Introduction and the chapter on Germany, and co-author of the comparative chapter. He studied law in Hamburg, Geneva and Berkeley, and obtained his Ph.D. at Hamburg University and his LL.M. at the University of California at Berkeley. He was awarded a scholarship from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Habilitationsstipendium) and works at the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research, Hamburg. He headed the legal research for the MEDIA@Komm project and has published many books and articles on media regulation, e-government, and general issues of administrative and constitutional law.

Contributors

ix

Dr Martin Hagen wrote the chapter on the US. He studied political science and German literature at the University of Hamburg and at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He received a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Bremen. He has published widely on issues of e-democracy and e-government, with a special emphasis on comparative studies between the US and Germany. Since 2001, he has been a member of the government of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, Germany’s smallest state. He is responsible for e-government strategy. Since 2003, he has been the representative of the German states in the Interchange of Data between Administrations (IDA) programme of the European Commission. Dr Esa Hyyryläinen is an affiliate of the Department of Public Management at the University of Vaasa. His main area of interest is comparative administrative research. He is conducting research in methods for comparative small-N research, particularly qualitative comparative analysis, and in issues concerning the nature, change and reform of public governance. In recent years, he has published widely on public sector partnerships both with private sector organisations (contracting) and with their own staff (staff participation and involvement). His current interest in different electronic governance applications is also based on many years of experience in designing and carrying out virtual public management simulations. Since the start of 2004, Esa Hyyryläinen has been acting as Chair of the Finnish Association for Administrative Studies. Dr Lawrence Pratchett is the author of the chapter on the UK. He is Reader in Local Democracy at De Montfort University, Leicester, and wrote his Ph.D. thesis on the politics of new technologies in local government. He has participated in different studies for the Local Government Management Board, the Local Government Association and the Local Government Information Unit. He has published on a wide range of research issues, for example (with Leach) The Management of Balanced Authorities (1996); (with Leach and Winfield) New Political Management Structures (1999); and Renewing Local Democracy (2000). He is taking part in an ESRC project on democracy and participation, and took part in a DETR project which produced the guidance document for local authorities and became part of the 1998 White Paper Modern Local Government: In Touch with the People. Jan Ole Püschel is co-author of the comparative chapter. He is a Ph.D. student at the Faculty of Law at the University of Hamburg. His thesis concerns legal questions on the commercial use of public sector information. He studied law at the University of Hamburg and at University College Cork with a special focus on information and new media law. Since August 2001, he has been working as a junior researcher at the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research in Hamburg and took part in the legal research for the federal government project MEDIA@Komm. He has published widely on e-government issues.

x Contributors Nico Roehrich, the co-author of the chapter on Australia, worked for several years as a researcher at RMIT in the area of internet and broadcasting regulation. Prof. Dr Tsuneharu Yonemaru is Professor of Administrative Law in the Graduate School of Law at Kobe University. Prior to joining Kobe University, he was a professor at Ritsumeikan, Kagoshima and Fukushima Universities. He is the author and co-author of four books and numerous articles on administrative and information law, especially in respect of privatisation, administrative reform and economical administration. His current research interests are in the fields of telecommunications, information law and e-government reform. His recent books and articles include: Shijin ni yoru Gyousei [Public Administration by Private] (1999, in Japanese); Houritsugaku no tameno Internet [Law on the Internet] (2000, co-author, in Japanese); Rekucha Gyouseihou [Lecture on Administrative Law] (2000, co-author, in Japanese); and (with Rossnagel) ‘Japanische Signaturgesetzgebung – Auf dem Weg zu “eJapan”’ (2002, in German).

Acknowledgements

This book is based on research carried out within the framework of the MEDIA@Komm initiative of the German federal government (Ministry of Economics and Labour). The initiative aimed at promoting advanced egovernment solutions and is described in greater detail in the chapter on Germany. Apart from the funding of three promising pilot cities which had been at the heart of the project, the initiative also included accompanying research on all relevant aspects of advanced e-government. This research was conducted by a consortium of institutions, namely the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research (Hamburg) in co-operation with the Centre for Research in Law and Innovation (CERI, Hamburg University), the German Institute for Urban Affairs (DIfU, Berlin), the German Standardisation Institute (DIN, Berlin) and TÜV IT (Essen). One part of this research had been an international comparison of e-government developments conducted by the Hans Bredow Institute in cooperation with CERI and DIfU. The first-mentioned institutions had been in charge of an analysis of the institutional framework of cooperation and coordination, on which this book is based. We would like to thank very much the German Ministry of Economics and Labour for funding the study and especially Mr Goerdeler and Mr Zinke for the enjoyable collaboration. Furthermore, we would like to thank Mr Grabow and Mr Drüke (DIfU), who were in charge of a complementary study on international e-government developments in local administrations, for the good teamwork. Ultimately, we are indebted to all persons who have contributed to the book. Besides the authors of the national reports, we would like to mention Mrs Katharina Jenssen and Mr Christian Braune, who helped with the editing, and Mr Ruairi Collins and George A. Byrne, who did most of the proofreading.

Abbreviations

AAMVA ABN-DSC ABS ADAE AdER ADF ADMIX ADVGNW ADVZG AGLS ALFRA ANSI APCG ARF Art. ASP ATICA ATO B2B BAS BMEldDÜV BOS BSC BVerfGE BVPI CAs CCTA CERFA CERT/A

American Association of Motor Vehicle Authorities Australian Business Number Digital Signature Certificate Australian Bureau of Statistics Agence pour le developpement de l’administration électronique Administration on Network L’Assemblée des Départements de France Total Administrative Information Exchange Network Gesetz über die Organisation der automstisierten Datenverarbeitung in Nordrhein-Westphalen Gesetz über die Zusammenarbeit bei der automatisierten Datenverarbeitung Australian Government Locator Service Finnish Local and Regional Authorities American National Standards Institute L’ Assemblée des Présidents des Conseils généraux L’Association des Régions de France Article application service provider Agence pour les technologies de l’information et de la communication dans l’administration Australian Taxation Office business to business Business Activity Statements Bundesmeldedatenübermittlungsverordnung Bremen Online Services Balanced Scorecard Bundesverfassungsgerichtsentscheidung Best Value Performance Indicator certification authorities Central Communication and Telecommunication Agency Centre for Registration of Administration Forms Computer Emergency Response Team and Administration

Abbreviations CESTI CIADT CIO CNED CNIL COFRAC COSA COSIFORM COSLA CSIT DCSSI DETR DIfU DIN DIRE DTLR EC ECI e-GIF EU e.V. FICORA FY G2B G2C G2G G8 GAO GCB Genesis GG GIP-MDS GIS GITS GOS GPEA GPKI GPRA GSA

xiii

Centre for Evaluating Security of IT Inter-ministerial Committee on Economic and Development Planning chief information officer National Centre for Distance Learning National Commission on Informatics and Liberties French Committee for Accreditation Commission pour les Simplifications Administratives Commission for the Simplification of Formalities Commission for the Simplification of Administrative Language Customer Service Improvement Team National Agency for Information System Security Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik Deutsches Institut für Normung (German Institute for Standardisation) Inter-ministerial Delegation for State Reform Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions European Community Electronic Commerce Interface e-Government Interoperability Framework European Union eingetragener Verein Finnish Communications Regulation Agency Fiscal Year government to business government to citizen government to government Group of Eight General Accounting Office Gie Cartes Bancaires Gemeinsames neues statistisches Informationssystem Grundgesetz (Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany) Public Interest Grouping on the Modernisation of Social Notifications geographical information systems Government Information Technology Services Geospatial One-Stop Government Paperwork Elimination Act Government Public Key Infrastructure Government Performance and Result Act General Service Administration

xiv Abbreviations GSI GST GTFA GVBl. HeSA HWC IAM IC card ICESA ICN ICT ID card IDeA IEE IEG IMKA IRS IT ITS IuKG JO JUHTA JULHA KGSt Koop A/ADV LAN LASDEC LASER LGOL LPEs LPSA LSI LSP MAV MCIE METI MINEFI MLIT MPHPT NC CONTACT

Government Secure Internet Goods and Services Tax Groupe de Travail Fournisseurs Administration Gesetz und Verordnungsblatt Health eSignature Authority Harmonized Wage Code Institute of Administrative Management integrated circuit card Interstate Conference of Employment Security Agencies Iowa Communications Network information and communications technology identity card Improvement and Development Agency Internal Efficiency and Effectiveness Implementing Electronic Government Interministerieller Koordinationsausschuss IT Internal Revenue Service information technology intelligent transport system Gesetz über den Einsatz der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnik in der öffentlichen Verwaltung Journal officiel Advisory Board on Information Management in Public Administration (Finland) Public Sector Contact Directory (Finland) Kommunale Gemeinschaftsstelle Koordinationsausschuss Automatische Datenverarbeitung Bund/Länder/Kommunaler Bereich local area networks Local Authorities Systems Development Center Local Authorities Secure Electoral Register Local Government Online local governments, prefectures and municipalities Local Public Service Agreement Information Society Bill Local Strategic Partnership Municipal Association of Victoria Ministerial Council for the Information Economy Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry of Finance, Economy and Industry Ministry of Land, Transportation and Infrastructure Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications North Carolina Computerized Online Network to Answer Citizen Topics

Abbreviations NLIS NLPG NOIE NOLG NPM NPR NRW NSDI NSW ODPM OECD OeE OGP OISOs OIT OMB OSCI PAGSI PC PEG PKAF PKI PKT SGDN SGG SII SITRA SMEs SOCITM SOLACE SSA (US) SSA (UK) STAWRS TEKES TESTA TIGERS (US) TIGERS (Aus.) UETA UK UN US

xv

National Land Information Service National Land and Property Gazeteer National Office of the Information Economy National Office of Local Government New Public Management National Performance Review North Rhine-Westphalia National Spatial Data Infrastructure New South Wales Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Office of the e-Envoy Office of Government-wide Policy Online Information Service Obligations Office of Information Technology (Australia) Office of Management and Budget Online Services Computer Interface Government Action Programme for an Information Society personal computer Promoting Electronic Government Public Key Authentication Framework public key infrastructure public key technology National Defence General Secretariat Government General Secretariat Social Insurance Institution Finnish National Fund for Research and Development small to medium-sized enterprises Society of IT Managers Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers Social Security Administration Standard Spending Assessment Simplified Tax and Wage Reporting System National Technology Agency of Finland Trans-European Services for Telematics between Administrations Tax Information Group EDI Requirements Standarization Trials of Innovative Government Electronic Regional Services Program Uniform Electronic Transaction Act United Kingdom United Nations United States

xvi Abbreviations VwVfG WAN WINGS XML

Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz (General Administrative Procedure Act) wide area network Web Interactive Network of Government Services eXtensible Mark-up Language

1

Comparative public administration and comparative law as a resource for learning An introduction Martin Eifert

Complexity of e-government beyond the vision and the need for mutual learning Once upon a time, public administration was considered a system which was primarily characterised by inertia, thus evolving very slowly at best. In the course of the last two decades, however, public administration has been increasingly affected by the faster and faster changes in modern societies. Government has been reinvented and re-engineered, and long before its new shape could be finalised, the next wave of modernisation had already started: electronic government. At first, the rush for e-government was certainly fuelled by the overall excitement about the opportunities entailed by internet technology, which seemed to herald a final turn towards the information society. Correspondingly, the lowest common denominator of all attempts to sketch the upcoming changes in public administration was not much more than a call for heavy exploitation of the potential of internet-based information and communications technologies (ICTs). The rather technical approach has quickly been blended with the customer-orientation of New Public Management (NPM) and established ideas to strengthen democracy by enhancing public accountability. This broader basis has made it less susceptible to the decline of the ‘e-fashion’ which shook the New Economy. Nevertheless, the e-government movement has also become aware of the fact that electronic government is not a sweeping internet revolution but rather a cumbersome evolutionary process that has to be managed. Of course, the vision of more efficient, transparent and responsive administrative services, provided electronically at a single window twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week, which has been shared by all public services working towards e-government, has made the approach very popular, and has helped motivate public officials and helped public administrations take their first steps very quickly. But the approach has focused very much on the interface between public administration and its citizens, and enterprises and most governments embraced this focus as it promised the most spectacular and politically valuable success stories. Even

2

Martin Eifert

though many scholars have pointed for many years at the fact that the back offices of public administration will be facing an even more profound upheaval than the front offices (cf., inter alia, Traunmüller and Lenk 2002a: 8), the respective studies rather depicted the potential of ICT to join up government or even to render established separations of competencies obsolete (cf. Hepworth 1989; Castells 1989; and, more recently, Bellamy and Taylor 1998: 53ff.; Traunmüller and Lenk 2001: 72ff.) than to spell out in detail how these ICT systems could be developed by and within an administrative system which is still fragmented. In other words, even academics preferred to describe the target of ICT-use, and tended to neglect the questions of how the still-fragmented administration could get there. As the development of e-government gets past the phase of pilot projects, it becomes apparent that sustainable development depends on an adequate institutional framework that enables public administration to manage and harmonise the emerging multitude of technical and organisational changes at all levels of government which are necessary to approach the promising visions (cf. the case studies for the Netherlands by Kraaijenbrink 2002: 10ff.; Traunmüller and Lenk 2002a: 8; and Klumpp 2002: 22ff.). And since the changes are cutting across organisational boundaries, the institutional framework is not only a matter of change-management within public agencies but is also dependent on legal relationships between administrative branches and levels as well as on constitutional constraints. E-government is not only the most recent paradigm in the ongoing process of modernising public administration; it has also become a truly international development (cf., inter alia, M. Lips, K. Zweers and K. Planqué, F. de Bruine, R. van Bxtel, S. Salza and M. Mecella, M. Poelmans, in Prins 2001; and the various contributions in: Traunmüller and Lenk 2002b; Cap Gemini Ernst & Young 2003; United Nations DPEPA and ASPA 2001). Governments all over the world compete with respect to the most ambitious electronic service delivery targets, and countless surveys try to measure their respective success. This international dimension has reinforced the commitment of the respective national politicians, and, moreover, it provides ample opportunity not only to benchmark but also to learn from the successful approaches and pitfalls in other countries. This study aims at shifting the focus of the discussion on e-government from visions to the challenges in implementation, especially cross-level applications, and from the specific service to the institutional framework that enables a broader change. Moreover, it tries to exploit the opportunities of international development by taking a comparative point of view on this issue. At the edge of a more advanced stage of e-government in many countries, this approach appears, at first glance, to be promising for mutual learning. From a methodological point of view, however, it is not trivial at all. The mixture of public administration issues and legal constraints transcends boundaries of academic subjects and varies among the countries. Thus, a meaningful comparison needs some methodological reflections, and the following remarks will describe how the design of the study takes into account the specific requirements of a comparative approach. They draw on literature about both comparative public administra-

An introduction

3

tion and comparative law, since they necessarily supplement one another with respect to institutional comparisons. Comparisons in public law have to take into consideration research in public administration, and political science and comparative public administration cannot ignore the normative aspects which are contributed by public law (cf., inter alia, Grote 2001: 54ff.).

Applied comparative public administration and applied comparative law as an opportunity for learning A comparative survey on public administration as a specific institutional part of the political system as well as on law as a crucial means of governance in modern societies can serve various purposes (Constantinesco 1972: 331ff.). First of all, it can deepen our insight into the various systems and help us comprehend their functioning (cf. Almond et al. 2000: 36; Lepaulle 1922: 858; Schlesinger et al. 1998: 2; Heady 2001: 52). The insight gained, however, can be used in very different ways.1 One can strive to derive general principles from the variety of phenomena which can show general considerations and ideas behind different appearances,2 and which can also be very useful heuristic categories that allow for even better understanding when applied in further comparisons. It is first of all this tradition that has developed a systematic methodological approach to comparative studies and will always be the invaluable basis for any particular comparison. On the other hand, one can stress the difference of the approaches, showing that the existing settings are contingent and pointing at opportunities for further developments. At the outset, even this is necessarily merely descriptive.3 One purpose, however, which is closely linked to this approach, has always been learning from foreign experiences and adapting them to one’s own needs – in other words, using the comparative method as a means to an end, which is practical utility. Since the first codifications, at least in Western Europe, national as well as international regulations have been preceded by comparative studies in order to disclose proved as well as innovative approaches to common questions and to provide for a pool of problem-solving tools (cf. Zweigert and Kötz 1998: 33; Heady 2001: 5ff.). Consequently, the migration of ideas between legal systems has been very common and a fertile source of development (cf. the basic work of Watson 1974), leading in turn to a recognition of this function in comparative analysis (cf. Zweigert and Kötz 1998: 16; Schwarze 1988: 76ff.). The accelerating changes of modern societies, which entail an increasing pressure for ongoing adjustments of the legal and administrative framework, have made this purpose even more popular in the academic as well as in the political arena. In the latter, surveys on pertinent foreign legislation or administrative reforms have become almost a standard instrument of policy formation and political consultancy (Grossfeld 1990: 15ff.).4 This increasingly used approach confines itself to micro-comparisons5 that are issue-oriented and ask for a problem-solving capacity. It focuses very often on problems that have not been

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settled in any country in order to compare approaches and ongoing developments. This kind of analysis could be named ‘applied comparative analysis’ (‘Angewandte Rechtsvergleichung’; Sommermann 1999: 1024), as its design aims at implementable results from the very beginning. The broad development towards the so-called information society, like many of the current basic changes of modern society, has always been accompanied by a very intense mutual observation and monitoring of all developed countries. In this context, the descriptive comparison is very often combined with a normative target, leading to a benchmarking, and provoking the claim to imitate the best. It goes without saying that the determination of an appropriate normative target for such a benchmarking comparison is anything but trivial, and that it is a typical pitfall to ignore the embedding of the respective approaches in its framework and its dependency on it. In other words, many benchmarking comparisons either tend to dispose of all methodological ties in favour of quick recommendations that jump from a more or less accurate description to recommendations, omitting the crucial step of explanation, or leave the reader alone when it comes to the conclusions, since they provide only for a snapshot without further context information. This is particularly the case in the field of egovernment. Many studies only describe existing applications and online services in various countries or do not go beyond a compilation of statistical indicators. The vast majority lack information on the underlying strategy and the comparability of the results,6 and even more comprehensive studies do not even ask what is needed to reach eventually the ambitious target of widespread e-government.7 If the rise of applied comparative analysis is inevitable and in principle a legitimate answer to the need for accelerating self-adjustments of public administration and law, it becomes an assignment for academic research to elaborate on the methodological requirements of reasonable comparisons and on guidance for useful lessons learned. Comparisons that are issue-oriented and are aimed at problem-solving from the very beginning are, of course, still comparisons to which fundamental methodology is to be applied – even though there is still considerable uncertainty about the methodology of comparative public administration in general (Peters 1996). But it is plausible that such an issue orientation transcends some boundaries, which have been drawn in search of general categories,8 and it is likely that it faces some additional, specific methodological problems. It does matter why we want to know something and we need to adapt the comparative method for the specific question (cf. Jreisat 2002: 49ff., 65).

Specific methodological problems of applied comparative science Definition of the issue – coordination and cooperation The first step in applied comparisons, as in any other comparison, is the definition of the issue to be examined. Applied comparative science, of course, takes a problem as a starting point. The problem, however, is very often phrased as a

An introduction

5

policy target. In our case, for instance, the ultimate target is a sustained and widespread implementation of e-government. Since only specific requirements for public administration and the role of law and other means of guidance and control are suitable topics, respectively, for micro-comparisons in comparative administration and comparative law, the target has to be plausibly linked to such questions. Therefore, applied comparative analysis, as with every comparative analysis, depends on a working hypothesis, an ‘idea’ which phrases the issue (cf. Zweigert and Kötz 1998: 34ff.; De Cruz 1999: 230ff.). This idea has to meet two requirements. Apart from being based on a plausible, highly relevant interconnection with the policy target, it has to be phrased in a functional way which, according to general rules of comparative method, avoids imposition of a specific notion, term or concept (concerning this general rule of comparative analysis, cf. Zweigert and Kötz 1998: 48; Groß 1992: 32ff.; Starck 1997: 1028; Luhmann 1993: 13). In our case, it was plausible that the harmonisation of economies of scale entailed by information technology and the pursuit of user-friendliness and customer orientation on the one hand and the fragmentation of modern administrations on the other would challenge the capability of administrative coordination and cooperation in many modern states. Integration is considered an important issue from a theoretical point of view as well as with respect to policy commitments (cf., inter alia, Stedman Jones 2001: 49ff.; Heady 2001: 9ff.). Empirical data also seem to support the assumption that coordination and cooperation becomes even the most crucial challenge for a sustainable implementation of widespread electronic government (Eifert 2003: 65ff.). Nevertheless, it has not been examined in detail, so that cooperation and coordination of administrative levels appears to be a very promising point of reference in every dimension.9 At the same time, cooperation and coordination describe general organisational functions which exist independently from specific systems, so that the issue under comparison has a sufficient distance from the systems compared. Determination of the sample – a crucial step in applied comparative studies The second step is sample definition. It is obvious that a certain degree of arbitrariness in the selection is inevitable, since the choice can ‘scarcely be made in full knowledge of all the relevant facts’ (Watson 1974). Nevertheless, guidance in the selection is necessary for various reasons. Even though comparative analysis in general has made its most impressive marks in the field of cross-cultural analysis by examining very different systems, applied comparative analysis needs to narrow the variety in the sample being analysed since there is a trade-off between transferable results and increased insight from a strong contrast of systems.10 The search for innovations with respect to specific problems, however, renders traditionally analysed paradigmatic systems less important,11 and makes it necessary to take smaller, less familiar systems into consideration (Heady 2001:

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7). The studies on NPM provide ample material for innovation especially with regard to local public administrations in smaller countries. At the same time, the focus on unsettled problems and developing approaches implies that the general hypothesis of functional comparisons – similar results despite different systems – cannot be used as a guiding heuristic for the analysis. Thus, a guided selection is needed for promising results and can be a first safeguard against misinterpretations and rash transfers. It is an important intermediate step in systematic applied comparative analysis, and contrary to considerations of transferability in purely academic comparative science which can judge on the basis of a detailed analysis (for the question of transferability as a specific, subsequent step of analysis in comparative law, see Zweigert and Kötz 1998: 52ff.), applied comparative science needs to ensure at least a high probability of interesting approaches and their transferability in advance. This entails specific problems. Advanced promising status and transfer potential as generic criteria – definition of appropriate proxy criteria as a challenge Generally speaking, the advanced and still-promising status with respect to the issue of the systems examined (estimation of success), and the general potential for transfer of promising approaches to be found in those systems (transfer potential), are the pivotal criteria for selection in applied comparative analysis. The first-mentioned criterion determines whether or not advanced solutions and international best practices could be expected at all, and the latter determines to what extent such solutions could be used as a pattern in other countries – in other words, whether or not they could contribute to the solution of the problem in other countries. It should be stressed, however, that any assertion on transferability requires both a profound understanding of the foreign solution in terms of its functioning, its preconditions, and its embeddedness in the entire regulatory framework and culture (analytic part), and an analysis of similarities and differences concerning the issue in the transfer country as well as an estimation of the functioning of the foreign approach in this framework (analytic and prognostic part). In order to escape the dilemma of not having all the relevant information and yet making a sound selection, proxy criteria for both, the estimation of success and the transfer potential are necessary and play a crucial role. They must be derived from the question examined and the defined issue and should amount to a consistent set of criteria. Indicators of advanced status and success potential in e-government implementation In our case of coordination and cooperation in e-government implementation, the general criteria had to be the success of the countries in e-government implementation on the one hand and the institutional framework for approaches of cooperation and coordination on the other.12 As proxy criteria for the success potential, we combined basic prerequisites with self-declared ambitious targets, the engagement of resources and the actual status quo. The

An introduction

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basic prerequisites comprised penetration of internet access with respect to the general public, and the existence of a comprehensive, nationwide strategy with respect to the government. Both are preconditions for a meaningful, widespread e-government. The self-declared target could indicate the timetable of implementation and therefore the urgency to solve emerging problems of advanced e-government. Since there has been considerable convergence at the level of published targets for political reasons (Klumpp and Schwemmle 2000: 7ff.), we glanced over the engagement of resources in terms of financial resources committed to e-government implementation and adjustments of the legal framework. Finally, the actual status quo of e-government, especially the status of electronic service delivery, was considered valuable as an indicator of vigorous implementation. Indicators for transfer potential concerning joined-up government Whereas the proxy criteria for the estimation of success can focus by and large on general factors and indicators of successful implementation of the policy target, except for the pivotal factor which has been defined as the issue of the study, the proxy criteria for transferability are much more difficult to define and evaluate. The answer to the question whether or not particular solutions could be transferred to another country is always a mixture of prognostic and analytic elements (Ancel 1971: 102ff.). The proxy criteria for transferability depend on the specific issue of the study and should address the constraining factors of the issue. In our case of coordination and cooperation, the distribution of competencies and its legal status among the state levels can be seen as the crucial driving factor which determines the necessity and constraints of coordination and cooperation. The necessity is first of all determined by the actual distribution of citizen–administration contacts among administrative entities, especially in the field of service delivery, which is the focus of advanced e-government. The constraints of coordination and cooperation depend on the administrative structure, which in turn depends on the fundamental constitutional framework of the state. The basic distinction, of course, is the one between federal and non-federal systems, completed by the degree of legally guaranteed autonomy of local administrations. These characteristics are the cornerstones of every multilayered administration and determine the constraints and means of coordination and cooperation between the administrative levels, particularly the extent to which administrative hierarchy or legislative superiority is available. Striking the balance between similarity and variety The examination of the transfer potential, however, does not mean that the sample should only consist of the countries with the highest transfer potential. Rather, it has a twofold function. First, it enables one to rule out countries which are too different to allow for any meaningful transfer. Singapore, for instance, has

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a very advanced and even more promising status in e-government implementation, but its rigid political system and constitutional framework is so different from democratic Western societies that it cannot provide for advanced organisational solutions with respect to coordination and cooperation. Secondly, the examination of the transfer potential highlights the differences among those countries that generally could be taken into account for a comparison. The selection of the sample from among those countries within the corridor of manageable transferability requires one to strike a balance between sufficiently similar systems and an inspiring variety. Very similar structures make a potential transfer of solutions very easy but entail the risk of not finding a new solution at all. Furthermore, maximum similarity impedes any analysis of the extent to which the structure itself is part of the problem such that it cannot suggest any modification of the framework. Thus, the sample should contain a well-balanced mixture of different yet sufficiently similar countries. In this study, we have screened eighteen countries, using the above-described proxy criteria. The screening included Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Canada, the US, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and Italy. Eventually, we selected Australia, Japan, the US, Finland, Germany, the UK and France for this detailed study.13

Generic categories of guidance and control as suitable points of reference in comparative science Having selected the issue and the sample, applied comparative science does not significantly differ from purely academic comparative science. Most of the questions that have been discussed above arise again at the more detailed level of analysing the specific issue in the various countries. First of all, the analysis has to take into account the political and sociocultural context in which the issue is embedded. This context includes, but is not limited to, the type of government and its basic constitutional framework. It encompasses also the political culture, the underlying notions, the routines and the informal links which can make a huge difference despite similar legal constellations (cf., inter alia, De Cruz 1999: 224), and can result in different specifications even with respect to developments that have a common root. Comparative theory, especially theory on comparative law, has increasingly and convincingly emphasised how much context matters (Schlesinger et al. 1998: 48ff.; Sommermann 1999: 1021ff.; from another point of view, see Ancel 1971: 35ff.). This is particularly the case with regard to public law, and, due to even stronger political influence, all the more with regard to public administration. The last international trend concerning the modernisation of public administrations – NPM – has shown at the empirical level how much the precise conceptualisation and implementation of a general approach can differ due to different contexts in the various countries (cf. Hood 1995: 93; Barzelay 2001; Toonen 2001: 183; for the German adaptation, cf. Schneider 1997: 103).

An introduction

9

For this reason, the national reports are written by national experts, who have a comprehensive knowledge of all relevant factors, on the basis of a detailed questionnaire provided by the editors. Moreover, the respective reports analyse the issue of coordination and cooperation in e-government in multilevel administrations against the background of the general relationship between the administrative levels. This more general part at the beginning of each national report should serve three purposes. First, it should facilitate the ‘cultural acclimatisation’14 of the reader in order to prevent rash conclusions due to disregard for the frameworks of the particular e-government approaches. Secondly, it should help find out to what extent e-government entails new challenges to the government structure. And finally, it should become clear against this background whether or not e-government results in any adaptations of this general structure. With respect to the specific analysis of cooperation and coordination in egovernment, we have chosen a balanced approach, taking into consideration the institutional setting and the functions performed simultaneously, and drawing on basic categories of guidance and control in modern societies. In other words, we will analyse the players, their institutional embedding and interplay, as well as the means with which they are striving for coordination and cooperation. The categories, which have been elaborated with regard to the analysis of policy implementation in modern society (cf. Mayntz 1997: 175ff.; Kaufmann 1991), namely targets, general conceptual approaches (hierarchy, self-organisation, etc.), institutional players, and the resources used (information, money and/or power), can also be used in comparative studies, as they are sufficiently generic in nature, as well as basically adopting a functional perspective which still includes the institutional framework.15 Of course, the broadness of the approach necessarily limits the depth of analysis. Since cooperation and coordination in e-government are at an early stage, it seems, however, to be more important to map the approaches than to elaborate on details. With respect to the fields of cooperation and coordination, we have primarily focused on basic generic problems such as standardisation, common networks, integrated portals and shared applications which form general prerequisites with respect to any kind of integrated e-government. Concerning the means of cooperation and cooperation, the generic resources, namely information, money and/or power, have shown to be sufficiently specific as a point of reference and could be spelled out in the course of the analysis. By focusing on generic fields and generic resources, we have been distancing ourselves from all specific arrangements in the countries and could also discern functional equivalents among the various means and arrangements. Thus, the categories seem to be fruitful not only for applied comparative studies but also for purely academic analysis. This study is meant to contribute to a methodologically reflected mutual learning in the developing field of advanced e-government. If it helps to get the international discussion beyond a benchmarking, it has been worthwhile.

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Notes 1 For a brief history and an examination of tendencies and fundamental questions in comparative analysis of public administrations, cf. Heady (2001: 13ff., 46ff.). 2 As early as in ancient Greek times, this approach has been used by Aristotle, who collected 158 Greek constitutions and used them as a basis for his principles of policy, and the approach has been frequently used since then (cf. Krüger 1997; Sommermann 1999: 1024ff). 3 For descriptive information as ‘the ground level’ of comparative research, cf. Jreisat (2002: 51); some scholars make the distinction between pure comparison (of law) and subsequent utilisation of the results (cf. Schmitthoff 1939: 96). 4 For a comparison of its heavy use in continental Europe and the more reluctant use in common-law countries, especially the UK and the US, see Schlesinger et al. (1998: 14ff.). 5 The distinction between micro- and macro-comparisons is used in comparative law and separates studies on topics or aspects of legal systems from studies on entire legal systems (cf. Zweigert and Kötz 1998: 5). 6 For example, Accenture (2001) and the first eEurope survey conducted by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young on behalf of the European Union (Cap Gemini Ernst & Young 2001). The subsequent studies in the eEurope programme are methodologically improved but still only focus on the existing services. 7 The most elaborate benchmarking studies are those of the e-envoy in Great Britain (‘Benchmarking Electronic Service Delivery’). 8 Cf. the discussion on the scope of comparative administration in the face of multilevel administration in Goodsell (1981: 143ff.). 9 Additionally, some recent studies have pointed to the importance of this factor, e.g. Eurim (2002) (‘joined-up government’s fragmented face’). 10 For a strong plead for comparisons of similar legal systems in micro-comparisons, see Kaiser (1964: 391, 397); Krüger (1997: 1404). 11 The notion of paradigmatic systems, which is closely linked to the categorisation of legal systems that in turn forms a traditional concept of comparative law with respect to private/common law, is not easily applied to public law anyway. While some common features of public law and public administration can be explained against the background of different constitutional roots and traditions, it is questionable whether it makes sense to talk about categories of systems at the macro-level (cf. Grote 2001: 18ff.). 12 For a detailed explanation of the criteria and their proxies, as well as for the full screening of seventeen countries with respect to the criteria, see Eifert and Püschel (2002). 13 For a detailed description of the screening and the reasons for the selection, see Eifert and Püschel (2002). 14 For the need to become ‘culturally acclimatised’, cf. De Cruz (1999: 216ff.). 15 For the usefulness of the methodology of comparative politics in comparative administration and the various approaches, cf. Heady (2001: 9ff.); for a similar approach concerning the comparison of regulatory settings in liberalised energy markets, cf. Schneider (1999: 44ff.).

References Accenture (ed.) (2001) eGovernment Leadership: Rhetoric vs. Reality – Closing the Gap, available online at europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/2002/documents/CGEY% 201st%20measurement.pdf. Almond, G.A., Powell, G.B., Dalton, R.J. and Strom, K. (2000) Comparative Politics Today: A World View, 7th edn, New York: Longman.

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Ancel, M. (1971) Utilité et méthodes du droit comparé: éléments d’introduction générale à l’étude comparative des droits, Neuchâtel: Éd. Ides et Calendres. Barzelay, M. (2001) The New Public Management: Improving Research and Policy Dialogue, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bellamy, C. and Taylor, J.A. (1998) Governing in the Information Age, Buckingham: Open University Press. Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (ed.) (2001) Web-based Survey on Electronic Public Services, available online at www.capgemini.be/pdf/final_report_ex_egovsurvey2.pdf. —— (2003) Online Availability of Public Services: How does Europe Progress? Web-based Survey on Electronic Public Services, available online at www.capgemini.be/pdf/CGEY-Europe OnlinePublicServicesOverallReport.pdf. Castells, M. (1989) The Informational City, Information Technology, Economic Restructuring and the Urban Regional Process, Oxford: Blackwell. Constantinesco, L.J. (1972) Rechtsvergleichung, Vol. II: Die rechtsvergleichende Methode, Köln: Heymann. de Cruz, P. (1999) Comparative Law in a Changing World, 2nd edn, London: Cavendish. Eifert, M. (2003) ‘E-Government als Herausforderung an die Kooperation der Verwaltungsebenen: Lehren aus dem Ausland’, in Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Arbeit (ed.) E-Government meets E-Business: Tagungsband, available online at www. mediakomm.net/documents/mediakomm.band.nuernberg.pdf, pp. 65ff. Eifert, M. and Püschel, J.O. (2002) Ausländische E-Government-Strategien und ihre institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen im Überblick, Arbeitspapiere des Hans-Bredow-Instituts Nr. 9, Hamburg: Hans-Bredow-Institut, available online at http://www.rrz.unihamburg.de/hans-bredow-institut/publikationen/apapiere/index.html. Eurim (European Information Society Group) (ed.) (2002) Modernising Government and Programme Management: The Critical Success Factor, available online at www.eurim.org/briefings/BR33final.htm. Goodsell, C.T. (1981) ‘The new comparative administration: a proposal’, International Journal of Public Administration 3. Groß, T. (1992) Die Autonomie der Wissenschaft im europäischen Rechtsvergleich, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Grossfeld, B. (1990) The Strength and Weakness of Comparative Law, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Grote, R. (2001) ‘Rechtskreise im öffentlichen Recht’, Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts 126: 10ff. Heady, F. (2001) Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective, 6th edn, New York: Marcel Dekker. Hepworth, M.E. (1989) Geography of the Information Economy, London: Belhaven. Hood, C. (1995) ‘The “New” Public Management in the 1990s: variations on a theme’, Accounting Organizations and Society 20: 93ff. Jreisat, J.E. (2002) Comparative Public Administration and Policy, Boulder, CO: Westview. Kaiser, J.H. (1964) ‘Vergleichung im öffentlichen Recht’, Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 24: 391ff. Kaufmann, F.X. (ed.) (1991) The Public Sector: Challenge for Coordination and Learning, Berlin: De Gruyter. Klumpp, D. (2002) ‘From websites to e-government in Germany’, in R. Traunmüller and K. Lenk (eds) Electronic Government: First International Conference, Berlin: Springer, pp. 18ff. Klumpp, D. and Schwemmle, M. (2000) Wettlauf Informationsgesellschaft: Regierungsprogramme im internationalen Überblick, Gutachten für die Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Bonn: Stabsabteilung der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, available online at http://library.fes.de/fulltext/ stabsabteilung/00782toc.htm.

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Kraaijenbrink, J. (2002) ‘Centralization revisited?’, in R. Traunmüller and K. Lenk (eds) Electronic Government: First International Conference, Berlin: Springer, pp. 10ff. Krüger, H. (1997) ‘Eigenart, Methode und Funktion der Rechtsvergleichung im öffentlichen Recht’, in B. Ziemske, Th. Langheid, H. Wilms and G. Haverkate (eds) Staatsphilosophie und Rechtspolitik: Festschrift für Martin Kriele zum 65. Geburtstag, München: Beck, pp. 1393ff. Lepaulle, P.(1922) ‘The function of comparative law’, Harvard Law Review 35: 838ff. Luhmann, N. (1993) Das Recht der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Mayntz, R. (1997) ‘Corporate actors in public policy’, in R. Mayntz (ed.) Soziale Dynamik und politische Steuerung: Theoretische und methodologische Überlegungen, Frankfurt am Main: Campus, pp. 168ff. Peters, G. (1996) ‘Theory and methodology’, in H.A.G.M. Bekke, J. Perry and T. Toonen (eds) Civil Service Systems in Comparative Perspective, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, pp. 13ff. Prins, J.E.J. (ed.) (2001) Designing E-government: On the Crossroads of Technological Innovation and Institutional Change, Hague: Kluwer Law International. Schlesinger, R.B. (eds) (1998) Comparative Law: Cases, Text, Materials, 6th edn, New York: Foundation Press. Schmitthoff, C. (1939) ‘The science of comparative law’, Cambridge Law Journal 7: 94ff. Schneider, J.P. (1997) ‘Das Neue Steuerungsmodell als Innovationsimpuls für Verwaltungsorganisation und Verwaltungsrecht’, in E. Schmidt-Aßmann and W. Hoffmann-Riem (eds) Verwaltungsorganisation als Steuerungsressource, Baden-Baden: Nomos: pp. 103ff. —— (1999) Liberalisierung der Stromwirtschaft durch regulative Marktorganisation, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Schwarze, J. (1988) Europäisches Verwaltungsrecht: Entstehung und Entwicklung im Rahmen der Europäischen Gemeinschaft, Vol. I, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Sommermann, K.P. (1999) ‘Die Bedeutung der Rechtsvergleichung für die Fortentwicklung des Staats- und Verwaltungsrechts’, Die Öffentliche Verwaltung 52: 1017ff. Starck, C. (1997) ‘Rechtsvergleichung im öffentlichen Recht’, Juristenzeitung 52: 1028ff. Stedman Jones, D. (2001) Transformation not Automation: The E-government Challenge, London: Demos. Toonen, T.A.J. (2001) ‘The comparative dimension of administrative reform’, in B.G. Peters and J. Pierre (eds) Politicians, Bureaucrats and Administrative Reform, London: Routledge, pp. 183ff. Traunmüller, R. and Lenk, K. (2001) ‘Broadening the concept of electronic government’, in J.E.J. Prins (ed.) Designing E-government: On the Crossroads of Technological Innovation and Institutional Change, Den Haag: Kluwer Law International, pp. 63ff. —— (2002a) ‘Electronic government: where are we heading?’, in R. Traunmüller and K. Lenk (eds) Electronic Government: First International Conference, Berlin: Springer, pp. 1ff. —— (eds) (2002b) Electronic Government: First International Conference, Berlin: Springer. United Nations DPEPA and ASPA (eds) (2001) Benchmarking E-government: A Global Perspective, Assessing the UN Member States, available online at www.unpan.org/ e-government/Benchmarking%20E-gov%202001.pdf. Watson, A. (1974) Legal Transplants: An Approach to Comparative Law, Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press. Zweigert, K. and Kötz, H. (1998) Introduction to Comparative Law, 3rd edn, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

2

Electronic government in Britain Lawrence Pratchett

Introduction Britain aims to be in the vanguard of the information age. To this end, central government has made a number of policy commitments towards the uptake of information and communications technologies (ICTs), including the headline target of making all public services available electronically by 2005. It has established a special unit within the Cabinet (the Office of the e-Envoy – OeE) to oversee Britain’s transition to an information economy and to monitor progress. It has published several strategy documents aimed at setting out the building blocks for moving Britain into the information age. Furthermore, such policy commitments have been backed up by some substantial resource commitments aimed at enabling citizens, businesses and the organizations of government to take advantage of developments in new technologies. In many respects, e-government lies at the heart of the government’s modernization programme for Britain. From new modes of electronic service delivery through to an overhaul of the electoral system and other aspects of democratic practice, new technologies such as the internet, interactive digital TV, intelligent call centres and smart cards are seen as the way forward for public services. Alongside this, strategies aimed at making the technologies more accessible to citizens by providing public access points, extending the availability and use of the internet, and reducing the cost of broadband connection have been actively pursued. The government’s electronic ambitions extend across all aspects of public and private life, from the delivery of its own services through to the opportunities for citizen engagement and participation. There can be little doubt that it is a radical and ambitious programme of modernization that seeks to gain the most from the rapid progress being made by new technologies. Beneath the surface of a coherent and well-structured programme of modernization, however, is a more complex and less satisfactory set of arrangements. This chapter will argue that despite a nationally prescribed strategy and nationally imposed targets, the reality of local e-government is one of variable practice and disparate successes. Development of e-government across local authorities in Britain is not uniform (indeed, it is far from coherent even within central government, although this is not the subject of this chapter). Given that

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local authorities are semi-autonomous organizations in their own right, with their own democratic legitimacy, this disparity in development between them is, to some extent, inevitable. However, its long-term consequences are important, not only because the nature of service delivery and citizen engagement varies between areas, but also because the infrastructures that are currently being developed will shape the opportunities for those communities to be engaged in regional, national and international programmes in the future. Consequently, this chapter will analyse the local e-government agenda in Britain not only in the context of recent developments but also with a concern for its possible effects on the future of local government.

Administrative framework and jurisdiction Local government in Britain has much in common with that found in other Western democracies in terms of both the functions it fulfils and the problems and opportunities it faces. However, it also has a number of characteristics which, while not necessarily unique to British local government, nevertheless shape the way in which it has adopted e-government to date. Many of these characteristics are well known and do not warrant elaborate discussion here. However, the way in which they shape, or otherwise influence, the adoption of e-government does merit some attention. This section first maps out the formal structure and functions of local government before considering these broader characteristics and how they impact upon the prospects for e-government. Institutional and administrative framework While there are several different types of local government that constitute the 421 principal local authorities in Great Britain, these can be distilled into two main types:1 1

2

Unitary authorities that are found in mainly urban areas (151 in total) and which cover all of the local government functions within their area. All of Scotland and Wales are covered by such unitary structures (despite being predominantly rural), as are the main conurbations of England. Two-tier authorities that are generally found in more rural parts of England (although there are exceptions) and which comprise counties, each of which has several districts within it. In total, there are 34 county councils which have 238 districts within them.

In addition to these principal authorities there are also some 8,000 parish councils that cover parts of the country (many urban areas do not have parishes). However, these are discounted in terms of e-government, not least because in the main part, they have no significant service delivery responsibilities and very limited budgets.

Electronic government in Britain 15 The picture of local government has become more complex in recent years as the Labour government has striven to introduce devolution. Thus, the Scottish Parliament now has jurisdiction over Scottish local government while the Welsh Assembly has similar powers over Welsh local authorities. Since May 2000, the thirty-two London Boroughs have worked within the framework of a directly elected mayor for London and a Greater London Assembly, although the powers of this newly created body are restricted to transport policy and a few other London-wide issues. Regional government is also becoming a reality, with three regions in the north of England expected to hold referendums on the creation of elected regional assemblies in the autumn of 2004. All local authorities in England already operate within a framework of regional economic development agencies as well as other bodies that have a regional or sub-regional focus. The principal authorities are responsible for delivering a range of services, the most significant of which are: • •

• • • • •

• •

education for all children under the age of 16 (with the exception of a small number of independent schools); social housing, although increasingly, such provision is being transferred to independent housing trusts, reducing the involvement of local authorities in the day-to-day management of such services; social services, which includes care for the elderly, people with disabilities and families with social problems, especially children at risk; highways and transportation, which involves the development and maintenance of the non-national road network as well as transport planning; leisure services, including the provision of public libraries, sports facilities and so on; refuse collection and its disposal; planning and land-use control, including both broad infrastructure plans (although there is a proposal to move such planning to new regional assemblies) and the control of specific building developments; public protection, including fire and rescue services and emergency planning; and licensing and inspection of various local facilities, including taxis, restaurants and other areas requiring public protection.

Principal authorities collect their own income in the form of a council tax levied on the basis of property. This income, however, accounts for only a small proportion of overall local government finance – in most areas, less than 20 per cent. The bulk of local government income comes from central government grants that are decided on the basis of how much the government thinks it should spend on each service (the Standard Spending Assessment – SSA), making it extraordinarily dependent upon the policy preferences of successive governments. This financial dependence of local government on central government has significant consequences for the adoption of local e-government. As will be demonstrated later, the high priority attached to e-government by the

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current government means that it can target national resources effectively to local government to make certain reforms take place. The other feature of British local government that is worth noting here is the large unit size of most local authorities. Local authorities in Britain were reorganized in the 1960s and 1970s to create large units of government that could achieve economies of scale. Despite several structural reorganizations since, the principle of large unit size has endured – so much so that the average local authority has more than 100,000 inhabitants, and only a very few have less than 50,000. Some cities have considerably more inhabitants, with the administrative area of Birmingham City Council extending to over a million citizens. The scale of British local government brings two potential advantages to e-government. First, it seems plausible to argue that large units of government are more likely to need computerisation and, therefore, be better placed to reap the advantages that e-government can deliver than smaller units of local government that cover only a small population. Certainly, most British local authorities introduced some form of mainframe computerization in the 1960s and have been actively involved in developing systems ever since. Consequently, the data and information processing infrastructure exists across local government and has done for some time. Secondly, the other side of the same argument suggests that the costs of e-government are more acceptable to larger units of government. Where the budgets of local authorities are large and most administrative processes are already in an advanced state of computerization, the relative costs of egovernment are marginal to the overall costs of the authority. It seems sensible to argue, therefore, that local authorities in Britain should be well placed, in terms of their size, to realize significant and rapid benefits from e-government. As the evidence presented later will demonstrate, however, not all local authorities in Britain have been successful in reaping these benefits. Legislative authority Constitutionally, British local authorities have no legislative competence and are subordinate to central government. The exception to this is Scotland, and to a lesser extent Wales, where the newly created Parliament and Assembly respectively have taken over responsibility for oversight of local government. In the same way as their English counterparts, however, Scottish and Welsh local authorities have no legislative competence. The reason for this subordination of local government to central authority lies in the nature of the British Constitution. Britain is a unitary state in which Parliament is sovereign.2 Consequently, legislation can be enacted by a simple majority in Parliament that can have (and, indeed, has had) a profound effect upon the structure or functions that local government fulfils. Successive governments since the Second World War have sought to change the powers and functions of local government and to change its structure in keeping with their own priorities. Constitutionally, local government has no protection against such reforms, although the strong links

Electronic government in Britain 17 between local and national politics, and the presence of powerful professional networks that overlap local and central government, do somewhat modify this absolute position (see, for example, Rhodes 1981; Goldsmith 1986; Stoker 1991). Nevertheless, the powers and activities of local government are proscribed and directed by central government. Traditionally, local government has been subject to the doctrine of ultra vires, and its activities have been heavily constrained by this principle (see, for example, Byrne 1992). In effect, this principle restricted local government to undertaking those activities that were expressly permitted by Parliament and prohibited activities beyond those that were legally prescribed. The principle was vigorously upheld by the courts, and there are numerous examples of local authorities having to withdraw policy commitments because it was deemed to be ultra vires (Wilson and Game 2002). In short, local authorities in Britain traditionally had no power of general competence, and their ability to vary policies to meet local needs has been heavily constrained by the application, or, in many cases, simply the threat, of ultra vires. However, the Local Government Act 2000 introduced a new power for local authorities to promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of their area3 – a power which potentially removes many of the constraints of ultra vires. Under this new power, local authorities are, in theory at least, able to take any action that they argue is in the interest of their community. While the reality of this power is greatly constrained by financial limitations and the oversight of numerous inspectorates, including the Audit Commission, its presence nevertheless serves to provide new opportunities for local government to vary traditional policies. In particular, it appears to reverse the principle of ultra vires and encourage experimentation in the interests of the community (for a full discussion, see Wilson 2001). The concept of parliamentary sovereignty, the principle of ultra vires and the new power to promote the social, economic or environmental well-being of an area have significant implications for the development of local e-government. On the one hand, the traditional status of local government has meant that it has consistently been at the whim of the government in power. While there remains scope for local authorities to deviate from central directives, both the general direction of local government and its activities are determined from the centre (see, for example, Stewart and Stoker 1989, 1995). The current Labour government is no different from its predecessors in this respect. Consequently, it has significant resources at its disposal to encourage the uptake of particular forms of e-government among local authorities. On the other hand, the new power of general competence does allow local authorities to justifiably deviate from the national standard. In particular, there is a new emphasis upon innovation and experimentation in local government with a number of schemes that are designed to share the lessons of such experimentation across the local government community. In this respect, local government in Britain is developing a greater ability to determine its own policies in response to local needs and preferences.

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Local autonomy and self-administration The debate around local autonomy has been an ongoing one in Britain, shaped partly by the issue of parliamentary sovereignty but also by concerns for local democracy and local self-government (cf., inter alia, Cockburn 1977; Goldsmith 1995; Hill 1974; Page 1982; Phillips 1986; Wolman and Goldsmith 1987). While the debate has roamed extensively around both broad principles and hard practice, the central concern of those charged with delivering local government has been the issue of financial dependence and the limits to local autonomy that this places upon local authorities. As has already been noted, the majority of local authorities raise as little as 20 per cent of their income through local taxes, and are dependent upon central government grants for most of their resources. Furthermore, central service requirements and nationally prescribed standards mean that there is very little discretion over where money is spent. Since the mid-1970s, central government has sought to control local authority expenditure very closely as part of its macro-economic priorities. It has undertaken this not only by setting the national expenditure for local government, but also by specifying, through a complex formula (the SSA), the amount that each local authority is expected to spend on each service. Until the Local Government Act 2000, overall expenditure by each authority was also subject to capping, allowing central government to claw back grants if a council overspent on central government’s calculations. Indeed, despite removing ‘crude universal capping’,4 the current government have retained reserve powers to prevent councils from overspending. However, a more recent local government White Paper (DTLR 2001) has suggested a move towards a prudential system of finance in which local authorities would be freed from many conventional constraints on borrowing and expenditure, provided they can prove to the auditors that they are behaving with prudence. This new financial regime may yield new levels of local autonomy. However, this needs to be balanced against other controls that central government exercises. Financial autonomy is not the only issue. Despite continual oversight by central government, local authorities have generally been free to determine their own internal managerial and operational structures, although they have received extensive guidance from central government on what constitutes best practice (for a full discussion, see, for example, Leach et al. 1994). While there are some constraints on how operations are organized, generally, local authorities have been free to organize their management according to local needs. For example, local authorities have organized their management of ICTs in very different ways. The exception to this general freedom has occurred recently, with a requirement for all local authorities to develop new political management structures that more clearly separate the executive and assembly functions of the council – in particular, creating directly elected mayors in some cities (for a broader discussion, see, for example, Leach 2001; see also Leach and PercySmith 2001). While this particular change may well have indirect consequences for e-government policies in individual authorities, it does not seem likely that it will have a direct effect upon overall practice. Consequently, it will not be devel-

Electronic government in Britain 19 oped as a theme here. Indeed, it is fair to argue that local government in Britain has considerable scope for self-administration, even if local autonomy, from a democratic perspective, has been heavily constrained. Local autonomy has received a considerable boost in recent years. One of the first acts of the new Labour government, on its election in 1997, was to sign the European Charter of Local Self-Government.5 Indeed, many of the actions of the current government have sought to encourage local autonomy (see, especially, DETR 1998). Local authorities are operating in an environment where local difference is actually encouraged by national politicians. However, this local difference is constrained by the presence of more clearly defined national priorities that local authorities are expected to deliver on, and a sophisticated pattern of incentives, rewards and penalties to ensure national priorities are met. Central to this are nationally set performance indicators for each service area (including BVPI 157 – a measure of the proportion of services that are available electronically to the public; see below), as well as Public Service Agreements for selected policy areas, in which local authorities agree to reach ambitious policy targets in return for financial rewards and operational freedoms. The Best Value programme of audit and inspection, coupled with a new regime of Comprehensive Performance Assessments for all local authorities, complete an environment in which local authorities have more operational autonomy but less freedom on service outcomes (see Wilson 2001; see also Pratchett 2002). Even in the area of e-government, local authorities are strongly directed by central strategy. State–citizen relations Like most countries, local government in Britain has traditionally been the agency that has most contact with citizens (Parry et al. 1992). Nevertheless, its history is not one of cosy relations with citizens. Partly because of the scale on which it operates and partly because of the dominance of professional elites, contacts with citizens have traditionally been complex and often unsatisfactory. However, in recent years, local government has become much better at reaching out to citizens and in responding to public preferences. This improvement in relations is especially a feature of the modernization agenda, although it is also a broader feature of the New Public Management that has pervaded all public services in Britain over the last two decades. There are two features of the modernization agenda that have a direct consequence for state–citizen relations at the local level. First, there has been a renewed emphasis upon service delivery in which customer needs are given priority. While much of this customer orientation has its roots in the earlier public management reforms of the 1980s (see, for example, Walsh 1995), local government, along with other public agencies at the local level, have become increasingly sophisticated at consulting service users over their preferences. As well as complaints and suggestion schemes, most authorities operate some form of citizens’ panel in which a supposedly representative group

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of residents are asked to comment on services periodically (Lowndes et al. 2001a). In many instances, consultation of this type occurs on specific suggestions such as the location of new leisure facilities. Some local authorities have even held referendums over the level at which council tax should be set for the forthcoming year, tied explicitly to proposals to extend or reduce particular services. In some instances, public consultation also takes place in collaboration with other agencies at the local level such as the police or the local health trust, especially where the agencies have joint responsibility for specific policies or services.6 There are also a growing number of authorities that are experimenting with electronic forms of consultation and engagement.7 Secondly, there have been extensive attempts to enhance the democratic participation of citizens in the activities of their localities. This democratic renewal initiative, part of New Labour’s commitment to modernization, extends beyond simply enhancing representative democracy and involves the development of a whole range of deliberative and stakeholder mechanisms for public participation (Pratchett 1999a, 1999c; Wilson 1999). Local authorities have put in place a number of initiatives that facilitate the participation of citizens in nonconventional ways. These range from various types of forum through to citizens’ juries and more innovative forms of visioning exercise. While the public perception of these initiatives is not always positive, not least because there is some doubt that such exercises have any real effect upon policy decisions, they nevertheless provide an important route of state–citizen relations at the local level (Lowndes et al. 2001b). Until very recently, however, the potential for new technologies to enhance state–citizen relations has been largely overlooked by local government. In their 1998 survey of initiatives to enhance public participation, Lowndes et al. (1998) found that only 24 per cent of local authorities were using the internet to communicate with citizens in any way. By 2002, however, virtually all local authorities had a presence on the world wide web and allowed some basic interaction, although only a very few were classified as fully interactional (Society of IT Management 2002). Local authorities are also beginning to develop electronic voting mechanisms for use both in public elections and in broader consultative exercises. In the area of state–citizen relations, local government has yet to exploit the full potential of new technologies, although, as the discussion below will demonstrate, it has made some considerable progress in recent years. Inter-agency coordination and cooperation Enhanced coordination and cooperation between different agencies of the state, and, indeed, with other social and economic stakeholders in a given territory, is a cornerstone of New Labour’s modernization programme. The principal problem that coordination has had to face, like most Western governments, has been the functional differentiation of modern government and the proliferation of agencies that has followed it (Rhodes 1988). This fragmentation has occurred not only between agencies but also within organizations. Local government has

Electronic government in Britain 21 been particularly prone to a professional separation that has kept service management apart. Despite attempts in the 1970s to introduce corporate management approaches, and attempts in the 1990s to introduce new executive structures into local government (both of which sought to coordinate services across individual local authorities) (cf. Bains Report 1972; Leach et al. 1994), the 1998 local government White Paper still criticized local service provision for having a ‘silo mentality’ (DETR 1998). When other non-local authority services such as post-16 education, health, police and social welfare are taken into account, the differentiation of service providers at the local level and the absence of coordination between them is potentially acute. At a policy-making level, such differentiation is not only frustrating, it is also, arguably, mutually incompatible. It is for this reason that the 1999 Modernising Government White Paper made explicit commitments to make government more ‘joined-up’. These commitments range from the very practical aim of making services transparent and integrated (for example, providing change of address details to one central service provider and having all others updated at the same time) through to more abstract aims of having policy across agencies coordinated. Indeed, such was New Labour’s commitment to this new ‘holistic’ programme that it has introduced a range of different initiatives, all of which seek to encourage more coordination and cooperation between different levels of the state, and, indeed, with other non-statutory agencies such as voluntary organizations and private sector companies. As Perri 6 et al. (2002) observe, the holistic governance programme adopts a range of different strategies: •

•

•

•

Some, such as the New Deal programme that seeks to provide welfare-towork, ‘are joined-up principally at the centre in policy formulation and oversight, but their delivery and implementation is mainly the responsibility of a single department or agency’ (ibid.: 23). Others are more territorial in nature and seek to involve multi-agency cooperation to concentrate upon particular areas that face specific problems. There are now Education Action Zones, Health Action Zones and Employment Action Zones, and there are other areas that are eligible to bid for special funds such as the New Deal for Communities programme. An outcome-related approach also applies to some initiatives. For example, Crime and Disorder Partnerships are encouraged between local authorities, the police and other agencies (such as voluntary organizations that deal with drug users) to drive down crime-related problems both in specific areas and nationwide. Some initiatives seek to focus upon particular client groups by providing funding that a range of organizations concerned with a particular client group can bid for. Importantly, this type of funding requires organizations to bid together and does not automatically assume leadership on the part of any one organization. Consequently, no organization is guaranteed additional funding but is encouraged to join with other organizations to receive

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Lawrence Pratchett support for innovative projects and to ‘bend’ their own operations to fit with a broader coordinated policy. There are also a range of other budgets that the government use to encourage innovation and cooperation across organizations such as the Invest to Save Budget and the local authorities Pathfinders initiative (both of which will be discussed in more detail later).

What emerges, therefore, is a plethora of initiatives aimed at encouraging cooperation and coordination between agencies – some of which use a competitive funding regime to enhance cooperation, while others of which encourage coordination by putting into place new policy-making institutions that span a range of agencies. Indeed, Perri 6 et al. (2002) go so far as to suggest that there are too many ‘joined-up’ initiatives that themselves need some form of holistic overview. While most of these initiatives cut across local government, two are specifically pertinent to the way in which local authorities collaborate with other agencies in their area to deliver joined-up services. Both are relatively new initiatives. First, each local authority area has been required to constitute a Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) which will become the primary vehicle for policy coordination across agencies. As the 2001 Local Government White Paper states, These partnerships are the key element in developing integrated approaches to local service delivery, and to tackling policy priorities in a joined-up way. They bring together service deliverers, communities, the voluntary sector and business to identify local priorities and to devise and implement strategies to meet them. They also lead local efforts to close the gap in living standards and opportunities between the most deprived neighbourhoods and other areas. (DTLR 2001: 18) The new LSPs will not be service providers – this will remain the responsibility of the individual organizations involved in the partnership. Rather, these new institutions will provide a forum for policy coordination, the integration of specific service objectives and, ultimately, conflict resolution where agencies do not agree with either the definition of a problem or the strategy that is developed to address it. In some areas, therefore, they are likely to be nothing more than ‘talking shops’ in which the local elite reassert their authority. In other areas, however, they may become an important vehicle for policy coordination and inter-agency cooperation. The second initiative is that of the Local Public Service Agreement (LPSA). In direct contrast to LSPs, LPSAs are designed specifically to address specific central government priorities and focus explicitly upon service coordination and delivery. As noted earlier, local agencies and, particularly, local authorities sign up for LPSAs on the understanding that in return for achieving higher levels of service outcome, they will receive additional financial support and greater

Electronic government in Britain 23 autonomy.8 This scheme is important from the perspective of coordination because most of the targets cover the so-called ‘wicked issues’ (those that cut across traditional service boundaries) and require careful coordination of multiple services across agencies in order to achieve the ambitious targets. For example, Warwickshire County Council has agreed to cut the number of deaths and serious injuries on the county’s roads by 29 per cent by 2004. This initiative requires not only the efforts of the county’s highway maintenance department but also collaboration with the five district councils that maintain minor roads in the area, the local police force responsible for prosecuting unsafe drivers and various road safety campaign organizations. The LPSA initiative, therefore, inevitably encourages coordination across agencies at the point of actual service delivery. However, the initiative is still in its infancy and does not span all local authorities or, indeed, all main policy areas. Overall, inter-agency coordination and cooperation has come a long way with the introduction of a range of initiatives. However, it still has a long way to go. In particular, the link between e-government and holistic governance has still not been firmly established. As Perri 6 et al. conclude, ‘the development of electronic support remains weak for holistic policy making’ (2002: 167). This is a problem which the national e-government strategy is only beginning to address.

National strategy for local e-government Britain’s national strategy for local e-government has been shaped by a number of key initiatives over the last few years. While many of these are part of New Labour’s modernization programme, it is important to note from the outset that this is not the realm of any one political party in Britain. Indeed, the Conservative government that preceded New Labour also had a keen interest in e-government and published its own consultation paper on the subject in 1996.9 Prior to this, many other parliamentary committees had expressed an interest in the topic, as well as various government-led initiatives (for a full account, see Bellamy and Taylor 1998). However, New Labour gave an extra edge to the egovernment agenda by making it central to its modernization strategy. Unlike its predecessors, it set clear targets for e-government and developed an explicit strategy for achieving them. While the initiatives that earlier governments undertook laid much of the foundation for e-government in Britain, it is the current strategy that this section will concentrate upon. IT infrastructure The infrastructure for supporting e-government is shaped by two sets of factors. First, what might be termed supply factors concern the extent to which public administration is in a position to make various electronic services available to the public or to automate existing systems. Secondly, what might be termed demand factors concern the extent to which citizens have access to the relevant technologies to take advantage of e-government and, indeed, the cognitive ability and

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willingness to use the technologies for this purpose. Both of these sets of factors will be addressed in turn. Measuring the supply side of the IT infrastructure for e-government is difficult, not least because there is no accurate census of how much progress each central department, agency or local authority has achieved. As a recent National Audit Office report recognizes, the central UK agency responsible for egovernment, the OeE, ‘has relatively little up to date and good quality information about the development of central government on the web’ (National Audit Office 2002: 3).10 Despite these shortcomings, the National Audit Office report and the accompanying research undertaken by Dunleavy et al. does make a considerable attempt to quantify e-government progress, particularly when matched against a similar study from 1999 (National Audit Office 1999).11 Their survey of 376 government departments, agencies and non-departmental public bodies found that 82 per cent of these organizations had their own website compared with only 60 per cent in 1999. However, the quality of these sites varied considerably. A small proportion offered some advanced features such as the ability to input a postal code to receive relevant information for a particular area (6 per cent of sites), or the contact details for senior officials (16 per cent of sites). A minority (24 per cent of sites) allowed the electronic fill-in and submission of forms, while less than a third (30 per cent of sites) provided an email ordering facility for the organization’s documents. However, on a more encouraging note, the study also found that 70 per cent of government organizations now give online access to their annual reports (compared with 20 per cent in 1999), while a full 90 per cent allow the organization’s documents to be downloaded via the internet (compared with 41 per cent in 1999). Clearly, considerable progress is being made among government departments in terms of internet development, although there is little evidence to help analyse other egovernment developments such as telephone call centres. Within local government, supply-side information is equally complex. All local authorities now have their own web presence. However, as the same National Audit Office report recognizes, as with central government agencies, the quality of these websites varies considerably. The National Audit Office study goes on to say that only 18 per cent provide a full email address for contacting councillors, while only 24 per cent allow online payment of council tax.12 However, a large proportion offered useful information to residents and visitors, such as an email address for senior officers (52 per cent), a list of the council’s departments, sections or divisions (73 per cent), and an A–Z of council services (84 per cent) (National Audit Office 2002). Perhaps of more concern is the limited extent to which local authority websites provide consistent links to their supposed partners within their localities. As Dunleavy et al. demonstrate in their supporting evidence for the National Audit Office report, ‘under a third of councils provide a link to their local police authority’, while ‘just one in five councils link to their local health trust’ (National Audit Office 2002). While local authorities are making some progress on the development of websites, particularly in terms of the content that they now offer (Society of IT Management

Electronic government in Britain 25 2002), it seems that their ability to use the technology as part of the process of local governance remains limited in most areas. Progress towards e-government is only relevant, however, where citizens are capable of taking advantage of the new facilities offered. This ‘demand’ side of the equation involves both the availability of the relevant technology and the capacity and willingness to use it. The availability of broadband internet remains a prime concern for those looking to expand the take-up of e-government services (Gill 2002). However, the availability of other technologies such as telephone and interactive digital TV among the population is also relevant. As might be expected, the telephone is the most ubiquitous technology, with 93 per cent of households having a fixed-line telephone and a further 6 per cent having a mobile (cellular) phone as an alternative (OFTEL 2001). Internet penetration is also high in Britain: in the summer of 2003, 58 per cent of households had internet access.13 However, penetration is differentially skewed, both by socio-economic status and by region. Only 10 per cent of citizens in the lowest income decile have access to the internet, compared with over 75 per cent of those in the top decile. Furthermore, 45 per cent of homes in London and the south-east of England have internet access compared with just 26 per cent in the north-east of the country (National Statistics 2001). Penetration also varies, as might be expected, according to both age and gender. However, it is also notable that some 34 per cent of households have no intention of gaining internet access.14 It is in the area of interactive digital television, however, that Britain has an advantage over its European neighbours. By November 2001, some 8.3 million homes (37 per cent) had digital television – more than double the European average of 16 per cent.15 Interestingly, penetration of this technology is much higher among the lower socio-economic groups, acting to counteract, at least to some extent, the digital divide that the internet demonstrates. Given that interactive digital TV carries internet potential, as well as other forms of interactivity, this technology may well provide an important platform for e-government initiatives, especially those that aim to reach the more deprived social groups. The availability of technology is not sufficient, on its own, however, to guarantee take-up of e-government initiatives. The other aspect of demand is the extent to which citizens are willing to use e-government facilities. A 2001 survey by the consultants KPMG asked respondents whether they would be willing to undertake a number of government services via the internet, interactive digital TV or through a kiosk (KPMG 2001). While a significant proportion said that they would be willing to undertake such activities as renewing their car tax (32 per cent) or their passport (28 per cent), a surprisingly large number of respondents (34 per cent) stated that they would not be willing to use e-government facilities. This finding is mirrored by more detailed research into the possibilities for electronic voting, which found significant pockets of resistance to such proposals despite support for the principle among many citizens (Pratchett et al. 2002). Collectively, this evidence suggests that a substantial infrastructure is emerging to support e-government in Britain. However, if it is to be successful,

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the strategy needs to address both the varying quality of e-government initiatives across different agencies and the differential access afforded to citizens. The strategy will also need to take into account the recalcitrance towards such developments that significant sections of the population display. National strategy for implementing e-government The current e-government strategy in Britain is based upon the e-government targets set in the 1999 Modernising Government White Paper. At the heart of this strategy is the belief that government services should be available continuously and not just during conventional working hours. Consequently, the White Paper established targets that ‘50 per cent of dealings (with the public sector) should be capable of electronic delivery by 2005 and 100 per cent by 2008’ (Cabinet Office 1999: 52). These targets were revised by a subsequent strategy statement from the newly created OeE to involve 50 per cent by 2002 and 100 per cent by 2005 (Office of the e-Envoy 2000). The targets are not restricted to central government departments or agencies but cover the entire public sector, including local authorities. Indeed, as the primary location of most day-to-day services, local government is seen as being central to the delivery of the information age strategy. As the e-envoy’s second annual report acknowledged, ‘the number of transactions involved (in local government) vastly exceeds those of the rest of central government put together’ (Office of the e-Envoy 2001). For local as well as central government, therefore, there are tough targets on egovernment that need to be met by 2005. It is tempting to see e-government and the internet as synonymous. However, the government’s national strategy for local e-government (DTLR 2002) makes it clear that the world wide web and its related technologies form only one of a number of platforms that local authorities will be expected to take advantage of in realising the e-government vision. Alongside developing their use of the internet, local authorities are also expected to: • • • • • •

•

develop contact centres and call centres, often in collaboration with other agencies; take advantage of smart-card technology, especially in the context of an emerging entitlement card; develop the use of digital television as a means of communicating with citizens; enhance specialist portals for particular client groups such as businesses; invest in telemetry applications, particularly through mobile and wireless technologies; increase the sophistication of back-office technology through the development of document image processing and workflow systems and by placing geographic information systems at the heart of internal processing; develop key databases that will underpin customer relationships and knowledge management for policy-making; and

Electronic government in Britain 27 •

enhance routine procedures of procurement and payments through the appropriate use of new technologies.

The local e-government strategy builds upon a range of national targets, standards and frameworks to develop a scheme for local government that is both centrally coordinated but locally sensitive. Each local authority will retain responsibility for developing and implementing its own strategy but within the context of national structures and requirements. In many respects, therefore, the strategy is a top-down one in which local government is following central government’s lead. There are a number of features of this top-down approach that collectively seek to ensure that central coordination is successful. The broader role of the OeE and other key actors in driving this agenda forward will be discussed in the next section. This section will concentrate upon aspects of the national strategy as they have emerged and their relationship to the e-government initiatives of specific local authorities. The UKOnline portal This website was launched by the OeE in January 2001 to replace the open government ‘finder site’ as the ‘centrepiece of a substantial programme of campaign spending and infrastructure investment’ (National Audit Office 2002: 3). It is aimed primarily at citizens, and was initially organized around a series of ‘life episodes’ on which citizens could search for information, support and, indeed, establish contact with relevant government agencies. It also included a ‘citizen space’ in which citizens could comment on government policy. However, it was not well received on its launch, with many of the key activities being ignored by users in preference for more traditional internet use. For example, by August 2001 (eight months after its launch), less than 400,000 hits had been received on the ‘life episodes’ element of the site, compared with more than 1.6 million hits on the ‘quick find’ search facility (National Audit Office 2002: 49). As the National Audit Office report recognizes, part of the problem appears to have been the limitations of the contractual arrangements entered into by the OeE, which prevented it from updating the information as frequently as it would have liked. However, a new contractual arrangement and a substantial redesign of the site since January 2002 have started to address many of the identified problems with this centrepiece of the e-government strategy. The OeE remains optimistic about the centrality of UKOnline to its strategy and is aiming for 50 million page requests per week – an equivalent, it estimates, to 2 million users per week (National Audit Office 2002: 50). It also plans to drive a number of e-government campaigns, such as the provision of 6,000 UKOnline centres and the linking of all 4,300 public libraries to the UKOnline website. There is even a suggestion that the UKOnline architecture may be used to host ‘relevant local content’ for local authorities that will give them ‘a cost effective way to manage their own content remotely on a secure and scalable infrastructure’ (DTLR 2002: 57). In other words, UKOnline is

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expected to be central to local government plans, as well as those of central government. However, this is not necessarily accepted within local government. As the National Audit Office survey shows, only 51 per cent of authorities provide a link to UKOnline from their own sites, let alone buy into the concept in a larger way. The e-Government Interoperability Framework A central concern of all those associated with the development of e-government in the UK is the need for information and connectivity standards across organizations. Such standards lie at the heart of joined-up government. The e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) provides a set of such standards by setting out the technical policies and specifications that all systems need to comply with in order to communicate across or with the public sector. Local authorities are required to comply with these standards when developing systems that have communications outside of the local authority. These standards include those for metadata to ensure that a common and consistent system is used for ‘tagging’ web pages across government. Furthermore, any system that will make use of new services being developed on UKOnline will have to conform to these standards. Given the large number of legacy systems in place in local authorities, these standards provide a significant obstacle to a rapid move towards e-government. Government Gateway and authentication Linked to the concept of interoperability in both data and communications are concerns with the authentication of communications with government organizations. The Government Gateway project, the first phase of which was launched in January 2001 at a cost of £15.6 million (€23.4 million), aims to provide a single point of authentication for all online submissions to government. This has concentrated especially, although not exclusively, around various tax submissions, including VAT returns for Customs and Excise and corporation tax and self-assessment documents for the Inland Revenue. Sunderland City Council, in collaboration with Sedgemoor District Council, is also in the process of using this Gateway to develop local council tax submissions. Different systems within the Gateway have used different forms of identification. The Gateway requires all users of the system to first register their desire to use the system. However, different departments have then adopted different ways of establishing authentication. For example, the Inland Revenue have made use of a password and pin number system, in contrast with Customs and Excise which use a public key infrastructure certificate to authenticate submissions. However, the take-up of all of these systems has, so far, been low. In the last financial year, only 75,000 out of 9 million income tax payers submitted their self-assessment documents online. In this respect, the value of the Government Gateway is still to be tested.

Electronic government in Britain 29 The Gateway has served, in some respects, to highlight the problems of secure authentication in electronic transactions. The OeE’s consultation on security and authentication suggests that the primary way in which authentication could be achieved is through the use of digital certificates that would form part of a smart card held by each individual or business.16 These would be issued by a number of Registration Authorities that might include banks as well as government organizations. However, for access to UKOnline services, they would need to be supported by additional information such as departmental identifiers (for example, National Insurance number). Importantly, the OeE recognizes that privacy issues in the UK prevent the development of a unique identifier for individuals that would apply across all government departments and, possibly, to private organizations such as banks. Rather, such unique identifiers need to be differentiated according to the purpose for which information is held. The consequences of this for digital certificates and the wider authentication of individuals is significant. In the absence of a unique identifier that will authenticate individuals across all systems and departments, there are substantial disincentives to individuals to sign up for a wide range of certificates which would have the consequence of them having to retain a wide range of pin numbers etc. While the technical difficulties of authentication can be addressed through the Government Gateway, therefore, the broader policy and ethical issues around privacy appear to be more intractable. Government Secure Intranet Originally designed for internal electronic communications within central government, the Government Secure Intranet (GSI) is now seen as the primary vehicle through which all of the public sector can enjoy secure and reliable communications. The national strategy for local e-government goes further, suggesting that ‘it is expected to facilitate a single dynamic, learning and knowledge community within the public sector, whilst delivering the means to achieve major cost savings in public sector IT by exploiting a high capacity broadband network’ (DTLR 2002: 57). However, this vision lies in the future. The current GSI does not support local government, although a new version (GSI2) is currently being procured and is expected to work on a hub-and-spoke type of system, allowing up to 100 local authorities to be part of GSI2 by 2004. Nationally shared datasets The vision for local e-government that is joined-up both within its own locality and across the wider government network also requires some core data to be available outside of bespoke systems. The key problem to be addressed here is the absence of standards in the way in which basic data on localities is captured, stored and maintained. Even something as simple as the electoral registers that are the responsibility of each individual local authority are not held or updated in a uniform format that is accessible outside of individual authorities.

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Consequently, three core data systems are being developed by the Improvement and Development Agency to coordinate these data problems:17 1 2

3

a National Land and Property Gazeteer (NLPG) that will provide a common standard for identifying land parcels; a National Land Information Service (NLIS) that will draw upon the NLPG to provide electronically accessible information on land and property (for example, on ownership, development control and so on) for use by a range of relevant organizations; and the Local Authorities Secure Electoral Register (LASER) that will provide a common standard for storing and updating electoral registers in individual authorities. Importantly, this system is likely to underpin any moves towards electronic voting in the UK (Pratchett et al. 2002).

Top-down and bottom-up elements of the national initiative This wide range of initiatives being undertaken at a central level suggests that the national strategy for local e-government is a top-down one. There are clear and sharp targets that have been set for e-government which all local authorities are required to aim for. In particular, the 2005 target of 100 per cent electronic availability remains a driver for change, despite repeated concerns that local authorities will not achieve it. Similarly, central bodies have established a set of frameworks and data standards, including plans for some nationally available datasets, with which all local authorities are being encouraged to comply. These frameworks are not exclusively the property of central government but have evolved in collaboration with national representatives of local government such as the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) and the Society of IT Management (SOCITM).18 However, they have the effect of providing a topdown emphasis, reducing the scope for deviation from a national strategy by individual authorities. Finally, the way in which the national strategy for local egovernment is being funded has a substantial top-down component. Not only is local government finance centrally controlled (as the earlier section demonstrated), but there are also a number of financial incentives that seek to shape the development of e-government in particular ways. These include the Invest-toSave Budget, the local government Pathfinder projects and the wider support for Implementing Electronic Government, which, collectively, amount to some £350 million (€525 million) over the period 2000–2004. These will be discussed in more detail under the heading ‘Implementation, control and guidance’. However, their effect in creating a strong central lead in the development of egovernment needs to be noted here. Having claimed that the strategy is essentially top-down, however, it is also necessary to note that it is also locally sensitive, containing strong elements of bottom-up development. A key strategy for New Labour is identifying ‘what works’ in public policy, and to this end the government have supported a strategy of locally developed and organized pilots. Most initiatives are not ‘rolled-out’

Electronic government in Britain 31 across local government but are encouraged in the form of experimentation in selected local authorities. Typically, a government department identifies a relatively small amount of money to develop pilot schemes on particular initiatives and then invites bids from the local government community to undertake such initiatives. For example, the seventeen e-voting experiments that took place in England in the 2002 local government elections operated in this way, with each of the successful pilots receiving a share of £3.5 million (€5.25 million) to run their experiments.19 This type of approach means that each pilot can develop systems and processes that match its own organizational and contextual needs, while at the same time meeting national priorities. To this extent, the process has an element of bottom-up development that encourages innovation and local variation in systems. Local creativity is encouraged, not dampened. Other authorities are expected to learn from the pilots as the e-voting system is developed. The same concept applies to other e-government initiatives such as the Pathfinder projects. The pilot process is only bottom-up insofar as it allows locally defined projects within a national framework. While innovation outside of nationally funded projects is not discouraged, great emphasis is placed upon non-pilot authorities learning from the experiences of those who are funded by central government. Furthermore, central direction is generally focused around outcomes rather than process. Consequently, it is possible to argue that the national strategy for local egovernment is concentrated upon delivering consistent outcomes although the way in which such outcomes are achieved may vary across local government. It is top-down in outcome although bottom-up in allowing some flexibility in the way in which the outcomes are approached. Players Despite the existence of a central body charged with leading e-government initiatives (the OeE), in reality there are a range of organizations that contribute to, or otherwise influence, the development of local e-government in the UK. The way in which these organizations work together can clearly affect the opportunities for development as well as the general direction which e-government takes. This section briefly explores the different actors in the process and the roles that they play. The OeE is undoubtedly one of the major players in the e-government agenda in the UK, and necessarily forms the focus of much of any analysis of egovernment policy-making. The OeE was established within the Cabinet Office in 1999 to oversee all aspects of the government’s agenda to move the UK into the information age. It has three main policy aims:20 1 2 3

to make the UK the best environment in the world for e-commerce by 2002; to ensure that everyone who wants it has access to the internet by 2005; and to achieve the target for electronic service delivery by making all government services available electronically by 2005.

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It is a high-profile organization that has a remit to extend across all aspects of central and local government. Its functions range from the collection of information on progress against each of these headings (for example, in the form of e-stat maps in core policy areas), through the development of standards and protocols around various subjects (for example, the OeE is currently involved in the development of technical standards for e-voting – election mark-up language), to the maintenance and development of the government’s major web presence (UKOnline). It has a staff of over 250 and has taken over many of the functions that other central government IT departments fulfilled. For example, UKOnline’s precursor, www.open.gov.uk, was originally developed by the Central Communication and Telecommunication Agency (CCTA) but is now a central responsibility of the OeE. In particular, it has forty-five staff working directly on aspects of e-government electronic service delivery, and this ignores the large number of consultancy and contract staff that have been engaged to meet specific project needs (for example, for maintaining and enhancing the Government Gateway). Overall, the National Audit Office estimated its running costs for 2001, when combining revenue and capital expenditure, as amounting to around £52 million (€78 million), of which approximately £7 million (€10.5) was for staffing (National Audit Office 2002). The OeE is important for the e-government agenda not only because it provides a focus for developments, but also because it was created specifically to champion such issues. It provides a high-profile and well-placed means of integrating the diverse e-government initiatives of the public sector. However, it does not have responsibility for the operational systems of individual departments or, indeed, the integration of such systems with online interfaces. Rather, it sets the framework within which such developments can take place and supports the coordination of such developments. It is, therefore, a focal point for e-government rather than the director of it. It is noticeable that, on its own, it has no powers to coerce individual organizations to adopt its standards or to follow its lead in particular areas. Instead, its authority stems from its position at the very heart of the civil service (the e-envoy is located within the Cabinet Office and reports directly to the prime minister) and its ability to oversee e-government developments. In particular, its quarterly reports can identify areas of good practice and, conversely, areas that are lagging behind, as a means of promoting its own vision of e-government. At central government level, however, the e-envoy is not the only important actor that shapes e-government policy. Several other units within the Cabinet Office have also made contributions to the e-government and e-service delivery debate. The Performance and Innovation Unit issued a report on e-government in 2000 (Performance and Innovation Unit 2000), while the Social Exclusion Unit has retained an ongoing concern with the digital divide and its implications for the effects of e-government on different social groups. The Department of Trade and Industry also has a minister directly responsible for e-commerce developments who works closely with the OeE. From a local government perspective, however, the other central government department of significance is the local government modernization team

Electronic government in Britain 33 within the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM).21 This team provides the main focus for local authorities in terms of their e-government initiatives. Central to its programme has been the Local Government Online (LGOL) campaign, which has sought to coordinate local e-government initiatives across the country. As with other central initiatives, this campaign does not aim to deliver new initiatives itself but coordinates and promotes good practice in relation to local e-government. A national strategy for local egovernment was produced by the ODPM in 2002. This strategy is based, in part, upon an assessment of local government’s current and planned progress towards the 2005 electronic service delivery target, drawing upon the Implementing Electronic Government (IEG) statements that all local authorities have been required to prepare annually since July 2001. The Department is also coordinating the £350 million (€525 million) allocated to local government in the 2000 comprehensive spending review for developing e-government over the period 2001–2004 through a range of programmes that include the twenty-five Pathfinder projects, the ‘info4local’ service and the Promoting Electronic Government (PEG) programme (all of which are discussed below under ‘Implementation, control and guidance’). It has also supported research and experimentation in the area of electronic voting. While the OeE therefore sets the broad environment in which local egovernment is being developed, it is the ODPM and, especially, its modernization team that is managing and coordinating the detail. The National Audit Office, however, is critical of this process, suggesting that the ODPM has not achieved a systematic analysis of progress across all local authorities, although it does recognize that there is now a substantial research programme under way (National Audit Office 2002). The key point for local government, however, is that the ODPM and its modernization team remain the primary point of reference for all aspects of e-government and, indeed, the main source of funding for new initiatives. Consequently, the ODPM is as important to the local e-government agenda as the OeE, if not more so. Furthermore, it has more direct authority and responsibility for local government, giving it the opportunity to influence the e-government agenda in a much more direct manner than the OeE. At a national level there are also several other organizations that support and enhance local e-government. At the heart of the modernization agenda is the IDeA.22 Although this organization does receive funding from central government (top-sliced from the overall local government budget), it is independent and raises a significant proportion of its income by offering consultancy and services to local authorities. The agency has created its own director of e-government (also known as the local e-envoy), whose responsibility it is to interpret central government policy on the issues and to support and promote good management practice in relation to e-government. The IDeA is also the main focus for many of the more practical national projects upon which local developments depend. For example, the attempt to create a joined-up national electoral register project (LASER) was co-ordinated by the

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IDeA, as are many other core projects. In many respects, therefore, the IDeA is the primary vehicle through which local government projects are pursued at the national level, and it works closely with the ODPM, as well as local authorities. Within its management consultancy arm, as well, the IDeA is actively supporting and promoting e-government. Consequently, it is both a champion for local e-government and a focus for many of its developments. However, it has no direct powers to require cooperation from local government but relies instead upon its good will. Consequently, national projects such as LASER can be significantly compromised by a few recalcitrant local authorities that decide not to collaborate on projects. The other significant player in the area of e-government is SOCITM.23 This organisation was created in the mid-1980s by local government IT managers as a voice for IT concerns and as a means of developing inter-local authority collaboration. It is independent from central government insofar as its income is based upon subscriptions from individual local authorities and its commercial activities. One of its key activities is a series of annual surveys that monitor a range of topical ICT developments across local government. In the last few years, it has concentrated especially (although not exclusively) upon the development of the internet in local government and has produced a series of reports entitled Better Connected which provide a synoptic classification of local authority websites. These reports have been influential not only within local government but also at central government level. In particular, the ODPM has drawn upon the evidence offered by SOCITM as the only systematic data, other than the IEG statements, from which to develop its local e-government strategy. As an organization that is representative of local authorities, therefore, SOCITM is well placed to influence e-government policy by highlighting the problems and opportunities faced by the local government community. However, it is also important to note that it represents IT managers in local government rather than local authorities themselves. Consequently, it has a vested interest in promoting e-government – a vested interest which is not necessarily in harmony with the wider interests of local government (Pratchett 1999b). However, it is also worth noting that in many of its initiatives, it works closely with other local government bodies, such as the Local Government Association (the national body that represents local politics), the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and the IDeA. Finally, the role of commercial organizations in promoting e-government needs to be recognized. Management consultancy companies have performed a significant role not only by advising on e-government matters but also by developing their own analyses of the agenda (see, for example, KPMG 2001). Similarly, many of the large ICT companies have cooperated with pilots and experiments in e-government as a means of encouraging its development. While no analysis exists of their contribution to the agenda, it seems difficult to ignore the fact that their own activities will shape the opportunities available to individual local authorities (Pratchett 1999b).

Electronic government in Britain 35 Implementation, control and guidance It is tempting to see the local e-government strategy as a coherent process in which central bodies are steering a careful programme of pilots to achieve the 2005 electronic service delivery targets. In reality, the arrangements are more complex than such coherence would suggest, and like all implementation processes it involves a range of incentives and penalties that have, already, resulted in some unexpected outcomes. Implementation of the strategy appears to depend upon three main tools: the development of a national framework with supporting systems; the financing and encouragement of local experiments with a strong emphasis upon evaluation and policy-learning; and the collection of systematic information on e-government developments across local authorities. In addition, there exists a more formal process of progress monitoring through the local government inspectorate, the Audit Commission. This section first examines the implementation strategies for e-government before moving on to consider the ways in which developments are monitored and controlled, and their limitations. The national frameworks developed by the OeE and other organizations at central level have already been discussed and will not be analysed further here. However, the central government programmes that finance and encourage egovernment are worthy of some analysis. The ODPM seeks to implement its e-government strategy within local government through several different schemes. Perhaps the most publicized of these has been the Pathfinder projects that were formally launched in June 2001. With a shared budget of £25 million (€37.5 million), there are twenty-five Pathfinder projects involving various partnerships of local authorities and other public, voluntary and commercial organizations. Each of these Pathfinder projects explores the application of different technologies to deliver service enhancements. For example, in the two counties of Suffolk and Somerset, digital TV facilities are being developed to enhance citizen access to electronic services, with a special emphasis upon social inclusion as a primary aim. In the city of Southampton and the county of Cornwall, experiments are taking place with smart-card technology to provide security and authentication in e-government transactions. Other local authorities such as Huntingdon, Leeds and the London Borough of Newham are developing e-tendering and e-procurement facilities. In the East Midlands, five local authorities have formed a formal partnership (the Welland Partnership) to develop shared processing of particular electronic services, such as planning permission. Consequently, across the twenty-five Pathfinder projects there are a range of technologies being applied in a variety of contexts to test different opportunities for e-government. The Pathfinders are important not only for the experiments that they are undertaking, but also because they aim to share their experience with the wider local government community. It is, therefore, a programme of pilots to discover ‘what works’ in a range of circumstances and to deliver real lessons. The emphasis is not only upon technology but also upon the wider application lessons that can be drawn from the projects.

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Alongside the Pathfinder projects, the ODPM has also supported the development of strategic service delivery partnerships between local authorities and commercial companies. The most publicized of these has been Liverpool City Council’s link-up with British Telecom (BT) to provide Liverpool Direct. This new partnership aims to create an electronic one-stop-shop for all the authority’s services, including what is claimed to be the largest public-sector call centre in Europe. As part of this partnership, BT will invest £35 million (€52.5 million) in equipment and support to update the council’s legacy systems in return for longterm involvement in Liverpool’s e-government applications. Other local authorities, such as Sheffield and Middlesbrough, are now seeking to follow this model. While such partnerships are not an explicit feature of the ODPM strategy, they are nevertheless important. Increasingly, the Department is inviting commercial organizations to enter into framework agreements in order to secure funding for partnerships with local authorities. This was the model which drove the e-voting pilots in the local government elections of 2002. A different format has been adopted by the PEG campaign. This project draws together a range of organizations at central level to bring together the experiences of leading local authorities (such as Pathfinder authorities) and seeks to pass on these lessons through a range of processes. The project has developed a self-assessment pack including a diagnostic tool, a set of case studies and briefing notes to help local authorities develop their own e-government strategies. Its experience is passed on through a variety of different media, including networking and conferences, e-learning facilities, and a process of peer review. Consequently, PEG draws together the best examples of e-government initiatives. It is, in effect, the training end of the other programmes identified above. The problem with these initiatives is that they remain, generally, in the most developed local authorities. As might be expected, the most successful local authorities in relation to such competitive schemes as the Pathfinder projects are those that already have an enthusiasm for, and a track record in, the area of egovernment. Those authorities that are more resistant to such modernization or that lack the enthusiasm for such developments are unlikely to bid for funding under these schemes, let alone be successful. It is partly for this reason that all local authorities are required to produce annual plans of how they intend to implement e-government in their areas (IEG statements). In 2001, they were also asked to nominate an e-champion within their authority. In return for the successful submission of their IEG statements, each local authority received a payment of £200,000 (€300,000) to support their plans in 2002, with a commitment of a further £200,000 in the following financial year provided they could demonstrate adequate progress towards e-government against their own stated plans. The IEG statements are important because they provide the most authoritative account of the ‘state of the art’ in UK local government and a plan of how authorities expect to achieve the 2005 electronic service delivery target. The method is flawed to some extent, however, because it is based upon a local authority’s own assessment of where it is and where it plans to be (although the

Electronic government in Britain 37 former can be checked against a performance indicator, as discussed below). However, even taking this into account, and despite the optimistic spin put on them by the ODPM, they make salutary reading. The analysis of the first rounds of IEGs raised particular concerns. Overall, by July 2001, an average of 29 per cent of council services were supposedly available electronically. Given that most authorities will have targeted ‘quick wins’ before the more complicated services, this left a lot of ground to be covered before 2005 and the supposed availability of all services electronically. In their content analysis of the statements, the ODPM went on to estimate that ‘we expect local authorities to reach 43 per cent by March 2003, 73 per cent by March 2004, and 100 per cent by the end of 2005’ (DTLR 2002: 16). It does not take too much cynicism to consider such assessments to be unduly optimistic. Furthermore, the same content analysis also recognized that the position varied considerably across local government, with the best authorities having made up to two-thirds of services available electronically while a few laggards had achieved only a 5 per cent implementation. The underlying message from the IEG statements appeared to be that while a few high-profile authorities may achieve the 2005 targets, a large proportion will not be able to do so. Consequently, the availability of electronic services will vary considerably in the next few years between local authority areas. As a result, the requirements for the content of IEG statements have become much more prescriptive in subsequent years. The problems revealed by the IEG statements of differential development across local authorities are compounded by the financial circumstances that they reveal. The statements provide a combined estimate from local government of an overall cost of around £2.5 billion (€3.75 billion) to achieve the 100 per cent target by 2005. To support this, the ODPM has an overall budget within the LGOL programme of £350 million (€525 million). Approximately £80 million (€120 million) of this budget is being retained centrally to fund national projects that support local government. A further £75 million (€112.5 million) is being used to fund partnership developments. Overall, local authorities received only £80 million in 2002/03 and a further £80 million in 2003/04 to support their plans as set out in their IEG statements. The shortfall of over £2 billion (€3 billion) is expected to be met from councils’ own revenue budgets, especially by realising savings from their investments. It seems unlikely that such suggestions will provide much encouragement for those councils that are already lagging behind the targets. Alongside the IEG statements, the other mechanism that is used to monitor progress towards the 2005 target is a performance indicator collected by the Audit Commission. All local authorities have to submit data against a whole range of performance indicators as part of the Best Value regime for service management and delivery.24 The evidence from these indicators is published both for councils as a whole and in a comparative format in what are known as local authority families (councils with similar characteristics). The relevant indicator for e-government is the Best Value Performance Indicator 157 (BVPI 157). This indicator follows the same format as one applied by the OeE for

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central government measurement purposes and requires local authorities to report the proportion of their services which are available electronically. The problem with this measure is that while there is some guidance on how to report the proportion of services, there remains a great deal of discretion on how they are actually counted. There is no definitive guide on which activities count as a discrete service, so different local authorities enumerate their interactions with the public in different ways. In other words, identical services may be counted in different ways. For example, one local authority planning department may count different aspects of the planning application process as discrete interactions while another may count the whole process as one. If they both allow an electronic request for forms, the latter will be able to claim 100 per cent electronic availability of service while the former will achieve only a small proportion, despite them both offering the same level of service electronically. Consequently, the measure does not offer a consistent or universal monitor of progress towards e-government but, rather, provides another self-assessment indicator that is open to interpretation. The difficulty that the ODPM, the OeE and other interested bodies face in promoting e-government is that they hold very few tools with which to coerce recalcitrant local authorities. Those that are keen to be in the vanguard are well supported by the structures that have been put in place over the last few years. However, those that are less willing to invest in e-government are not faced with any immediate threat. This position is mainly due to the complex relationship between central and local government. The ODPM cannot vary the way it finances mainstream local government services to encourage greater take-up of electronic facilities but can only bend its relatively small LGOL budget. It seems likely, therefore, that the process of differential development in e-government will continue for the next few years. Of course, once the 2005 targets have been missed by some authorities, the ODPM will have more scope to act. Following classification by the Audit Commission as failing in one or more areas, the ODPM will have powers to intervene in local authorities to require them to implement particular systems. Such intervention may well be possible if there are just a few laggards. The problem with this scenario is that if there are a large number of local authorities that fail to meet the targets, the scope for intervention will be limited by the ODPM’s own resources. The area of e-government may well become an important ground on which the government’s new approach to central–local relations is played out. Inter-agency cooperation At a superficial level, there is a good deal of inter-agency cooperation in the area of e-government. Many of the flagship schemes that the government sponsors, such as the Pathfinder projects, have inter-agency cooperation included as an explicit part of their aims. Furthermore, at a national level, the representative organizations of local government share both the vision and the commitment to e-government. As well as central government departments, all of the main

Electronic government in Britain 39 national bodies – from the organization that represents local authority chief executives (SOLACE) to the national political body for local government (the Local Government Association) and, indeed, the main local authority inspectorate (the Audit Commission) – have published visions of e-government that exhort councils to develop ambitious programmes of e-enabled modernization (cf. Society of Local Authority Chief Executives 2001; Blair 2000; Filkin et al. 2001; Improvement and Development Agency 2001; Audit Commission 2002). Furthermore, in 1999, the central–local partnership (a formal meeting of government ministers and local government representatives) signed the Information Age Concordat, which set out the shared vision, and agreed the priorities, expectations and responsibilities of the various stakeholders.25 In principle, there is widespread consensus over both the importance of e-government and the way in which it is expected to develop. As has already been noted, however, there is some considerable divergence between, on the one hand, the national consensus and vision and, on the other, the reality of individual local authorities. Many authorities do not feel part of the information age and do not share the enthusiasm for e-government. It is not always that they reject the vision, but rather that they do not see it as a priority. In particular, local politicians find it hard to divert resources from already pressured services to deliver e-government initiatives (Audit Commission 2002). Therefore, while on the surface central–local collaboration on e-government appears good, beneath the surface the picture is more fragmented. Despite this fragmented situation, there is a good level of cooperation and collaboration, particularly beneath the level of central–local relations. Part of the national strategy for local e-government is to allow different processes to emerge in different areas to suit the variable needs of localities. In this sense, central government does appear to respect the democratic autonomy of local authorities. Systems are not imposed upon localities but are designed bottom-up within the framework of standards and targets set out by the OeE and the ODPM. The IEG statements that local authorities produced varied so considerably in their content and structure because there is no mandatory template that authorities have to follow. However, there is guidance which informs many of the plans that local authorities make. Similarly, the different technologies that local authorities are implementing to support e-government, and the varying ways in which they are prioritizing different applications, reflect the independence of local government in this area. No central department is actively involved in the detail of local e-government, except through such programmes as the Pathfinder projects. Even in the Pathfinder projects, the initial proposal, design and implementation remains the responsibility of local authorities and their partners. The ODPM is only involved in funding part of the project and in the evaluation that follows. The degree of autonomy and independence of local government, however, should not be overstated. As the earlier discussion of local government’s constitutional position demonstrated, local authorities exist at the whim of Parliament, and are subject to substantial influence from the government in the form of

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financial control and audit, as well as through formal directives. While local authorities have been granted considerable autonomy over the way in which they approach e-government, the 2005 targets that they have been set and the outcomes that they are expected to achieve are not negotiable. Although the measures that the Audit Commission and the ODPM currently have are inadequate for assessing the full extent of e-government (or absence of it) in specific local authorities, it seems likely that as the 2005 deadline looms, so central government’s attention to achievements will increase. It is at this point that the full resources of central government will be deployed. It is also fair to recognize that government departments and other national agencies are seeking to avert any crisis in 2005, not only by exhorting the takeup of different e-government applications across local government, but also through a programme of training and support. Much of this support is offered as free at the point of use, in the form of self-assessment and diagnostic tools, and case study examples. The PEG campaign is the best example of this type of initiative. Other examples include the Beacon Council project (not explicitly egovernment), which cuts across local government policy areas and has budget built into it for the dissemination of best practice. Many of the other agencies involved in encouraging e-government have also adopted this model, producing free or subsidized literature that provides examples and case studies (see, for example, Improvement and Development Agency 2002).There are, of course, a number of commercial companies that are advising on e-government, especially among the leading-edge authorities. However, the majority of local authorities rely upon their networks within local government for their information and support. Overall, therefore, the idea of cost-effective sharing of information, case studies and best practice across local government is embedded within the modernization agenda – not only within the area of e-government, but also across all other policy areas.

Conclusions This chapter began by arguing that Britain aims to be in the vanguard of the information age and that e-government is a central pillar of its strategy to achieve this aim. However, at the local level it also argues that there already exists, and, more importantly, that it is likely that there will to continue to be, a considerable degree of variation in the extent and nature of e-government implementation. In setting out the national strategy for local e-government and the activities and structures that have emerged to support it, the chapter has also provided some substance to support these arguments. In concluding the chapter, therefore, it is useful to reflect upon some of the strengths and weaknesses of the UK’s approach to implementing local e-government. Some aspects of the national policy for local e-government appear to work well and to constitute good practice. In particular, the emphasis upon providing a comprehensive range of frameworks and standards across the public sector not only makes sense but also provides incentives for organizations to collaborate.

Electronic government in Britain 41 Similarly, the identification of e-champions at both national and local levels has had a good effect in focusing attention on high-profile developments and leading by example. The role of the e-envoy in supporting aspects of both the general framework and specific developments in e-government should not be underestimated in this context. At the same time, other important actors have also played an important role in leading e-government developments, especially organizations such as the IDeA, which has acted as a central coordinator for local government projects as well as a general catalyst for innovation and continuous improvement. The creation and reinforcement of very specific targets, and the requirement for local authorities to articulate their plans to meet these targets, also appear to have had a very positive effect. At the minimum, these initiatives have helped to put e-government on the agenda of almost every local authority in the UK, and to focus both efforts and resources around the need to deliver electronic services. Alongside all of these activities, strategies aimed at improving access and take-up of electronic facilities such as the internet and digital TV have been important in developing the demand side for e-government. Overall, therefore, substantial developments in e-government have been achieved over the last five years. The UK’s e-government policy is much more focused and coherent than it was under the previous government. At the same time, however, there remain significant shortcomings in the overall strategy. The emphasis upon discovering ‘what works’ has, at times, distracted from the need for a coherent approach to implementation. In particular, the emphasis upon extensive experimentation is not always helpful in delivering coherence. Consequently, different forms of e-government are available in different areas. Such differences may well be defendable under the arguments of local autonomy and diversity. However, in a policy context which increasingly seeks to join up government to provide holistic services, the reality is that citizens in some parts of the country have a wider range of tools to access services than others. If this was a short-term problem, it would not necessarily be a concern. However, as has already been noted, the differential take-up of egovernment facilities may endure for considerably longer than the government’s plans allow for. The other major criticism of the current strategy is that it is too focused upon targets and is not sufficiently embedded in a broader understanding of modern government and the complexities that it faces. This criticism is essentially a problem of whether the e-government tools on which the modernization programme is based really address the main difficulties that governments face in making and implementing policy or in delivering services to citizens. In short, the criticism is one of ‘e-government at all costs’. Having set the 2005 targets, the concept of e-government has achieved a momentum of its own. This is best illustrated by the debate around electronic voting that has emerged over the last year or so. In January 2002, the leader of the House of Commons (Robin Cook, former foreign secretary) made a pledge that Britain would hold an e-enabled general election sometime before 2010. This pledge has now become a government commitment, despite the fact that much of its own research suggests that

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this would not be especially popular among the public and may actually serve to further exacerbate the problem of declining electoral turnout in the UK (Pratchett et al. 2002). The same appears to be at least partly true of the wider egovernment agenda. The various players in the area of e-government are committed to providing internet-based services and other such facilities. It is this imperative, and not a broader awareness of governance, that appears to drive many of the developments. Such criticisms do not invalidate the national strategy for local e-government, but they do suggest that it may need to be re-examined. In particular, the strategy needs to more clearly identify and address the major obstacles to implementation. Local authorities, of course, face the typical problem of resources in developing e-government. They lack both the financial basis and the specific skills to develop sophisticated technologies. Such problems, however, are common to all technological developments that seek to become universal. The other significant obstacle faced by many authorities to the delivery of egovernment, however, appears to be a more systemic one of vision. While some authorities have bold visions of how technology can transform their internal and external relationships, the IEG statements also reveal a general lack of vision among many authorities. A significant proportion of authorities appear to be following the lead of others without carefully thinking through how their egovernment strategies will link to their broader activities. In the long term, such approaches could lead to a general failure in e-government. It is, of course, easy to be critical of a complex and constantly evolving policy. Much has been achieved in the UK to move it from a vision of e-government to a point at which it is becoming a reality. However, there is still much to do, especially if the dangers of a two-speed information age are to be avoided.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

For more detail on the formal structure of British local government, see Wilson and Game (2002). Notwithstanding the creation of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly in 1999. HMSO, Local Government Act 2000, available online at www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk; see also DETR (1998). A priority for the former local government minister Hilary Armstrong MP – see Armstrong (1999). Council of Europe, European Charter of Local Self-Government, available online at http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/EN/Treaties/Html/122.htm. For example, local authorities and the police have joint responsibility for crime and disorder within their localities. SOCITM Insight, Improvement and Development Agency, and Local Government Association, Casting the Net Wider: Local e-Democracy 2003 (IDeA, 2003), available online at www.idea.gov.uk. A similar programme, but without additional finance, is that of the Beacon Council project, which has encouraged experimentation and cross-local authority learning in return for greater local autonomy – see www.idea.gov.uk. Office of Public Service, Government.Direct: A Prospectus for the Electronic Delivery of Government Services, Command 3438 (HMSO, 1996).

Electronic government in Britain 43 10 For supporting evidence and information on the method adopted for the study, see also Dunleavy et al. (2002), www.governmentontheweb.co.uk. 11 Available online at www.nao.gov.uk. 12 NB: only lower-tier authorities collect tax on behalf of all councils in two-tier areas. However, even allowing for this factor, it is still only a minority of tax-collecting councils that offer this facility. 13 Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford Internet Survey (2003), available online at www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research. 14 For a detailed discussion of penetration and its consequences, see Pratchett et al. (2002). 15 Digital TV Group (2001), www.dtg.org.uk/news. NB: this figure may have declined slightly since ITV Digital went bankrupt in May 2002, although other digital providers are expected to have benefited from this event. 16 See www.e-envoy.gov.uk/publications/consultations/architecture/assumptions.htm. 17 For more detail, see www.e-envoy.gov.uk/Briefings/Briefings/fs/en. 18 The IDeA is a centrally funded body that provides technical and managerial support to local authorities, as well as coordinating inter-local authority initiatives. SOCITM is a subscription organization composed of IT managers in local government and provides a point of reference and coordination for ICT policy in relation to local government. 19 For details of the commissioning process, see Pratchett et al. (2002). For a full report on the outcome of the experiments, see Electoral Commission (2002), www.electoral commission.gov.uk. 20 For more detail, see the e-envoy’s website: www.e-envoy.gov.uk. For a detailed analysis of its activities, see National Audit Office (2002). 21 The ODPM is now responsible for coordinating local government finance and policy at central level, taking over this responsibility from the now-disbanded Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions. 22 See www.idea.gov.uk. 23 See www.socitm.gov.uk. 24 For details, see www.audit-commission.gov.uk. 25 For details, see www.e-envoy.gov.uk/Resources/OtherPublicationsArticle/fs/en? CONTENT_ID=4000244&chk=SiEqeR.

References Armstrong, A. (1999) ‘The key themes of democratic renewal’, in L. Pratchett (ed.) Renewing Local Democracy?, London: Frank Cass. Audit Commission (2002) Councils and e-Government: Research So Far, available online at www.audit-commission.gov.uk. Bains Report (1972) The New Local Authorities: Management and Structure, London: Stationery Office. Bellamy, C. and Taylor, J. (1998) Governing in the Information Age, Buckingham: Open University Press. Blair, P. (2000) OK Computer?, Local Government Association, available online at www.lga.gov.uk. Byrne, T. (1992) Local Government in Britain: Everyone’s Guide to How it all Works, 5th edn, London: Penguin. Cabinet Office (1999) Modernising Government, Cm. 4310, London: Stationery Office. Cockburn, C. (1977) The Local State, London: Pluto Press. DETR (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions) (1998) Modern Local Government: In Touch with the People, London: Stationery Office.

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DTLR (Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions) (2001) Strong Local Leadership: Quality Public Services, London: Stationery Office. —— (2002) e-gov@local: Towards a National Strategy for Local e-Government, London: Stationery Office. Dunleavy, P., Margetts, H., Bastow, S., Callaghan, R. and Yared, H. (2002) Progress in Implementing e-Government in Britain, London: LSE Public Policy Group and School of Public Policy. Filkin, G., Larner, A., Dempsey, S. and Wilkinson, G. (2001) Winning the e-Revolution in Local Government, London: New Local Government Network, available online at www.nlgn.org.uk. Gill, J. ( July 2002) ‘Broaden your horizons’, Local Government Chronicle 26: 14–15. Goldsmith, M. (1995) ‘Autonomy and city limits’, in D. Judge, G. Stoker and H. Wolman (eds) Theories of Urban Politics, London: Sage. —— (ed.) (1986) New Research in Central–Local Relations, Hampshire: Gower. Hill, D. (1974) Democratic Theory and Local Government, St Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin. Improvement and Development Agency (2001) Local e-Government Now, Northampton: Society of IT Management, available online at www.idea.gov.uk/publications/order. —— (2002) Local e-Government Now 2002, Northampton: Society of IT Management, available online at www.idea.gov.uk/publications/order. KPMG (2001) e-Government for All: The KPMG Consulting e-Government Survey 2001, London: Atos KPMG Consulting. Leach, R. and Percy-Smith, J. (2001) Local Governance in Britain, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Leach, S. (2001) Reviewing Leader and Cabinet Models: A Practical Guide, London: New Local Government Network. Leach, S., Stewart, J. and Walsh, K. (1994) The Changing Organisation and Management of Local Government, London: Macmillan. Lowndes, V., Pratchett, L. and Stoker, G. (2001a) ‘Trends in public participation: part 1 – local government perspectives’, Public Administration 79(1): 205–222. —— (2001b) ‘Trends in public participation: part 2 – citizen perspectives’, Public Administration 79(2): 445–456. Lowndes, V., Stoker, G., Pratchett, L., Leach, S., Wilson, D. and Wingfield, M. (1998) Enhancing Public Participation in Local Government, London: Stationery Office. National Audit Office (1999) Government on the Web, London: Stationery Office, available online at www.nao.gov.uk. —— (2002) Government on the Web II, London: Stationery Office, available online at www.nao.gov.uk. National Statistics (2001) Internet Access, Office for National Statistics, available online at www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=8&Pos=&ColRank=1&Rank=374. Office of the e-Envoy (2000) e-Government: A Strategic Framework for Public Services in the Information Age, London: Stationery Office. —— (2001) UKOnline 2001, London: Stationery Office. Office of Public Service (1996) Government.Direct: A Prospectus for the Electronic Delivery of Government Services, Command 3438, London: Stationery Office. OFTEL (2001) The UK Telecommunications Industry: Market Report 2000/2001, London: Oftel, available online at www.ofcom.org.uk. Page, E. (1982) ‘The values of local autonomy’, Local Government Studies July/August: 21–42.

Electronic government in Britain 45 Parry, G., Moyser, G. and Day, N. (1992) Political Participation and Democracy in Britain, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Performance and Innovation Unit (2000) e-Government Services for the 21st Century, London: Stationery Office. Perri 6, Leat, D., Seltzer, K. and Stoker, G. (2002) Towards Holistic Governance: The New Reform Agenda, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Phillips, A. (1986) ‘Why does local democracy matter?’, in L. Pratchett and D. Wilson (eds) Local Democracy and Local Government, London: Macmillan. Pratchett, L. (1999a) ‘New fashions in public participation: towards greater democracy?’, Parliamentary Affairs 52(4): 616–633. —— (1999b) ‘New technologies and the modernization of local government: an analysis of biases and constraints’, Public Administration 77(4): 731–750. —— (2002) ‘Local government: from modernisation to consolidation’, Parliamentary Affairs 55(2): 331–346. —— (ed.) (1999c) Renewing Local Democracy?, London: Frank Cass. Pratchett, L., Birch, S., Candy, S., Fairweather, B., Rogerson, S., Stone, V., Watt, B. and Wingfield, M. (2002) The Implementation of Electronic Voting in the UK, London: Local Government Association. Rhodes, R.A.W. (1981) Control and Power in Central–Local Relations, Hampshire: Gower. —— (1988) Beyond Westminster and Whitehall, London: Unwin-Hyman. Society of IT Management (2002) Better Connected 2002, Northampton: Society of IT Management, available online at www.socitm.gov.uk. Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (2001) Sing When You’re Winning, London: SOLACE, available online at www.solace.org.uk. Stewart, J. and Stoker, G. (1989) The Future of Local Government, London: Macmillan. —— (1995) Local Government in the 1990s, London: Macmillan. Stoker, G. (1991) The Politics of Local Government, 2nd edn, London: Macmillan. Walsh, K. (1995) Public Services and Market Mechanisms, London: Macmillan. Wilson, D. (1999) ‘Exploring the limits of public participation in local government’, Parliamentary Affairs 52(2): 246–259. —— (2001) ‘Local government: balancing diversity and uniformity’, Parliamentary Affairs 54(2): 289–307. Wilson, D. and Game, C. (2002) Local Government in the United Kingdom, 3rd edn, London: Macmillan. Wolman, H. and Goldsmith, M. (1987) ‘Local autonomy as a meaningful analytic concept’, Urban Affairs Quarterly 26(1): 3–27.

3

Electronic government in Finland Esa Hyyryläinen

Introduction There is a need for ‘connecting people’ in Finland. It has a population of 5 million people living in an area that is only slightly smaller than Germany. Therefore, Finland has wanted to become a laboratory for the extensive use of modern communications technology. The programme of Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen’s Cabinet expressed this official aspiration as follows: ‘The information society policy programme aims to utilize the prospects offered by the information society and to maintain Finland’s status as a leading producer and user of information and communications technology’ (Council of Ministers 2003). The Information Society Programme is one of the four inter-sectoral policy programmes set forth in this programme. The emphasis of the programme is on preparation of broadband strategies, enhancing media education throughout the education system, determination of a national strategy for government services provided over the internet and other communications channels, implementation of an efficient service chain in social and health services, and revision of data protection legislation in working life. All these measures are prepared in close cooperation with the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, local authorities, and, most importantly, private sector actors (Government Information Unit 2003). The major administrative challenge in Finland is in creating a functional system that is suitable for all the diverse parts of the country. The government should be simultaneously integrative and capable of taking specific conditions into consideration. The system of electronic governance should also be integrative and flexible at the same time. Consequently, any effort to understand the Finnish electronic governance strategy, and the implementation of it, should start from the decisive institutional arrangements at the different levels of government. Study of structures is thus unavoidable here. Throughout this paper we will systematically use the concept ‘electronic governance’ instead of ‘electronic government’. Kooiman and Van Vliet (1993: 64ff.) describe governance as follows: ‘The governance concept points to the creation of a structure or an order which can not be externally imposed but is

Electronic government in Finland 47 the result of the interaction of a multiplicity of governing and each other influencing actors.’ It is difficult to imagine a field where this description would be more suitable than in advancement of electronic challenges in Finnish society and in Finnish government. It certainly is not the monopoly of the public authorities but a field characterized by a plurality of actors and activities that go beyond established sector limits.

Administrative framework and jurisdiction Institutional and administrative framework Levels of government in Finland The Finnish administrative system is characterized by the interplay of state administration and municipal self-governance. These two have different functions to perform in the politico-administrative system. Municipal self-governance stands for the quest to have locally specific solutions to locally specific administrative and service needs, and state administration is mostly interested in advancing national integration. The Constitution1 is the ultimate guarantee of municipal self-government. The first two sentences of section 121 of the Constitution declare as follows: ‘Finland is divided into municipalities, whose administration shall be based on the self-government of their residents’; and, ‘Provisions on the general principles governing municipal administration and the duties of the municipalities are laid down by an Act.’ The municipalities provide most welfare services (e.g. health services, social services, and primary and secondary education). Provision of services takes place either alone or jointly with other municipalities in the form of municipal federations. Two-thirds of all the people working for the public sector are working for the municipalities, and most of them in service provision. From the serviceoriented standpoint, the Finnish welfare state is to a large extent seen as a municipal venture (Niemi-Iilahti 1995). Central government At central government level, state administration has a clear dominance. From a top-down perspective, Finnish government is managed by the ministries. All matters to be decided by the government, including new legislation, are prepared in the relevant ministry. Ministries are also responsible for the steering of their respective policy sectors. Legislation has been their most important steering instrument, and practically the only instrument to allot new functions to the municipalities. The diversity among the municipalities has often created problems for legislators. The generic nature of legislation sets limits for municipalities to take their specific conditions into consideration in service provision. State grants have also been used as a ‘softer’ steering instrument towards the municipalities. Previously, most state grants were earmarked for specific

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administrative and welfare functions. Currently, they are primarily granted as a lump sum to the municipalities as compensation for all the governmental functions the municipalities are taking care of. The core idea behind state grants reform, and also the Local Government Act of 1995,2 was to expand the autonomy of municipalities, and to restrict the role of central government to one of supervising the legality of municipal actions (Pulma 1999). It is questionable whether this has actually been the case in practice. For instance, cuts in state grants have weakened the possibilities of municipalities to make their own choices. There are also several agencies at central government level. The role of the agencies is about the same as in Sweden, from where the United Kingdom originally adopted their idea for autonomous executive agencies. At the beginning of the 1990s, a reorganization of tasks was implemented at central government. Membership of the European Union was used as one motivation for that reform, but there existed also a considerable continuity in the discussion. The Finnish reform was comparable to most ‘core business-seeking’ central government reforms from that era. When it already had the agencies, there were some specific features in the Finnish reform. Some agencies were abolished, and many had to find a different role. In some cases, the former agency was divided into smaller units. The common idea was to highlight the role of the ministries as the main steering organizations in their respective policy sectors. As a consequence of that reform, the personnel of many ministries increased at that time. New EU-related tasks have also required some increase in personnel in some of the ministries. Agencies still remained in the system. The amount of agencies even increased during the reform. Some new agencies have also been established recently. Their situation is still not the same. Their position was previously related to their steering role, and that is currently clearly in the hands of the respective ministries. Agencies perform different functions. Some of them are currently acting on a commercial basis, and have also taken the organizational-legal form of a public enterprise, public company or private company (Salminen and Viinamäki 2001). The majority of them are still government offices. They are involved in administering or supervising public and private actors in some field of the society. Electronic commerce and governance are examples of such fields, where a recently reorganized and renamed agency, the Finnish Communications Regulation Agency (FICORA), has a clear watchdog role. The mission of FICORA, and similar ‘watchdog agencies’ at other levels, is to look after the public interest in fields where changes are often prompt and unanticipated. It is the responsibility of the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities (ALFRA)3 to defend municipal interests in relation to the government. ALFRA has an important role at every table where the relationship between the state and the municipalities is discussed. The current association is an amalgamation of three associations that represented the interests of towns and cities, rural municipalities, and Swedish-speaking municipalities respectively. The legal status of ALFRA is one of a voluntary association, and it cannot force its members to implement any of its strategies. That has not been a major

Electronic government in Finland 49 problem. The municipalities are using it as an adviser and as their representative. The role of ALFRA is important in advancing an information society and electronic governance. ALFRA is acting as the foremost partner with the government in almost everything that is done to ensure the success of electronic governance advancement programmes. For instance, in the government action programme for advancement of electronic governance during 2002 and 2003, it was directly mentioned in 9 out of 16 propositions as an official partner in charge of implementing the proposals.4 ALFRA can only give recommendations to the municipalities, and therefore its involvement does not necessarily guarantee that municipalities are keeping the same pace in electronic governance as other levels of government. Direct involvement of different municipalities is also vital. This takes place particularly in the form of different joint projects. In fact, the whole field of advancing electronic governance in Finland may be best understood in relation to a complex nexus of projects that include organizations from the government, the municipalities, interest organizations, associations and businesses. Regional government State administration at the regional level is divided between five different parallel organizations. Provincial State Offices in five provinces, and in the autonomous island of Aland, take care of the role of general regional administration. Each Provincial State Office is a joint regional authority of seven different ministries. Besides Provincial State Offices, there are fifteen Employment and Economic Development Centres for the service of businesses and farmers, thirteen Regional Environment Centres for environmental protection in cooperation with the municipalities, eleven Occupational Safety and Health Centres for supervision of regulations in work and work places, and three Environmental Permit Authorities for granting environmental permits. Formerly, Finland had eleven provinces (and Aland), and Provincial State Offices had a clear governing role towards the municipalities in their respective areas. This situation changed when regional councils were established. Regional councils are based on the cooperation of the municipalities in a region. They took over some of the responsibilities of state regional administration, most notably those connected to regional economic development and land-use planning. Their role represents a new kind of inter-municipal cooperation. Previously, this took place mostly in the form of municipal federations and concentrated on welfare service provision. Regional councils are formally statutory joint municipal authorities operating according to the principles of local self-government. They also have other tasks besides their statutory responsibilities. Local government The municipalities are basic administrative units at the local level. They provide most welfare services and allow citizen participation (Niemi-Iilahti 2001: 40–57).

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At the moment, there are almost 450 self-governing municipalities in Finland. The average population of each municipality is around 12,000 inhabitants. They all have the same rights and exactly the same legal obligations to fulfil. Finnish legislation has always considered municipalities as one group, where larger ones do not have wider legal authority (Ryynänen 1995). The smallest municipality, Sottunga in Aland, with 128 inhabitants, must provide the same basic services in its area as the biggest one, Helsinki, with around 560,000 inhabitants, must provide. It also has a similar kind of self-government. Even if municipalities and municipal federations are the main providers of services, they do not take care of all administrative functions at the local level. The state also has some administrative functions to perform locally. Policing, prosecuting and register-holding are examples of those administrative functions that are the concern of State Local Administration Offices. Legislative and regulative authorities Legislative authorities Even if municipalities have the right to give ordinances in their area, legislation is the monopoly of the parliament and the European Union. Finland has a unicameral parliament, which has 200 MPs. Legislation is mostly submitted to the parliament by the Cabinet, but MPs also have the right to submit legislative initiatives. Most legislative work takes place in parliamentary committees. After preliminary plenum session, all legislative initiatives will be discussed in some parliamentary committee, which can suggest amendments to the government bill. Committees often call public officials, researchers or interest organization officials to act as experts in their meetings. After committee phase, the bill will return to plenum session for approval or rejection. A simple majority of votes is enough if the question is not about an Act which regards constitutional law. Then it requires a more complicated procedure. The president, the government and the ministries have the right to give decrees. The function of all these decrees is to give further provisions on the implementation of Acts. The municipalities have two kinds of functions (Modeen 1997). To quote section 2 of the Finnish Local Government Act: Local authorities shall perform the functions that they have undertaken by virtue of their autonomy and those laid down for them in the law. Local authorities may not be allotted new functions or duties, nor shall they be deprived of functions or rights, other than by passing legislation to this effect. In practice, there is continuous discussion about the municipalities’ role. New legislation has the natural tendency to allot new duties to municipalities, which, naturally, bearing in mind the scarcity of available financial and personnel resources, is something that worries the municipalities and ALFRA.

Electronic government in Finland 51 Regulation of electronic communications and information society services Electronic commerce and governance have also created a need for some new regulation. The role of two agencies should be mentioned here. FICORA acts as a general administrative authority for issues concerning electronic communications and services. The Finnish National Archives, conversely, has the right to impose regulations on practices used when archiving electronic documents. The main task of both these agencies is to establish common practices for electronic commerce, governance and other forms of digital interaction. For instance, FICORA is making numerous decisions yearly. They are mostly technical ones but have a relatively big impact on the practices of digital interaction inside Finland. The role of FICORA seems to be of greater importance. Its specific duty is to uphold the efficiency of the communications market and to make sure that citizens have access to competitive and technically advanced communications services. It issues technical regulations and coordinates standardization work at the national level. It also supervises the technical functioning and security of communications networks, coordinates numbering in telecommunications networks, and allocates number blocks and codes for operators. FICORA also has duties concerning protection of privacy and data security in electronic communications, and is involved in communications security work. Regulation in the field of information management Electronic governance is a topic which is parallel with information management in the government. The responsibility for the steering and coordination of information management lies in the hands of the Ministry of Finance. It has the authority to impose regulations and give instructions on information and communications technology (ICT) usage for state administration. All important regulations and instructions are also handled by the Government Information Management Steering Committee, which is a fixed-term body for inter-ministerial ICT coordination in government. The Ministry of Finance has also appointed assisting bodies to the Steering Committee to handle questions concerning information security, information services of the Cabinet and the interoperability of information systems inside government (Ministry of Finance 2000). As far as municipalities are concerned, a body to be mentioned here is the Advisory Board on Information Management in Public Administration (JUHTA).5 It was established in 1988 under the framework of the Ministry of the Interior to advance information management cooperation between the government and the municipalities. The Advisory Board coordinates the development of information technology, information management and electronic services in central and local government, promotes the use of information technology in public administration, defines principles in its area of competence, and, most notably, sets standards and draws up guidelines related to its area of competence (JHS recommendations).

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A significant part of the JHS recommendations for public administration is related to the provision of electronic services, for example message-based data transfer, websites, use of email, contact information indexes, meta-information in electronic documents and forms, as well as customer-friendly service indexes. In practice, different working groups working loosely within the JUHTA structure are responsible for the actual work of preparing the recommendations. Any public authority can initiate a recommendation. All recommendations are widely distributed and discussed throughout the government before they can be approved officially. The appointed Advisory Board will always make the final decision concerning the recommendation. The legal status of JHS recommendations is rather low; they are only recommendations, not binding norms. Even if they have contributed to the advancement of electronic governance, their role is not as significant as it could be. Therefore, strengthening their role was one of the main proposed measures included in the government action programme for electronic governance6 for 2002 and 2003. It is also emphasized in the programme of the Vanhanen Cabinet, which started in office during 2003. Jurisdiction for administration Finnish municipalities have the right to taxation besides the state and the Church. It is a de facto cornerstone of their autonomy. At the moment, taxation brings in approximately 48 per cent of their total revenue. The tax percentage is decided locally, and therefore there are substantial differences in taxes in different municipalities. The current variation is from 15 per cent to 19.75 per cent of one’s income. In order to balance the municipal economy, and to give some compensation to municipalities for taking care of welfare provision, the state grants subsidies to all municipalities. The percentage of state grants in the municipal economy is approximately 13 per cent. Taxation, state grants and operating revenues are the main forms of municipal revenues.7 The current Local Government Act of 19958 leaves room for diverse organizational structures in municipalities. The highest municipal body is the democratically elected municipal council, and executive functions are carried out under the leadership of the municipal board and municipal manager. Different municipal sectors (e.g. schools, social services, health services, technical services, the environment) are led by politically elected sector boards and sector administrative managers. In very many municipalities, the organization was changed during the 1990s. It has mostly meant the establishment of joint sector boards and more emphasis being given to managerial autonomy. This increased municipal autonomy, and the restructuring of organizations and activities, should be analysed in relation to the developments of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. During this era, central and local government were closely linked together, and ‘the traditional idea of local government, consisting of a multitude of differentiated and independent local governments with varying functions and structures, was getting obscure’. This led to a situation where ‘the autonomy of local governments was in practice challenged by excessive state

Electronic government in Finland 53 control’, and where ‘most municipal functions and structures were at that point in time regulated by the state with effective policy instruments’ (Niemi-Iilahti 1995). Legislation was the most effective of these policy instruments. Anita Niemi-Iilahti (1995: 276–277) describes its role as follows: The process of constructing a welfare state was largely implemented by specific legislation which was separately passed for each of the functions and duties of the municipalities should take care of [sic]. And for each function, a special board and a special office were needed. Even the professional criteria of the municipal personnel in different welfare sectors were regulated in detail. Compared to that situation, the basic setting has been thoroughly changed. Naturally, not all regulation has been removed. The Local Government Act still sets certain boundaries for municipalities to take into consideration when making decisions on how to take care of their duties. ‘The Act is considered to provide possibilities – it does not force a certain model on municipalities, but sets boundary conditions within which they may make choices’ (Ryynänen 1995). The same can be said about specific legislation. Even if there have been similar deregulation developments in this area, specific legislation is still steering the activities of the municipalities. Deregulation has not been accepted without any reservations. Ryynänen (1995) points to the varying attitudes of ministries ‘as to the degree to which government should meddle in the affairs of municipalities’. It has been doubted by some ministries whether the citizens will receive equal treatment in all municipalities. For instance, health care is an area in which this doubt is probably justifiable. Contacts between the authorities and citizens Given that in Finland most welfare services are municipal, the most important contact is the one between the citizen and her municipality. Municipalities have a leading role in welfare services, such as comprehensive schools, libraries, health care centres and hospitals, day-care centres, and old age home and welfare payments, and in infrastructure services, such as water supply, waste management, road construction and maintenance, parks, and fire brigades. Contacts in these areas take place at the grass-roots level of government. A good deal of these kinds of contacts can be, and have been, transferred into digital media. The Vanhanen Cabinet has strongly emphasized advancement of digital services on its agenda. One measure used to implement this goal is to display public and private sector best practices through a specific website. Best of these will receive annual awards for their digital service solutions (Government Information Unit 2003). Compared to the relationship between citizens and municipalities, contacts with the central levels of state are much rarer by nature. Public officials working at the central level of government are mostly engaged in administrative work

54 Esa Hyyryläinen unknown to ordinary citizens. Contacts with state public officials at regional and local levels are much more common. After years of systematic deregulation efforts, there are still some permits you need to have from regional and local authorities. Some services are also needed from time to time. For instance, a citizen may need to change her tax code. In many cases, one finds the necessary forms on the tax administration website, and even to some extent one initiates administrative actions by sending them electronically. Using the phone is still the main option for anyone not attending the office in person. Different authorities have been trying to implement the distribution of electronic services mostly by themselves. A few years back, the Ministry of the Interior established a national Citizens’ Electronic Forms Service9 in cooperation with other authorities and Edita Prima Ltd. This service produces, maintains and distributes public administration forms for citizens and businesses. All public service producers have the possibility to join the service. Currently, the service includes about 700 forms from different authorities, and it is continuously expanding. Some available forms can be filled in online; others must be printed out and filled in by hand. Coordination and cooperation of all governmental levels Cooperation and coordination between central and regional government Coordination and cooperation between the different levels of government should be easier in a unitary state where one level of government is absent. Compared to a federal state, there naturally are differences. The role of central government is more essential and extensive. Finnish central government deals with issues that belong to the jurisdiction of states in a federal government. Therefore, Finnish government is by nature more centralized than a federal government. As policies are implemented at regional and local levels, the ministries need to have instruments to steer development at these levels. During the 1990s, the government and most municipalities adopted a system of performance steering (Naschold 1995). The government’s policy goals, for the advancement of the information society and electronic governance, are defined in the programme of the Cabinet. Ministries then promote the implementation of these goals through the performance applications in their administrative areas. The most important instrument is the state budget, which emphasizes performance goals instead of detailed information on inputs. The actual performance-steering system is based on performance contracting. The balance of results to be achieved and available resources will be negotiated between a ministry and agencies functioning under its supervision (Ministry of Finance 2001). This leaves two roles for regional government: to take care of policy implementation in its area, and to steer and supervise local government units in their task of implementing government policies. State local administration clearly functions under the supervision of regional administration. The relationship

Electronic government in Finland 55 with the municipalities is far more complex. Provincial State Offices used to have a clear supervising role in relation to municipalities. Most of their competences disappeared in the reforms of the 1990s, and mostly they are now engaged in gathering and sharing information. Other regional organizations have not taken this kind of supervising role towards municipalities either. Cooperation and coordination between central and local government The relationship between central and local government is the one that changed the most during the 1990s. The focus of this change was a shift towards deregulation and steering from a distance. A good example of this is the case of the National Board of Schools in the educational sector. It had the authority to steer the functioning of all schools in Finland with letters that gave detailed instructions. When the National Board of Schools changed into the National Board of Education in 1991, this steering activity came to an end. The National Board of Education is not primarily a steering authority. Its main areas of operation are connected to the development of education, the evaluation of education and the provision of support services. Even if this may be one of the finest examples of deregulation and steering from a distance in Finland, it is not a unique case. Development has been about the same elsewhere in the government. Most central government agencies no longer have a direct steering role towards local-level units. Municipal affairs are the concern of several ministries. The Ministry of the Interior has the general responsibility for municipal legislation, administration, finances, and the promotion of cooperation between the state and municipalities. It also takes care of regional development tasks related to municipalities. The Ministry of Justice takes care of issues concerning municipal elections. The Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Transport and Communications, and the Ministry of Trade and Industry are responsible for issues concerning municipal infrastructure. The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health have the responsibility for basic municipal services, and they also handle central government transfers concerning these services. The Ministry of Finance, in turn, takes care of municipal tax matters, including calculating the municipalities’ share of collectively collected corporate taxes. Cooperation and coordination between regional and local government Provincial State Offices were often understood as symbols of the asymmetry between the state and the municipalities. They have therefore been the main targets for policy-makers in their efforts to get rid of top-down control of local government. Their number is smaller, and they have also lost their role in relation to central government grants and the supervision of municipalities. Furthermore, we can notice that provincial administrative courts no longer function within the Provincial State Offices; that regional councils have taken their role in regional development, and Regional Environment Centres theirs in

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planning and environmental tasks; and that most aspects of judicial administration and the issuing of permits have also been removed elsewhere. Their functions still cover social welfare and health administration (under the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health), educational and cultural administration (Ministry of Education), police administration, the rescue services (Ministry of the Interior), transport (Ministry of Traffic and Communications), consumer affairs, competition and foodstuffs supervision (Ministry of Trade and Industry), veterinary services and animal welfare (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry), and some aspects of judicial administration (Ministry of Justice). Cooperation and coordination inside central government A good example of problems between different ministries was seen at the time of Finnish membership in the European Union. The problem then was to create a system for coordinating negotiations with the EU. Two rival models existed at that time. One emphasized a need for coordination. The argument was that EU issues should be seen as an extension of diplomacy, and therefore that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should have a clear coordinating role in EU decisionmaking in relation to other ministries. The other model took the expertise of sector ministries as the starting point, and claimed that ministries should be in charge of their respective policy-making activities inside Finland as well as with the European Union. The solution at that time was a rather formal interministry coordination system that tried to combine features of both models. Something rather similar is taking place in the advancement of electronic governance. Even if there are some joint bodies (steering committees, working groups, project groups, etc.) for different ministries, one can claim that for the most part, all ministries are trying to match the requirements on their own. All ministries have initiated information society projects, and for the most part, these projects have only weak links to other projects implemented under the same policy. The relationship between ministries and central government agencies is currently far more uncomplicated. The reform of the 1990s strengthened the position of the ministries. They are taking care of policy-making activities. The role of the agencies is concentrated into development, research, administration of programmes, supervision or even business. Therefore, major disputes are not to be expected between the ministries and the agencies. Cooperation and coordination inside regional government Employment and Regional Development Centres and Regional Environment Centres are amalgamations of several former organizations. Functioning within one organizational structure has increased possibilities for coordination. Intraorganizational coordination should be far more uncomplicated than inter-organizational coordination. There has nevertheless been some talk about the coherence inside these new amalgamations. There are mainly two problems. These centres are still also working under several ministries. A recent audit of

Electronic government in Finland 57 Employment and Regional Development Centres confirmed that the formal cooperative and coordinative system is working, but that there are still some problems in informal links between the ministries (Valtiontalouden tarkastusvirasto 2001). This can probably be explained to some extent by referring to another obvious problem of these amalgamations. The culture and social networks of the old organization do not fade away instantly. People are simply making use of the networks they have, and this has left less room for new networks to develop (Stenvall and Harisalo 2000). On the other hand, much of the activities that used to take place inside Provincial State Offices have now been removed elsewhere. Therefore, there exist some new situations where the possibility for intra-organizational coordination has been removed, and authorities now have to rely on coordination at the inter-organizational level. Cooperation and coordination inside local government Municipal federations are the best examples of cooperation and coordination at the local level. There are numerous examples of welfare services – for instance hospitals, health centres, comprehensive schools, vocational schools – which are provided jointly. In some cases, cooperation has created possibilities for municipal amalgamations. On the other hand, when the biggest financial challenges are covered in cooperation with others, there exists less pressure to go into bigger-sized municipalities. Re-engineering and dispute resolution between governmental levels Re-engineering of administrative processes is easiest to understand as the challenge of reorganizing the government. To have a functional administrative system from central to local government, and from state administration to the municipalities and municipal federations, is not necessarily an easy task to accomplish. It does not make it any easier that the general responsibility for administrative reorganization in Finland is divided between the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of the Interior. The Ministry of Finance is in charge of reorganization at the central level, and the Ministry of the Interior at the regional and local levels. The Ministry of the Interior has only limited authority to affect the course of action at municipalities. It has, for instance, no right to make decisions about municipal amalgamations. The state has the capacity to make amalgamation financially easier with some available state grants. This policy has been somewhat successful. At the moment, there are several amalgamations taking place. The standard procedure is that municipal councils will make the decision after the recommendation of a municipal referendum. The discretion of the state concerning its relationship with the municipal sector is also otherwise constrained. Current Local Government Act legislation on state grants and statutes makes consultations between the state and the

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municipalities obligatory. The third sentence of section 8 of the Finnish Local Government Act declares: The legislation on local authorities, matters of municipal administration and finances that are important and far-reaching in principle, and coordination of State and municipal finances shall be dealt with in a negotiating procedure between the State and local authorities, provisions on which will be laid down by decree. The main arena for these consultations is the Joint Advisory Body for Municipal Finance and Administration. All major issues concerning municipal finances and administration, and the relations between state and municipalities, are discussed in this joint body. Some questions are also discussed at a higher political level (Tetri 1999). The Joint Advisory Body is a permanent cooperative arrangement between the state and the municipalities. It has been appointed by the Ministry of the Interior in cooperation with ALFRA and the municipalities. Also, the position of legislation should be remembered here. When administrative procedures are defined as completely as possible, there is very little room for disputes on limits of discretion between different authorities. For the most part, the procedures in state administration and in the municipalities follow similar lines. The citizens have approximately the same rights in relation to all public authorities, and there are no major differences in the way administration is taken care of in state and municipal organizations. All authorities also have the legal obligation to transfer citizens and their misplaced documents to the proper authority. Even after years of continuing deregulation, it is still the responsibility of the state to ensure that the municipalities are acting according to legislation, which, on the other hand, should always pay attention to the municipalities’ constitutional right to self-government. The first two sentences of section 8 of the Finnish Local Government Act constitute the legal basis for this relationship: The Ministry of the Interior shall monitor the operations and finances of local authorities in general and ensure that municipal autonomy is taken into account in the preparation of legislation concerning local authorities … Following a procedural appeal, the provincial State office can investigate whether a local authority has acted in accordance with the current law. Interdependencies in provision of public services There is a great deal of cooperation between the different levels of government in service provision, at least at the grass-roots level of government. For instance, even if municipalities are providing basic services for the citizens, the funding of service provision is in some municipalities heavily dependent on state grants. Other revenues in many municipalities are insufficient to provide the services as required by the legislation. Prior to the latest municipal sector reforms, this

Electronic government in Finland 59 created room for detailed governmental steering of municipal activities. Today, however, this is no longer the case, with lump-sum state grants now being the main form of financial transfer from the state to the municipalities. One way to provide some understanding about this cooperation is to look at the situation from the point of view of the ordinary customer. Consider, for instance, the case of a hypothetical Finn who has been made unemployed, has problems with alcohol, and has not been able to get an apartment from free housing markets. She is a good example of a citizen who needs to be served in cooperation with different authorities. The legal basis to this cooperation is mostly to be found in specific legislation, in this case in legislation on employment, public housing, and social and health care. Specific legislation defines the rights of ordinary citizens and the duties of different state and municipal authorities. Unemployment is the concern of the state; to be more exact, the concern of regional and local labour authorities. The local employment office is not responsible for paying unemployment benefits. That is the role of the national Social Insurance Institution (SII) and private unemployment funds that function mostly under the framework provided by professional and trade unions. Housing arrangements assumed here require the cooperation of municipal housing departments and the SII, which is currently taking care of paying the subsidies. The alcohol problem would obviously mean here that representatives of municipal social work departments, health centres, employment offices and possibly also the SII would try to solve the problems together. No single organization would be able to manage on its own. There are dozens of similar situations which clearly show that, in reality, services must be provided in cooperation, and there are some very important dependencies between different authorities in a Nordic welfare state such as Finland. There is probably even more inter-authority cooperation than required formally by the legislation. People at the grass-roots level of government are making use of their networks to solve the problems they face. Sending electronic mail to a colleague is one of the easiest ways to do this. Often, it is also enough, but there might be more requirements to fulfil if cooperation at a deeper level is needed. Then the challenge is about integrating the systems. This is a tough challenge for registering, communications, data processing systems, practices, procedures, etc. In many cases, the real challenge lies in integrating public and private (data) systems into an efficient and effective system. A good example of success in this respect is the moving notification service, which is provided by the Population Register Centre. When a citizen reports a change in her address on their online system, it will be instantly forwarded electronically to various government departments, municipalities and the postal service, as well as to the utilities and financial institutions such as banks, insurance companies, etc. where she holds accounts.10 Another example of this kind of cooperation is the practice of sending tax proposals. Each spring, around 3 million Finns get a tax proposal from their tax office outlining their total tax bill. This proposal is based on information on their pay, social benefits and property that has been sent digitally to

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the tax administration service by employers, insurance companies, authorities, etc. If the citizens find their proposals to be correct, and 70 per cent do, they do not have to do anything. They can also suggest corrections. The main reason for the high acceptance rate of the proposals is the fact that each proposal is based on all the information available. The close cooperation between the tax administration service and employers is a guarantee of that. The essential role of the personal identity number in Finland The real technical basis for all integrated data systems in Finland is no doubt the extensive use of the personal identity number (formerly the social security number), which has been in operation since 1964.11 This identity number is used for identification purposes in all kinds of public and private organizations, for example in banks, insurance companies, hospitals and schools, as well as in the registers of different public authorities. This kind of practice is rare outside the Nordic countries. Apparently, this is the minimum requirement for integrating data systems technically. Common usage of personal identity numbers guarantees possibilities to make sure that the question is about the same person, thus allowing the transfer of information between different organizations. Extensive use of personal identity numbers is a topic that has prompted public discussion from time to time. Actually, there have been no severe problems, but people are not enthusiastic to give their identity number to various businesses. Therefore, the Finnish Data Protection Ombudsman gets many complaints and enquiries yearly concerning this issue. The Ombudsman has evaluated that gains from extensive use of the number no doubt exceed possible threats. He has emphasized citizens’ trust in the register authorities, and has claimed that maintaining that trust is the key to the future of the Finnish personal identity number system.12 Trust is based on a long tradition. The authorities have been collecting information on citizens since the sixteenth century, when Finland was under Swedish rule. Today, this tradition is carried out in a very modern fashion. Finnish population register authorities have for instance been using computers since the 1970s. The nationwide Central Population Register, which is the core data system for all the authorities in Finland, was established then. This national register contains the official information for the entire country on Finnish citizens and foreign citizens living permanently in Finland, and on different buildings and residences and their holders. The system also contains data on real estate units and diverse office and business premises. Businesses and also private citizens may obtain, for example, address information from this register. The moving notification service and the tax proposal are examples of systems that are based on the use of personal identity numbers and the Central Population Register. The moving notification service is nevertheless the main instrument that keeps the register updated. It is the legal obligation of all people permanently living in Finland to make a notification whenever they move. This is required mainly for the purposes of Finnish authorities. As the same identity

Electronic government in Finland 61 number is valid for transferring information to private companies as well, they have the possibility to buy this service from the Population Register Service.

National electronic governance strategies Information communications technology infrastructure in Finland Finland is among the world leaders in mobile phone and internet access. Table 3.1 illustrates the development in this field since 1980. The openness of administration is highly valued in Finland, and Finnish authorities want to understand more in terms of openness than the standard modern notion of transparent administration actually stands for. In that respect, the main digital media, the internet and mobile phones, have been valuable additional instruments of openness in government. The public sector was initially the leading user of computers in Finland, and it still is among the biggest ICT users in Finland. Currently, it is estimated that 80 per cent of government officials have email facilities and can be reached through the internet. Practically all key-position civil and public servants have email addresses. The remaining 20

Table 3.1 Communications technology in Finland Technology

Year 1980

1990

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001a

1,739

2,670

2,799

2,802

2,850

2,841

2,850

2,848

2,846

Mobile phones (’000s)

23

258

1,039

1,502

2,163

2,947

3,364

3,729

4,100

Fixed phone access (% of population)

36

53

55

55

55

55

55

55

55

Mobile phone access (% of population)

0.5

5

20

29

42

57

65

72

80

41

56

88

107

121

149

169b

Fixed phones (’000s)

Internet access (% of population) Source: Statistics Finland. Notes a estimate b July

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per cent consists mainly of technical workers and support functions staff. In many cases, they have mobile phone access through their employers. The common practice is to have contact information shown, for instance, on the office website. Even the phone number of the prime minister and other ministers is public information in Finland. Naturally, when you call, you probably end up speaking to the secretary. Anyone looking for information on public officials can also use the JULHA directory service.13 It was set up on the initiative of the Ministry of the Interior. JULHA is administered by the Population Register Centre, which has outsourced technical implementation, maintenance and marketing of that service to a private company, Elisa Internet. JULHA is currently the most comprehensive and up-to-date electronic public sector contact directory maintained in Finland. It contains the internet addresses and contact information for various public organizations, and also the contact information for state and municipal authorities, such as email addresses, phone numbers, postal addresses, world wide web addresses, job titles, role certificates, as well as general descriptions of what each person does. Registration to JULHA is not free for public organizations, and therefore JULHA contains information of their contact addresses only if they have made a contract with the providers of the JULHA directory. At present, information on all public organizations is not available from JULHA. National strategy for implementing electronic governance A straight quotation from an Accenture study makes a perfect start for an analysis of Finnish electronic governance strategy and its implementation: Unlike many other eGovernment leaders in the study, Finland does not have a clearly articulated vision for eGovernment, or a coordinated leadership structure to drive the delivery of integrated online government services. Although the Information Society Advisory Board is responsible for promoting eGovernment, Ministries independently implement their own Information Society programs. The Ministry of Finance steers and coordinates Information Management and the use of Information and Communications Technology in government. (Accenture 2002) They were not the first ones to make that statement. A decade earlier, the OECD congratulated Finland for its high level of ICT penetration and knowhow, and ended up affirming that the country lacked a clear strategy. At the same time, however, the information society was strongly emphasized in all Finnish reforms as being beneficial to the success and well-being of the country.14 This is true. Finland has neither a centralized vision on electronic governance nor a centralized governance structure to take care of its implementation.

Electronic government in Finland 63 Nevertheless, Finland has remained among the top nations in Accenture evaluations, and in all other evaluations on this issue. Apparently, the arrangements in Finland have in the end been most effective in advancing electronic governance. If we believe that ‘organizational arrangements should be judged by their results, and not by their apparent rationality’ (Chisholm 1989), the advancement of electronic governance in Finland has been rather successful. One has to admit that this kind of belief in rationality is not that common among public management scholars and practitioners. It is far more common to make evaluations based on assumptions of ‘apparent rationality’. This is also true when Finnish electronic governance strategy is in question. The lack of a clearly articulated vision and of coordination is commonly presented as the main problem of the Finnish approach to the advancement of electronic governance. This problem is also recognized in the latest propositions to reform the system. It was proposed that already-existing coordinating bodies, the Information Society Advisory Board in general and the Ministry of Finance in the area of information management, should have stronger coordinating roles in electronic governance. Another question is how this lack of coordination can actually be solved. In the end, this question concerns the lack of inter-ministerial coordination, which is a much more fundamental problem of governance in Finland. Finnish administrative science scholars often speak about ‘pipeline administration’ when referring to the tendency of ministries to see their administrative sectors as independent, from the top in Helsinki through to local levels. Inter-ministerial cooperation seems for them not to be a priority. Therefore, any reform which suggests that one ministry should have a coordinating role towards the others is among the most difficult to implement in Finland. As far as the advancement of the information society and electronic governance is concerned, the decisive moment may have been in 1995. Each ministry was then required to prepare a detailed action plan on how they would implement the government’s information society strategy principles. Since then, they have mostly been engaged in their respective policy challenges. The Vanhanen Cabinet is trying to solve this problem by managing the Information Society Programme as one of the four inter-sectoral policy programmes on its agenda. Prime Minister Vanhanen is chairing a specific inter-ministerial group set up for this programme. The programme also has a programme director to take care of inter-ministerial coordination (Government Information Unit 2003). In order to a give an impression of how all single-ministry lead projects and various organizations are brought together into a functional system, we need to present a picture (see Figure 3.1). The picture is not an accurate description of all the linkages between different actors and activities, but gives some clues as to the complexity of the system. The most recent rearrangements, the inter-ministerial group and the programme director for the Information Society Programme, and the Council for Information Society are not included in this picture. The contents of the Information Society Programme of the Vanhanen Cabinet were confirmed at a plenary session of the Cabinet in September 2003. The Cabinet will make more decisions on the programme measures later. Therefore, it is not

Note * This is a modified version of a diagram that can be found in several of the government’s electronic governance advancement documents. See, for example, Accenture (2001).

Figure 3.1 The system for advancement of electronic governance in Finland*

Electronic government in Finland 65 clear how these new arrangements relate to older ones. It is likely that the basic organizational setting remains about the same, but new arrangements help to give the Information Society Programme stronger emphasis in relation to other government policies. The role of existing organizations and the essence of key projects will be clarified in the following sections of this chapter. Electronic service delivery targets Definition of electronic service delivery targets cannot be separated from other decisions on the level of organization of public services. One thing is apparent – that the Finnish government clearly wants to take the challenge of electronic services into consideration in its plans, strategies and practices. Each state agency has drawn up an electronic services strategy that is based on an appraisal of user needs. This strategy is then integrated with the overall service strategy of the agency. All strategies include statements on goals, means, partnerships, management support, personnel training and available resources. The Ministry of Finance, which has overall responsibility for the coordination of information management in government, will act as the general coordinator of electronic services in the state administration. ALFRA will have approximately the same role in the municipal sector. These two will give guidelines for formulating strategies in state agencies and in the municipalities. Each ministry will incorporate these strategies into their planning and budgeting cycle. Each ministry is also expected to initiate their own online service projects that will contribute to the creation of replicable models for electronic service delivery. The implementation of strategies and the initiation of projects will definitely require the agencies to provide their staff and management with appropriate ICT skills. One essential service delivery target is to make extensive use of the information that is already in the possession of the government. Wherever possible, citizens are expected to be given the opportunity to use interactive forms prefilled with information already known by the government. The tax proposal is probably the best example of this kind of system in Finland. It is totally based on information that has been collected previously in cooperation with the private sector and different public authorities. Similar examples can be traced in other administrative sectors. The authorities now receive a lot of information from the Population Register Centre. Formerly, it was mainly the task of citizens to deliver information to the different authorities. The same principle is being considered for the gathering of data from private companies. Most big companies today are delivering their information to the appropriate authorities in electronic form, and attempts have been made to offer the same service to small- and medium-sized enterprises in cooperation with the private sector (Köngäs 2001). The necessary electronic forms are provided by different authorities.

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Pilot projects and nationwide support for electronic governance The Finnish electronic governance strategy can be characterized as a combination of pilot projects and nationwide support for electronic governance. Pilot projects have been widely utilized to gain the required experience of possible problems and their solutions. The end of a project has meant, almost without exception, the beginning of something else. New projects have inherited ideas from previous projects, and their main ideas have been transferred into new projects or to permanent organizations of the government. A change of Cabinet in 2003 was no exception to this rule. The new Cabinet is implementing activities which were planned during the previous Lipponen Cabinet. All the measures that were in place at the early stages of the implementation of the new Cabinet’s Information Society Programme were based on information gathered in governmental development projects during the late 1990s and early 2000. There are at least four available methods of sharing good practice in the field of electronic governance. The most informal one is to trust the sharing of information through electronic mailing lists or through established professional or scientific journals. The other available option, which has been largely adopted in Finland, is to make use of partnerships in different developmental projects. Doing something together is almost always about the readiness to share practices with others. But even this kind of cooperation is still rather informal in nature. If a more formal channel is considered necessary, then it is possible to share experiences in the form of a JHS recommendation through the mechanism provided by the Advisory Board on Information Management in Public Administration. Every JHS recommendation is widely discussed throughout the government before any decision is taken, and therefore even the preparatory stage will advance the sharing of practices. The fourth option, and also the most formal one, is to prepare new legislation on the basis of experience. For some reason, these more formal methods have not been widely adopted in Finland, even if the role of norms is usually very strong in Finnish government. New legislation has mainly considered amendments that have been absolutely necessary, and even the role of JHS recommendations is not as noteworthy as it could be. Rather, the emphasis has clearly been on sharing good practice through developmental projects. Some of the most important electronic governance advancement projects are presented below. JUNA project One project in particular has been of great importance in advancing electronic governance in Finland. The Ministry of the Interior set up the JUNA project in the summer of 1999 to advance electronic governance targets according to the programme of Paavo Lipponen’s II Cabinet. The acronym JUNA (‘train’) comes from the Finnish for Development Project of Electronic Governance.15 The JUNA project had six major targets: to evaluate the possibilities and limitations of electronic services; to ensure government-wide electronic services; to create

Electronic government in Finland 67 better opportunities for citizens, businesses and communities to make use of ICT in public services; to enhance the quality of public services; to avoid the alienation and unbalanced development of regions; and to have better and more cost-effective public services. The letter of appointment of the JUNA project also clarified the means by which it was to achieve its targets. JUNA was to be based on the widest cooperation possible. It was also to have a supporting and coordinating role towards other projects aiming at the advancement of the information society and electronic governance. The operational management of the JUNA project was to be carried out by a small unit, the JUNA team, working within the Ministry of the Interior. The actual JUNA project had four sub-projects, each representing an important service delivery target: the MOVE@ project, which aimed at exploring the possibilities of mobile services; the eStra project, which aimed at combining electronic governance targets with the strategic processes of public organizations; the XML project, which aimed at combining internet services with existing information systems; and the Public Workstations for Citizens project, which aimed at advancing open access to internet services. The central theme of Move@ was a contribution to the advanced exploration of the multitude of channels in electronic services.16 Even if the internet is the most common channel for electronic services, mobile phones and the services available to them are also of interest to public authorities. The reason for this is clear: access to mobile phone networks is more common in Finland than access to the internet. Numerous private sector examples have also shown that the general public in Finland are ready to accept mobile services into their everyday lives. The idea is that mobile services would complement other forms of electronic public services. Mobile services constitute a field that is functioning totally according to commercial principles, and therefore the advancement of mobile services is very far from the ideal of providing free services. Their affordability is a much more realistic service delivery target. This is also a target that can be accomplished only in cooperation with different private mobile phone network operators. Another JUNA subproject, the eStra project, was a consultation-driven pilot project where the possibilities of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) were applied to information society issues in four different state and municipal organizations. Its main target was to create and test the possibilities for and problems of a strategic (management) approach to information society issues. Organizations that took part in the project were selected from the group of applicant organizations on the basis of their capacity to meet the challenges. Project management also emphasized that the pilot organizations should come from different governmental levels.17 The results of the project highlight the role of management and professional involvement in public organizations. The main conclusion was that if the advancement of the information society is left as the concern of ICT professionals, it most likely will not succeed. Success will require the contribution of management and professionals concerned with core functions of the organization.

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The starting point of the XML (eXtensible Mark-up Language) project was a technical concern. A survey conducted as part of the JUNA project in 2000 showed that one of the biggest problems in creating internet-based systems lies in combining internet services with existing information systems. The problem is basically about the need to have a common language for providing different services online. In this Finnish XML project, the issue considered was whether XML could develop into a standard18 that might offer solutions to this problem. The ultimate goal of the XML project was not to end up with a binding technical standard for electronic governance architecture, but rather to promote XML applications. It is most likely that the recommendations it provided in its closing report19 will be closely studied in all Finnish public organizations when new electronic services are planned. The Public Workstations for Citizens project is probably the clearest example of setting electronic service delivery targets in a straightforward fashion. It emphasized open access to the internet as one of the most important targets of electronic governance. The project offered a clear recommendation in numerical form: to have one citizen workstation per 1,000 inhabitants.20 At present, workstations are already available to citizens in public offices, libraries, private companies, internet kiosks, etc., either totally free of charge or with affordable prices, but their number is not as high as is recommended. In particular, the role of libraries has been indispensable in the provision of public access to the internet. Especially in less developed and remote areas, an electronic service system based on public workstations would offer a significant contribution to public services. In many places in Finland, the distance to services remains considerable. Access to online services is provided, managed and maintained by different public organizations as part of their own customer-service strategies. There does not exist any centralized decision-maker on these issues. The JUNA project came to an end at the end of 2001. The development measures and ongoing projects were at that time transferred to the new Public Administration Development Unit of the Ministry of the Interior. The achievements and goals of the project were mostly included into the action programme of 2002–03 for electronic governance, which was introduced in January 2002. It carries the legacy of JUNA forward. This is done, as in the JUNA project, in close cooperation with governmental and municipal authorities. Health Pilot project Another important path-breaking project was the Health Pilot project,21 which was intended to advance the electronic provision of social and health services. This EU-funded project was conducted in cooperation with the municipalities of the Satakunta area and all the major national organizations with an interest in health and social policy issues. The foremost goal of the project was to develop and experiment with a seamless, client-centred, independent service-chain support model for social and health care services, which would be independent of whichever organization happened to be providing services at the time. A

Electronic government in Finland 69 client’s social and health care information would be available for service providers in all service situations. The system planned for this purpose is known as the regional information system. It uses a smart-card-based social insurance card (the SII card) as a guarantee of data security. This is also an example of the application of XML technology. According to the evaluators, the Health Pilot project was not a success story (Siira 2002). There existed an obvious asymmetry between the time available and the project goals. Also, the starting situation was not as well structured as it should have been. It took more time for the project staff to get started than was expected. Therefore, the model was not finished, tested and made replicable during the time of the project. There were also some problems regarding project management and the commitment of the involved municipalities. The Health Pilot project made a considerable contribution to solving the problems but it did not provide final answers to all the questions. Thus, the main result of the project was a better understanding of the difficulties involved in providing electronic services. National and regional portals of public sector information and services Some years ago, the Ministry of Finance published a Citizen’s Guide in Finnish, in Swedish and partly even in English to give citizens basic knowledge about available public services (Romakkaniemi 2001). It was first available in book format, but was soon published online. The Guide included information for citizens in all their life situations. It also included information on government organizations and their web addresses. The Citizen’s Guide is now part of a bigger portal, Suomi portal (Finland portal), which aims to act as a comprehensive web service for all public services and organizations. The portal is still under construction, even though it has been available to citizens for some time. Currently, the portal consists of the Citizen’s Guide, access to government organizations and their services, access to municipalities, access to the Citizens’ Electronic Forms Service, the ‘Share Your Views with Us’ discussion forum for citizens, news of the ministries, and a public email and contact directory service for communicating with civil and public servants (JULHA directory). Suomi portal is based on information that is provided by different authorities. Although there might be reason to give recommendations on technical standards and styles at a later stage, so far this has not been the case. As a consequence, it is obvious that there are differences in the levels of information that can be obtained from different public organizations using the portal. Also, a growing number of rather similar regional portals exist in Finland.22 So far, they have not been integrated into the national portal but are examples of cooperation between different actors at regional and local levels. They have been mostly initiated and managed by the municipalities and other regional authorities. The real challenge of creating regional portals is that local businesses are interested in providing services through the portal. One can anticipate that in the near future, the role of public authorities could be smaller in the creation and development of regional portals. This would leave more room for market

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solutions. It would also mean that electronic commerce would have a more significant role in regional portals compared to that of electronic governance. Some other important projects Other interesting projects are Finland’s Virtual University, which provides a common electronic learning environment and common courses for all university students, the TYVI system, which allows easy data transfers from businesses to authorities, and the YTJ directory, which has created an electronic ‘one stop shop’ for businesses and associations. Electronic identification cards and electronic signatures Main targets and problems The use of electronic signatures is seen as one of the cornerstones of the Finnish electronic governance strategy. As early as 1998, the Council of Ministers gave a decision-in-principle on electronic transactions (Council of Ministers 1998) where the creation of electronic identification was emphasized. This decision was soon to be implemented, and as a result, Finland was the first nation in the world to introduce an electronic ID card for its citizens. This took place in 1999. The necessary public key infrastructure was created simultaneously. The Population Register Centre is the government agency responsible for providing electronic ID cards. Citizens can apply for the card from any police station. The card is only slightly more expensive than an ordinary ID card. At the moment, several public and private services are available for electronic ID card holders. Citizens and authorities have adopted this new way of accessing services very slowly. Even though all the technical questions have been solved, and even though Finland has amended the legislation needed to have a wide network of electronic services, the people have not yet been rushing to use the card and to buy card readers for their computers. Apparently, this is going to take considerably more time than the decision-makers were expecting. One problem has been that the powerful SII and Ministry of Social Affairs and Health introduced their own electronic ID card, the SII card, some time after the Population Register Centre. Technically, it is a rather similar card with similar qualities, including personal identification. Having two separate cards is clearly against the government’s aim of managing with just one. The need for SII cards may be increasing more rapidly than the need for electronic ID cards. Every citizen needs their SII card at different stages of their life because the SII takes care of the payment of minimum pensions, benefits for the handicapped, health insurance, rehabilitation benefits, basic security benefits for the unemployed, small-child care allowances, family allowances, maternity grants, student benefits, general housing allowances and conscripts’ allowances. If one card is going to be the case at some point in the future, it should also contain the functions available with the SII card.

Electronic government in Finland 71 Legislation and supervision of electronic signatures and certificates New legislation on electronic signatures, certificates and their legal effect came into operation in Finland in 2003.23 This new legislation enacted Directive 1999/93/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 1999 on a Community framework for electronic signatures. The main task of this new legislation is to promote the use of electronic signatures and the supply of certificates relating to them. It also strives to improve information security and data protection in electronic governance and commerce. An electronic signature created with a qualified certificate and a secure signature creation device will meet the requirements laid down for a legally binding handwritten signature. Conversely, legal relevance cannot be denied for any electronic signature exclusively on the basis that the signature is in electronic format (Siitari-Vanne 2001). Certification in Finland is not restricted to a limited number of Certification Authorities (CAs). CAs that provide qualified certificates to the Finnish public are required to submit a notification to FICORA before they start their operations. It is the role of FICORA to ensure that all the CAs functioning in Finland comply with the legal responsibilities referred to in the legislation. Whenever needed, FICORA can also issue technical regulations and recommendations on the more detailed contents of the data submitted by the CAs, and also on the requirements for confidentiality and information security. The dual role of the Population Register Centre might be regarded as a problem in this area. On the one hand, it is a government agency that carries out several statutory functions; on the other, it is functioning as a CA in the group of other CAs. Some researchers and practitioners feel that these two roles cannot be performed properly in the same organization, and that for this reason the Population Registration Centre has a competitive advantage that is solely based on its specific position. Splitting this agency into commercial (‘producer’) and non-commercial (‘provider’) agencies is therefore a possibility in the future. Main actors Coordinating role of the Information Society Advisory Board National implementation of electronic governance in Finland has, by its very nature, been a joint project involving many different kinds of players – public, private and semi-private. At the centre of all the activity has been one coordinating body, the Information Society Advisory Board. There have been two Advisory Boards, one for the period 1996–99 and one for 1999–2003. After the change of government, the Information Society Advisory Board was replaced by the Council for Information Society. The Council has a somewhat higher status than the Advisory Board. A clear indication of this new role is that it is chaired by the prime minister. Its main tasks are about the same as those given to the Advisory Board. Therefore, it clearly continues the work of its two predecessors. The government decision of 1999 (Valtiovarainministeriö 1999) laid down five objectives for the Advisory Board:

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1

to anticipate information society developments, particularly those concerning possibilities, problems and cooperation across sectors; to monitor cross-sector initiatives and legislation, and their implementation; to monitor international developments, and to take part in the preparation of Finnish opinions in all international cooperation on information society issues; to act as an arena for interaction between the government and businesses in different information society advancement projects; and to evaluate and provide the government with regular reports on the latest information society developments.

2 3

4 5

The same objectives are also valid for the Council for Information Society. Members of the Council and the Advisory Board consist of ministers, MPs, high-ranking government officials, professional and trade union representatives, employers’ union representatives, municipal representatives, and influential third sector and private sector managers. The Advisory Board commissioned internal sections where necessary. So far, the most influential of these has been the one commissioned to prepare an action programme on electronic governance for 2002–03. The report of that Advisory Board Section (Tietoyhteiskunta-asiain neuvottelukunta 2002) is one of the main documents clarifying the objectives and the organization of electronic governance in Finland. The main objectives of the Information Society Programme of the Vanhanen Cabinet are clearly based on the recommendations of this report. While the Advisory Board may be seen as the most important body for the coordination of electronic governance activities, it could actually claim the authority to give orders to any organization. Its role was based more on common interests and the need for cooperation than on its formal role in the Finnish politico-administrative system. The role of the new Council represents a similar line of reasoning. One could even claim that it is once again an example of institutionalized consensus that characterizes Finnish politics and administration. As long as all the major actors are willing to act according to strategies laid down by the Advisory Board or the Council, their position is guaranteed. They act as the main bodies for advancing the strategic goals of government. Even municipalities, which have representatives in the Council, can take their recommendations into consideration. In the end, new legislation is the only option when it comes to obliging them to advance electronic governance in their areas. So far, any major efforts to guarantee electronic services through new legislation have not been initiated. The main reason for this is probably that there have been no major problems with the current system, which is based more on recommendations and autonomy than on new legislation. It obviously may take a longer time for the municipalities to follow state administration in electronic governance, but most of the municipalities are doing whatever they can to advance electronic governance in their areas. It has also been in their interests to do so. As long as this remains the case, the recommendations of governmental boards and councils will be taken seriously even in the municipal sector.

Electronic government in Finland 73 The European Union’s eEurope programme should also be remembered here. It is practically impossible to draw a line in Finland between national activities to promote the information society and electronic governance and the eEurope programme. Most national activities in Finland are also serving the purpose of implementing the eEurope programme. The Finnish government has a specific inter-ministry working group for coordinating eEurope activities. The role of networking Advancement of the information society and electronic governance has been a rather unproblematic issue in Finnish politics and society. There seems to be a consensus between political parties, organized interests and businesses on major policy decisions. Even if the formal structure of the system for the advancement of electronic governance in Finland can be seen as a loosely coupled one, one has to remember that in the end, the question is about a rather small government. The number of actors is rather limited. It is also fairly natural that key actors in different organizations have plenty of opportunities to meet on formal and informal occasions. The crucial resource for networking is the effectiveness of available information channels. People in different organizations should have access to information on how people in other organizations are solving the same problems as they are facing. Kärkiverkosto is an electronic portal for all Finnish practitioners and researchers active in the electronic field. Within the structure of Kärkiverkosto, people are sharing actively. All major electronic projects are presented there, and there you can also look for people with similar interests. The structure consists of sub-groups that are emphasizing different themes. Also, public and private practitioners are active in Kärkiverkosto, which tries to bring all interested parties together. This is seen as an essential requirement for getting something done in a country with an educated workforce which is in limited supply. Kärkiverkosto’s infrastructure is provided and managed by SITRA, the Finnish National Fund for Research and Development. SITRA gets its funding from the government, but is not formally a part of it. It acts independently as a public foundation but in close cooperation with the government. For many years, SITRA has been most active in the advancement of Finnish information society research and development (R&D). Besides Kärkiverkosto, its main activities are concerned with backing R&D activities. It promotes innovative projects, organizes training programmes and provides venture capital for private enterprises in the R&D field. Another significant organization operating in the same field is TEKES, the National Technology Agency of Finland. It is responsible for the funding of R&D projects, as well as the management and coordination of national technology programmes. These programmes have had a significant impact on the success of Finnish industry, particularly in the ICT sector. During 2000, TEKES R&D funding was worth €373 million, which was divided between 2,300 different projects (ICT Cluster Finland Review 2001). TEKES funding comes from the state budget, and part of this funding goes to the university sector.

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Besides direct funding from the state budget, the universities have the option of obtaining funding for their research projects from the Academy of Finland. It also has been most active lately in financing projects connected with the advancement of the information society and various ICT applications. Control of implementation The implementation of electronic governance strategies in Finland will be guaranteed using mostly ‘soft’ methods. It is more a question of persuasion and carrots than of sticks. Cooperation is one such method, which has been highly successful in this area. Municipal participation is mostly guaranteed by preferring cooperation as far as possible. For instance, ALFRA is probably the most important companion in all major governmental projects advancing electronic governance. In many smaller projects, there exists also direct cooperation between the state and single municipalities. The Health Pilot project in the social and health sectors is a good example of this kind of inter-governmental cooperation. The same goes for the JUNA sub-projects. To some extent, external sources of funding are used as the carrot. Different organizations involved in a project are given a number of opportunities to have some part of their activities funded by the project budget. Often, governance projects are actually EU-funded projects, where the advancement of electronic governance is either the main target or among the other project targets. Whenever an organization is taking funding from an external source, it has to give up some of its autonomy. Inevitably, acceptance of external funding makes an organization accountable to the organization that is responsible for administering the sources of funding. Detailed and scheduled reports, inspections and evaluations are some common expressions of the change in the role of an organization. All of these tools can be, and have been, used to control the implementation of electronic governance strategies in Finland. Some authorities are also conducting evaluations with clear steering purposes in mind. For instance, the level of web services in different municipalities has been evaluated in Finland a few times by different organizations. Best practices are then presented in order to advance electronic governance in those organizations where the level of web services is not that excellent. Interplay and cooperation between different governmental levels Collaborative setting The national strategy for setting up electronic governance can be seen as a joint project between the state and the municipalities. ALFRA has a significant role in the preparation, implementation and follow-up of the national strategy. The state appears to have accepted the role of leader, leaving the role of laggard to the municipalities. This can be explained by referring to opportunities to steer

Electronic government in Finland 75 developments. It is much easier to introduce and implement a strategy for electronic governance inside state government with clear vertical and horizontal links between organizations than inside almost 450 municipalities separately. This is also because different municipalities have different kinds of needs in relation to electronic governance. They are not automatically all aiming at the same kind of governance model. The heterogeneity of governance models is at the outset far more extensive in the municipal sector than in the state sector. Although the municipalities would be trying to implement electronic governance as fast and as far as the state, the problem with available resources remains. Municipalities do not often have any ‘slack’ in their financial resources. The problems are often also connected to necessary levels of know-how. Some municipalities are simply short of expertise in electronic governance issues. One of the roles of ALFRA is to keep in touch with the latest developments. Lately, electronic governance has been one of their main areas of interest. Almost all municipalities have access to the internet. The demarcation line between the municipalities is clear. Large urban municipalities have been most active in using the internet in communications between the municipality and inhabitants or local businesses. Some small municipalities located in remote areas have adopted a more cautious approach to communications through the internet. Although all Finnish municipalities have access to the internet, so far 89 per cent of them are making use of the internet as a means of communication (Suomen Kuntaliilto and Infor Consulting 2000). Topics of cooperation Advancement of electronic governance in Finland is currently following the path laid down during the Lipponen Cabinet by an action programme of a section of the Information Society Advisory Board.24 Practically all interested partners were involved in the preparation of this action programme. For instance, the role of ALFRA was very much emphasized. Therefore, commitment to the programme should not cause any problems. The action programme described sixteen specific targets that cover the field of electronic governance quite comprehensively. These targets came together into four action lines: reforming administrative activities and processes (targets 1–8); encouraging the supply of and demand for online services (targets 9–11); improving access, usability and end-user competence (targets 12–14); and coordination (targets 15–16). It is suggested in the programme to take steps on the following aspects: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

agency-level electronic service strategies; creation of replicable models; increased training of staff and management; more interactive and user-friendly forms; dissemination of experience from the Health Pilot project; increased data-sharing and common use of registers; provision of joint services;

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

uniform pricing principles; increasing the participation of citizens; making services locatable by channelling electronic services into portals; improving quality of electronic public services; encouraging electronic commerce; ensuring access to services for all user groups; promoting electronic authentication; strengthening the coordinating role of the Information Society Advisory Board and Ministry of Finance; and 16 strengthening the guiding role of the existing public sector standards system (JHS recommendations). All these targets were formulated such that they can be accomplished only if all involved parties cooperate. That was also the other main idea of the action programme. In order to ensure the cooperation needed, key partnerships were defined in the programme for each of the sixteen targets. For instance, the advancement of target 4, more interactive and user-friendly forms, was defined in the action programme as the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of the Interior and ALFRA. The programme did not define how these authorities should accomplish the task. It was left to the participating authorities to negotiate over cooperation and the implementation of their target. This action programme being part of the programme of the Cabinet, the ministries were obviously obliged to implement it. They were also obliged to cooperate with one other – cooperation between the ministries in Finland being far from a great success story. The role of ALFRA and the municipalities was different. They have basically no legal obligation to implement governmental policies of this kind. Therefore, mentioning the partnership of ALFRA in the action plan was just an act, which merely showed that successive governments can accomplish their electronic governance targets only if the municipal sector acts as their partner. The other basic idea of the action programme was the dissemination of good practice throughout the government. For instance, the Health Pilot project and the emphasizing of public sector standards were clear examples of that aspiration. The current system offers good opportunities for the distribution of good practice throughout the government, and the situation should be even better in that respect. The Vanhanen Cabinet has already decided to establish a specific website for this purpose. It has also decided to bestow government awards on the most successful electronic service providers.

Conclusions The fact that most services in Finland are provided by municipalities, and that municipalities have the constitutional right to self-governance in their respective areas, is causing some problems for the implementation of the national electronic governance strategy in Finland. The state cannot expect municipalities

Electronic government in Finland 77 either to be able to or to want to implement governmental strategies in the same way as government organizations. They might lack the know-how, the financial resources or simply the political will to keep the same pace as the state administration. There are also substantial differences between different municipalities. The needs of developed urban municipalities are quite different from those of undeveloped rural ones. The state has tried to keep municipalities in line with a strategy that is mostly based on cooperation. ALFRA as the representative of municipalities is the most important partner in electronic governance. Direct municipal participation is also very common in most projects that aim to advance electronic governance throughout Finland. Despite this, we can say that it has been easier to proceed within the state administration. The whole system for the advancement of electronic governance may be even more state-centred than officially it wishes to be seen as. The majority of municipalities are working at a slower pace than the state administration. It may therefore take longer than expected before the entire government – the state and the municipalities – has totally entered the era of electronic governance. Some electronic services are certainly available in practically all public organizations, but the differences between the leaders and laggards are even today rather significant. New measures, like the dissemination of best practice through a specific website and government awards, certainly make a positive contribution to this problem, but most likely they are not enough to resolve it. Programmes for the advancement of the information society began in Finland in the mid-1990s, and electronic governance, particularly in the form of online governmental services, has been an essential target of these programmes for years. One can therefore say that there is considerable continuity in the Finnish programmes. There is also considerable continuity to a system that is based on loose linkages between different actors and different projects. This idea of a loose system has obvious problems, but it is not in its entirety a non-functional solution. It may be that time and energy is wasted when organizations act on their own. On the other hand, when they have an opportunity to implement national programmes in their own way, they can aim at finding the most suitable solutions to their respective electronic governance needs. Know-how on electronic governance is then not concentrated in one place but all major organizations are involved in the process. Even if it is somewhat more difficult to advance electronic governance, and probably also takes more time to get the results, it should be beneficial in the long run. The general understanding inside and outside Finland is that there are problems with the coordination of electronic governance activities. Lack of a unified vision and a centralized leadership structure are commonly seen as the major problems of the Finnish system. This is true. Compared to the ideal of an effectively coordinated system of ‘rational’ administration, the Finnish system is certainly lacking something. No single organization seems to be in charge of coordinating the multitude of parallel activities that are taking place inside the Finnish government in order to advance electronic governance. Despite this, Finland has remained in the lists of the most advanced nations in the world.

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How is this possible? There must be some factors in the Finnish system that can compensate for deficits in the formal coordination system. The most eminent answer is fairly obvious. Finland is, after all, a rather small country where all the key actors have plenty of opportunities to communicate with each other. There is probably not such a manifest need for formal coordination as there would be in a clearly bigger administrative system such as Germany’s. Informal contacts can be most helpful where formal links are weak. Maybe it is by nature far more difficult to advance electronic governance in larger governments due to the size of the country and the plurality of involved actors, and probably totally impossible to do it just by following the Finnish model. If we are assuming that a higher level of coordination is the key to further success in Finland, what are the possibilities of achieving this? Is it likely that the Finnish system for advancing electronic governance could be a more tightly coordinated one? To some extent this can be done, but it would not mean that the basic nature of the system would be entirely different from how it is now. The problems of inter-ministerial coordination are not easily solved in a situation where respective ministries are accustomed to acting independently, and where inter-ministerial cooperation is often not a high-priority option. Albeit that the Information Society Programme is one of the emphasized inter-sectoral policy areas of the Vanhanen Cabinet, it probably will not help to change the situation thoroughly. It might be a first step in the direction of closer supervision from the Prime Minister’s Office, but not a final measure to stop ministries from acting independently. During the last big administrative challenge, membership of the European Union, the government tried to solve a similar problem with a formal coordinated system. It was not a success. Ministries were soon once again handling their issues directly with Brussels. The formal system was generally judged to be too slow and too rigid for their purposes, and the ministries did not want to allow one ministry (then the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) to develop into a coordinating ministry. This could be the case even this time. A more tightly coordinated system might be too slow and too rigid to cope with a developmental pace which is at least comparable to that of the EU negotiations, and the basic cautious relationship between the ministries is still the same. We have to remember that the advancement of the information society and electronic governance has been on the agenda of Finnish government for many years. Quite a lot has been accomplished during these years. The government has been most active in implementing its strategies. It has clearly adopted a leading role towards municipalities. It has probably been indispensable. It is easier for the government to take the initiative than for almost 450 different municipalities with ALFRA as their representative. It is also the case that if the municipalities do not follow the pace of government, the Finnish system of electronic governance will be far from perfect. Therefore, the government should do whatever it can to support the development of electronic governance at the municipalities. Only when municipal services are widely available online, for instance through different national and regional portals, will the current electronic governance challenge be completed.

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Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

The Constitution of Finland. Finnish Local Government Act (17 March 1995). Information on ALFRA can be found at www.kunnat.net. Information Society Advisory Board (Tietoyhteiskunta-asiain neuvottelukunta) (2002). See Sørgaard (2000). Information Society Advisory Board (Tietoyhteiskunta-asiain neuvottelukunta) (2002). See www.kunnat.net. Ibid. Available in English at http://lomake.fi/lp/index.cgi. See Kaihla (2001). For information in English on population registers in Finland, see www.vaestorekisterikeskus.fi/vrk/home.nsf/pages/index_eng. Pohjalainen (2002). See www.julha.fi. See OECD (1992) and Bradshaw (2001). Development Project for e-Government JUNA (2002). Development Project for e-Government JUNA (2001c). Development Project for e-Government JUNA (2001d). See www.w3.org. Development Project for e-Government JUNA (2001b). Development Project for e-Government JUNA (2001a). See www.makropilotti.fi. See Helsingin Sanomat Klik! (2001). Laki sähköisestä asioinnista viranomaistoiminnassa (24 January 2003/13). Information Society Advisory Board (Tietoyhteiskunta-asiain neuvottelukunta) (2002).

References Accenture (2001) Suomi eEuroopassa: Raportti Liikenne- ja viestintäministeriölle, available online at www.mintc.fi/www/sivut/dokumentit/ajankohtaista/uutta/eEurope.pdf. —— (2002) eGovernment Leadership – Realizing the Vision, April, available online at www.accenture.com. Bradshaw, P. (2001) Working Together to Deliver e-Government: Involving Staff with Management, Helsinki: Ministry of Finance, Public Management Department. Chisholm, D. (1989) Coordination without Hierarchy: Informal Structures in Multiorganizational Systems, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Constitution of Finland, 11 June 1999 (731/1999), available online in English at www.om.fi/21910.htm. Council of Ministers (1998) Valtioneuvoston periaatepäätös tietoturvallisuudesta (VM 0024:00/02/99/1998), available online in Finnish at www.vm.fi/tiedostot/pdf/fi/ 6294.pdf. —— (2003) The Government Programme of Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen’s Government on 24 June 2003, available online in English at www.vnk.fi/vn/liston/base.lsp?r=696&k=en. Development Project for e-Governance JUNA (2001a) ‘Asiakaspäätteillä julkisiin verkkopalveluihin: Asiakaspäätteet ja kansalaisten verkkoasiointi-hankkeen loppuraportti’, JUNA-julkaisuja 6/2001, Helsinki: Ministry of the Interior.

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—— (2001b) ‘Julkisten verkkopalveluiden kehittäminen ja XML’, JUNA-julkaisuja 5/2001, Helsinki: Ministry of the Interior. —— (2001c) ‘Mobiilisuuden mahdollisuudet julkisissa verkkopalveluissa: MOVE@hankkeen selvitys’, JUNA-julkaisuja 3/2001, Helsinki: Ministry of the Interior. —— (2001d) ‘Rakennetaanko tuulimyllyjä vai tuulensuojia? Tietoyhteiskunta ja johdon strateginen kyvykkyys’, JUNA-julkaisuja 4/2001, Helsinki: Ministry of the Interior. —— (2002) Juna vislas jo pois! Juna-hankkeen matkaraportti 1.9.1999–31.12.2001, Sisäasiainministeriön julkaisusarja 3/2002, Helsinki: Ministry of the Interior. Finnish Local Government Act (17 March 1995), available online at www.finlex.fi. Government Information Unit (2003) An Information Society for Everyone – The Government Launches its Information Society Programme, Press Release 275/2003, available online at www.vnk.fi/vn/liston/base.lsp?r=42860&k=en&old=712. Helsingin Sanomat Klik! (2001) ‘Seutuportaalit muodostavat luonnollisia yhteenliittymiä’, 19 January, available online at www.helsinginsanomat.fi. ICT Cluster Finland Review (2001) ‘Technology programmes – the gateway to Finland’s world class ICT technology’. Information Society Advisory Board (2002) Public Services in the New Millennium: Programme of Action to Promote Online Government, 2002–2003, English summary, available online at www.infosoc.fi/PublicServices.pdf. Kaihla, P. (2001) ‘Meanwhile, in Finland: the $45,000 traffic ticket: and other tales from Finland, home to the most wired government on earth’, Business 2.0 Magazine, 20 May. Kooiman, J. and van Vliet, M. (1993) ‘Governance and public management’, in K.A. Eliassen and J. Kooiman (eds) Managing Public Organizations: Lessons from Contemporary European Experience, 2nd edn, London: Sage Publications, pp. 58–72. Köngäs, O. (2001) ‘Aim of public management: further development of electronic transactions’, ICT Cluster Finland Review 2001. Laki sähköisestä asioinnista viranomaistoiminnassa (24 January 2003/13), available online at www.finlex.fi. Ministry of Finance (2000) Policy Decision of the Council of State on the Development of Information Management of State Administration, 2 March, Helsinki: Ministry of Finance. —— (2001) Standpoint of the Ministerial Steering Group to the Reform of Central Government, Helsinki: Ministry of Finance. Modeen, T. (1997) ‘Selbstverwaltungseinrichtungen in Finnland’, Hallinnon tutkimus [Administrative Studies] 16(2): 168–173. Naschold, F. (1995) The Modernization of the Public Sector in Europe: A Comparative Perspective on the Scandinavian Experience, Helsinki, Ministry of Labour. Niemi-Iilahti, A. (1995) ‘The structure and finance of Finnish local government – in European perspective’, Finnish Local Government Studies 4: 272–285. —— (2001) ‘Finland: in search of new implementation patterns’, in W.M. Lafferty (ed.) Sustainable Communities in Europe, London: Earthscan Publications Ltd, pp. 40–57. OECD (1992) ICCP Reviews of Information and Communication Policies: Finland, OECD: Paris. Pohjalainen (newspaper) (2002) ‘Muu maailma ottaa oppia Suomen henkilötunnuksesta’, 26 August. Pulma, P. (1999) ‘Municipal autonomy, local democracy and the state’, in J. Selovuori (ed.) Power and Bureaucracy in Finland 1809–1998, Helsinki: Edita and Prime Minister’s Office, pp. 161–179. Romakkaniemi, P. (2001) ‘Access to Finnish public sector information and its services’, Public Management in Finland: Finland in the Net, Helsinki: Ministry of Finance, Public Management Department.

Electronic government in Finland 81 Ryynänen, A. (1995) ‘Trends in municipal legislation reform’, Finnish Local Government Studies 4: 291–295. Salminen, A. and Viinamäki, O.P. (2001) Market Orientation in the Finnish Public Sector: From Public Agency to Privatised Company, Helsinki: Ministry of Finance and University of Vaasa. Siira, M. (2002) ‘Jättikö elefantti jälkiä umpihankeen?’, Dialogi – Sosiaali- ja terveysalan kehittämiskeskuksen lehti 3: 20–21. Siitari-Vanne, E. (2001) ‘Sähköisestä asioinnista uusi laki: viranomaisille yhteiset pelisäännöt’, Hallinto 6: 28–29. Sørgaard, P. (2000) IT Co-ordination and Public Management Reform: A Comparison between Finland and Norway, Helsinki: Ministry of Finance, Public Management Department. Stenvall, J. and Harisalo, R. (2000) Aluehallinto 2000-uudistuksen arviointi: uutta ideaa etsimässä, University of Tampere, Administrative Science 2000 A 21. Suomen Kuntaliitto and Infor Consulting (2002) Tutkimus kuntien viestinnästä 2001, available online at www.kunnat.net/k_perussivu.asp?path=1;29;65;355;741. Tetri, E. (1999) ‘Kuntien ja valtion välinen neuvottelumenettely’, Kunnallistieteellinen Aikakauskirja 27(1): 103–120. Tietoyhteiskunta-asiain neuvottelukunta (2002) Kohti hallittua murrosta – Julkiset palvelut uudella vuosituhannella. Julkisen hallinnon sähköisen asioinnin toimintaohjelma 2002–2003, available online at www.infosoc.fi/toimintasuunnitelma2002–2003.pdf. Valtiontalouden tarkastusvirasto (2001) ‘Työvoima- ja elinkeinokeskukset: Ohjaus- ja johtamisjärjestelmien toimivuus’, Tarkastuskertomus 9, Helsinki: Valtiontalouden tarkastusvirasto. Valtiovarainministeriö (1999) Asettamispäätös 8.7.1999/Tietoyhteiskunta-asiain neuvottelukunta, VM422:00/19/07/1999, available online at www.infosoc.fi/pdf/asettamispaatos.pdf.

4

Electronic government in France Georges Chatillon

Administrative framework and jurisdiction Outline of the institutional and administrative framework It should be recalled at the outset that France, as a unitary and centralised state, has operated for over a century under a government, headed by a prime minister, which determines national policy. This organisational set-up has, at the administrative level, a roughly vertical command structure, leading from ministers at the top, through the so-called ‘central’ administrations (i.e. the offices of the ministries), to the decentralised services at the bottom. Although transfer of powers to local authorities has been gaining ground since 1982 in areas immediately affecting the general public (transfer of health and social services to the local departmental councils (Conseils généraux), and transfer of vocational training and local economic development to the regions), these authorities are nevertheless subject to the laws and regulations of the Republic, which are prepared by the government. The prefects, the state’s representatives at local level, are responsible for ensuring compliance from all local authorities within their jurisdiction (the ‘departments’). However, mayors, the quintessential local elected representatives, may also be required to take action on behalf of the state, that is in the place of a minister. This happens, for example, with regard to the issue of identity papers or the keeping of registers of births, deaths and marriages, which serve as evidence not only of an individual’s existence but also of the principal landmarks in his or her life (marriage, divorce, parenthood and death). Two types of state levels exist: the ‘central’ state and the departments. In France, the state is a special organisation, unique as it is. On the one hand, all national institutions are included in the state, and it is for the state that, for example, the local authorities are created, organised or suppressed, following the constitutional rules. The local authorities have power when the Constitution or the law has decided so. The department is the main frame of the state territorial administration. The central state administrations need, outside the capital city, what are called ‘external’, or ‘decentralised’, services. The state administrative structure is complex. We find, on the one hand, a ‘central administration’ (i.e. the ministries) and services having national jurisdic-

Electronic government in France 83 tion, and, on the other, the ‘decentralised’ services, which are territorial administrations. Under Art. 20 of the Constitution, ‘The Government shall determine and conduct the policy of the Nation. It shall have at its disposal the civil service and the armed forces.’ This rule means that there could not exist any administrative power, more or less independent from the government. At the top of the state, the president of the Republic, the prime minister and the other government members are both political and administrative powers. In accordance with Art. 72 of the Constitution, the territorial authorities of the French Republic are the municipalities, the departments, and France’s overseas departments and territories. The same article makes clear that law can create any other territorial authority. This was done for regions in 1972, and for multiple municipality groupings or special statute communities. So, the categories of territorial authorities are numerous. Decentralisation reform in France and autonomy of local authorities From the 1980s on, the decentralisation reform began. The law of 2 March 1982 directs the organisation of the local French administration. The law unifies the statute of local authorities and suppresses administrative control of the state representative (state supervision system), replacing it with a power of jurisdiction and specific budgetary control. Despite the large diversity of territorial authorities, one can find three categories: the municipalities, the departments and the regions. These institutions have a real legal autonomy, limited by a financial dependence. The number of municipalities is huge – more than 36,000 for France itself – but in themselves are very small – 32,000 at least have less than 2,000 inhabitants. The mayor spends the budget and represents the state within the territory of the municipality. A municipality is concerned with urbanism and construction, education, and social affairs. The general councils manage the ninety-six departments. They are concerned with education, health, and social affairs and roads. The twenty-two regions have become autonomous since the 1982 law. They look at economic affairs together with the state. Signification of free administration principle and limitations of local autonomy Art. 72 of the Constitution raises as a principle that local authorities may manage themselves freely thanks to elected counsellors. In consequence, they own a self-legal personality, outside the state legal personality; have rights and obligations; manage freely their affairs whenever they are competent to do so; own a patrimony; employ agents whose statute is specific; and manage their budget. For the Constitutional Council, the principle of free administration means that the local authorities must have enough money to assume their responsibilities, and that the number and weight of their expenses should not be excessive. But the financial autonomy of the local authorities stays limited

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because they do not have the right to create their own taxes, and a large part of their resources comes from state subsidies. Also, under the same article of the Constitution, local authorities stay controlled by the government’s representative. It means that their resolutions are enforceable only after transmission to the Préfet (Constitutional Council, 24 February 1982). Since 1982’s reform, the Préfet can contest their regularity and submit them to the Administrative Court or the regional revenue court. The Préfet is the unique owner of the state authority on the territory under his jurisdiction. He represents the prime minister and each minister. He is, locally, the chief of all decentralised state services. He is the guarantor for respect of the law. Close to the territorial authorities, he plays a role of counsellor and supporter. He signs, for the state, contracts and agreements established by the local authorities. Nowadays, the Préfet no longer has, on the acts of local authorities, a right of supervision and control of appropriateness. The lawfulness control is, henceforth, based on three principles. The first one regulates that local authority acts are immediately enforceable as soon as they have been published or notified, or, for some of them, transmitted to the state representative. Secondly, the control is made a posteriori and is only concerned with an act’s lawfulness, and no longer its appropriateness. Thirdly, when the state representative believes that certain acts are not legal, he submits them to the courts. The current management acts of local authorities cannot be transmitted to the Préfet for a lawfulness control as above. But many acts have to be controlled by the Préfet or the sous-Préfet, including procedures, mayoral orders, and decisions and/or contracts. In conclusion, it can be said that the French Constitution accepts the principle of free administration, which is limited by the unitary character of the state. Outline of different legislative authorities of each state level The Constitution gives no right to the local authorities to make laws, neither in general matters nor in the field of e-government. On 17 July 2002, the two parliamentary chambers discussed a law proposition named ‘Constitutional law proposition concerning the territorial authorities’ free administration and the tax and financial implications’.1 The parliament wished for an addition to the Constitution; as a consequence, Art. 72–1, 72–2 was added: Art. 72–1

Art. 72–2

The territorial authorities’ independent administration is guaranteed by taxes the rates of which they vote for in conditions that have been decided by the law.2 Any transmission of competences from the state to the territorial authorities and any expense imposed on territorial authorities by state decisions need a concomitant transfer of permanent resources, stable and necessarily evolutional. These

Electronic government in France 85 resources are an absolute compensation for the compulsory expenditures.3 This constitutional reform, launched by the Senate, recognises that the territorial authorities have the power to make regulations, in their field of competence, under the authorisation of parliament. On 3 July 2002, Mr Raffarin, the prime minister, announced that the government would present to parliament, during the autumn session, a constitutional law project, with the aims of ‘inscribing the region in the constitution, authorizing local experiment, encouraging cooperation between local authorities, making legal local referenda’. Neither this law proposition nor the law project have been adopted yet. Another point that needs to be made is that although France takes an institutional approach to reform, in deference to its Constitution and the principle of the separation of powers emanating from the 1789 Revolution, the term ‘administration’ is understood by the general public to include all entities governed by public or private law that provide a public service at either the national or the local level. From this point of view, the term ‘administration’ encompasses social security bodies and joint structures that bring employers’ and workers’ organisations together to manage insurance schemes covering illness, old age, family affairs and even unemployment. Operators of public transport, water supply and power supply networks are also considered administrations, although in institutional or legal terms they may not necessarily be so. In particular, regional and local authorities (regions, departments, communes) are also considered by the general public to come under this heading, in view of their extensive powers, which have been increased by the recent legislation on decentralisation. Outline of jurisdiction for administration The state must obey the law. But the French state, since 1958, has been mostly in the hands of the government, whose prime minister’s political party rules the majority in the ‘Assemblée nationale’. When the majority in the Senate has the same political colour as the government, the situation is excellent for the government. This has been the case since President Chirac won the last elections (presidential and legislative). At the level of the state, self-administration and autonomy should be effective and reforms easy. This is not so. There are a lot of conflicting interests and many contradictions. As France is a unitary regime, the local or territorial authorities are not autonomous. We have already examined the situation and seen that the local institutions are controlled and their budget counted. But the local authorities have new projects and, of course, can experiment in the field of organisation. Many municipalities are reorganising their services in terms of using information and communications technologies (ICTs) and developing e-administration. In any case, they have to negotiate with the state’s representatives, the Préfet or the ministries in Paris.

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Coordination and cooperation between all governmental levels If we except persons who rule the state – the president of the Republic, the prime minister, ministers – every administrative authority is either ‘de-concentrated’ or decentralised. De-concentrated authorities obey orders given by a hierarchical power. Decentralised authorities have an autonomous power, under the control of the state representative. The relevant texts are the law on territorial administration (6 November 1992) and the ‘De-concentration Decree’ (1 July 1992). Central administrations are charged with national missions, for example the elaboration of bills and decrees, and the implementation of ministerial decisions. Other matters are the concern of de-concentrated administrations, at the regional, departmental or arrondissement level. The department, under the Préfet’s authority, is the appropriate level for implementing national or European politics. The region is the appropriate level for economic and social development and for town and country planning. But in 1995, another law concerned with town and country planning was passed so that the de-concentrated services would functionally reassemble; this created in each department a commission in charge of the modernisation and re-organisation of public services and, at the state level, an inter-ministerial committee for state modernisation. This decentralised power requires that an individual person, distinct from the state, rules a matter that belongs to her. Of course, it is very important that decentralised institutions proceed from elections. Finally, it is necessary that decentralised institutions have technical and financial means. Territorial decentralisation is not merely an administrative technique; it gets a political signification in two respects. First, the municipalities, departments and regions are local democracies, but within a unitary state, and so they are very different from the federated states. The supervision authorities of decentralised authorities must obey the orders of law. The laws of 2 March 1982 and 22 July 1982 have not suppressed administrative and financial supervision but highlighted it. It has been seen above that, since 1982, the Préfet cannot nullify the acts taken by local authorities but can only ask the Administrative Court to do so. Some of those acts are those that must be transmitted to the Préfet or the sous-Préfet for control: unilateral acts, or contracts. Regional Counts Chambers (law of 1982) make financial supervision of local authorities. As for technical supervision (law of 2 March 1982, General Code of Territorial Authorities, Art. L-111–5 et seq.), only technical rules contained in a law or a decree can be opposed by local authorities. Decentralisation reform is one of the big plans of Prime Minister Raffarin. Several bills have been announced. During the autumn of 2002, a constitutional bill was presented before parliament for an inscription of ‘regions’ in the Constitution, for creating a right to local experiment, encouraging cooperation between local authorities and authorising local referenda. This constitutional bill could accept the principle of local authorities’ financial autonomy. Eventually,

Electronic government in France 87 this bill could be adopted through a referendum. Also in autumn 2002, another bill was prepared for organising new competence transfers in favour of regions. The prime minister has repeated that his decentralisation plan could give a local authority, in its competence sphere, the right to depart from law, using its right to experiment after authorisation. A constitutional bill was adopted on 28 March 2003, designing a new decentralised organisation within the French Republic. This bill introduces in the constitutional law a new principle, allowing experiments through national law and local rules (Art. 3). On 1 October 2003, the government put before the parliament a bill about local responsibilities. The state wants to transfer ‘new’ competences to local bodies. The bill has not yet been voted on but local authorities fear the transfers because of new expenses needing heavier taxes. Bodies or panels as an instrument of cooperation for problem-solving in areas of reengineering There are different bodies concerned with questions of cooperation in the area of re-engineering. Important are the government’s general secretariat, the Interministerial Delegation for State Reform (DIRE), the Information Society Inter-ministerial Committee, the Inter-ministerial Committee for State Reform, the ‘Commission pour les Simplifications Administratives’ (COSA), the ‘Agence pour les technologies de l’information et de la communication dans l’administration’ (ATICA), the National Defence General Secretariat (SGDN) and the prefectures. As a matter of fact, the government is in charge of re-engineering the state, what the French officials call ‘state reform’. All bodies named above are the prime minister’s services, except for the prefectures that represent the state in the departments or regions. The prime minister and his counsellors are the main actors, but, of course, the finance and economy minister and the minister for state reform are also very much involved. Electronic administration is a whip for re-engineering because it needs clean and readable forms, and a treatment in the back office of administration. Each ministry is responsible for re-engineering. But, under the prime minister’s orders, the inter-ministerial agencies work with every ministry for making plans and regulations, and for resolving conflicts. In the end, the prime minister’s arbitration is the final answer to disputes. Dependence of different governmental levels in relation to administrative services? What has been said above is relevant in general to the dependence of different governmental levels. The ministries must obey laws, but they also contribute to their creation. These same ministries depend on the prime minister’s services and on the Council of Ministers. But the heads of the political parliament’s groups have to be consulted, as do the ‘civil society’ leaders. Many projects come from the civil society.

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Local authorities (mayor, general council president, regional assembly president) need money for re-engineering administrative services. Money comes mostly from the state or from public banks ruled by the state. Let us take, for example, the field of electronic administration and digital services. From 1997, decisions taken by the Information Society Inter-ministerial Committee and the Inter-ministerial Committee for State Reform are a guide for action, both for ministries and local authorities. But one important principle for the implementation of e-administration is realism, i.e. experiments. When a city’s mayor wants something in the matter of e-administration, he observes what others do, then consults the Préfet, private companies, banks, etc. The level of inter-governmental dependence is a matter of political negotiation between administrative bodies.

E-government in France The remainder of this report first outlines the status quo of the relevant IT infrastructure in France before moving on to an introduction to the French estrategy and its relevant key factors such as the necessary legal framework and the use and diffusion of electronic signatures. As a successful attempt to implement e-government cannot be restricted to just one of the various governmental levels, the report provides as well a view on the relevant players of the different state levels and their interconnections. IT infrastructure for electronic services in France The expression ‘level of the relevant IT infrastructure’ has multiple meanings within French society. French people are still not used to the internet in the same way as people of other European countries. Thus, they are not yet accustomed to writing emails to civil servants, and the development of ADSL is just beginning. The reasons for this are that the prices are too high and that the IT infrastructure has not yet been implemented outside of large and medium-sized cities. The civil servants do not yet have the right rules and the know-how for the spontaneous use of the internet. However, there are several central administrative networks for relations between civil services: AdER (Administration on Network) is one of these. Since 1999, the objectives of AdER have been to offer civil servants of state centralised administrations and state de-concentrated administrations quality and secure communications. In December 2001, 550,000 administrative PCs were connected (75 per cent of the total). AdER uses TCP-IP. Citizens may also use the internet to communicate with the administrations, but not the AdER network. The local authorities would like to access and use AdER, and to negotiate with the state about a connection to the central administration network. So far, the state has confirmed the possibility of a connection, but the process is still ongoing. The local authorities want to be connected to AdER because it could be, for them, a good way of communicating directly with the public state

Electronic government in France 89 services, without being compelled to pass through the hierarchical path. However, the state does not use its authority for convincing the AdER web masters to open up the network to the cities’ teams. The network is not yet seen or discussed as an infrastructure that facilitates shared services. As can be seen, it is necessary to divide the answer: on the one hand, an IT infrastructure for relations between the state civil services, national or local, and the citizens; and on the other, an IT infrastructure for relations between citizens and local authorities. Thus, we have two necessary levels of e-government (national and local). National strategy for implementing e-government When, in August 1997, the prime minister made France’s entry into the information society one of his government’s top priorities, he articulated both an objective and an approach. The objective was to ‘build an information society for all’ so as to prevent a widening of the ‘digital gap’ and help France to catch up with other countries in terms of the internet. The approach calls upon the government to provide support for the parties concerned, through the Government Action Programme for an Information Society (PAGSI), launched by the prime minister in January 1998. This official involvement has contributed considerably to the removal of obstacles that had hindered the development of the internet in France. The approach opted for by the government, with a programme based on a set of priorities and a budget of close to €1.4 billion over the past four years, has begun to produce results. Given the main obstacles identified in 1997 and since removed, PAGSI’s contribution is evident, in particular in schools and government agencies, but also in terms of the growth of the ‘new economy’, everyday access to the internet and changes in the law. The first step was to draw up a framework: the PAGSI, including six main objectives. Then, for implementing e-administration, it was necessary to develop networks and experiment, to open public websites, to train public officials and to fix rules. Government, without laws, has driven those first two steps. Some members of the parliament have written reports. In general, the period 1997–2000 is marked by government action. There were a few consultations with the public, through the internet, but no general or national debate has been organised for approving the plans of executive power. When it has become urgent to vote laws for implementing European directives, it has been necessary to go before parliament. But the European directives leave little room for national autonomy, and both the government and the political parties were tied. So, in fact, the government and the heads of the ministries, that is to say a relatively small group of persons, have implemented e-government. Among these persons, the influence of counsellors for IT has been very important. From 2001, it became obvious that it was necessary to consult citizens and to study the real needs of the people. It could have been unwise to expand and impose the new procedures of e-government without knowing exactly what customers wanted or were ready to accept, and also what they did not want. But,

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since 1997, apart from a few public consultations opened to internet users and some parliamentary debates, this strategy has been the one chosen by government. The relation between state and local authorities within the national strategy Relations between the state and the local authorities have been cautious. In the first period (1996–2002), local authorities did not have the right to expand their own networks because of the national importance of France Telecom; it was too risky to permit competition. Another reason has been the lack of doctrine from certain ministries, such as the Ministry of the Interior, which rules many local projects. Before permitting e-administrative relations between local authorities and de-concentrated state services, it is important to have well-trained state civil officers, which takes time. Also, people who do not live in cities do not use the internet that much. A reason for this is that the prices offered by France Telecom are too high and the speed is low. Mechanisms for guidance such as those in the United Kingdom, where every local authority was asked by the central state to nominate a so-called ‘echampion’ (e-envoys for the local level), do not exist in France at the moment. Online government services In 1997, the government and its agencies could not be reached via the internet. Since the formation of PAGSI in January 1998, making government services available online has been a priority of the government’s modernisation programme. Information technology provides an effective means for improving the relationship between government agencies and the public, by offering additional services and improving the effectiveness of government agencies. In a January 2000 report to the prime minister, the government planning department (‘Commissariat général du Plan’), headed by Bruno Lasserre, observed that over the previous two years, the public sector had caught up with the private sector in terms of computer use. At the same time, access to government agencies via the internet had improved considerably. The parliamentary report delivered to the prime minister in April 2001 by Assembly member Thierry Carcenac noted that most of the objectives set by PAGSI in 1998 had been achieved. Electronic access to government agencies is now a practical reality. The next challenge is to develop more user-friendly online government services. New services for individuals and business Over a four-year period, close to 3,500 websites have been created in the public sector (local authorities, universities, national government agencies, ministries, decentralised public services, etc.). Surveys of a sample of public sites conducted in 2000 and 2001 show that the number of visitors rose by a factor of 4.5 from 1998 to 1999 and doubled again between 1999 and 2000. For example,

Electronic government in France 91 www.service-public.gouv.fr reports more than 600,000 hits a month, while www.finances.gouv.fr has been averaging 130,000 visitors. Free access to key public data, advocated by Lionel Jospin in August 1997 at Hourtin, has been expanding rapidly. The Official Gazette and legal announcements have been posted on the internet since January 1998, official reports since January 1999 and requests for proposals by government agencies since July 1999. Furthermore, the National Library’s website, which was opened in January 2000, provides free access to 35,000 works on the internet, as well as 45,000 images, and the government journal for voluntary agencies and collective agreements went online in 2001. Also, a total of some 900 official forms could be obtained online in April 2001, compared with 600 six months earlier. This represented 51 per cent of all government forms, up from 36 per cent. All forms frequently used by individuals can be obtained online. The next step will consist of making available those used by business. A single portal for central government – www.service-public.gouv.fr In France, a single portal with applications for both central and local government does not exist. Therefore, requirements like common standards, regular updates and the concentration of different areas of responsibility do not necessarily require new forms of cooperation and coordination. A single portal for central government does exist: www.service-public.gouv.fr, managed by the Government General Secretariat (SGG) and ‘Documentation française’. It is the official gateway to the French civil service and gives access to French civil service information online. The website has practical guides classified by theme, a civil service directory and a public website directory, and one can use the links to access the texts of laws, public reports and job offers in the civil service. The search engine helps to find information in all the gateway topics and on public websites. The website contains: directories, laws and official reports, ‘Your rights and procedures’, online forms, information on working in the civil service, news, information for professionals and businesses, a public website directory (listing national, local, European, international and foreign websites), a selection of French public websites containing information in English, and a civil service directory (organisation charts, managers and addresses for the different services). On 5 July 2002, an Arrêté created the website www.vie-publique.fr.4 This contains personal databases, the aims of which are the dissemination of presidential, governmental and ministerial cabinet organisational charts, the dissemination of ‘Documentation française’ databases and the management of internet users’ emails. Modernising the operations of public institutions A budget appropriation of €854 million was set aside in 2001 for the computerisation of government agencies. Working methods are being adapted to the ICTs

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that are available. By April 2001, a total of more than 675,000 personal computers were in use at government agencies, at least half of which were connected to the internet or to an intranet system, and more than 300,000 could receive email (30 per cent of all work stations, up from 5 per cent in 1997). All government ministries are now connected to the government’s intranet (AdER), a fast, secure system designed to facilitate the sharing of information by agencies. Regional information networks (the intranet systems linking national government agencies in a region or department) are valuable instruments for promoting inter-departmental cooperation at the local level. All regional information networks have been operating since the end of the first quarter of 2001; 85 per cent were already in use at the end of 2000. Narrowing the ‘digital divide’ Substantial inequalities remain in terms of access to computers and the internet. Upper-income households, especially those with a high level of education, are the main beneficiaries. Since 1998, the government has taken several measures aimed at narrowing the ‘digital divide’ and enabling more people to take advantage of new information technologies. By 2003, a total of 7,000 public terminals had been set up at public libraries, post offices, employment centres, information centres for young people, town halls and voluntary agencies. They include 2,500 public ‘digital facilities’ where, in addition to gaining access to utilities, the public are offered a free introduction to multimedia in the form of a ‘passport to the internet and the new media’. One of the objectives cited in the meeting of the Inter-ministerial Committee on Economic and Development Planning (CIADT) of 9 July 2001 was to reduce local inequalities in terms of ICT. Over the next five years, broadband access to the internet will be made available nationwide, including in areas with few facilities. The ‘Caisse des dépôts et consignations’ has set up an assistance fund to which it will contribute €229 million from its own assets over the next five years. Low interest, 30-year loans will be available for local governments, jointly financed by banks as part of a €1.5 billion programme. In addition to financial assistance, the CIADT has called for access to the national electrical power grid for the development of an optical-fibre telecommunications network. Adapting the law and legal resources The following statutes and bills will provide a legal framework favouring the development of the internet and e-commerce in France. The Act of 13 March 2000 adapted the law of evidence and electronic signatures. It places electronic signatures on an equal footing with handwritten signatures for evidentiary purposes. The Implementing Decree of 31 March 2001 transposes the European Directive and sets forth the conditions under which electronic signature procedures are considered secure and presumed to be

Electronic government in France 93 reliable. A new legislation on auctions takes into account the growing popularity of online auctions. A bill on the information society (the LSI), submitted to the Council of Ministers on 13 June 2001, seeks to raise public confidence in networks by guaranteeing freedom of expression online, setting forth the legal framework for e-commerce and improving security. The legislation also aims to extend internet access to all by improving access to computerised data and promoting the expansion of networks throughout the country. A bill to amend the 1978 Act on Computerised Data and Civil Liberties – which transposes European Directive 95/46 on the protection of personal data – was submitted to parliament in July 2001. It reinforces individual rights whenever data concerning individuals are computerised, while at the same time expanding the authority of the National Commission on Informatics and Liberties (CNIL) oversight agency. The Decree of 12 September 2000 on breaking up the government monopoly on local loops, which gives private operators access to France Telecom’s local networks in France, went into effect on 1 January 2001. The relaxation of rules governing encryption, announced by the government on 19 January 1999, resulted in the issuance of corresponding decrees on 17 March 1999. The bill on the information society will provide for the right to use encryption technology. The government’s council on the 13 June 2001 approved the ‘information society’ bill (LSI). This bill must be a new step on the way to adapting French law to information society needs. The law will adopt the European Directive on e-Commerce (8 June 2000). Its main objective is to promote e-communications trust, and to help internet use democratisation. This law wants to give to citizens better e-information; be a guarantee for e-communication freedom; make clear the legal framework of e-commerce; help the development of networks; and reinforce tools against cyber crime. At the European Community and international levels, France actively participated in the drafting of the Directive on electronic signatures, which was transposed into law by the Decree of 31 March 2001; the drafting of the Directive on e-commerce, adopted on 8 June 2000, which will be transposed into law as part of proposed legislation on the information society; the Group of Eight (G8) ‘Dialogue between the public authorities and the private sector on network security’ held in May 2000 in Paris, at which France proposed practical measures aimed at reinforcing the governments’ ability to fight ‘cyber criminals’; and the G8 ‘dot force’, which, in July 2001, proposed a programme aimed at narrowing the digital gap separating the countries of the North from those of the South. Measures to improve network security Two significant measures to improve network security have been implemented. First, the creation of an agency to fight crime involving ICT (Decree of 16 May

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2000). This inter-departmental agency has been granted nationwide jurisdiction to deal with offences involving information and communications systems. It provides assistance to all agencies responsible for fighting computer crime. Secondly, the creation of the Computer Emergency Response Team and Administration (CERT/A). To build up such an agency was decided at the conference on computer security of 19 January 1999. It is part of the National Agency for Information System Security (DCSSI), which is itself under the authority of the SGDN. CERT/A is in charge of detecting attacks on government information systems by ‘hackers’ as well as monitoring technological advances. Electronic service delivery targets within the French e-government strategy The state has given itself the following target: by 2005, all administrative procedures made by individuals, associations and companies, and all fiscal and social payments should be possible online. In accordance with a study made by Gartner Group in May 2001, ‘62 % of French internet surfers have already used e-government services, against 33 % in Germany and 55 % in England’. So, France takes first place in Europe for preparing or making administrative eprocedures. In November 2001, a Nelson Taylor (Sofrès) study showed that 81 per cent of French internet surfers wish to use the internet more and more for their administrative approaches. In 2000, the minister for civil service and state reform, Mr Michel Sapin, indicated, on 26 May, that The ITC help us to be more reactive. Integrated in the procedures, the ITC allow systematic information of every public service user, about his dossier and the acts he must do. Cooperation between the state services and the local authority services is much facilitated. The ITC allow an integrated service with an added value. The ITC give a better personalised relation with users, with an efficient transportation of information between services and with social partners of the state. The ITC give new accesses to administration, more flexible, more easy … At last, ITC favour a better interaction between administration and its users. The generalisation of e-public services means easy and fast access to all information; personalised help for administrative approaches; access to past approaches and free, secure storage of all results; and online exercise of the right to access and change information kept or exchanged between administrations. By 2005, each public service user, individual, association, company and local authority will have the benefit of a personalised count, panels and a unique interface for managing all administrative approaches, through www.servicepublic.gouv.fr. The government’s position concerning e-administration is outlined in PAGSI, which was adopted at the first meeting of the Inter-ministerial Committee for

Electronic government in France 95 State Reform, held on 16 January 1998: ‘To dematerialise administrative procedures and to develop them … To overcome an experimentation’s logic for a strategy which will progressively generalise such applications’. In 2001, the objective was to generalise many tele-procedures used by individuals or companies: payment of income taxes on a monthly basis; payment of university or housing grants; registration for driving licences through the driving schools; registration for administrative exams; the use of VAT e-forms, social forms and exchange of goods forms; etc. Furthermore, a reform of the code for procurement contracts (2001–02) allows the use of downloaded documents and, in most cases, encourages it. On 15 November 2002, Mr Sapin, opening a session of the Inter-ministerial Committee for State Reform, said: ‘The first step of e-administration, led by the Government since 1997, is a reality and a success. Everybody emphasizes the leading role of public services in the use of ITC.’ Three goals have been decided: to generalise e-public services by 2005; to reinforce personal data protection; and to make public service agents the actors for developing these new services. Combination of single pilot programmes and nationwide support for e-government In France, a limited focus on either single pilot programmes or nationwide support for e-government does not exist. The French e-strategy can be seen more as a combination of both approaches. The e-strategy is mostly a national one, decided by state responsibilities and, in fact, government responsibilities. Experiments are necessary for testing new approaches and to let de-concentrated services seize e-procedures that they do not know and must ‘invent’. Rules take into account all the time that public services must follow a national framework. Within this framework, big ministries, such as the Ministries of Finance, Economy and Industry, Defence, the Interior, Equipment and National Education, have their own needs, and therefore launch special e-procedures and tele-services, develop proper ways, and take an original approach to the public’s needs. On the other hand, local authorities, which are the elected responsible representatives, want more and more autonomy for e-government, and are obtaining it. E-administration and e-government are matters that encourage thinking about decentralisation, de-concentration and variety. The set of laws and regulations built for ruling a national approach to the problem is the best test for judging the strategy in the field of e-government in a country like France. For example: 13 March 2000, law adapting the right of evidence to ITC and for electronic signatures; 12 September 2000, Decree modifying the Postal and Telecommunications Code, and targeting the local loop, allowing high-speed internet access; 30 March 2001, Decree specifying how to apply the law on electronic signatures; 17 July 2001, law giving local authorities permission to create high-speed infrastructures and networks (Art. 19); and 18 September 2001, Decree applying Art. 56–3 of Public Procurement Code, concerning e-auctions.

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Application and diffusion of electronic signatures The set of rules necessary for implementing electronic signatures is now established. For addressing ‘the issue of a successful application and diffusion of electronic signatures’, two conditions must exist. First, the European Directive on e-commerce and Directive 95/45 on personal data protection have to be adopted. The Assembly has already adopted a bill on 31 January 2002; the Senate must now adopt it. However, the presidential and legislative election period has delayed examination of the bill. Another, the so-called LSI bill, is on the agenda, for adopting the two Directives. Secondly, the legislature has to build a legal framework for the use of electronic signatures within public services. At the moment, the requirements for such a legal framework are under examination. There are discussions about the security level of electronic signatures that could be used in public services. It could be useful to get a list of administrative acts for which a common electronic signature is acceptable and another list for which a certified e-signature is required. One principle could be written: a simple electronic signature is the common right, unless exceptions are named by law. The Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defence have pleaded for the common use of a certified signature. But it is very expensive, complicated and, sometimes, very difficult to use. If we take for example a certifying signature authority located in a utopian state, it is impossible for a local public service to verify if the rules have been followed. Another problem is thereby establishing the real identity of the signature’s owner. However, which kind of electronic signature will the public use? Certified? Free? For how much will it be sold? Can it be hired? The market is not yet launched or balanced. But it is acknowledged that the diffusion of electronic signatures is necessary for all complex future services. Without a mass diffusion of electronic signatures, the market for ecommerce cannot develop quickly. Without the use of electronic signatures by e-public services, it will be difficult to develop a market for them. But it is difficult for the e-administration to oblige people to use electronic signatures. The principle of equality between citizens demands that the price of electronic signatures should not be an obstacle to those people who cannot afford them. On the other hand, if electronic signatures are not used by administrations, e-government will have difficulties developing their use. The Ministry of Finance, Economy and Industry (MINEFI) launched the digital procedures for tax declaration and payment (income tax and VAT) two years ago. But MINEFI pays for the security of the program and the costs are high, which means that people who do not use MINEFI’s procedures pay for those who use them for free. The law adopted on 13 March 2001 raises as a principle that any written digital text possesses the same probative force as any written paper text. The Decree of 30 March 2001 completes it and introduces certificates for electronic signatures – digital attestations authenticating and confirming the identity of the signatory. The certificates are submitted to issue obligations. A qualified certification service provider, registered by the prime minister’s services, issues them.

Electronic government in France 97 Many categories of users can use certified electronic signatures. For example, companies can use them in B2B transactions and when paying tax online, while individuals can use them to place orders online and for authenticating emails. For individuals, the cost of an electronic signature should be a determining factor of choice. Previously, the signature had been a totally free utility. A directive signed on 13 December 1999 determined the law of 13 March 2000 which makes a distinction between simple electronic signatures and secured or advanced electronic signatures. Only the latter type have the benefit of a reliability presumption (Art. 1316–4 of the Civil Code), because the burden of proof lies with the person contesting the act. The Decree of 30 March 2001 introduced the necessary provisions for judging whether or not an electronic signature is reliable. Since 8 June 2002, when the Arrêté of 3 May 2002 was published, French companies have at last been able to engage contracts electronically: Arrêté concerned with the recognition and qualification of electronic certification providers and with the accreditation of companies responsible for this. This Arrêté named the French Committee for Accreditation (COFRAC) as the body responsible for accrediting the organisations (centres of evaluation) that will evaluate the certifying third parties. At the moment, the first accredited laboratories are CESTI (Centre for Evaluating Security of IT), AQL – Groupe SILICOMP, CEACI (THALES – CNES), SERMA Technologies, CEA LETI, Ernst & Young eLabel, Algoriel and Oppida. MINEFI has already created a working group, the ‘Groupe de Travail Fournisseurs Administration’ (GTFA), in association with the Ministry of Justice, the DCSSI and the SGDN. At MINEFI, a security policy has been adopted, applied to all procedures, for ensuring the public more simplicity and to help with the development of the ‘certification services’ market. The certification market is based on the development of an offer made by the certification authorities. Professional communities are organising the use of such services for their own needs (e.g. notaries, accountants), such that many professionals now have certificates. An expert group originating from the various departments of the Ministry has outlined the MINEFI security policy. This policy concerns electronic signature usage, certification services and the following principle: use of certification services presented on the market – companies using the e-services of the Ministry may acquire digital certificates chosen by the Ministry from among the various market providers. Today, several families of certificate exist, provided by the following: ‘Déclaracert Entreprise de Certplus’; ‘Socieposte de Certinomis’; ‘Chambersign Initio de ChamberSign’; ‘Crédit Lyonnais Entreprise du Crédit Lyonnais’; ‘Cyberplusbusiness, Banques Populaires de Clirk and Trust’ (BRED); ‘Sogen Trust de SG Trust Services’ (Société Générale); and Net Identity Entreprise (BNP Paribas Authority). The cost of a certificate (€35–70) is too high for individuals. Thus, the Ministry, as an experiment, will offer a certificate to every citizen who wishes to use the online declaration and payment of income tax service. Then, the Tax General Direction will permit the use of the certificates when the Ministry has

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approved them. When the development of certification services reduces prices, this Direction will no longer offer certificates but will accept those freely chosen by citizens from among approved certificates. Free choice and implementation of signature device Those corresponding with the Ministry have the freedom to chose their own certificate solution with respect to the level of protection they are seeking from the range of existing products: free programs offered by the browsers or smart cards, etc. This policy is interesting because it does not impose a unique solution on 3 million companies and 30 million tax households. MINEFI equipment The Ministry has decided to implement a public key infrastructure (PKI) (the PKI-MINEFI) for producing the certificates used by the Directions servers. The tool for producing certificates has been delegated to GIE Cartes Bancaires, after a bid. The Ministry’s PKI permits the use of highly secure signature kits by the Ministry’s heads. This ministerial PKI is to be developed inside the Ministry and is to be used within an inter-ministerial policy (with a common root created by the SGDN). The policy of this ministry, consisting of approving the methods proposed by service providers, matured long before the publication of the Decree (30 March 2001). It is necessary to wait for Arrêtés that will complete the Decree and permit the establishment of the complete requirements for secure electronic signatures. Relevant players in the implementation of e-government The prime minister and his services lead the implementation of e-government. These services comprise consultants and counsellors, conduct experiments, and carry out studies. Of course, they work for the public services, the ministries and for citizens in general. It could be said that the combination of the prime minister’s Cabinet, ATICA, COSA, DIRE, DCSSI and SGDN is equivalent to the Office of the e-Envoy in the United Kingdom. This is the ‘first circle’, to which it is necessary to add the PAGSI representatives, one from each ministry, chosen by the prime minister’s Cabinet. Then come the ministries. Each one is responsible for the ministerial implementation of e-government and participates in inter-ministerial meetings if the topic is appropriate to the ministry’s mission. But certain ministries have a leading role: those of Finance, Economy and Industry, the Interior, Justice, Defence, Equipment, National Education, Social Affairs, etc. Certain highranking officials, representatives of their ministry, have formed a kind of club, the so-called Modernisation High Civil Servants Officers. They have been instituted, as a team, a working group, for modernising the state. This is the second circle.

Electronic government in France 99 Around this are the following institutions: parliament, the State Council, the ‘Commissariat général du Plan’, the Economic and Social Council, CNIL, the ‘Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel’, etc., and many ‘smaller’ institutions working for the ministries. This is the third circle. Last of all come the local authority representatives: certain mayors, general council presidents, regional council presidents, commerce and industry chambers, universities, and research centres. Despite the involvement of so many different players, one must admit that France does not yet have a general plan for e-services that would give a special mission to each actor in relation to the others. However, the institutions that are described in this report must work together when there is an order to do so. Relevant players in implementation at the national level L´A G E N C E P O U R L E S T E C H N O L O G I E S D E L’ I N F O R M AT I O N E T D E L A C O M M U N I C AT I O N DA N S L’ A D M I N I S T R AT I O N ( AT I C A )

ATICA – formerly MTIC – is the contracting authority for inter-ministerial projects and for accompanying administrations. Services can consult ATICA before making an architectural or technological choice when planning to implement a tele-procedure. The agency is in charge of publishing a technical guide for implementing tele-procedures, animation of a club, which gathers contracting authorities in the field of tele-procedures, elaboration of a common interoperability framework and constitution of an inter-ministerial XML (eXtensible Mark-up Language) schemes register. C O M M I S S I O N F O R A D M I N I S T R AT I V E S I M P L I F I C AT I O N S ( C O S A )

COSA is a body dedicated to study, impulsion and following in the matter of administrative simplifications. It takes care of the ‘harmony, normalisation and simplification of administrative forms, whatever their aspect and their addressees’. It is also in charge of the inventory of existing or planned teleprocedures, their evaluation and their diffusion through the www.service-public. gouv.fr website. This mission is reinforced by the Decree and Circular of 25 May 2001 concerned with administrative simplification and implementing online forms. COSA has already proposed a guide for the conception and ‘webbing’ of administrative forms. N AT I O N A L A G E N C Y F O R I N F O R M AT I O N S Y S T E M S E C U R I T Y (DCSSI)

The DCSSI has been charged, within the framework of its pilot informatics security mission, with implementing an inter-ministerial register for managing public key infrastructures (IGC) for assuring coherence and better interoperability between tele-procedures.

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I N T E R - M I N I S T E R I A L D E L E G AT I O N F O R S TAT E R E F O R M ( D I R E )

DIRE is an inter-ministerial structure for analysing, evaluating, experimenting with, consulting on, proposing and following state reform. It suggests to government any proposal concerning state reform, coordinates the preparation of decisions that must be taken in this field and observes their implementation. Within DIRE, a mission (DIRE-UTIC) has been established ‘to promote use of informatics networks and tools by public services’. It coordinates, in particular, the development of public internet sites. VIT@MIN

Finally, an inter-ministerial cooperation working tool named ‘vit@min’ has been implemented by DIRE to allow central agencies and de-concentrated services to share information and to network about any interesting themes for public websites, and, notably, for the realisation of tele-services networking. Relevant players in implementation at the local level The following three big institutions, which represent local authorities, do not represent themselves through a ‘federal organisation’, since their electors are not the same persons. They exist as non-profit organisations, but they exchange information and may take decisions through political parties and the specialised state committees to whom they belong. Thus, they have a formal or informal power in the process of rule- and standard-making. The bodies are much concerned with e-government at the local level.5 A S S O C I AT I O N D E S M A I R E S D E F R A N C E 6

This body was created in 1907 and was recognised by the state as an ‘Association reconnue d’utilité publique’ (an association recognised as useful for the public) in 1933. It has six fundamental missions, which are written into its statutes: to establish a close and permanent dialogue between its members for studying every question related to city administrations, their relations, the relations with public powers, city agents, and populations; to promote the effective implementation of the constitutional principle of free city management; to facilitate city management of the members through information and training; to ensure their material and moral protection, in particular before the courts; to create solidarity and friendship between all mayors of French departments and territories; and to help mayors within their department management associations. L’ A S S E M B L É E D E S P R É S I D E N T S D E S C O N S E I L S G É N É R A U X (APCG)

The APCG was founded in 1946, and in 1999 became ‘L’Assemblée des Départements de France’ (ADF).7 Today, this organisation gathers together the

Electronic government in France 101 Conseils généraux from France, overseas territories, Mayotte and Saint-Pierre-etMiquelon, as represented by their presidents. It constitutes the representative body of the French departments. Its aims are: to establish a close dialogue between all general councils related to the implementation of competencies transferred to the departments by decentralisation laws, and concerning all interesting matters for the departments’ administrations; to represent all departments near national and European public powers; to make known to the government the official position of the general councils with respect to law and regulation projects concerning the departments’ missions, competencies and activities; to entertain close relations with the parliamentarians so as to allow the departments’ opinions to be taken into account; and to be an interactive and representative body close to other economic and social institutions for developing partnerships whose aim could be more efficient politics at the departmental level. L’ A S S O C I AT I O N D E S R É G I O N S D E F R A N C E ( A R F ) 8

This association was created in December 1998 to allow regional council presidents and their services to entertain a close dialogue. They wished to share experiments carried out in the regions because of the competencies transferred to the regions by decentralisation laws. ARF is a proposal force representing all French regions close to government, parliament and the main European institutions. Its mission is to make known to the government the opinions of the regional council presidents on public policies and texts concerning regional competencies and activities; it maintains close relations with parliamentarians so that the advice of regions can be taken into account within law-making; it represents regions and their actions to European institutions such as the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Regions Committee, the Association of European Regions, etc; it facilitates the exchange of information between all regions; and it promotes regional facts to major social and economic actors such as the Chambres consulaires (commercial chambers representing the business community), the professional organisations and federations. Its previous president was Jean-Pierre Raffarin, at the time of writing the current French prime minister. Placing the named players within the e-strategy The above-named players work on a formal basis. Indeed, the play is under the authority of the prime minister’s Cabinet, or the ministries’ Cabinets. The players have to refer to counsellors and cannot start an action without agreement. Then, each player must inform his hierarchy as soon as the negotiations progress. The decisions that have to be taken must gather many representatives of the prime minister’s services, the ministries, etc. Consequently, building an agenda is a very important matter. There are not so many players. Each of them is very busy. Many projects are started too late or they are very urgent. Thus, decisions are to be shared and approved by concerned authorities. Most

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decisions come from the prime minister’s authority, but decisions must be prepared and matured after consultations with the services which will apply them. Many decisions are taken by the Council of Ministers. It means that most details must be checked. The relative positions of municipal authorities and decision-makers with respect to the implementation of the national e-strategy is a matter of balanced power. Within each political class, in practical terms, each politician is a representative of a city, a department and a region. Many MPs represent such an entity. Most ministers are also mayors, or general council presidents, or members of a regional council. As a mayor and an MP, they may have enough power, influence, etc., to have the chance of implementing an e-project. It means that the national strategy, including necessary experiments, may accept different programs that are implemented by certain local authorities. In fact, not every representative of a local authority is convinced that the local budget must pay for ICT. As a means of reducing expenses and communicating with electors, ICT is interesting. At least dialectics between local authorities and the national strategy is a question of personal power. Types of networking or interplay between different players There are several inter-ministerial networks. It is possible to cite AdER, the main e-government network, the inter-prefectures network, which is under the control of the Ministry of the Interior, and the Territorial Information Systems network, which connects each prefecture to the de-concentrated services and the services to each other. Of course, email is an important network, since it is possible to send an email to one person and as many others as is necessary at the same time, as a copy. Email is, in fact, the most important network for communications between high officials. But the directors of the central administrations do not use it easily. On the contrary, persons in charge of e-administration development use it like a telephone. All these networks are recent. Their use progresses with each week. The Council of Ministers must examine bills. The Constitution, laws and regulations rule the functioning of this political council. The e-government issue is addressed through two main councils: the Information Society Inter-ministerial Committee and the State Reform Inter-ministerial Committee. The French concept of e-government combines state reform action and eadministration development. Webbing an administrative procedure for transforming it into a tele-procedure or a tele-service means a renewal of the procedure: simplification of the language, of the form, of the procedure itself. The simplification of administrative procedures issue is a good example of interplay between the various players. Two major decisions have been made: the first relates to the means and methods of simplification, the second to the key phrase adopted by the government and applied to the various measures it has adopted, namely ‘counting on trust’.

Electronic government in France 103 Cooperation between different state levels Interoperability between machines belonging to local and national authorities is, obviously, the main interface for cooperation. It involves not only the use of TCP/IP, but also the use of communication programs. It is the condition for building e-administration in the interests of citizens. Laws are also a major interface. For instance, in the future, everyone must observe personal data protection law. It is a second challenge for e-government success. People must be sure that the administration does not file too much personal data which, in combination, could give the authorities too much power. Another interface is the electronic signature. It is very important to use simple ones. Otherwise, the administrative costs will increase too much. National authorities as local authorities must agree about it and facilitate the citizens’ tasks when writing to administrations. Finally, it is important for citizens to get the full benefit of e-government. It means that both local and national administrations must conceive procedures that allow an individual to enter through any door in the network and obtain the right forms easily from anywhere. In this spirit, representatives of all levels (municipal, regional, national) must control national and local networks. Areas of cooperation are, for example, the exchange of information between department prefectures, the Territorial Information Systems network and the municipalities, and between the Ministry of the Interior and the municipalities, using ICTs. Within this system, ATICA and each public service provide free programs, XML programs and training for interoperability between machines. COSA and each public service, in conjunction with COSLA (Commission for the Simplification of Administrative Language), provide administrative simplifications regarding the language used on the forms and tele-services or tele-procedures. Means and methods of simplifying procedures for users After concluding that the simplification of formalities and procedures, an allembracing and remote objective, has rarely impinged in any practical or immediate way on users, the government made the decision to introduce a pragmatic mechanism. The procedure has been for the services to pool information on good administrative practices, experience gained and difficulties encountered. The prime minister considers administrative simplification to be a challenge vital enough to require everyone to make a contribution. The general method recommended is to mobilise everyone: ‘The new system will only work if all administrations give it their best effort on a continuing basis’.9 Thus, ‘administrative simplification should not be made the exclusive property of a commission or a specialised body, it is of concern to the administration as a whole, including all State services’.10 This was the reason for ending COSIFORM, designed as a simplification commission bringing together representatives of all institutional entities in its sub-committees. COSIFORM (Commission for the Simplification of Formalities), despite many meetings and reports, did not

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really succeed in initiating any visible and practical simplifications. Incidentally, some of its working groups were unaware of or unable to take account of the advent of the internet. Its work was brought to an end in August 1998. At that point, and quite logically, the prime minister decided that each ministry should be responsible for the procedures under its purview and for preparing, under the conditions provided for by Art. 1 of the Decree of 2 December 1998, an annual programme for the simplification of administrative formalities and procedures that would form part of the ministry’s wider multi-year modernisation programme.11 The separate responsibilities of each party were clearly defined: the ministries would be responsible for administrative simplification policy in their sectors on the basis of plans to be submitted annually to COSA; COSA would review the plans and submit to the prime minister, who is its chairman, the measures proposed for implementation, including its own proposals. The method was defined in a prime ministerial circular dated 6 March 2000,12 entitled ‘The government machinery for achieving administrative simplification and modernisation of the state: from promoting action to concerted action’. The 1980s were marked by the drive to pursue simplification through the provision of a management framework to handle the necessary measures. Thus, the introduction of computer-assisted management procedures required each public service unit to appear before an inter-ministerial commission on administrative procedures in order to give its views on equipment guidelines. Similarly, the administrative simplification procedures which were applied initially to businesses and later extended to other users were examined by the Commission for the Simplification of Formalities (COSIFORME, subsequently known as COSIFORM), which worked through a series of committees each dealing with a given topic and periodically meeting with partner institutions and administrations. At a time when the concept of the single access point was making headway with the introduction of Business Formalities Centres, it was natural that most of COSIFORM’s work would be centred on the introduction, under the ‘edifact’ standard, of single access point procedures coupled with a back office. In the very early 1990s, the setting up of the Commission on State Reform, a subsidiary body to the Prime Minister’s Office, was the sign of a rather one-sided policy where simplification consisted in the removal of existing procedures through an approach designed to promote such action. The wholesale transfer of a number of state services to the provinces in the wake of a prime ministerial decision was also an aspect of this one-sided and somewhat authoritarian policy, whose abrupt demise was evidenced and penalised by the disappearance of the Commission on State Reform. The bodies currently in place are as follows: 1 2

COSA is the leading body responsible for coordinating measures to simplify administrative procedures for users. DIRE keeps abreast of the organisational changes taking place in the state services and in their relations with local authorities.

Electronic government in France 105 3

The Agency for Information and Communication Technologies keeps an eye on changes in the new technologies market and provides administrations with guidance and advice.

These three bodies are concerned with the general dissemination of good practices, which they inspect and hand on, thus providing administrations with a permanent source of support. To take users’ needs as the starting point, the starting point for the work was to be the user.13 As the prime minister said: You must therefore identify the procedures that most often make difficulties for the user in practice and cause considerable misunderstanding and waste of time. It is incumbent on you to determine, in the light of your department’s field of work and in consultation with users and their representatives, the procedures relevant to such identification.14 The design and implementation of appropriate quantitative monitoring of simplification measures In addition to monitoring the implementation of simplification measures in practice, notably with respect to time schedules, COSA is also responsible for designing tools to provide quantitative measurement of the actual impact achieved by those measures, for example in relation to savings in time, number of procedures eliminated or financial savings for users. An impact note shall accompany all simplification measures proposed by a ministry in its simplification plan. The prime minister assesses the timeliness and effectiveness of the measures submitted in the annual programmes. Once decided, simplification measures are to be put into practice as soon as possible. A senior official in each ministry is assigned the task of watching over the implementation of simplification measures. COSA submits a public report to the prime minister each year, which includes the status of the implementation of the ministries’ simplification plans. Results of the first simplification plans The plans submitted to COSA on 15 September 2000 have been reviewed and evaluated. Two plenary meetings of the Commission were enough to prepare the measures ministries were asked to implement in the short term.15 Some of these measures applied to individuals using the administrative services, and others to businesses and professional persons. Ten measures applicable to users were approved, as were five groups of measures for businesses. Burden-reduction measures for users encompassed the elimination or simplification of 25 million procedures. The time saved, which was calculated to be 10 million hours of procedures and waiting at access points, was estimated to be worth €91.5 million in monetary terms. The procedures eliminated included: presentation of 60 million civil status certificates and 25

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to 30 million photocopies of documentary evidence of domicile in the case of the most widely applied procedures, including application for vehicle registration certificates (12 million) and family allowances (10 million). The same is true of the 1,000 forms accessible free of charge online that have made it possible, in pursuance of the Decree of 2 February 1999,16 to embark on a procedure by obtaining the form and its accompanying explanatory documentation over the internet. COSA has taken on the task of official acceptance, following quality assessment in relation to clarity, comprehensibility and ease of completion, of forms submitted in draft. Its duties are therefore quite different from those of the Centre for Registration of Administrative Forms (CERFA), which was abolished at the same time as COSIFORM (see above) and merely listed and recorded proposed drafts of administrative forms. COSA has taken a number of steps to help services improve the design of forms: provision of a guidebook on form design; the conduct of surveys among users and at access points to find out what users find difficult and what the pitfalls are; work on the redesign and redrafting of forms with the help of design services, a communications agency and a university linguistics centre; and assistance in putting forms online where internet access would help users and still meet legal requirements. Seeking quality in administrative forms: cataloguing and evaluation In the late 1970s, the general public was given the task of cataloguing all administrative forms designed by CERFA for use. Since this proved a long and difficult undertaking, CERFA asked administrations to make it a practice in future to submit to it all printed forms they intended to bring out. On its demise in 1998, CERFA was replaced by COSA, which was able to use the work already done on cataloguing forms (some 2,000 forms were in existence) and to continue it in the search for greater overall accessibility and comprehensibility. COSA was thus asked to continue the cataloguing and, in addition, to look for ways to better coordinate forms and to simplify them. Since March 2000, COSA has been engaged in the quality assessment of forms and has produced a guidebook on form design aimed at administrations as well as a checklist for the self-assessment of forms. The best forms, whatever their format (paper forms, online forms, fully interactive online procedures), are awarded a seal of quality, which the administration in question is then entitled to display on the relevant document. Ministries have been very eager to receive this seal, but COSA has so far awarded it to only four procedures (the application form for taking the competitive examination for entry into the teaching profession (300,000 applicants annually), the application form for family allowances, the form for notification of social security contributions paid by the selfemployed, and the application form for the criminal record certificate required for entry to some posts in the public service or private sector). This work continued in 2001 with an initial set of surveys conducted among user groups and the services managing case files or dealing with the general public to find

Electronic government in France 107 out what problems had cropped up. This led to the rewriting of forms with the help of a communications agency and COSLA . In the case of professional persons and businesses, five groups of measures were decided for introduction in 2001–02. The general use of online notification and procedures began in the tax field (online VAT returns and notification of trade in goods, public tenders). In the public contract area and on the basis of the new Code governing public contracts which was published on 8 March 2001, a trial of placing tenders for the supply of office equipment electronically was conducted at MINEFI.17 There was also the continuation of the introduction of single access points for accomplishing administrative procedures or submitting administrative notifications, including the installation of a processing centre for social and tax data shared by the social security bodies and the general tax directorate; having a single collection point for data would thus make it possible for taxpayers and payers of contributions to be sent returns completed in advance, which they would then have the opportunity to amend or endorse. Establishment of business by means of a virtual Centre for Companies’ Administrative Proceedings (CFE) Simplification of social and tax procedures by use of the net-enterprises gateway managed by the Public Interest Grouping on the Modernisation of Social Notifications (GIP-MDS; see above), and in some sectors assistance in preparing payslips; elimination or slimming down of administrative procedures for authorising the licensing of certain trades or occupations – these measures are a continuation of the initial work on the simplification of matters relating to businesses, which was begun in 1997 and 1998 by the Secretary of State for small and medium-sized enterprises, trade, crafts and consumer affairs, and extend and supplement it. COSA is expected to report to the prime minister, the ministers who are its vice-chairmen and the prominent persons who constitute it, on implementation of these measures, notably as part of the annual progress report mentioned earlier.18 Through this body, the prime minister’s directive to ministers has been to keep the number of proposals down but to ensure they are the measures that will be most meaningful for the public, targeted and capable of being put into effect rapidly. Practical applications based on the government’s key phrase ‘counting on trust’ Unlike other states, France does not necessarily favour lessening state involvement or slimming down the public sector. On the contrary; it seeks to transfer the management of complex matters to the administration, which is better placed to deal with them than users. Incidentally, complexity is often generated by the general public’s own expectations, as taken up by their representatives in parliament, to have more attention given to specific situations. As long as the public machine keeps trying to provide increasingly targeted and specific responses to individual cases, notably in social and fiscal matters, efforts aimed

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only at reducing complexity cannot be truly effective in the country. On the other hand, the idea that the general public should not be asked to shoulder the heavy burden of procedures has proved more workable. As was mentioned earlier, bringing a number of access points together in a single place, introducing single sites serviced by a number of administrations and the development of online procedures also come under this heading. Another approach has been to try to reduce the number of requests made for information by an administration engaged in processing a user’s case file. Legislation has thus removed the right of French administrations to require documents that must be supplied by other administrations, for example certificates of civil status (of which 60 million used to be requested annually, or at least one per year per inhabitant, each implying a trip to the town hall), documentary evidence of domicile, implying submission of a photocopy or display of bills or receipts at an access point (another journey and more waiting time), or duly certificated photocopies of supporting documents. In future, users will show supporting documentation directly at an access point or send simple and legible photocopies by post. As a continuation of this effort, the government Decree of 25 May 200119 requested all administrations to desist from requesting the same information from the same user on numerous occasions. COSA was required to assist administrations to follow this recommendation. One of its tasks was to certify the list of supporting documents required for each procedure, with the authority to reduce it in size. This approach has already had useful applications wherever there is a single file-holding point (e.g. CFE, GIP-MDS for mandatory social returns, etc.). It has also been taken into account by the major networks such as the family allowance fund which, with the help of COSA (and COSLA as regards administrative language), have designed a single simplified file for requesting various social assistance forms. The file was designed on the premise that it was not up to applicants to determine the allowances to which they were entitled; they should be merely required to send in a statement of their family and financial situations in order to receive by return access to all the entitlements open to them. Of course, observance of citizens’ rights implies that information documents and a public site should be made available so that the assistance on hand might be ascertained. French town halls, which used to issue 60 million certificates of civil status and 10 to 15 million duly certificated copies of documents a year, have been relieved to find that they will no longer have to support the extra workload occasioned by tasks originated by administrations processing case files. Similarly, the introduction of electronic access points in prefectures, the development of online services, the rationalisation of the periods of validity of identity and travel documents, and the provision of a list of supporting documents are allowing prefectures to cut down queues at access points. An evaluation of these measures by COSA has clearly demonstrated that their impact is due not only to the fact that users understand them but also to the benefit the services receive from a considerable reduction in what are generally tedious tasks. The downside is that all access points will have to offer the same facilities, otherwise the late providers

Electronic government in France 109 will have to suffer complaints from users that they are not getting the same level of service as people in another district that is offering the new services. Similarly, users made aware of their rights and obligations by public sites are ready to protest against any extra or different requirements imposed on them locally. Complaints and emails bear witness to the fact that people are better informed. The minister for public service and state reform launched an information campaign for users in the autumn of 2001 entitled ‘We’re simplifying the administration for you’, and has prepared guides and circulars for officials dealing with the public and the services responsible for processing files. The increasing rate at which officials are being connected to the internet, external websites and public gateways should make it easier to minimise the delay between the moment a reform is adopted and the time it comes into operation throughout the country. It is not only in the interests of improving the information provided to officials on the means at their disposal but also with a view to raising their awareness of the various aspects of administrative simplification and state reform that training is being stepped up and information days and seminars held. Trainees, officials and students are also the target of interventions by ministers or senior officials with responsibilities for simplification and modernisation. Institutes for political studies, regional institutes of administration and the national school of administration benefit from these interventions Special authority in relation to the implementation of e-government The ministries are responsible for implementing e-procedures and tele-services. But the prime minister’s regular power is mighty because it is necessary to coordinate and unify many aspects of e-government. For example, public websites must include the following features: a certain type of logo, access to a webmaster, free documents, special programs for handicapped persons, several foreign languages, etc. The tele-services must guarantee personal data protection and cannot sell or mix data without CNIL’s permission. Today, e-government development is ruled enough, except for the transposition of European directives on e-commerce and personal data protection. Means of guidance/control of e-government implementation A main type of guidance/control used by the players involved in the implementation of e-government is the law. Then come the prime minister, ministers and prefects, and finally jurisprudence. Money is very important since local authorities may want to implement a project and not have the money for it. Knowledge is perhaps the most important factor as only a few people are experts. The law The 1978 law on informatics, files and liberties has been and still is a form of control/guidance of the public services’ use of digital files. Administrations are

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accustomed to consulting CNIL experts before creating digital files concerning citizens’ personal data. The CNIL representatives study a project very carefully, have discussions with ministry representatives and make approvals or otherwise. Practically speaking, administrations are happy to follow CNIL advice. In advance of the European Union, which recently adopted a directive to regulate the protection of privacy with regard to personal information held on file, including in computer records, France introduced systems to protect personal information in 1978. Under the law, no administration may hold such information on file without prior authorisation from the independent commission CNIL, which keeps watch on all data held on file, the use made thereof, authorisations for access thereto by administrations and the archiving of such data. It guarantees individuals the right of access to their personal data and their right to have such data corrected. Single access points, together with all other systems for sharing data, are required to make prior applications and access may be denied. CNIL was for a long time opposed to a single identity code for use by all administrations. Although it recently authorised social security bodies to give data on the amounts paid out in allowance to the tax administration to enable individual income tax returns to be completed in advance, this procedure is subject to stringent conditions. For example, no member of staff of the tax administration may have access to individual data. Data processing centres have been accorded sole entitlement to receive the information provided by social security bodies and to enter it on tax returns (on which the identity code does not appear). For the same reason, France does not have a general population database, unlike other states such as Denmark, since such databases are undoubtedly considered contrary to the principles of individual privacy. This limits the simplification process in that two separate administrations may share data on ordinary persons (users, families, and managers and employees of businesses) only under very stringent conditions and after receiving prior agreement from CNIL and being subject to subsequent scrutiny by that body. On the other hand, it is only recently that thought has been given to other ways of steering reform; the contract-based relationship between the state and local authorities that was mentioned earlier is currently being extended within state administrations and in conjunction with the social security bodies, which is shown by the approval of plans setting out the goals each partner is expected to achieve in exchange for the resources, including financial resources, accorded it under the plan. These undertakings are centred on the service to be delivered to users. In the same way, the first national policy directives (‘Directives Nationales d’Orientation’) defining the major thrusts of ministerial policy were sent out by ministries to their local services. In parallel, the idea of improving access to the law has been expressed by two major trends. The first was the re-launching during the 1980s of the idea that all laws and regulations dealing with the same field but of scattered dates and levels should be grouped into single codes. The High Commission on Codification was given the task of scrutinising these new codes, which were intended to facilitate access to a unified and complete body of

Electronic government in France 111 laws and regulations in a given field, before their submission to parliament for approval. The subsequent provision of a database accessible through the Légifrance website20 and giving online access to these codes and the principal laws and regulations published since 1994 makes it possible for all members of the public to consult the various Acts and decrees without having to conduct a bibliographical search or undertake a journey. In addition, a concern for high quality, in regulations for example, and effective policies has led governments, as recommended by the Council of State, to seek to improve the quality of laws and regulations. One of the main means of achieving this has been to require an impact study to be made of all proposed legislation before it is subjected to inter-ministerial consideration or submitted to the Council of State for review. A prime ministerial circular dated 21 November 199521 provides that bills and draft decrees should be accompanied at each stage of preparation by a specific review of the advantages expected of the legislation and its various implications, such as for employment and administrative procedures. The Council of State and the Committee of Inquiry into the Cost and Performance of the Public Service have each made an evaluation of the operation. Despite mixed opinions, it was decided to make the mechanism a permanent one. Assessment of the five years of impact studies has led to the following observations. The studies exist and generally automatically accompany all draft legislation considered by the Council of State. Their content and quality remains very variable. They sometimes suffer from a lack of numerical data or international comparisons; services tend to advocate measures for internal reasons rather than engaging in a genuine critical review. However, it is true that the studies are prepared by services that lack the proper skills, are not subject to external review and have to meet very short deadlines. It is a fact that decisions relating to government programmes sometimes arise out of election manifestos. In such circumstances, texts are subject to many constraints (imposed by various groupings, consultations and inter-ministerial discussions) before consideration by the Council of State. The most far-reaching are generally preceded by extensive media coverage and prior negotiation with the social partners. As a result, it is difficult to soften or abandon such texts subsequently in the light of the conclusions of an expert survey of their principal or secondary repercussions. Nevertheless, and despite the pitfalls reported by the two authorities that have assessed the measure over the five years of its application, the prime minister, in a circular on administrative simplification dated 25 May 2000,22 recalled that an impact study is mandatory for any bill or draft decree submitted to the Council of State. The circular stated that the study should specify the number of authorities involved in the procedure, the new administrative formalities introduced, the grounds for introducing them and the average time taken for a decision. In the case of any proposal to make procedures more cumbersome, authors are also asked to explain why this move is considered to be in the general interest.

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Money The government is motivated to provide access to networks for everybody, but observes that the market, as it is, cannot provide access for all persons everywhere in the territory to information and communications services. Thus, local authorities have to engage and the state wants to participate. Local authorities wish to expand high-speed telecommunications networks to cover the zones in which operators have not invested. Local authorities need help from the state. Since 28 June 2001, Art. L. 1511–6 (general code of local authorities) permits local authorities to build telecommunications infrastructure. The government has made a decision: to provide complete mobile phone coverage within three years. The government wishes to sustain local authority and operator investment for the building of base stations. Thus, 1,480 villages will obtain mobile communications and, in ‘forgiven’ zones, a unique network will connect people. The project cost is €213 million. The operators will pay €61 million, while the CIADT will invest €76 million.23 According to the PAGSI framework, the government has decided that highspeed internet access should be available to all by 2005. Studies show that if the state does not participate financially, 20–25 per cent of the population will not get this special access because of too high prices. Thus, the state will help territorial projects through a public bank, the ‘Caisse des dépôts et consignations’. It will pay €229 million over five years. Special rates for 30-year loans will be made available to local authorities. The financing for this is €1.5 billion. However, the central government uses financial support as an instrument for implementing electronic service applications at the local level, but not directly. The state may use the means of the ‘Caisse des dépôts et consignations’. In July 2002, a meeting of the CIADT asked the local authorities and the ‘Caisse des dépôts et consignations’ to each pay 50 per cent of the cost of the networks. Knowledge Like in many other European states, there exists in France governmentsupported knowledge management with respect to e-government. Some governmental bodies are concerned with the systematic collection of knowledge about e-government in France (e.g. best practices etc.) and, in most cases, with ensuring as well the dissemination of this knowledge. DIRE and the Ministry of Civil Service are responsible for organising conferences on disseminating this knowledge. Generally, these conferences are attended by ministers and high-ranking officials; civil service agents are invited to participate as they wish. DIRE also runs vit@min, a network which carries news, information, announcements, documents, etc. (for more information on vit@min, see above). But it has to be acknowledged that a general plan or organisation for ensuring the dissemination of this knowledge does not exist. Each ministry manages e-information – best practices, training methods, etc. – on its own. The prime minister’s services, the Ministry of Civil Service and MINEFI use various websites for announcing e-administration reforms, new tele-services

Electronic government in France 113 and procedures, etc. (e.g. www.internet.gouv.fr, www.fonction-publique.gouv.fr, www.finances.gouv.fr and www.service-public.gouv.fr). Universities use the Renater public network. In 2002, the government launched a training project for public servants called ‘Campus numériques’ (Digital Campus). Finally, the National Centre for Distance Learning (CNED) will manage university programmes and create multimedia training videos.

Conclusion The ministries and their civil servants had no habits, no tradition, no rules to obey, no history. Launching the PAGSI, in 1998, was already great and very innovative. The prime minister, his services, the SGG and the important ministries have shown a real capacity for adaptation and renewal. There have been a number of achievements: declaration and payment of taxes online (which has proved to be particularly popular); territorial information systems for communications between de-concentrated state services; online registration for administrative examinations; the huge and successful field of administrative simplifications and the emergence of trust among the public towards administration; the quality of rules thanks to the actions of COSLA; and access to the internet for handicapped persons. But the question of the use of electronic signatures has not yet been resolved. Furthermore, the bills concerning personal data protection and e-commerce are not yet laws. Successful attempts at the coordination, implementation and generation of knowledge can be seen in the meetings of the Information Society Inter-ministerial Committee and the State Reform Inter-ministerial Committee. Their preparation has mobilised the ministries, and the realisation of decisions has implemented the first steps of e-government; the modernisation of MINEFI; the constitution of the Modernisation High Civil Servants Officers; PAGSI representatives in the ministries; and the creation of ‘internet schools’ and the launching of the Digital Campus for training civil service agents. Taking into account statutes, missions and the habits of the ministries, the level of cooperation can be evaluated as being quite high. It is very difficult to produce inter-ministerial work. It seems that most public services have incorporated the intrusion of the internet into administrative work successfully. It could be important to constitute a steering group to ensure that, by 2005, all public services are able to manage tele-procedures and tele-services. The plans of the new government regarding the modification of election rules could modify the balance of power between the state and the local authorities, in a way that could give more autonomy to the latter. In the meantime, more contracts could be signed between national and local ‘partners’. However, besides these successes, the conservatism of the public service trade unions especially could be regarded as an obstacle to necessary change. It is natural for trade unions to protect their members’ interests. The limit is where general interest could be worn by corporatism privileges. Inside each ministry, several trade unions can coexist. It may occur that these various trade unions

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end up fighting against each other. The general status of the public service was created in 1945. It needs some changes. Furthermore, any kind of public service users’ association does not exist. Therefore, the government is unable to get partners or opponents to e-government programmes. It is necessary to rethink the use of personal data in tele-services. At present, the 1978 law on informatics, files and liberties could act as an obstacle to the movement of personal data from one public service to another since a law has been passed which prohibits the creation of a personal data file, composed of information coming from different files, without CNIL’s permission.

Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6 7 8 9

2002 PROPOSITION DE LOI CONSTITUTIONNELLE adoptée par le sénat relative à la libre administration des collectivités territoriales et à ses implications fiscales et financières, TRANSMISE PAR M. LE PRÉSIDENT DU SÉNAT À M. LE PRÉSIDENT DE L’ASSEMBLÉE NATIONALE. Enregistré à la Présidence de l’Assemblée nationale le 17 juillet 2002. ‘Article 1er: Il est inséré, au titre XII de la Constitution, un article 72–1 ainsi rédigé: “Art. 72–1. – La libre administration des collectivités territoriales est garantie par la perception de recettes fiscales dont elles votent les taux dans les conditions prévues par la loi. Les ressources hors emprunt de chacune des catégories de collectivités territoriales sont constituées pour la moitié au moins de recettes fiscales et autres ressources propres. Les collectivités territoriales peuvent recevoir le produit des impositions de toute nature. Toute suppression d’une recette fiscale perçue par les collectivités territoriales donne lieu à l’attribution de recettes fiscales d’un produit équivalent.” ’ ‘Article 2: Il est inséré, au titre XII de la Constitution, un article 72–2 ainsi rédigé: “Art. 72–2. – Tout transfert de compétences entre l’Etat et les collectivités territoriales et toute charge imposée aux collectivités territoriales par des décisions de l’Etat sont accompagnés du transfert concomitant des ressources permanentes, stables et évolutives nécessaires. Ces ressources assurent la compensation intégrale des charges imposées.” ’ 2002 Arrêté du 5 juillet 2002 relatif à la création au secrétariat général du Gouvernement (direction de la Documentation française) d’un site internet intitulé ‘vie-publique.fr’. JO Numéro 158 du 9 Juillet 2002 page 11728 Textes généraux Premier ministre NOR: PRMX0205680A. For example, the Association des Maires de France expresses its point of view about electronic communications in the following terms: ‘the representatives want that decentralisation will favour their initiative capacity and allow them to develop new responsibilities’. On 15 November 2002, the mayors of the big cities and the mayors of ‘wired cities’ published a document entitled ‘Platform of the local authorities about electronic communications and audiovisual’. The mayors want freedom for city initiatives and they wish to be full actors within the information society as is the case in most European Union countries. Furthermore, they think that new decentralisation reforms must encompass electronic communications and audiovisual technologies. See www.amf.asso.fr. See www.departement.org. See www.erm.lu/id15.htm. Circular dated 6 March 2000 on simplification of formalities and administrative procedures, Journal officiel, 7 March 2000, NOR: PRMX0003982C.

Electronic government in France 115 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Ibid., Annex 1: Annual administrative simplification programmes. Ibid. See note 9, above. Ibid. Ibid. See www.cerfa.gouv.fr. Decree 99–68 of 2 February 1999 on making administrative forms available online, as amended by Decree 2001–452 of 25 May 2001. Available online at www.legifrance .gouv.fr/texteconsolide/PQHZB.htm. See www.minefi.gouv.fr. See www.cerfa.gouv.fr. Decree 2001–452 of 25 May 2001 on simplifying administrative procedures and forms. Available online at www.legifrance.gouv.fr/citoyen/jorf_nor.ow?numjo= PRMX0104862D. See www.legifrance.gouv.fr. Circular dated 21 November 1995 on trials of an impact study to accompany bills and draft decrees submitted to the Council of State. Available online at www.legifrance.gouv.fr/cityoyen/jorf_nor.ow?numjo=PRMX9501182C. Circular dated 25 May 2001 on administrative simplifications and putting administrative forms online. Available online at www.legifrance.gouv.fr/citoyen/jorf_nor.ow? numjo=PRMX0104862C. CIADT, meeting of 9 July 2001.

5

Electronic government in Germany Martin Eifert

General administrative framework and jurisdiction in Germany Outline of the German multi-layer administration The Federal Republic of Germany, as the name already indicates, is a federal state (Art. 20 GG (Basic Law)).1 It is divided into a federal level (Bund) and a state level (Länder). The local level (Gemeinden, Städte) as well as the regional level (Landkreise) form part of the states. However, the right of local self-government is guaranteed by the Basic Law (Art. 28, para. 2 GG) as well as by most state constitutions.2 The federal system, including the right of local self-government, entails a complex set of spheres of responsibility concerning legislative and administrative powers that can only be roughly outlined.3 As a starting point, Art. 30 GG provides the basic rule according to which the states are competent in all matters unless the Basic Law states or allows a regulation to the contrary. With respect to legislative powers, however, the situation has in fact been turned upside down (cf. Herzog 1993; Karpen 1988: 394ff.; Rudolf 1990: § 105, Rn. 4) due to the shift of more and more specific legislative responsibilities to the federal level over time, the extensive interpretation of federal responsibilities by the Constitutional Court and the extensive legislation of the federal level based on so-called concurrent federal legislation. The latter presupposes a need for regulation at the federal level (Art. 72, para. 2 GG), but this restriction has been interpreted very narrowly by the Constitutional Court. The federal concurrent competence encompasses, inter alia, civil law, the law of procedure (concerning all kind of courts) and the law of economic affairs (Art. 74, para. 1 GG). The latter includes the regulation of electronic signatures. In addition to concurrent legislation, the basic legal framework of a number of matters such as registration of residents can be set by federal law (Art. 75 GG). The Bundesrat, which is the chamber in which the state governments are represented at the federal level, however, is involved in the legislative procedure (Art. 50 GG). Its legislative power rises equally to the importance of legislative objectives for state government affairs.

Electronic government in Germany 117 The remaining competence of the states is much stronger in the field of administration. The states, of course, implement their own laws, but the vast majority of federal laws are also implemented by the states (cf. Art. 83–91 GG). Federal laws on organisational matters of public administration in the states,4 as well as federal rules on the execution of federal laws, can be enacted in order to ensure uniform execution of federal laws but require the consent of the Bundesrat (Art. 84, para. 1, 2 GG). The degree of unification reached by these means varies from area to area.5 In any event, there remains a remarkable autonomy at the level of the states as far as general administration is concerned. In general, the federal government and the state governments have to carry the expenditure resulting from their respective responsibilities, especially the cost of their respective administrations (Art. 104a, para. 1, 4 GG).6 The states have established layers of administration, the most important being the administrations at the regional (Landkreise) and the local (Gemeinden, Städte) levels.7 There are about 13,000 Gemeinden in Germany. Many responsibilities that are assigned to state administration have been delegated to the local administrative bodies of local self-administration, avoiding the establishment of state administration at this level and fostering citizen-oriented service delivery.8 Thus, local authorities are in charge of most government services, a fact that has major influence on the development of e-government. The local level (Gemeinden) has the right to self-government according to Art. 28, para. 2 GG; in other words, it has the legislative and administrative power to regulate all affairs of the local community within the limits set by law. The limiting laws, in turn, must respect the distribution of responsibilities as intended by Art. 28, para. 2 GG. By and large, the local level has great autonomy, inter alia, in matters of human resource management, organisation, local legislation and planning. Supervision by state authorities is confined to lawfulness in local affairs but does also extend to reasonableness with respect to delegated responsibilities. In both cases, it is focused on the content of decisions, not their organisational framework (Schmidt-Aßmann 2003: Rn. 44). The financial resources of the local level are partially guaranteed by the Basic Law and the state constitutions. Since compensation for the heavy financial burden which is entailed by the administration of delegated responsibilities does not have to be spelled out in detail according to most state constitutions, the local level tends to be under-financed by the state (for details, see Schoch 2000: 93ff.). An especially complex field is the law on administrative procedure. This procedure is partly regulated in the various specific laws (Fachgesetze) or statutory rules (Rechtsverordnungen) which govern areas of regulation either by federal or by state law.9 These laws comprise in particular many provisions on the formal requirements of applications or permits and the participation of third parties, the general public and various administrative agencies. If there are no specific regulations, in the vast majority of cases the provisions of the respective federal or state general administrative procedure Act (VwVfG) apply.10 These Acts stipulate the general requirements of the different types of final administrative action (Handlungsformen), especially the Verwaltungsakt (see above) and contracts,

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governed by administrative law (öffentlich-rechtlicher Vertrag). The scope of application of these various Acts depends on the respective acting authority and the function exercised by it. All procedures by federal authorities are governed by the federal VwVfG, while most procedures by state or local authorities are governed by the respective state VwVfG. However, due to a coordinated approach, there are no major differences between the various VwVfGs. Means of coordination and cooperation The fragmentation of the German administrative system has led to a complex system of cooperation, which is sometimes referred to as ‘cooperative federalism’.11 But even though, according to the Basic Law, the federal and the state levels are interwoven in many respects, there are only very few provisions which address the cooperation of both the federal and the state levels or the cooperation among the states (cf. Rudolf 1998: Rn. 24). Against the background of e-government topics, it is worth mentioning that there is a (small) catalogue of responsibilities which are shared by the federal level and the states (Gemeinschaftsaufgaben, Art. 91a, 91b GG). Cooperation has emerged in various forms. Of course, there is plenty of informal cooperation, especially among the professionals in their respective fields. This covers administrative matters as well as the discussion of legislative initiatives. There is also a tradition of ministerial conferences and committees as well as of conferences of the minister-presidents, which goes back to a time even before the Federal Republic of Germany had been founded. They cover all fields in which a cooperative approach is necessary or deemed appropriate, and vary in the degree to which they are institutionalised. The federal government is sometimes a member, but in most other cases at least a ‘guest’ of the conference. Agreements can be binding by political pressure. If the framework of the cooperation results in a factual loss of competence, especially if it becomes factually impossible for an entity not to obey recommendations or resolutions, it can be doubted whether it is still in accordance with the constitutional distribution of responsibility (cf. Trute 2001: Rn. 43). Legally binding cooperation can be exercised by state treaties (which are to be transformed into state law)12 or by administrative treaties that can govern all matters that do not require regulation by the legislator. The closest form of cooperation is the foundation of joint institutions. Since they tend to interfere with a clear attribution of responsibility to the competent state, they are raising the same constitutional concerns as the above-mentioned factual loss of competence (cf. Trute 2001: Rn. 41). However, the constitutional limits of cooperation are far from being clarified, and some commentators accept even a transfer of responsibilities among states (but not in the relationship between the federation and states), which would lead to far-reaching possibilities for cooperation (cf. Pietzcker 1988: 57ff.). The Federal Constitutional Court has ruled in a case on satellite broadcasting that cooperation between the states is not only accepted but may even be required by the Constitution in issues that cannot be regulated otherwise (BVerfGE 73, 118, 196).

Electronic government in Germany 119 German e-government strategies As a consequence of the federal system, there is no uniform e-government strategy in Germany. Federal, state and local initiatives13 add up to a patchwork of e-government developments, which are aligned with a common notion of egovernment basics and partially coordinated by informal political networks, and issue-oriented bodies of professionals. By and large, the initial situation is promising at all levels, since there is generally a high degree of IT penetration in public administration.14 Of course, there are some smaller local administrations which are lagging behind. The paradigm, or Leitbild, and the goals that e-government is striving for are the same in Germany as they are everywhere else in the world. Electronic services should be provided 365 days a year, all around the clock and at a single point in order to make administration more efficient, more transparent and more customer-oriented. Sometimes, this vision is supplemented by a notion of politically active citizenship, also stressing the participatory elements of egovernment which promise to become a stimulus for democratic self-government. Federal level: from a supporting to a leading role The federal government enacted a law on electronic signatures as early as 1997, thus providing the legal framework for an infrastructure that could be used for all kinds of electronic legal affairs, be they concerned with e-commerce or egovernment. At that time, it was one of the first legal frameworks for electronic signatures in the world. But due to the technical complexity involved, an anticipated lack of demand and some remaining uncertainty about the legal development, it took until 2001 before the first suppliers entered the market. In the meantime, the first amendments of the law that resulted from, inter alia, the European Electronic Signature Directive (Directive 1999/93/EG of 13 December 1999 on a Community framework for electronic signatures, Abl. EG Nr. L 13 of 19 January 2000: 12) in 2001 had been passed. Being aware of the crucial role of applications for the success of electronic signatures, the federal government had started in 1998 the MEDIA@Komm initiative in order to foster the development and application of multimedia, and especially the use of electronic signatures, at the local level. The project is part of the federal government programme ‘Innovation and jobs in the information society of the twenty-first century’ founded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Arbeit), while the main e-government programme for federal administrative services (BundOnline 2005) falls within the remit of the Federal Ministry of the Interior (Bundesministerium des Innern). After an open competition in which 136 local administrations took part, three prize-winners (Bremen, Esslingen and Nürnberg municipal associations) were awarded about €8 million each for the implementation of their concepts in the MEDIA@Komm initiative. Together with private investors, a total sum of over

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€60 million is being invested in the projects. The projects are playing a leading role at the local level with respect to e-government implementations in general and online transactions, including the use of electronic signatures, in particular. In 2004, the initiative will be succeeded by a transfer campaign, MEDIA@Komm Transfer, which aims at the dissemination of the experience gained in the pilot project. In the framework of this project, apart from federal support concerning communications, ‘ambassador cities’ will be nominated that will be in charge of the knowledge transfer in their respective regions. As the multitude of stipulations which required communication in writing proved to be a major obstacle, especially for putting administrative procedures online, the federal government adapted the legal framework to the needs of electronic communication by amending the Civil Code and initiating the joint draft of the federal and state governments on the conformed amendment of the Administrative Procedure Acts.15 So far, the federal Administrative Procedure Act and the Administrative Procedure Acts of some states (e.g. Bavaria) have been amended. The remaining states will follow soon. The concerted approach of the federal and state levels preserves the concordance of the VwVfG. In sum, the early federal approach could be described as a focus on the legal framework and a strong support for pilot projects at the local level. At the national level, there has also been established the D21 initiative (see Initiative D21 2002: 36ff.). This initiative was founded in 1999 by 23 enterprises and involves today about 300 enterprises and institutions. Its target is to foster cooperation between the economic, political and administrative sectors. It has established five working groups that are each headed jointly by a representative from both the economic and the political sectors. It has no institutionalised role or legislative power but is an important player in the discussion of all issues concerning the information society, including e-government. Rather late, but with determination, the federal government has started to systematically bring its own administration online. In September 2000, it launched its BundOnline 2005 initiative, which has funding worth €1.65 billion for the years 2002–05.16 The core of the initiative is the development of the federal portal and the target to deliver all suitable federal services (about 400 altogether) electronically by 2005.17 The portal ‘bund.de’ is to be developed in three stages (Bundesministerium des Innern 2001b: 15). The first stage, which was realised in 2001, offers a search engine and a catalogue with links to and comments on electronically available services as well as more general information. Since March 2002, it has been replenished with the compilation of forms. At a second level, which is partially realised, it allows users, as regards the competent bodies, to make specific requests and to locate the pertinent electronic service if available. At the final stage, the portal is supposed to follow the lifeevent approach more comprehensively. Electronic services will be left on the systems of the respective providers, though. The portal will only bundle, explain and present the services and information. The implementation of the respective electronic services is the responsibility of the agency that is generally in charge of the service. This decentralised

Electronic government in Germany 121 approach, however, is complemented by three centralised elements. For a start, there is a department in the Ministry of the Interior18 which aims at coordinating the IT policies of the various ministries by providing know-how and by chairing the inter-ministerial committee on IT,19 which in turn issues recommendations for all ministries. Secondly, some basic components of the IT infrastructure are centrally developed and can be used by all federal agencies. Apart from the portal, they consist of an e-payment platform, measures for data security (authentication and encryption), a content-management system, the already-mentioned form server and a call centre (Kleindieck 2002: 124ff.). Finally, the Ministry of the Interior is concluding framework contracts that allow all public administrations to buy software at lower prices,20 and is monitoring the market and certifying products with respect to electronic workflow systems (Bundesministerium des Innern 2001a). Even though the federal services include some very popular services for citizens such as the one dealing with student scholarships, due to the above-outlined general distribution of administrative power, they cover only a small percentage of all government–citizen/business services. Apart from providing the legal framework and implementing its own electronic services, the federal level has taken various measures which have focused primarily on the federal government but which have also had, and which were intended to have, enormous spillover effects on the state and local levels. It has started compiling an e-government handbook which is supposed to cover all aspects of e-government (managerial, technical, legal, etc. – BSI 2003), and has drafted an architecture of standards (SAGA), which at the moment is available as Version 1.1.21 Furthermore, the federal government is developing a platform for e-procurement that will not be for the exclusive use of the federal government. All the e-government activities of the federal government are part of a drive to modernise the state administration in general. This administrative reform, called ‘Modern State – Modern Administration’, was launched in December 1999 and includes, besides the introduction of IT solutions, a strong focus on New Public Management and new models for cooperation between the state and citizens and the state and businesses.22 Part of the broader programme are projects on shared responsibility between the administration and private partners, diversity of public services and a more efficient administration. As a consequence of the above-mentioned measures, the federal government is about to take an increasingly leading role in some crucial fields even though there is very little in the way of an institutional framework to allow this to happen. At the political level, the federal government tries to enhance cooperation with the states by meeting all secretaries of state in charge of e-government on a regular basis. Additionally, it has already stated that the current organisational framework is not meeting the needs for further cooperation and that it is going to develop recommendations concerning appropriate measures (Bundesministerium des Innern 2001b: 38ff.). Eventually, in July 2003, the chancellor (federal) and the prime ministers of the states agreed on a common

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strategy called ‘Deutschland Online’, which had been elaborated by the various secretaries of state in charge of e-government. This agreed strategy aims at providing important cross-level services electronically, harmonising and connecting the respective portals of the federal level and the states, establishing common infrastructures, defining common standards, and improving coordination. It remains to be seen to what extent this declaration results in effective cooperation in the various fields. State level: first steps toward a comprehensive strategy At the state level, there have been a number of e-government projects to date, but it was not until recently that many states started to develop more or less comprehensive e-government strategies of their own. As a first step, they have tended to compile the various decentralised initiatives, define guidelines and principles, link e-government to the broader projects of administrative reform (New Public Management etc.) and start working according to a more detailed timetable. Of course, it is not possible to describe all of them or even to provide details. Rather, I will focus on particularly interesting examples and will point out the respective approaches. The Bavarian government has published its concept for e-government implementation (Bayrische Staatskanzlei 2002) that defines user-friendly access and efficient, uniform administrative procedures as crucial fields of activity. According to their plan, all suitable services will be delivered electronically, the widespread use of standardised, uniform technology will ensure interoperability, and the centralised components such as e-payment and human resource management systems will enhance efficiency. A more detailed timetable for implementation is to be drafted in the very near future. The Bavarian government aims at close cooperation with the local level and has concluded an agreement with the state associations of the self-governing entities (Gemeinden, Landkreise).23 The goals include setting up a central electronic signpost that will facilitate finding the appropriate competent agency and all available electronic forms. It is to be complemented by a state-wide directory. In the agreement, the local governments have declared their intention to connect to the state-wide public administration intranet. The Bavarian government and the associations of the self-governing entities have also founded a joint committee that is in charge of coordinating the developments at the various levels. Hamburg (Mitteilung des Senats an die Bürgerschaft, Bürgerschafts-Drs. 17/1091 v. 24.25.6.2002) has fixed its schedule for important cross-cutting applications, inter-agency topics and tasks of the respective agencies which distinguish short-, middle- and long-term targets for numerous electronic services and serve as a basis for the comprehensive strategy which will be worked out now. Guiding principles are the search for win-win situations, multi-channel access for all citizens, bundling of life-event services, early re-engineering of workflow including standardisation as well as bundling of similar functions in different processes, and the use of electronic records that are supported by document-management systems, transparency, data-security and protection of privacy. The implementa-

Electronic government in Germany 123 tion of the strategy will be accompanied by dialogue with the citizens in order to adjust it permanently to the citizens’ needs. Bremen has always been very ambitious and successful in e-government. It had already developed a strategy with respect to electronic service delivery in the framework of the MEDIA@Komm initiative in 1999. The public–private enterprise Bremen Online Services (BOS) has implemented procedures that integrate electronic signatures as well as e-payment. At the moment, there are more than 100 applications running. This focus on transaction services is integrated within a broader e-government strategy that also comprises centralised support for the various agencies in IT matters. BOS provides many tools and services for all agencies, including a start-info system that makes it easy to launch some online services, a content-management system and a communications systems. Apart from this development, Bremen aims at closer cooperation with other states, especially its neighbours. In May 2002, the State of Bremen and the City of Bremerhaven started a regional e-government network together with several Landkreise, Städte and Gemeinden of Lower Saxony. The intention of this former working group is to avoid isolated, non-compatible solutions in order to reduce the costs for the development of technical solutions and to support common standards for a regional net. Furthermore, they focus on sharing specific e-government knowledge and on common qualifications of employees. This network is supported by a resolution from June 2002 between the government of Bremen and the government of Lower Saxony. Rhineland-Palatinate drafted its first multimedia action plan in 1999 (Hill 2002: 25). It comprises about sixty-five projects and focuses on four main areas: connecting all agencies by improving the state intranet; implementing a uniform document-management system and electronic workflow systems; use of electronic signatures; and further improvements to the state portal that also provide access to services at the local level. In contrast to those approaches that at least involve more comprehensive master plans, some states still prefer to focus on a smaller number of selected and clearly defined pilot projects. In the framework of its ongoing IT-Concept, North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) has defined ten ‘guiding projects’ which are supposed to identify and verify solutions to cross-cutting issues such as matters of data security (cf. Innenministerium NRW and Kienbaum Management Consultants GmbH 2001: 18ff.). The pilot projects range from electronic procurement to online land register enquiries. The organisational framework for the development of the overarching plan is a typical example of project organisation. In charge of the implementation of the IT-Concept are cross-agency working groups that in turn are controlled by a cross-agency steering committee (ibid.: 45ff.). In addition to these efforts concerning state administration, the state government is fostering e-government networks at the local level. The project Digitales Ruhrgebiet is the most prominent example. It aims at close cooperation between the cities in the region of the Ruhrgebiet, including the joint development of applications etc.

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The state of Lower Saxony has also decided to extend the experimentation phase by implementing pilot projects before 2004 that allow for the gaining of more experience in comprehensive e-government solutions (Niedersächsisches Innenministerium 2002: 4.2ff.). These pilot projects include the use of crosscutting applications such as e-payment, the distribution of electronic signatures to target groups of heavy users of administrative services, and the long-term archiving of electronic documents. They also involve applications for administrative procedures that could cover various similar services and some specific applications. The state government also stresses the need for cooperation with the federal level and the other states with respect to the use of the same or at least compatible e-government solutions, and it also places emphasis on close cooperation with the local level, relying on the coordination of the associations of the self-government bodies (ibid.: 4.1.1., 4.1.6). Local level: heterogeneity of status quo and great variety of approaches Since most contacts between citizens and the public administration take place at the local level, it was this level that first started striving for e-government. Coincidentally, the same had already happened with respect to New Public Management reform. However, since the innovative potential of the local level varies considerably, the status quo is characterised by a strong heterogeneity concerning the progress toward e-government and a great variety of approaches. Some aggregated data may give an impression of the current situation. An inquiry by the DIfU (Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik) in 2000 among all municipalities and cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants (189 of them) (cf. Grabow 2001) has shown that 65 per cent of these local governments have already started implementing e-government and that only 2.5 per cent of them do not have any plans to do so. A core group of main services has been focused on. Besides general information, it comprises registration of residents, enquiries to various registers, e-procurement, car licensing, building permits and other related services, and, of course, numerous cultural services. Other inquiries show similar results. Bertelsmann-Stiftung has also conducted an inquiry among the cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants (Friedrichs 2000). According to this study, 74 per cent of the cities had already started implementing e-government, while 55 per cent of them answered that they had completed at least 66 per cent of what they had planned. However, officials are also faced with impediments. Lack of resources concerning capital as well as qualified staff, still-missing legal amendments, insufficient administrationtailored technical solutions and missing standardisation are the most common complaints. Until now, studies have pointed out a remarkable difference in advancement even among the bigger cities (cf. Initiative D21: 2002). But there is also a difference concerning the focus. Some put more emphasis on elements of e-democracy; others concentrate rather on electronic service delivery (for more details, see ibid.: 16ff.).

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Framework of and approaches to cooperation and coordination The need for cooperation between the different bodies and layers of public administration concerning IT matters was realised long ago. In 1992, KoopA ADV, a committee which consists of professionals from all administrative layers, and which will be treated in greater detail below, stated: The cooperation among public administrations and the mutual information in the field of IT is to be intensified in the face of the increasing need in cross-agency communication. Application of standards as well as further technical and organisational standardisation are to be supported and to be further developed. This was certainly true at the time, and it becomes even more pressing with regard to current e-government approaches (cf. Lenk 2002: 4ff.) As already mentioned above, 80 per cent of cities would like to have widespread standards (PriceWaterhouseCoopers Deutsche Revision and Deutscher Städte- und Gemeindebund 2000: 20ff.),and academic commentators as well as professionals place a lot of emphasis on the necessity of improved cooperation (cf. Eifert 2001: 119ff.; Friedrichs et al. 2002: Punkt 6, ‘Kooperation sicherstellen’, and the Memorandum of the Fachausschuss Verwaltungsinformatik der Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. und des Fachbereichs 1 der Informationstechnischen Gesellschaft im VDE, September 2000). Suggestions that were aimed at implementing an overarching organisational framework with functionally differentiated bodies for coordinating the various approaches (to be set up), monitoring developments and providing options (to be nominated and supported), and taking decisions (existing committees etc.) (for greater detail, see Eifert 2001: 125ff.) have not been embraced by politicians. Thus, I will outline the current framework of cooperation and describe recent developments and further potential. Common problems and modes of cooperation As a starting point, I should like to distinguish four basic conditions of cooperation. The problems to be solved can be rather trivial or complex, and the cooperation can be very limited (with regard to time or scope) or rather comprehensive. This results in a matrix whose fields correspond to different modes of cooperation. Relatively trivial common problems can be adequately solved by occasional mutual consultation. This applies to questions such as public relations work, supporting the distribution of electronic signatures or data security measures. Concerted action is helpful, but not essential. In most cases, however, we are unable to observe any cooperation on those matters in e-government, probably because the incentives are not strong enough. More complex problems that need limited cooperation require at least ongoing consultation in working groups etc., which could be set up ad hoc or

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exist permanently. An example of this type of cooperation is the working group that elaborated the joint draft on amendments to the Administrative Procedure Acts (see above). The uniformity of the Administrative Procedure Acts has been cherished very much, such that the federal government as well as all state governments were bound to work together in order to avoid future deviations. Furthermore, there already existed a working group that was in charge of all amendments to the Administrative Procedure Acts. The process of finding a consensus at the level of professionals took quite a long time, however. Work in other fields which are also important to all governments due to their ‘bottleneck’ character, such as the distribution of electronic signatures or the interoperability of electronic signatures, has not led to closer cooperation. This may be due to the fact that no appropriate working group has already been established. It might also be attributed to the fact that because the federal level is competent for matters of electronic signatures, the state governments have not felt any responsibility in this regard. The crucial areas of cooperation are, of course, complex problems that need comprehensive cooperation. Such problems clearly suggest institutionalised forms of cooperation. Examples are the development of a common infrastructure (intranets etc.), common applications, and the development and continuing improvement of standards. Technical standards are far more detailed in comparison to legal rules (even though both can be considered ‘code’), for which reason they demand a much broader form of cooperation than legal amendments. Striking a balance between adaptation and the continuity of technology is an ongoing task (cf. Booz, Allen & Hamilton 2002: 147). Common applications include all the examples that have been described above, ranging from epayment to archiving documents. It is remarkable, however, that although many of the state strategies stress the need for these applications, none of them say very much about how to reach agreement on them and how to ensure their widespread use. Standardisation is a vaguer term that needs to be specified. The working groups that have been established within the framework of the MEDIA@Komm initiative by the German Institute for Standardisation (DIN) on a voluntary basis have identified ‘interfaces’, ‘transport and packaging’, ‘definition of common objects in administrative procedures’ and ‘specific administrative procedures’ as fields in which standardisation would be useful. Of course, one could add ‘forms’ or some other topics. The area of comprehensive cooperation is the most challenging. The problems involved typically affect the organisation of public administration, which is, as a basic principle, the responsibility of the respective government or local administration (see above). Therefore, institutional arrangements raise legal questions in addition to questions of political opportunity. Consequently, they will be treated against the background of the legal framework. Cooperation of states and local administrations As far as the relationship between states and local governments is concerned, there are statutes on automated data processing in many states. Most of them

Electronic government in Germany 127 were enacted in the 1970s, when centralised data processing in computer centres had been introduced for many local governments (Datenzentralen) (for details, see Steinmüller et al. 1976: 113ff.). In many states they have been adjusted to fit the modern technical conditions of decentralised data processing and have evolved into a legal framework for the cooperation of state government and local government on questions of data transmission that transcend local government. As examples, the statutes of NRW,24 Bavaria,25 Baden-Württemberg26 and Rhineland-Palatine27 will be examined in greater detail. The statutes on automated data processing show a great variety of approaches. They do share some characteristics, however. All statutes examined in this chapter determine that state and local governments have to cooperate. Even though non-compliance does not lead to any sanction, and cooperation can hardly be coerced anyway, this duty to cooperate is not without effect. Since state and local governments form a comprehensive and permanent network, the side effects may be more far-reaching if one side is accused of breaking the law instead of ‘just’ being uncooperative. Furthermore, the law points out very clearly the importance of cooperation from the point of view of the state. Additionally, most statutes have founded a hybrid organisational unit through which cooperation between local and state governments has been stabilised and given a framework (e.g. NRW, Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatine, but not Bavaria). These organisational units are either advisory councils or part of the computer centre. Moreover, most statutes have set up more or less centralised centres of competence and expertise. They typically emerged from the computer centres or the bureaux for statistics, which had been assigned the centralised data processing in the 1970s but focus nowadays more and more on consulting etc. The degree to which the state can use coercion with respect to the local government varies from statute to statute. In NRW, not only is the minister for the interior given a co-ordinating role, but he also decides on the framework conditions for data exchange by defining targets, standards and interface specifications. However, these determinations are not legally binding for local governments. The minister for the interior in Bavaria can even enact rules (Rechtsverordnungen) which determine all necessary and appropriate requirements for local electronic procedures in a legally binding way. The associations of the self-governing bodies must be heard in advance, however, and the minister has not yet made use of this power. In Baden-Württemberg, the statute does not authorise the state to take any direct measures against local governments. It does, however, empower it to use limited financial incentives in cooperation projects. The statute in Rhineland-Palatine does not spell out any measures. All in all, there is a certain legal framework for cooperation between state governments and local governments. It is based on the power of the states to define the limits of local self-government to some extent (see above). Apart from this statutory basis, some additional agreements can be observed. The agreement between state government and the associations of the selfgoverning bodies, which was mentioned above, is the most prominent example.

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Of course, besides the authority granted by the specific statutes on electronic communication, a state government also has the general power to issue instructions concerning the execution of responsibilities which it has delegated to local government (see above). But even if this power is interpreted in a way that allows for instructions concerning organisational matters, they are still confined to the execution of the specific competence. Thus, they can hardly be used for the cross-cutting issues such as standards that are of paramount importance. Cooperation between state government and local government is not the only issue. Cooperation between local governments on a national basis is also very important. The most striking example of this necessity can be found in the registration offices. In the case of a citizen moving house, if electronic communication is to be realised not only between the citizen and the registration office of his new place of residence but also between this registration office and that of his old place of residence, the IT systems of the various registration offices must be interoperable. This is more necessary than ever, since the law on registration has been amended so that the resident no longer has to inform the registration office of his old place of residence. However, at the moment, there are more than twenty different IT systems, and it is evident that such a complexity of interfaces cannot be managed efficiently, if it can be managed at all. Of course, this is primarily the problem of the local governments, but some help from the states might speed up the process. Therefore, cooperation among the states and between the federal government and the states comes to the fore. Federal–state (local government) cooperation As already described above, the federal system in Germany is characterised by a strong decentralisation of administration (Exekutivföderalismus). This is based on the assumption that the decentralised execution of laws tends to work better, which in turn supposes that local and regional characteristics can be much better taken into account, and that acceptability can be enhanced. These assumptions are plausible so long as human beings interact. The IT world, however, is a world of economies of scale and interconnection in which the organisation of the various public administrations is far more interdependent than it was with respect to traditional administration. This makes mechanisms of administrative cooperation at a meta-level of technical requirements more important than ever. There have always been fields of administration that have required close cooperation between the states. Planning and the allocation of broadcasting frequencies (due to the spillover of the beam) are typical examples (for a detailed analysis of these fields, see Funke 1987: 44ff.; Schuler-Harms 1995: 150ff.). The Federal Constitutional Court has developed the principle of mutual consideration (Gebot wechselseitiger Rücksichtnahme) in reference to the use of competencies that necessarily affect other states.28 To a limited extent, it not only prescribes fair procedure, but can also lead to a duty to cooperate and to support another competent body if it cannot cope with a task on its own (cf. Brohm 1983: 531). This principle can also be invoked with respect to organisational matters of

Electronic government in Germany 129 administration that affect others (cf. Eifert 2001: 124ff.). It is a very vague principle, and the conditions under which it may result in a duty to cooperate have not yet been clarified. On the other hand, if the federal governments and the states, or the states among themselves, wish to cooperate intensively, they are facing the general limits that have been described above. According to influential commentators, they are not allowed to enter into a cooperation that is so close that it results in either of them suffering a loss of competence. ‘Synchronisation’ of competencies is no problem; determination from third parties raises heavy constitutional concerns. Against this background, cooperation would at least be limited to fields which could not be regulated at all but by means of cooperation, and would be confined to unanimous decisions. In practice, however, there are a lot of models for cooperation that do not comply with these restrictive interpretations. It may well be that e-government becomes another field in which reality deviates from constitutional requirements as interpreted by academic commentators. One of the associations of the self-governing bodies, the Deutsche Städtetag, has released a statement that spells out its position and guidelines with respect to e-government (Deutscher Städtetag 2002). The Städtetag calls for binding rules from the federal government while stressing the need to respect the competencies of all other levels. Eventually, it admits that the local governments can hardly retain full organisational autonomy. This statement sheds light not only on the need for cooperation but also on the dilemma of e-government implementation in a federal system. The federal level has very little capacity to enact binding rules. The primary means of creating uniform standards is cooperation. Of course, as already mentioned above, the federal level can determine some of the organisational matters of states and local governments with the prior consent of the Bundesrat according to Art. 84 I, II GG. Some standards concerning data exchange between registration offices are based on federal legislation. DSMeld, for instance, a standard that describes the syntax of data, has been regulated by a federal rule (1. BMeldDÜV),29 which in turn is based on a federal law (MRRG).30 This competence is always linked to a specific matter so that it may standardise a specific procedure or set of data, but it cannot adequately address cross-cutting issues. The number of different IT standards in registration offices shows clearly that it is limited in practice. Most recently, the federal government and the states have agreed on a common e-government standard (XML) with respect to data exchange between registration offices which has become part of federal legislation. The above outline of the federal strategy has clearly shown that the federal level not only relies on formal measures but also tries to exert influence by providing information and financial support. As far as financial support is concerned, Art. 104a GG, which has been mentioned already, does not give much leeway. But the close link between general e-government developments and the use of electronic signatures, which fall within the responsibilities of the federation, allows for some substantial support to be given. With respect to information, the Constitution does not contain any specific provisions. In federal

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matters, with the exception of the exercising of formal powers and the allocation of financial resources, it does not seem to care. Thus, the use of information is only confined to the general jurisdiction of the federal level, making it a proper way to foster standardisation and cooperation. Of course, the provision of information can only be an incentive and cannot ensure, for example, the use of standards. A straightforward constitutional approach would be to put e-government standards and other questions of necessary unification on the list of common tasks according to Art. 91a, 91b GG. This would be a coherent approach, but it is not realistic at all from a political point of view. The general discussion on federal reform focuses on separating competencies according to the notion of competitive federalism rather than on strengthening cooperation. KoopA ADV as a crucial body for unification in e-government The constitutional limits of cooperation between state governments and the federal government shift the focus onto means of ‘synchronisation’ which do not entail constitutional problems. The most important body for mutual information and consensus-oriented discussion is KoopA ADV.31 This standing committee had been established as early as 1970 and stems from the first wave of IT use in public administration. It was the first and is to date the only committee in which common guidelines on the application of IT in public administration and crucial questions about it are discussed among public administrations. Its members are the federal government, the state governments, the national associations of the self-governing bodies and the KGSt,32 which can be considered the think-tank and consulting unit of the self-governing bodies. According to its standing orders, it has to serve, inter alia, the necessary unification, harmonisation and, last but not least, development as well as application of standards. It passes resolutions and recommendations that are not legally binding on its members but which derive great political importance due to the procedures and the expertise of the committee. The most recent examples of its work are the recommendation of a standard on transportation and meta-communication for electronic public administration procedures (OSCI)33 and its role as a steering committee for the development of an intranet for public administrations (TESTA).34 TESTA aims at realising a common platform for electronic communication, providing a high level of data security and availability between the federal, state, local and EU agencies. The various networks of the state and local administrations as well as the federal agencies are to be connected to TESTA. TESTA is providing some centralised services such as a general directory, encryption and the integration of public key infrastructure (PKI) within public administration. It also plans to provide a centralised directory of PKI certificates. Thus far, however, many federal agencies, but only relatively few local governments, have been connected to TESTA. The current development of e-government means that KoopA ADV faces new challenges. The development is characterised not only by increasing acceleration, but also by an enormous expansion in the areas of application that

Electronic government in Germany 131 ultimately results from the success of the internet standard TCP/IP. At the same time, private software firms have discovered e-government applications to be a profitable field of business and are trying to establish de facto standards in the market. KoopA ADV is supposed to cope with the development and the multitude of challenges because the question of basic standards and requirements for public administration services is still considered to be a political one. KoopA ADV must do so by strengthening its administrative capacity and by increasing its political power. This includes creating an improved institutional setting, for which some states are striving at the moment (cf. also Bundesministerium des Innern 2001b: 39). Notwithstanding this necessity, responsibility for the development of an intranet such as TESTA is a task more for a fixed organisational unit than for a committee that only meets on a periodical basis. A first step towards further institutionalisation is the agreement to finance and run the administrative unit which is in charge of developing and coordinating a common e-government standard for the transportation layer (OSCI) as a common unit.35 Apart from these new challenges, the political environment of KoopA ADV is also undergoing a change. IT-use in public administration has become an integral part of the broader goal of modernising the public sector. This leads to an increasing role for politics, which in turn requires the integration of the political point of view into processes that have traditionally been regarded as concerned purely with technical problem-solving. Summing up, it can be stated that cooperation has become a major aspect of successful e-government development in Germany. There are already a number of starting points for mastering the challenge in the future. The size as well as the nature of the task ahead urge the enhancement of existing approaches and suggest some further institutionalisation. The limits of coordination through centralised binding decisions that are imposed by the federal system can best be compensated by using indirect measures such as information and by strengthening political cooperation.

Notes 1 For historical reasons, the statute that embodies the constitutional provisions for the Federal Republic of Germany is called Grundgesetz (‘Basic Law’). 2 There is also a regional level (Landkreise), complementing the local level with respect to affairs that affect several municipalities. Its right to self-government is also guaranteed, even though the state has more competence to interfere at this level than it has with respect to the local level (Nierhaus 2003: Rn. 62ff.). 3 For a still pertinent overview of the respective Basic Law clauses in English, see Lerche (1993) and Karpen (1988). 4 According to many commentators, this does include organisational matters at the local level to a certain extent. Cf. Trute (2001): Rn. 10ff. 5 On a relatively high degree of unification in environmental matters, cf. SchulzeFielitz (2002): 291ff. 6 Of course, this is only the general rule. The Constitution tries to ensure the functioning of the federal system by setting up a complex system that tries to ensure that all entities can fulfil their respective competences in an appropriate way. Due to the dominant position of the federal government, an extensive redistribution of financial

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resources among the states and a changing notion about the relationships in a federal state, there is an intensive discussion about future changes. This cannot be treated in the framework of this chapter. For a brief outline, cf. Schoch (2001): 25ff. For a description of state and local administration, see Maurer (2002): § 21ff.; Rudolf (1998): § 53. Delegated competence makes up to 80 per cent of the duties of local administration (Knemeyer 1973: Rn. 161). A lot of provisions that are relevant to the procedure can also be found in the statutory rules of the states that govern the implementation of laws (Durchführungsverordnungen). For details on the scope of application of the general administrative procedure Acts, see Badura (2002): § 33, Rn. 12ff.; Stelkens et al. (2001). For a survey on cooperation in the German federal system, see Pietzcker (1988): 17ff.; Rudolf (1990): § 105. Such state treaties exist, for example, in matters of broadcasting regulation (Rundfunkstaatsvertrag) and in the regulation of multimedia, online services (Mediendienstestaatsvertrag). For a good outline of recent developments, see Hill (2002). For detailed figures about the situation in North Rhine-Westphalia, see Innenministerium NRW and Kienbaum Management Consultants GmbH (2001): 42, 53ff. For details, see Eifert et al. (2001) or Eifert (2002). For more information, see Kleindieck (2002): 118ff.; Bundesministerium des Innern (2001b). For a list of the services considered suitable for electronic service delivery, see Bundesministerium des Innern (2001b): 56. This is the KBSt (Koordinierungs- und Beratungsstelle der Bundesregierung für Informationstechnik in der Bundesverwaltung). Interministerieller Koordinationsausschuß IT (IMKA). For the regular tasks of the KBSt and IMKA, see Klaus et al. (1989): 741. See, for example, the framework contract with Microsoft, Bundesministerium des Innern Press Release, 24 September 2001, available online at www.bmi.bund.de/ dokumente/Pressemitteilung/ix_57642.htm. Bundesministerium des Innern (ed.), SAGA, Standards und Architekturen für eGovernmentAnwendungen, Entwurf, Version 1.1, February 2003. For an English version, see www.kbst.bund.de/SAGA-,182/start.htm. For an overview, see Bundesministerium des Innern (2002). Vereinbarung zwischen dem Freistaat Bayern und dem Bayrischen Städtetag, dem Bayrischen Gemeindetag, dem bayrischen Landkreistag und dem Verband der bayrischen Bezirke; see Bayrische Staatskanzlei (2002): 30ff. Gesetz über die Organisation der automatisierten Datenverarbeitung in NordrheinWestfalen (ADV-Organisationsgesetz – ADVGNW) in der Fassung der Bekanntmachung vom 9. 1. 1985, GV NW S. 41. Gesetz über den Einsatz der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnik in der öffentlichen Verwaltung (IuK-Gesetz – IuKG) v. 24.12.2001, Bayrisches Gesetz- und Verordnungsblatt Nr. 28/2001. Gesetz über die Zusammenarbeit bei der automatisierten Datenverarbeitung (ADVZusammenarbeitsgesetz – ADVZG) v. 18.12.1995, GBl. S. 876, geän. durch Art. 6 Gemeindewirtschaftsrechts-ÄndG v. 19.7.1999 (GBl. S. 292). Landesgesetz über die Errichtung des Daten- und Informationszentrums RheinlandPfalz v. 17.11.1995, GVBl. S. 447. See, most recently, BVerfGE 92, 203, 230. The line of cases and the general development of the principle is described in detail by Bauer (1992): 355ff. BMeldDÜV stands for Bundesmeldedatenübermittlungsverordnung.

Electronic government in Germany 133 30 MRRG stands for Melderechtsrahmengesetz, a law which is based on Art. 75 GG (see above). 31 KoopA ADV stands for Koordinationsausschuss ADV Bund/Länder/Kommunaler Bereich; ADV stands for Automatische Datenverarbeitung. For more detailed information on KoopA ADV, see Baron (1999): 41ff. Besides KoopA ADV, it is worth mentioning that more than two decades ago, public administration at all levels agreed upon distributing without charge software which had resulted from their own research and development. Currently, however, it is not quite clear whether or not this will play a major role with respect to e-government in the face of a growing number of public–private partnerships in the field of software development. 32 KGSt stands for Kommunale Gemeinschaftsstelle. 33 OSCI stands for Online Services Computer Interface. This standard was developed within the framework of the MEDIA@Komm initiative. The development was stimulated by Bremen, which still hosts the central office that administers the standard. 34 TESTA stands for Trans-European Services for Telematics between Administrations. 35 For further information, see www.osci.de.

References Badura, P. (2002) ‘Das Verwaltungsverfahren’, in H.U. Erichsen and D. Ehlers (eds) Allgemeines Verwaltungsrecht, 12th edn, Berlin: DeGruyter,pp. 477ff. Baron, C. (1999) Public-Private-Partnership-Konzepte für den IT-Markt, Wiesbaden: DUV. Bauer, H. (1992) Die Bundestreue, Tübingen: Mohr. Bayrische Staatskanzlei (ed.) (2002) eGovernment in Bayern: Unsere Pläne, Unsere Ziele, München: Bayrische Staatskanzlei. Booz, Allen & Hamilton (ed.) (2002) E-Government und der moderne Staat: Einstieg, Strategie und Umsetzung, Frankfurt am Main.: FAZ-Institut für Management-, Markt- und Medieninformationen. Brohm, W. (1983) ‘Kompetenzüberschneidungen im Bundesstaat: Rechtsdogmatische Konsequenzen der Gondelbahn-Entscheidung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts’, Die Öffentliche Verwaltung 36: 525ff. BSI (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik) (ed.) (2003) E-Government Manual, Bonn: BSI, available online at www.bsi.de/fachthem/egov/3_en.htm. Bundesministerium des Innern (ed.) (2001a) Zertifizierungsverfahren für Produkte der elektronischen Vorgangsbearbeitung nach dem Konzept ‘Papierarmes Büro’ – DOMEA-Konzept, KBSt-Schriftenreihe 53, Berlin: Bundesministerium des Innern, available online at http://kbst.bund.de/Anlage300444/Band+53+komplett+%281.2+MB%29.pdf. —— (2001b) BundOnline 2005: Implementation Plan for the ‘BundOnline 2005’ eGovernment Initiative, available online at www.staat-modern.de/Service/-,10075s1/Bestellservice. htm?link=smo_liste. —— (2002) Modern State – Modern Administration Progress Report 2002, available online at www.staat-modern.de/Service/-,10075s1/Bestellservice.htm?link=smo_liste. Deutscher Städtetag (ed.) (2002) eGovernment in den Städten, Positionspapier und Leitfaden des Deutschen Städtetages, available online at www.staedtetag.de/10/presseecke/dst_ beschluesse/artikel/2002/06/05/00010. Eifert, M. (2001) ‘Electronic Government als gesamtstaatliche Organisationsaufgabe’, Zeitschrift für Gesetzgebung 16: 115ff. —— (2002) ‘Germany’, in J.E.J. Prins (ed.) E-Government and its Implications for Administrative Law: Regulatory Initiatives in France, Germany, Norway and the United States, Den Haag: Asser, pp. 35ff.

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Eifert, M., Girot, C., Groothuis, M., Priens, C. and Voermans, W. (2001) ‘Taking administrative law to the digital era: regulatory initiatives in France, Germany, Norway and the United States’, EDI Law Review 8: 57ff. Friedrichs, S., Hart, Th. and Welzel, C. (2002) 10-Punkte-Plan für gutes E-Government, Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung. Friedrichs, S. (ed.) (2000) Virtuelle Medien als Chance für die Stadt der Zukunft, Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung. Funke, H.F. (1987) Bund-Länder-Abstimmung am Beispiel der Raumordnung und Landesplanung, Münster/Westfalen: Institut für Siedlungs- und Wohnungswesen . Grabow, B. (2001) Städte auf dem Weg zum virtuellen Rathaus: Zusammenfassung ausgewählter, zentraler Ergebnisse einer aktuellen Umfrage zum Stand der Umsetzung in deutschen Städten, Berlin: DIfU, available online at www.mediakomm.net/aktuell/kurzinfo_umfrage.pdf. Herzog, R. (1993) ‘The separation and concentration of power in the Basic Law’, in P. Kirchhof and D.P. Kommers (eds) Germany and its Basic Law: Past, Present and Future, a German American Symposium, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 391ff. Hill, H. (2002) ‘Electronic Government: Strategie zur Modernisierung von Staat und Verwaltung, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament B 39–40: 24ff. Initiative D21 (ed.) (2002) E-Town 2002: Deutschlands digitale Hauptstädte, Berlin: Initiative D21, available online at www.initiatived21.de/projekte/publikationen/etown2002.pdf. Innenministerium NRW and Kienbaum Management Consultants GmbH (eds) (2001) IT-Konzept: Schlussbericht zur Umsetzung der Phase 2, available online at www.im.nrw.de/ inn/doks/itkonzp2.pdf. Karpen, U. (1988) ‘Federalism’, in U. Karpen (ed.) The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany: Essays on the Basic Rights and Principles of the Basic Law with a Translation of the Basic Law, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 205ff. Klaus, H.G., Wattenberg, U. and Schmidt-Reindl, K.M. (1989) ‘Informationstechnik in der öffentlichen Verwaltung, Koordination und Beratung auf Bundesebene am Beispiel der USA, Japans und der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Computer und Recht 5(8): 741ff. Kleindieck, R. (2002), ‘BundOnline 2005: Electronic Government Strategie des Bundes’, in H. Reinermann and J. v. Lucke (eds) Electronic Government in Deutschland: Ziele, Stand, Barrieren, Beispiele, Umsetzung, Speyer: Forschungsinstitut für Öffentliche Verwaltung, pp. 118ff. Knemeyer, F.L. (1973) Bayrisches Kommunalrecht, eine Einführung für Studium und Praxis, München: Boorberg. Lenk, K. (2002) ‘Elektronische Bürgerdienste im Flächenland als staatlich-kommunale Gemeinschaftsaufgabe’, Verwaltung & Management 8: 4ff. Lerche, P. (1993) ‘Principles of German federalism’, in P. Kirchhof and D.P. Kommers (eds) Germany and its Basic Law: Past, Present and Future, a German American Symposium, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 71ff. Maurer, H. (2002) Allgemeines Verwaltungsrecht, 14th edn, München: Beck. Michel Medienforschung und Beratung (ed.) (2000) Virtuelle Medien als Chance für die Stadt der Zukunft: strategische Herausforderung für die politische Führung, Bonn: Bertelsmann Stiftung. Niedersächsisches Innenministerium (ed.) (2002), Electronic Government: eGovernment: Leitfaden für die Pilotphase 2002–2004, Hannover: Niedersächsisches Innenministerium, available online at www.mi.niedersachsen.de/functions/downloadObject/0,,c417489_s20,00. pdf.

Electronic government in Germany 135 Nierhaus, M. (2003) ‘Art. 28’, in M. Sachs and U. Battis (eds) Grundgesetz: Kommentar, 3rd edn, München: Beck. Pietzcker, J. (1988) ‘Zusammenarbeit der Gliedstaaten im Bundesstaat: Länderbericht Bundesrepublik Deutschland’, in C. Starck (ed.) Zusammenarbeit der Gliedstaaten im Bundesstaat: Landesberichte und Generalbericht der Tagung für Rechtsvergleichung 1987 in Innsbruck, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 17ff. PriceWaterhouseCoopers Deutsche Revision and Deutscher Städte- und Gemeindebund (eds) (2000) Die Zukunft heißt E-Government: Deutschlands Städte auf dem Weg zur virtuellen Verwaltung, Frankfurt am Main: Fachverlag Moderne Wirtschaft, available online at www.pwcglobal.com/de/ger/ins-sol/publ/ger_510_034.pdf. Rudolf, W. (1990) ‘Kooperation im Bundesstaat’, in J. Isensee and P. Kirchhof (eds) Handbuch des Staatsrechts der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Vol. 4: Finanzverfassung – Bundesstaatliche Ordnung, Heidelberg: C.F. Müller, pp. 1091ff. —— (1998) ‘Verwaltungsorganisation’, in H.U. Erichsen (ed.) Allgemeines Verwaltungsrecht, 11th edn, Berlin: DeGruyter, pp. 771ff. Sachs, M. and Battis, U. (2003) Grundgesetz: Kommentar, 3rd edn, München: Beck. Schmidt-Aßmann, E. (2003) Besonderes Verwaltungsrecht, 12th edn, Berlin: DeGruyter. Schoch, F. (2001) ‘Rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen einer Verantwortungsteilung im Mehr-Ebenen-System’, in H.G. Henneke (ed.) Verantwortungsteilung zwischen Kommunen, Ländern, Bund und Europäischer Union, Stuttgart: Boorberg, pp. 21ff. —— (2002) ‘Die finanzverfassungsrechtlichen Grundlagen der kommunalen Selbstverwaltung’, in D. Ehlers and W. Krebs (eds) Grundfragen des Verwaltungsrechts und des Kommunalrechts: Symposium aus Anlass der Emeritierung von Professor Dr. Hans-Uwe Erichsen am 5. Mai 2000 in Münster, Berlin: DeGruyter, pp. 93ff. Schuler-Harms, M. (1995) Rundfunkaufsicht im Bundesstaat: Die Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Landesmedienanstalten, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Schulze-Fielitz, H. (2002) ‘Immissionsschutz und Föderalismus aus Sicht der Wissenschaft’, in M. Kloepfer (ed.) Umweltföderalismus: Föderalismus in Deutschland, Motor oder Bremse für den Umweltschutz, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 287ff. Steinmüller, W., Eberle, C.E. et al. (1976) ADV und Recht: Einführung in die Rechtsinformatik und das Recht der Informationsverarbeitung, 2nd edn, Berlin: Schweitzer. Stelkens, P., Bonk, H.J. and Schmitz, H. (2001) ‘§§ 1, 2’, in P. Stelkens, H.J. Bonk and M. Sachs (eds) Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz, Kommentar, 6th edn, München: Beck. Trute, H.H. (2001) ‘Art. 84’, in H. v. Mangoldt, F. Klein and C. Starck (eds) Das Bonner Grundgesetz: Kommentar, Vol. 3: Art. 79–146, 4th edn, München: Vahlen.

6

Electronic government in Japan Tsuneharu Yonemaru

Introduction The going online of public administration and the promotion of electronic government is booming internationally. Each country is competing with the other not only in getting existing administrative services to go online, but also in promoting electronic processing and the digitalization of legislative and judicial procedures. In the United States, Canada, Singapore, and many other countries, the promotion of e-government is being realized. In this national report, the Japanese administrative and institutional systems of central and local government, the institutional background, and e-government strategies and implementing processes will be outlined and surveyed. In Japan, administrative reform has also been booming since the 1980s. Promotion and development of administrative reform have been critical issues and a general political slogan. In line with administrative reform, informatizing and digitalizing government services has been urged and implemented. In recent years, the Japanese administrative system has been greatly reformed. Different measures of administrative reform (e.g. deregulation, privatization, central ministry reform, corporatization of independent administrative corporations, decentralization of local governments, etc.)1 have been planned and implemented. Now, in the twenty-first century, realizing e-Japan is most the important political issue at both central and local government levels. Administrative framework and jurisdiction Japan is organized as a unitary state with two levels of autonomous local government safeguarded by the Constitution (state and local public entities: state Kuni, prefectures To, Dou, Fu and Ken, and municipalities Shi, Cho and Son). The government is divided into federal states, each of which has different legal and administrative rights and powers.

Electronic government in Japan 137 Outline of the institutional and administrative framework L O C A L G OV E R N M E N T S ( P R E F E C T U R E S A N D M U N I C I PA L I T I E S )

In the Japanese governmental system (Tsuji 1984: 87–109; Isozaki 1997; El Kahal 2000: 224–233), there are three levels of government – central government and two local governments: state, prefectures, and municipalities. Chapter 8 (Art. 92–95) of Japan’s Constitution provides for a local government system and makes it clear that local autonomy is one of the principles of government. Article 94 of the Constitution provides for the rights of local public entities (i.e. prefectures and municipalities – LPEs). The right to manage public property, the right to carry out administration, and the right to enact local regulations (bylaws) are recognized. An LPE is a corporation created on the basis of a specified area within the national territory, membership of which is given to Japanese residents therein. The basic function of an LPE is to control public administration within its area in order to promote benefit to the residents, based upon the right of autonomy as recognized by the Constitution. An LPE is given the status of a public corporation by the Local Autonomy Act (the Local Autonomy Act (the local government Act) of 17 April 1947, Law No. 67). The Law divides LPEs into two major categories: ordinary LPEs and special LPEs. The Law adopts a two-tiered system for ordinary LPEs. The upper tier of ordinary LPEs is made up of prefectures (To, Dou, Fu and Ken; forty-seven corporations). Prefectures are wide-based LPEs consisting of municipalities. Municipalities are basic LPEs situated within the residents’ locale (Shi, city, Cho, town, and Son, village; 3,218 corporations (as of 1 April 2002)). They take charge of all local administration, except for those affairs handled by prefectures and central government. Prefectures deal with the following affairs: (1) affairs which cover a wide area; (2) affairs which require overall uniformity; (3) affairs which relate to the liaison and coordination of municipalities; and (4) affairs which exceed the level which municipalities are deemed to be capable of handling properly.2 An LPE (both prefectures and municipalities) consists of an assembly as its legislative body, and a head executive (a governor in the case of a prefecture, a mayor in the case of a municipality) and administrative committees as its executive bodies. The legislative body decides upon matters such as bylaws (Jourei, regulations) and budgets, and executive bodies implement the actual administration in accordance with the decisions of the legislative body. The Japanese Constitution advocates the principle of local autonomy (Art. 92) and guarantees a locally decentralized administrative autonomy. Therefore, except for those affairs to be handled by the central government, affairs concerned with local administrative demands should be transferred to LPEs as much as possible. Under the Japanese Constitution, local government has been strengthened. LPEs have been given considerable autonomous power. This will mean less supervision by the central government. However, the financial

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situation of LPEs is still far from favorable. The resources have always been limited. This explains why LPEs remain financially dependent on the central government, and why central government has a lot of power over the autonomous LPEs, for example in realizing e-government etc. C E N T R A L G OV E R N M E N T A N D I T S L O C A L B R A N C H O F F I C E

On the other hand, in Japan the central government has also many local branch offices of its own. Local branch offices are roughly divided into those at the regional ‘block’ level, those at the prefectural level, and those at levels below. As of the end of FY 1996, there were 233 block offices, 601 prefectural offices, and approximately 25,600 other branch offices (about 5,600 of which were institutions other than post offices). About 60 per cent of the officials in central government are working in these local branch offices (Institute of Administrative Management 1998: 21). For the general public, the post office, the tax office, and the vehicle office have important roles, and some have direct contacts with them. In December 1999, the Diet enacted a set of bills aimed at reforming staterun institutions into separated executive agencies or quasi-governmental organizations (independent administrative corporations) for some public services as part of the scheduled reorganization of government ministries and agencies. This administrative reform aimed at reorganizing the existing twenty-three government bodies (ministries and agencies) into thirteen entities in January 2001. The Basic Act on Central Government Reform (Law No. 103, 1998), enacted in June 1998, called for the reorganization of all the government’s ministries and agencies into a Cabinet Office and twelve ministries and agencies by 1 January 2001, to provide a basic framework for starting sweeping administrative reform in January 2001. It also provided for a new organization to take charge of postal services, to be taken over by a new government-affiliated corporation (the postal public corporation) after a two-year transitional period. P U B L I C C O R P O R AT I O N S A N D O T H E R Q UA S I - G OV E R N M E N TA L O RG A N I Z AT I O N S

In addition, there are several types of quasi-governmental corporations that also have direct contact with businesses or citizens: (1) public corporations3 (seventyseven as of January 2002); and (2) independent administrative corporations4 (fifty-nine as of July 2002). Public corporations and independent administrative corporations are not totally independent from the central government. The capital is provided by central government, and the conduct of their business is closely monitored and supervised by the appropriate ministry. In addition to those state-funded corporations, there are state-designated private entities (private corporations or persons), assigned with the execution of public tasks (Shitei Houjin, designated corporations,5 or Shitei Kikan, designated authorities). These are not governmental organizations in origin, but functionally they take an active hand in state administration.

Electronic government in Japan 139 These types of quasi-governmental corporations etc. are nowadays also some of the important targets of the overall e-government strategies of central government. In the following, explanations around the informatization and digitalization of these quasi-governmental corporations etc. have been omitted for the sake of space.6 Outline of different legislative authorities of each state level Article 94 of the Constitution of Japan provides for the right of LPEs to enact local regulations (‘Local public entities shall have the right to manage property, affairs, and administration and to enact their own regulations within the law’). According to Local Autonomy Act, Art. 2–1, each LPE shall, in addition to its own community autonomous affairs, and the affairs required by national law or by Cabinet order, perform other administrative affairs within its area insofar as such affairs are not reserved for the state (i.e. central government). Under the Constitution and the Local Autonomy Act, each LPE has the right to adopt its own legislation, which is of two types: bylaws and regulations. While bylaws are adopted by the local assembly, regulations are independently promulgated by the chief or other executive body of the LPE with regard to affairs within its jurisdiction. Both types of legislation have characteristics of law for the public concerned. They differ in that only bylaws can restrict individual rights and freedoms.7 With regard to the affairs delegated to the chief and other executive bodies, the affairs must always be dealt with by regulations.8 Despite the constitutional guarantee of autonomy for LPEs and equal status for each level of government, LPEs in Japan remain under the strong and overall control of the central government. National policies and national government retain a superior position. Bylaws of municipalities may not violate prefectural bylaws, and prefectural bylaws may not contravene national laws. The scope of the affairs and activities of the LPEs is not always fixed. It is determined in light of changing economic and social conditions, regional differences, financial restrictions, and other factors. The distinction between the affairs of central government and those belonging to LPEs is not clear. The Local Autonomy Act provided only that matters relating to judiciary affairs, to postal services, and to national institutions for education and research, etc., should not be handled by LPEs.9 Affairs which were performed by LPEs were divided roughly into those which belonged to them as autonomous affairs, and those which were entrusted by central government to their chief and other executive bodies (Kikan Inin Jimu). The former were further divided into three categories: originally local affairs, affairs mandated by the central government to LPEs, and regulatory affairs. According to the principle of local autonomy, administrative organizations and reform of municipal and prefectural government should be provided by the LPEs’ own bylaws. These are the autonomous affairs of LPEs. Accordingly, the central government has issued some guidelines regarding local administrative reform and the informatization or digitalization of prefectural and municipal

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administrative services. With this non-legally binding and informal instrument, central government affected the performance of LPEs for a long time after the Second World War, and even up to the present day. Outline of jurisdiction for administration Each government, central government, and prefectural and municipal LPE performs its own administrative affairs as outlined in laws (with regard to central government) or by bylaws under restriction of the Local Autonomy Act (with regard to LPEs). Ministries and agencies of central government also have local branch offices of their own. Through these local branch offices, they provide national governmental services directly to the general public. In addition, despite the constitutional guarantee of local autonomy, LPEs have also performed state affairs as outlined by laws (the above-mentioned Kikan Inin Jimu, state affairs delegated to LPE bodies).10 Under the Kikan Inin Jimu system, the relevant minister of the central government could directly order a prefectural governor to carry out certain actions, and, if the governor did not obey such orders, he could be dismissed from his position by the competent minister.11 Under similar circumstances, a mayor might be dismissed by a governor for failure to obey orders.12 With this system, central government has controlled LPEs effectively. The Decentralization Reform 2000 abolished this system of ‘agency-delegated affairs’ and introduced a new system of ‘by law delegated affairs’ (or ‘legally entrusted affairs’) from the state. Even after the Decentralization Reform 2000, the mentality of civil servants in LPEs is almost the same as it was under the former system. State–citizen contacts Public administration in Japan consists of national administration undertaken directly by the central government, and local administration undertaken by LPEs. Some affairs, such as diplomatic relations, defense, and judicial jurisdiction, are, because of their nature, undertaken exclusively by the central government. However, in the case of education, welfare services, health and hygiene, public works, industrial promotion, the fire service, and the police, which are closely linked to daily life, duties are shared by the central government and the LPEs. Actual implementation of these areas of administration, however, is shared mainly by the prefectures and municipalities. Municipalities are responsible for those matters most directly related to the daily lives of the residents: the operation of primary and junior high schools, water supply and sewerage and sanitation facilities, some social security activities such as relief of the poor and children’s welfare, and services which are basic to the daily lives of residents such as registration of present and permanent addresses. The basic principle is that those fields of public administration which have a strong connection with the daily lives of the general public are to be undertaken by LPEs as much as

Electronic government in Japan 141 possible. The central government handles those affairs that are beyond the ability of LPEs. The allocation of functions and the distribution of affairs between the central government, prefectures, and municipalities are in fact vague, and some argue that a clear standard should be established on the matter, and that the nature and position of the two categories of LPEs should be defined more explicitly.13 Coordination and cooperation of all governmental levels (municipal/regional, state) R E L AT I O N S H I P B E T W E E N T H E C E N T R A L G OV E R N M E N T AND LPES

The relationship between central government and LPEs in Japan is characterized by strong administrative and financial control by central government. Although LPEs are created by the state, in line with constitutional principles, they are self-governing entities, and by no means subordinate to the central government. Therefore, the relationships between central and local governments must be established on the principle of cooperation and minimum intervention by central government into the administration of local affairs. The central government is expected to render technical advice and financial support with minimum control over the local governments. The necessity to secure the wellbalanced development of national land and to maintain a national standard of administrative services, however, makes it imperative for the central government to exercise certain controls and to coordinate supervision over local governments. In fact, central government has for a long time demonstrated strong centralistic control and paternalistic intervention toward LPEs. The means of this control and intervention are outlined below.

State affairs delegated to LPE bodies (former system) Before the amendment of the Local Autonomy Act, the chief executives (governors and mayors) and administrative boards (commissions) acted in the capacity of agencies of the central government in performing national functions delegated to them, and, as such, they were under the direction and control of the central government. As mentioned already, these affairs were called ‘state affairs delegated to LPE bodies,’ or ‘agency-delegated affairs or functions.’14 These affairs were entrusted to the chief executives (the governors or mayors) or to the other executive bodies (e.g. the election commissions, education commissions, public security commissions, etc.) of the LPEs under statutory provisions or Cabinet orders under authorization of law, by the central government or by other LPEs (e.g. from prefectures to mayors etc. of municipalities). These affairs were not those of the LPEs themselves; rather, they were those of the delegating central government or other LPEs. They were, however, in practice undifferentiated in the daily administration of the LPEs; moreover, the local budget did not make a distinction as to state affairs delegated to LPE bodies.

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These affairs were managed and executed under the instructions of the minister concerned in the case of delegation from the central government, and the local assembly had no right to interfere with these functions. For the execution of these affairs, there was a mandamus system, under which a chief executive who failed to perform such affairs could be dismissed through legal proceedings.15 As for the affairs of municipalities, the powers and responsibilities of assistance and control of the central government were, as a rule, entrusted to the governors of prefectures. In that capacity, they had no independence and were treated as an administrative arm of central government. Before the last amendment of the Local Autonomy Act, the relevant minister of the central government could directly order a prefectural governor to carry out the abovementioned delegated affairs. The number of these affairs increased significantly in the post-war period. As of the end of 1980, the number of related laws was approximately 550 out of approximately 2,200 laws in effect. Of all the activities of the prefectures, about 70 to 80 per cent were concerned with these affairs; for municipalities, the figure was 50 to 60 per cent. With regard to these affairs, vertical control and supervision, from the ministers through governors to mayors, was observed (Shindo, in Tsuji 1984: 115ff.). With this system, central government was able to control LPEs.

Financial aid and dependency Another control mechanism is the financial system, especially the subsidy system, which is the strongest and most complicated device for controlling LPEs, and which can often disturb the coordination of local policy-making and administration. The relationship between central government and LPEs is closely intertwined. Approximately 60 per cent of the total final expenditure of LPEs is derived from various sources of central government; these financial transfers to LPEs include local allocation tax grants and central government disbursements. Payments are made through the ministries of the central government. The greatest autonomous source of revenue for LPEs is local taxes (approximately 30 per cent or more on average), followed by central government disbursements (approximately 15 per cent), local allocation tax grants (approximately 20 per cent), and local indebtedness (approximately 10 per cent) (White Paper on Local Public Finance (2003), p. 4). The system of local allocation tax grants16 in Japan plays a central role in adjusting imbalances in tax resources among LPEs in order to maintain government services at a certain level in all LPEs. In addition to the central government disbursement, the central government provides subsidy programs to guide LPEs for the purpose of implementing specific policies. As a result, it is often pointed out that local government has in practice ‘30 per cent autonomy,’ because revenues from local taxes account for only 30 per cent of the total revenues of LPEs in Japan at present. LPEs basically remain weak and under the strong financial control of the central government.

Electronic government in Japan 143 Personnel exchanges Personnel exchanges between the central government and LPEs are significant in terms of their ability to promote mutual understanding between the central government and LPEs, foster human resources, reinvigorate organizations, etc. The number of personnel exchanges between central and local government as of 15 August 1996 was 1,197 people posted from central ministries and agencies to LPEs, and 657 people accepted by the central ministries and agencies from LPEs (Institute of Administrative Management 1998: 47). The numbers as of 15 August 2001 were, respectively, 1,606 and 1,680 personnel.17 In addition to this system, the practice of national civil servants for special affairs working in LPEs was well known in Japan. In the areas of social insurance and employment security, these officials were often national civil servants working in local governments, performing affairs delegated by central government. Top officials in the prefectural police organization are the same – national civil servants working in LPE administrations. With this personnel exchange system, the central government has retained a strong, personal, and informal controlling power over LPEs.

Informal guidance (administrative guidance from central government to LPEs) Central government has used the instrument of informal guidance, recommendations, etc., to coordinate and steer LPEs.18 For example, in order to decentralize the administrative affairs of central government to LPEs, the ex-Ministry of Local Autonomy urged LPEs to draw up an ‘Administrative Reform Program’ and implement it.19 The LPEs have been acting on these requests to provide new guidelines for administrative reform, with all prefectures and approximately 96 per cent of municipalities having adopted new fundamental guidelines for such reform as of 31 July 1997 (Institute of Administrative Management 1998: 62). The ex-Ministry of Local Autonomy (at present, a department of the MPHPT) has played a major role in supporting the development of local selfgovernment by issuing dispatches or circulars and verbal advice relating to such issues as grant-related decisions and projects. In addition, the central government has retained numerous bureaucratic functions, such as the right to impose corrective measures for inadequate performance or violation of national laws, regulations, and Cabinet orders.20 In the last nineteen years of the twentieth century, Decentralization Reform 2000 was implemented. The Decentralization Promotion Act21 was enacted in 1995. With the Amendment Act of Local Autonomy Act etc.,22 institutional decentralization was partially implemented. With this reform, the system of ‘state affairs delegated to LPE bodies’ was abolished. Because of the longestablished custom of dependency, however, LPEs are, even now, under the strong informal and financial control of the central government, also with regard to the promotion of e-municipalities.

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C O O R D I N AT I O N O F S TAT E A D M I N I S T R AT I O N

The ex-Management and Coordination Agency was in charge of the management and coordination of ministries and agencies in order to ensure an overall and efficient implementation of the administration work, especially the management of basic administration systems, the promotion of administrative reforms, etc. The agency was incorporated into the MPHPT as a branch of the ministry in April 2001. As a result of this central government reform, the MPHPT plays an important role in the coordination of state administration. The ex-Ministry of Local Autonomy was also incorporated into the MPHPT. The MPHPT now steers and coordinates the LPEs. Accordingly, the MPHPT has the central role of steering, promoting and coordinating e-government reforms throughout all levels of government.

National e-government strategies IT infrastructure Internet users/its penetration rates, etc. The MPHPT estimated in their Information and Communications in Japan White Paper (MPHPT 2003: 5) that at the end of 2002, more than 69.42 million Japanese were accessing the internet, including people who accessed the internet to check websites and/or to use email, whether from PCs, mobile phones, PDAs, and/or video game equipment (a 24.1 per cent increase over the previous year). The penetration rate in the population as a whole was 54.5 per cent (approximately a 10 point increase over the previous year).23 What makes Japan rather unique is that mobile phones with internet access are the primary tools by which Japanese access the internet for exchanging email, receiving information, downloading content, etc. A total of 62.46 million people accessed the internet via mobile phones, the Personal Handy-phone System, and hand-held terminals.24 The proportion of mobile internet subscribers among the total number of mobile phone subscribers was 82.6 per cent, more than 80 per cent, as of the end of FY 2002. There has been a dramatic growth in the usage of broadband. The number of subscriptions to broadband services as of the end of 2002 amounted to 19.55 million. Broadband users account for 28.2 per cent of the 69.42 million internet users. The internet user population is expected to reach 88.92 million (penetration rate: 69.6 per cent), of which 59.67 million (penetration rate: 46.7 per cent) will be broadband users, in the next five years. The size of the market for digital certificate services is expected to grow to ¥41.95 billion in FY 2006, from ¥6.34 billion in FY 2001.25 This market is expected to grow rapidly especially in and after FY 2003, when ‘e-government’ projects are launched. Situations of public administration toward e-government and e-municipalities 26 In addition, there was one PC available to every 1.2 employees in all national government agencies (excluding national universities under the Ministry of

Electronic government in Japan 145 Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology), reflecting the government’s effort to make one PC available to every employee. With respect to access to networks from PCs, nearly 80 per cent of PCs were connected to networks, with 77.7 per cent connected via local area networks (LANs) and 2.2 per cent via hosts other than LANs. During FY 2001, a total of 2,751 public entities set up their own websites (a 25.5 per cent increase over the previous year). In addition, there were 319,915 PCs available in prefectural governments (a 21.3 per cent increase over the previous year), and 561,721 PCs available in municipal (city, town, and village) governments (a 45 per cent increase over the previous year). The installation of LANs has been undertaken steadily: 100 per cent of prefectural governments and 88.6 per cent of municipal governments have now installed LANs. National strategy for implementing e-government Various strategic measures have been introduced by the Japanese government to facilitate the information and communications technology (ICT) revolution, such as its e-Japan Strategy, which was launched by the Strategic Headquarters for the Promotion of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society in FY 2001. Introduction of central computing system for data-processing In 1959, the first computer was introduced for data-processing in the Meteorological Agency. Since then, many data-processing units have been introduced for social insurance administration, postal savings, the processing of car licenses, etc. This development has contributed to the inner informatization of central and local administrations. To this end, the Inter-ministerial Liaison Conference on Administrative Informatization (hereafter referred to as ‘the Inter-ministerial Liaison Conference’) was organized in 1983. It has taken an active role in effective and coordinated informatization, the introduction of computing systems, etc. Informatization of administration – Basic Plan for Promoting Administrative Informatization In the period preceding the e-Japan Strategy, the government urged several strategies and implemented various measures to informatize administration. The goal of administrative informatization is to sharply raise the level of public service and improve the quality of administrative management through the use of computing and telecommunications technologies throughout all areas of administration and through the re-evaluation of traditional systems and practices. In order to respond accurately to internal and external changes concerning administration, and to requests for assurances regarding a more comprehensive

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administration, the promotion of further simplification and increased efficiency, and more accurate responses to the people’s needs, etc., the central government adopted the Basic Plan for Promoting Administrative Informatization27 (hereafter referred to as ‘the Basic Plan’) by Cabinet decision on 25 December 1994, and has since then been executing the comprehensive and systematic promotion of administrative informatization. Based on the Basic Plan, the ‘Uniform Implementing Plan for the Promotion of Administrative Informatization’28 and the ‘Implementing Plan for the Promotion of Administrative Informatization’ of each ministry and agency were adopted by the Inter-ministerial Liaison Conference. According to these plans, the following measures, among others, were implemented systematically: the building of LANs in every ministry and agency (from FY 1994 to FY 1997); the construction of the Kasumigaseki29 WAN (wide area network) (FY 1997) to connect the various ministry and agency LANs; and the distribution of PCs to every member of staff in central government (almost achieved by the end of FY 1997). In addition to these hardware-related or infrastructural measures, traditional document management regulations and regulations on inner administrative proceedings were examined in order to bring them into line with the overall goal of the informatization and digitalization of public administration. While the provision of LANs to each ministry and agency, the Kasumigaseki WAN, and the rest of the telecommunications foundation for administrative informatization has progressed rapidly with the implementation of the Basic Plan, as the next step, this foundation should be utilized and efforts should be made to carry out specific measures which will lead to improving further the efficiency of administrative affairs and business and the quality of public service. In addition, the environment affecting administrative informatization has been changing greatly, as seen in the rapid spread of the internet; the advances of informatization in society, such as the increasing practicality of electronic commercial transactions; and the appearance of demands to decrease the burden on the people related to procedures such as the filing of applications and notifications. ‘Promotion of Advanced Information and Telecommunications Society’ (1994–96) Back in 1992, Singapore announced its IT 2000 concept, and in 1997 built a high-bandwidth telecommunications network to connect the country to the world. Malaysia announced similar plans in 1994 and, to encourage ecommerce, enacted Cyber Laws that beat Japan to the punch in recognizing electronic signatures and protecting privacy. In Japan, the Advanced Information and Telecommunications Society Promotion Headquarters (hereafter referred to as ‘the IT Promotion Headquarters’) were set up in the Prime Minister’s Office on 2 August 1994. It decided on ‘Basic Guidelines on the Promotion of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Society’30 on 21 February 1995. According to the guidelines, informatization of public administration

Electronic government in Japan 147 should be promoted totally and according to a plan based on the Basic Plan. In addition, in order to reduce the burden on business and citizens related to administrative affairs, the digital archiving of paper-based documents and the going online or digitizing of administrative filing and application procedures were to be studied, considered, and promoted. In line with this strategy, the Working Group on Examination of Institutions was organized within the IT Promotion Headquarters. Accordingly, ‘Guidelines Reconsidering Filing and Application Procedures etc. Corresponding to Digitalization’31 (2 September 1996) were adopted by the Inter-ministerial Liaison Conference. It was decided that certification and identification methods for citizens, security measures, and an online fee payment system should be studied, and that digitizing these administrative procedures should be promoted, where and so long as no problems existed. In February 1997, the Cabinet decided that the digitizing and going online of filing and application procedures should be promoted in order to reduce the administrative burden on business and citizens (Cabinet decision of 10 February 1997).32 Corresponding to the spread of internet use to business and the general public, in FY 1997, the Basic Plan was re-examined, and the ‘Revised Basic Plan for Promoting Administrative Informatization’ (December 1997)33 was adopted by the Cabinet. In the Revised Basic Plan, as a goal of the Basic Plan, it was stated: The government shall achieve a shift from paper-based information management to electronic information management by the use of telecommunication networks with the necessity of security measures in mind, as well as by the promotion of re-engineering administrative work and organization. The government shall also aim at realizing highly advanced electronic public administration, or ‘Electronic Government,’ at the beginning of the twenty-first century. As fundamental policies, the following were mentioned: •

•

Promotion of government-wide use of IT in accordance with the progress of societal IT use; online provision of government information; development of geographical information systems (GIS); for reference services related to government information which can be provided to the public, an integrated locator system; electronic administrative procedures for making applications and reports; implementation of one-stop government shops; and electronic procurement procedures and electronic revenue and expenditure procedures. Simplified, efficient and upgraded administrative operations; full use of the Kasumigaseki WAN; the development of information systems; systematic management and distribution of documents (comprehensive document management systems and an inter-ministerial electronic document exchange system); and promotion of sharing information.

148 •

Tsuneharu Yonemaru Infrastructure for promoting government-wide use of IT; administrative telecommunications network; upgrading of intra-ministerial networks; network infrastructure throughout the public sector (‘A general-purpose integrated wide-area administrative telecommunication system connected with local governments, public corporations and other authorized public corporations shall be established to promote exchanges and sharing of information in the public sector, and one-stop government shops making use of Kasumigaseki WAN’); and promotion of open system environment and standardization (employment of the internet protocol (TCP/IP) for telecommunications; the use of other international or de facto standards for upper-layer protocols, such as an email protocol; and international or de facto standards for structured document formats (SGML etc.)).

Regarding organization in the respective ministries: A position responsible for planning and implementing government-wide use of IT in respective ministries shall be established by assigning a secretary general, for example, as chief information officer to promote governmentwide use of IT comprehensively and deliberately. In addition, core staff functions to support chief information officers and promote governmentwide use of IT shall be enhanced as well. Legal and technological issues (securing originality of electronic documents; certification of applicants; measures for charging for online services in application and reporting procedures) should be resolved as soon as possible after adequate deliberations on the legal and technological aspects of such issues. Regarding the ‘comprehensive promotion of government-wide use of IT,’ the following measures were urged. The Inter-ministerial Liaison Conference should be continuously utilized to promote government-wide use of IT comprehensively and deliberately, and to discuss fundamental issues on government information systems. The enhancement of collaboration among the ministries concerned, collaboration with the IT Promotion Headquarters, and collaboration with local government (‘A liaison and coordination body shall be established in relation to the issues common to the central and local governments to promote comprehensive government-wide use of IT covering both the governments’) were also urged. Regarding collaboration between central and local government: ‘deliberation on measures for facilitating government-wide use of IT in the field of central government work or businesses delegated to the local governments, onestop government shops involving both the governments and utilization of the Residential Basic Book Network System [i.e. the resident register network; see below], for which an act is under preparation, shall be promoted by the body described above.’

Electronic government in Japan 149 Millennium projects From the latter half of FY 1998, the so-called IT strategy has been promoted as one of the central pillars of the economic policy of the Japanese government. The government planned to set aside ¥250 billion for the so-called ‘millennium projects,’ to cover the environment, IT, and measures to respond to the graying of society. Since the Industrial Competitiveness Council, an advisory board to then Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, proposed its ‘Super Electronic Government’ concept – promotional measures to digitize administrative information and enable internet access for the public – the concept has rapidly grown into a centerpiece of government policy. Regarding e-government, the ‘Project to Realize Electronic Government’ (Prime Minister Decision of 19 December 1999)34 was decided. According to this project, e-government was to be realized by the end of FY 2003. The idea of a ‘Super Electronic Government’ was originally proposed by the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) in July 1999 at the Industrial Competitiveness Council as part of its collaboration with the government, industry, and academic circles aimed at enhancing Japan’s competitiveness. Hoping to improve administrative services and reduce costs, Keidanren proposed several goals: full adoption of electronic transactions in government procurement, applications, tax collection, and government spending; electronic disclosure of administrative information; full digitization of government documents; establishment of an ‘e-government infrastructure’ to be shared by all local governments as well as the central government; and the setting of a schedule for adopting electronic services among local governments. In the information sector, the government planned to use the budget to develop technologies for the creation of an ‘electronic government,’ in which the processing of revenues and expenditures would be computerized. The government planned to implement electronic transactions in all 8,800 regulatory actions by 2003. In line with this project, large Japanese electronics companies, Hitachi, Toshiba, etc., started to expand business related to the Super Electronic Government project. These companies set up special teams to propose specific ideas on how to realize the e-government idea. They aimed to generate revenue of more than ¥250 billion from such business by FY 2003.35 In November 1998, the IT Promotion Headquarters revised their ‘Basic Guidelines on the Promotion of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Society’ (9 November 1998).36 In the revised Basic Guidelines, four goals – promotion of e-commerce, realization of e-government, elevation of information literacy, and installation of information and telecommunications infrastructure – were listed as fundamental policy goals. In November 1998, the ‘Japan Rebirth Plan’ was decided by an economic policy-related Ministers Conference. In the plan, a revival or rebirth plan for the Japanese economy, the realization of e-government was listed, in addition to the informatization of education and of local communities, and the implementation of the legal

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requirements necessary for e-commerce. For the first time, the time limit ‘by FY 2003’ for realizing e-government was incorporated into the plan. In line with these basic policy plans, the ‘Basic Outline for Promotion of Informatization of Application and Report Procedures, etc.’ (31 March 2000)37 was adopted by the Inter-ministerial Liaison Conference. Legislative packages on the way to realizing e-Japan In addition to administrative measures, various legislative packages have been enacted so as to allow the legal system to recognize online procedures and electronic certification systems. The Act Concerning Electronic Signatures and Certification Services, the so-called ‘Electronic Signatures Act’ (Yonemaru and Rossnagel 2002), was enacted on 31 May 2000. Japanese electronic signature law consists of three main elements. First is the presumption effect of so-called secure electronic signatures. The second is the establishment of a voluntary accreditation system for certification authorities (CAs). This law also provides for the voluntary accreditation system itself. The third is the set of provisions regarding the designated private authority with the role of assistant investigator of CAs. According to the ideas of the relevant ministries, certification services are supposed to be offered through different types of certification service providers. The Electronic Signatures Act is applicable only to private certification service providers. The authenticity of a private electronic document is presumed according to Art. 3 of the Electronic Signatures Act if it is provided with a qualified electronic signature. The Amendment Act of the Commercial Register Act38 was enacted on 19 April 2000. With the amendment of the Commercial Register Act, the designated commercial register authorities (branch office) of the Ministry of Justice can offer a certification service for the registered enterprises based on public key infrastructure (PKI). In the Japanese commercial register, four types of associations (legal persons), foreign enterprises, and retailers are registered, as well as names, addresses, and managerial representatives with the company seals. Based on the information in the commercial register, the register maintaining employees certifies the means of the signature examination electronically, the existence of the entities, their name, their representatives, and further information in an electronic certificate. Anyone can check electronically at the designated commercial register authority whether the facts in the certificate are still valid, whether the certificate is still valid, and whether the other information in the certificate is still valid. The Ministry of Justice started the certification service on 10 October 2000. Since then, representatives of legal persons have been able to receive electronic certificates based on the commercial register. The ‘Comprehensive Amendments to the Laws that Require the Delivery of Documents and the Will to Allow the Employment of Electronic Media,’39 the so-called ‘IT Comprehensive Law,’ was also enacted in November 2000 to promote e-commerce. Furthermore, there were 733 regulations and 124 laws obstructing e-commerce. With this compre-

Electronic government in Japan 151 hensive amendment, the obstructing laws and regulations, such as the Securities and Exchange Law, which required brokerages to issue a hard copy prospectus in stock futures trading, were revised. E-Japan strategies B A S I C L AW O N T H E F O R M AT I O N O F A N A DVA N C E D I N F O R M AT I O N A N D T E L E C O M M U N I C AT I O N S N E T W O R K SOCIETY

After the sudden death of ex-Prime Minister Obuchi, the then Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori organized his Cabinet. The Cabinet also urged the promotion of revolutionary IT use, and organized the IT Strategy Headquarters (a government task force headed by Prime Minister Mori) and the IT Strategy Council (an advisory panel to Mori) at prime ministerial level. Through this advisory panel, existing measures directed toward e-government were also strongly enhanced. The Headquarters and Council discussed the bill on the Formation of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society, the bill of the IT Comprehensive Law (mentioned above), and the draft of the eJapan Strategy. At the joint meeting of the IT Strategy Council and the IT Strategy Headquarters, the ‘Basic IT Strategy’40 was adopted on 27 November 2000. The Basic Act on the Formation of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society,41 the so-called ‘IT Basic Act,’ enacted on 6 December 2000, aimed at creating one of the world’s most advanced online networks and IT infrastructures in Japan. The IT Strategy Headquarters and the IT Strategy Council approved the outline in a joint meeting at the premier’s official residence (20 September 2000). According to the IT Basic Act, clauses related to e-government provided for the following: •

•

Digitization of administration (Article 20): In formulating measures on the formation of an advanced information and telecommunications network society, it is necessary to implement required measures to actively promote a digitized administration, measures such as expanding the use of the internet and other advanced information and telecommunications networks in clerical operations of the state and local governments, in order to improve convenience for the people, as well as simplifying and improving the efficiency and transparency of administrative management. Application of information and telecommunications technology in the public sector (Article 21): In formulating measures on the formation of an advanced information and telecommunications network society, it is necessary to implement required measures to diversify and improve the quality of public-sector services by use of information and telecommunications technology, in order to improve convenience for the people.

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Based on the Act, Japan should realize an ‘online government’ by FY 2003, and should draw up an action plan by the summer of 2001 in order to realize that goal. The government would seriously deal with the issue of online government, with the goal of realizing one of the most advanced of its type in the world. The IT Basic Act required the government to lay out ‘high-priority [IT] projects,’ setting forth the goals and time frames to help Japan fully harness the potential of IT to spur the nation’s economic growth. The Act also urged the government to help facilitate the spread of e-commerce by scrapping or deregulating government regulations that were choking its development in Japan. Moreover, the Act called on the central and local governments to provide as many administrative services as possible via the internet. Under the Act, the government set up a high-powered task force directly under the direction of the prime minister to build ‘the world’s most advanced information and communications infrastructure’ in Japan. The task force comprised Cabinet ministers as well as IT experts from the private sector. The Act also called on the government to provide training in IT technologies for the average citizen, while bolstering the ranks of IT experts in Japan. It also urged the government to take the measures necessary to shield private information on individuals from piracy or theft via the network. E - J A PA N S T R AT E G Y ( 2 2 J A N UA RY 2 0 0 1 )

The IT Strategic Council, formed on 7 July 2000 by the then Prime Minister Mori’s government, presented as ‘The e-Japan Strategy’42 in January 2001 a clear set of goals for Japan to achieve by 2005: • • • •

establishment of an ultra high-speed network infrastructure and competition policies; facilitation of e-commerce; realization of e-government; nurturing of high-quality human resources.

The strategy defined the necessary network infrastructure conditions as: (a) available at any time, anywhere, and to anyone; (b) able to provide a great variety of choices and services; (c) safe, easy, and secure; (d) affordable, high-speed, and efficient; and (e) indiscriminate regardless of nationality, and consistent with global standards. The policy aimed to establish the world’s most advanced high-speed (also wireless) internet environment and to make seamless mobile communication services available nationwide. The following are important points of the strategy.

Establishment of an ultra high-speed network infrastructure and competition policies The government aims to promote internet use so that more than 60 per cent of the

Electronic government in Japan 153 public will have internet access by 2005. The government hopes to provide at least 30 million households with constant high-speed internet connections at low rates within five years, giving them instant access to sound data, and to enable another 10 million households with ultra high-speed internet access to download real-time moving images etc. by FY 2005. In order to accomplish such political goals, the following policies were listed: • • • • • •

introduction of asymmetrical regulations (stronger regulations to telecom giant NTT than for other new common careers); shift of the government’s administrative attitude from prior regulationsoriented to ex post facto check approach; establishment of a special body to quickly respond to issues such as complaints from users and conflicts among carriers; reinforcement of the function of the Fair Trade Commission to eliminate acts that hinder fair competition; establishment of clear rules to promote just and fair use of telecommunications resources such as optical fibers; examination and implementation of fair and transparent ways of allocating radio frequency spectrum, including an auction system.

Facilitation of e-commerce The government planned to amend regulations hampering e-commerce and to set up laws to protect consumers by 2002. It intended to increase e-commerce transactions among corporations by 2003 to more than ten times 1998 levels. Steps toward achieving these aims included: • • •

revision of regulations that hinder e-commerce; clarification of the interpretation of existing rules; legislation for the new rules concerning electronic contracts and for the protection of consumers.

Realization of e-government The government intended to realize an e-government, which could handle electronic information in the same manner as paper-based information, by FY 2003, and to expedite the digitization of citizens and businesses widely. This meant: • • • •

digitization of public administration within central and local government; digitization of public services to the private sector; publication and promotion of the use of administrative information via the internet; support for local government.

Nurturing of high-quality human resources In the field of human development, the government aims to allow some 30,000 foreign IT technicians and researchers to work in Japan by 2005. This requires:

154 • • •

Tsuneharu Yonemaru improvement of IT literacy by making internet access available in schools and at public sites; fostering of IT instructors, technical experts, and researchers (to exceed the level of IT-related human resources in the United States by 2003); fostering of digital content creators.

I M P L E M E N T I N G P L A N S B A S E D O N T H E E - J A PA N S T R AT E G Y

Based on the e-Japan Strategy, several implementing plans were decided and have been implemented: the ‘e-Japan Priority Policy Program’ (29 March 2001);43 the ‘e-Japan 2002 Program’ (26 June 2001);44 and the ‘Acceleration and Advancement of e-Japan Priority Policy Program and e-Japan 2002 Program’ (November 2001).45 Under the e-Japan Priority Policy Program, the government decided to launch a structural reform program to streamline and integrate the administrative work of central and local government using IT. Within the program, e-government meant a highly informatized administration, whose main pillars were the electronic opening or provision of administrative documents or information, the going online of application or report procedures, the going online of revenue and expenditure processes, online procurement procedures, and the creation of a paperless inner administrative process. The government planned to use IT to simplify and integrate administrative procedures for the public, accounting, and general affairs. Under the scheme, for instance, people would be able to file administrative procedures with both central and local government on an ‘e-government’ website around the clock from FY 2003. In addition, work such as the compilation of statistics and surveys would be integrated with IT. The streamlining would allow central and local government to focus more energy on policy-making and policy implementation. Currently, each local government separately conducts the administrative work required for handling residence cards, passports, certifications of garage space, etc. Under the plan, the government considered establishing a unified system for local government so that procedures could be undertaken on a nationwide network. The streamlining would also free human resources that could be assigned to other fields to improve administrative services. Lower staffing requirements would lead to a smaller and more effective government. Another merit of the planned reform was that bureaucrats in charge of policy would have access to various data and surveys regardless of which ministry or agency they belonged to, which was expected to lead to better policy-making. As the next stage, the IT Strategic Headquarters conducted a review of the e-Japan Priority Policy Program – during which they considered further technological advances and socio-economic changes, both domestic and international – and compiled a new version of the program, the ‘e-Japan Priority Policy Program 2002,’46 on 18 June 2002. In the e-Japan Priority Policy Program 2002, 220 measures required to realize the ultimate goal of becoming the world’s most advanced IT nation by 2005 were listed across five major policy areas, namely:

Electronic government in Japan 155 • • • • •

formation of the world’s most advanced information and telecommunications network; promotion of education and development of human resources; facilitation of e-commerce; digitization of administration and application of IT in other public areas; ensuring security and reliability of advanced information and telecommunications network.

More than 100 measures had already been implemented during FY 2001, and more than 200 new measures were added at this time to form the new eJapan Priority Policy Program 2002, making 318 measures in total. Based on the direction in which the government was already heading, the following measures would be taken to ensure the continuous development of e-government and the implementation of IT applications in public areas, including e-healthcare, intelligent transport systems (ITS), and GIS: • • •

•

• •

action plans for the electronic filing of all governmental procedures would be formulated by each ministry in FY 2002;47 electronic tendering and bid opening would be introduced for all projects under ministerial jurisdiction by FY 2003; standard procedures for online transactions of major services such as passport issuance by local governments would be presented by central government during FY 2003; local governments would be encouraged to utilize application service provider (ASP) systems for the operation of common e-local government services from FY 2002; a roadmap toward the world’s most advanced ITS would be formulated during FY 2002; an information provision service on the reliability of food would be enhanced from FY 2003.

C U R R E N T S I T UAT I O N O N T H E WAY T O E - M U N I C I PA L I T I E S

In its ‘Guidelines Regarding the Promotion of Informatization Measures in line with the IT Revolution’ (28 August 2000),48 the ex-Ministry of Local Autonomy listed the following goals for e-municipalities:49 the provision of high-quality administrative services; the activation of socio-economic activities; and reform aimed at streamlined, efficient, and transparent public administration. The MPHPT drew up a plan envisioning the use of high-speed internet lines at around 3,300 local governments by FY 2005. Under its plan to expand the use of broadband services nationwide, the ministry envisages the creation of a regional network, whereby local governments are linked with government offices, schools, and public facilities, by FY 2005. It also drew up a plan for a digital government, under which 98 per cent of administrative work such as tax payments and the tendering of public works would be conducted online by FY

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2003. Under the plan, local governments aimed to have 95 per cent of their work executed via the internet by 2003. The ministry is also training 10,000 local government employees and 40,000 people in the private sector to become IT experts. In FY 2001, the MPHPT selected five or six local governments to test a large-scale online administrative service in an effort to turn local governments into ‘electronic municipalities.’ The three-year project incorporated ideas from the private sector. According to the ministry, increased use of IT would help municipalities increase the quality and availability of government services. The selected municipalities varied in location, size of population, and other criteria. The ministry set up a forum to study ways to develop e-government services, such as remote medical treatment systems, and invited private companies to participate in discussions. In March 2002, the MPHPT published a report on the test.50 E - J A PA N S T R AT E G Y I I A N D ‘ E - J A PA N P R I O R I T Y P O L I C Y P RO G R A M 2 0 0 3 ’

On 2 July 2003, the IT Strategy Headquarters adopted a package of so-called ‘e-Japan Strategy II’51 measures as the second stage of boosting IT in Japan, since the first stage of building infrastructure for IT use was nearly finished. The package is a follow-up to the panel’s previously recommended measures that aimed to facilitate the construction of broadband communications infrastructure. The latest recommendations urge a greater use of IT to create new industries and markets in seven key areas – medical services, food, lifestyle improvements, financing for small and medium-sized firms, intelligent work, employment/working, and administrative services. Unlike the previous recommendations, which focused on promoting the building of IT infrastructure, the e-Japan Strategy II aims at making ‘Japanese society energetic, safe, impressive and convenient.’ The package was drawn up on the grounds that IT use has not been progressing sufficiently in Japan, although broadband communications have improved to a globally competitive level. The proposals set specific goals and target dates for each of the seven sectors. In administrative services, the proposals press for the development of nonstop/one-stop administrative services portals and business/system re-engineering plans by FY 2005. In all seven fields, the proposals advocate that Japan should stay ahead of other countries in and after 2006. Based on the new strategy, the task force also adopted the so-called ‘e-Japan Priority Policy Program 2003,’52 which lists 366 concrete measures. In relation to e-government, the implementation of user-oriented one-stop services is urged specifically. Other major concrete measures are listed below: • •

implementation of total one-stop services by FY 2005; reform of inner administrative affairs/systems (through Adjustment Plan) by FY 2005;

Electronic government in Japan 157 • •

use of private IT experts as assistants to chief information officer by FY 2003; completion of study on digital archiving system, which private sector would use to archive documents, by FY 2003.

Pillars of Japanese strategies toward e-government and e-municipalities Resident registry network (‘Juki Net’) as core of emunicipalities and e-government As one of the core concepts of overall e-government and e-municipalities, the resident registry network, the so-called ‘Juki Net,’ was implemented, and has already been put into operation. The system, launched on 5 August 2002, integrates basic data about individuals – name, date of birth, sex, and address. Affairs concerning resident registration and family registration are the responsibility of municipalities, which set up and manage a basic resident registry database. The resident registry network system links basic residency registries across Japan from all municipalities by encoding information about people – mainly a person’s name, address, date of birth, and gender – alongside a uniquely assigned eleven-digit individual number.53 The system was introduced in accordance with the Amendment Act to the Basic Resident Registers Act.54 The Amendment Act was enacted in August 1999.55 The reform will enable citizens to obtain ‘copies of their resident registers’56 not only in their own municipalities but also at other locations, such as municipal offices and post offices, provided they give their resident code, name, address, sex, and date of birth, and will simplify many application and notification procedures, such as registration procedures for those coming into or going out of a municipality. When individuals move from one municipality to another, they will only have to register at the new municipality of residence, freed from the trouble of having to report to the municipality they have just moved out of. The online resident registration system forms part of the central government’s e-Japan strategy of utilizing IT in government work and public services. The scheme will spare individuals from the duty of visiting municipal offices to obtain copies of their resident registration data each time they want to file something with the government, such as when claiming pension payouts, unemployment benefits, child-rearing subsidies, etc. Accordingly, the system serves as the basic identification database of residents throughout Japan. The concept of the resident registry network preceded that of e-government and e-municipalities. The network serves as a fundamental identification database based on the basic resident registry, not only for online application and notification procedures, but also for ‘real’ or paper-based procedures with different administrative offices (also for those outside of residential municipal offices). With this resident registry network, the information-weak citizen can communicate easily, even if he does not have access to a networked PC, or if he

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cannot use a qualified electronic signature. In addition, there are many administrative procedures which do not require strict identification and authentication measures, e.g. a qualified electronic signature. In this way, the resident registry network is the basic infrastructure for the general public, and also for e-government and e-municipalities. The network serves as a basic identification system all over the country. A central information-processing organization, LASDEC (see below), was set up as a ‘designated’57 national center for resident information processing to manage and process individual identification numbers and the four kinds of personal information. Municipalities are expected to obtain the personal information held by other municipalities by accessing the national center. Residents are also expected to obtain integrated circuit cards (IC cards) containing their identification numbers from their own resident municipalities. The central and local governments are also expected to access the national center, but only for ninety-two tasks as specified in law, including the registration of various official licenses, such as those of architects, real estate agents, and travel agencies. On 6 June 2002,58 the Cabinet approved a package of bills enabling an expansion of online administrative procedures, such as passport and pension applications and automobile registrations. The bills would expand the use of the resident registry network. The network began its operations on 5 August 2002. Using this network as a tool to confirm identity, the government had planned for ninety-three types of administrative services and procedures to be available online. They included those for the disbursement of child welfare benefits and applications for architect licenses. The proposed bills would add a further 171 procedures, including passport issuance and car and property registrations, raising the total to 264. In the second phase, from August 2003, an IC card would be distributed to every Japanese citizen who wanted one.59 With the card, residents will be able to retrieve residency logs from any municipal office in Japan. Formerly, without such a card, a copy of the register could only be obtained from the municipal office of the place of residence. Each municipality will also be able to add its own features to the IC card. For example, the card could be used as a library card, a welfare services card, a signature card, etc. The Basic Resident Registers Act prohibits the exchange of personal information, beyond the code numbers and the four kinds of personal information, between ministries, agencies, and local governments. As measures against the abuse of privacy of information, strict punishments are featured in the revised law for the use for commercial purposes of administrative information on individuals and for the leakage of such information by public servants. The launch of the resident registry network had the passage of the privacy protection bill60 as a premise. The government parties were therefore aiming to have the bills passed during an extraordinary Diet session in the fall of 2002, even with extensive revisions. Before the summer of 2002, the opposition camp submitted a bill to the Diet urging the government to freeze the launch of a nationwide resident registry network until measures existed to prevent its misuse, but in vain.

Electronic government in Japan 159 Nevertheless, fifty-nine local assemblies across the nation approved a written opinion calling for the suspension of the implementation of a nationwide resident registry network. The 59 included two assemblies in the Mie and Tottori Prefectures, and 19 assemblies in cities, 25 in towns, and 13 in villages.61 According to a survey conducted by Kyodo News and published on 2 July 2002, more than four-fifths of Japanese did not know that a system assigning every citizen an eleven-digit identification number would be implemented on 5 August 2002. Some 83.2 per cent of those who responded to the survey said they were unaware of the August launch of the electronic basic resident register network. The Kyodo survey found that only 15.8 per cent of the respondents knew the date when the resident register network would be implemented. Only 9.4 per cent said they understood the system very well, while 39.4 per cent said they understood it partially. About 21.6 per cent professed little knowledge of it, with 29.1 per cent saying they knew nothing about it.62 The Japanese Federation of Bar Associations63 and citizens’ groups called for the postponement of the resident information network due to concerns over privacy and greater state control over personal information.64 When the network launched in August 2002, some municipalities, including the City of Kokubunji and Suginami Ward in Tokyo, refused to join the system on the grounds that it is open to abuse. The City of Yokohama, Japan’s largest municipality with a population of about 3.45 million, announced it would only register residents with their permission.65 The MPHPT has argued that the refusal and Yokohama’s optional participation policy are ‘illegal.’ PKIs as infrastructure toward e-Japan, e-government, and e-municipalities Online Administrative Procedure Act and Public Certification Services for Resident Act The Japanese government decided the ‘Principles for the Realization of Online Administrative Procedures’ on 26 June 2001. After preparatory work conducted by the MPHPT, the government brought into the Diet on 7 June 2002 the bill for online administrative procedures, the bill for the certification services of municipalities concerning electronic signatures,66 and the above-mentioned bill that expands the usage of the resident registry network. These bills were enacted in December 2002. According to the Online Administrative Procedures Act,67 all administrative procedures may be processed online in principle, both with national, prefectural, and municipal authorities, and with other public corporations etc. The Act gave legal approval to such online administrative procedures (application, notification, acceptance, etc.) and removed the obstacles associated with traditional paper-based procedures. The Act allowed the online submission of all 9,089 official application and registration forms. The Act brought the nation one step closer to the goal of launching an e-government in FY 2003. Using

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either the newly introduced municipal (or municipal-prefectural-cooperative) certification service, the governmental certification service for registered businesses, or a private commercial certification service, anyone can obtain a key pair and a certificate for a public key, which can then be used to communicate online in a legally binding way. According to the Act on public certification services for residents,68 any resident of a municipality can request a certificate from the president of his prefecture based on the resident register information held by the municipal authorities. The applicant gets the certificate from the prefectural CA. The prefectural CA manages the certificate register. Any authority which then receives the certificate from the applicant through an online administrative procedure has the certificate tested online by the prefectural CA. On the municipal level, the cooperative certification system functions efficiently. The president of a prefecture can delegate his certification service to the one private association that has been recognized (‘designated’) for this purpose (the designated processing center). This is the same organizational mechanism as used by the online land register access system and the resident registry network. With this mechanism, municipalities and prefectures are able to save their own financial, human, and technical resources, which are essential to a certification authority. The one designated certification service provider would in the future become the biggest data pool manager. Electronic signature and certification infrastructure Just one year after getting things underway with the signature Act, an infrastructure for the certification services had been established in the Japanese market. In addition to the private non-accredited certification authorities, there were sixteen private accredited certification services as of 2 October 2003.69 In addition to these private certification authorities, which are regulated by the signature Act, a number of governmental certification authorities have been built up by central government. ‘Guidelines to Promote the Informatization of LPEs’ were produced by the Headquarters for the Informatization of LPEs at the MPHPT on 28 August 2000. According to the Guidelines, prefectures would have to set up an organizational PKI by the end of FY 2001, and municipalities by the end of FY 2003. In addition, according to the Act on public certification services (mentioned above), prefectures and municipalities would have to set up cooperative certification authorities based on the resident registry for their residents. These certification services of the municipalities are equivalent to the traditional paper-based seal certificate system based on the seal register.70 The overall structure of the Japanese certification services can be summarized as follows: 1 2

services of both non-accredited and accredited private certification service providers; public certification services, provided by:

Electronic government in Japan 161 2.1 the Ministry of Justice as a commercial register authority for registered businesses based on the commercial register (commercial register certification authorities); 2.2 the municipalities and prefectures cooperatively for their residents (citizen PKI); 2.3 the municipalities and prefectures for their own personnel or authorities (organizational PKI); 2.4 the governmental certification authorities for national personnel or authorities (government PKI). The certification services (1) to (2.2) are for private businesses or the general public, while services (2.3) and (2.4) are for administrative personnel and authorities. Between all these certification authorities, a bridging certification authority has been set up (because of the lack of a root certification authority), and is already partly in operation. It is guaranteed by this pluralistic structure that all citizens, businesses, authorities, and their personnel can cross-certificate, whichever private accredited, private non-accredited, or public certification service they use. Both the private certification authorities and the municipal certification authorities offer certification services for citizens. Between them, competition was supposed to arise. If municipalities offer low-cost comprehensive services for citizens, it is still unclear whether and how commercial certification service providers can find their economic surplus value. The relationship between commercial and governmental certification authorities based on the commercial register for businesses is the same. Because of the very long tradition of public certification services and their public authority in daily life, such doubts are well founded.71 Therefore, municipal certification services are legally limited to use only for administrative procedures and applications to private certification providers. In comparison with Germany, the government takes a much more paternalistic role, promoting and supporting more strongly than in Germany. On 18 June 2001, Takeo Hiranuma, minister at the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), became the first Cabinet minister to issue an official electronic document with an authorized electronic signature. By using an IC card that proves the status of the minister, he issued an online approval to a request submitted over the internet by the Japanese External Trade Organization asking the ministry to sponsor a trade exhibit. METI started accepting a variety of online applications from private-sector firms in the fall of 2001. On the next day, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport also started operating a similar system, which allows the online filing of reports on domestic airfares by airlines.72 ADMIX: total administrative information exchange network (from Kasumigaseki WAN and LGWAN) The provision of PCs and other information equipment and the development of intra-office ministry and agency LANs have advanced toward the development

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of a common base for administrative informatization at administrative bodies. By the end of FY 1996, there was one PC per 1.2 employees at ministries and agencies. These PCs were connected by LANs at twenty-four ministries and agencies. The Kasumigaseki WAN, which links the ministry and agency LANs, went into operation in January 1997. In 1997, twenty-seven administrative bodies, including ministries and agencies, were connected to the WAN.73 In addition, work toward equipping local branch offices with PCs and LANs has been promoted, along with the development, through use of the Kasumigaseki WAN, of a comprehensive, wide-ranging administrative telecommunications network tailored for general use which connects administrative departments. In addition, in order to develop a shared base for informatization, it has been necessary to work toward not only providing telecommunications equipment and developing networks, but also, in regard to information systems, the promotion of all types of standardization toward achieving connections with other relevant systems and the smooth exchange of information; the enhancement and strengthening of security, reliability, and measures to protect personal data in line with the development of information systems; and finally, in order to promote the computerization of applications, notifications, and other administrative procedures, the development of measures to assure the source-originality of electronic documents and functions for authenticating applicants. The central government planned to entirely computerize the traffic of documents and notices between central and local government by FY 2003. To this end, it built a wide local area network linking 3,200 municipalities and connected it to the existing central government network, the Kasumigaseki WAN (K-WAN). K-WAN began operating in January 1997. The central government believed the plan would speed up the processing of administrative matters conducted between it and local government and also smooth the distribution of information. The project would supplement the previously announced e-government plan in which the central government would switch to online processing of all applications and reports it received by FY 2003. The ex-Ministry of Local Autonomy worked on the ‘Comprehensive Administration Network’ (local government WAN – LGWAN), which links all LPEs in Japan, from FY 1997 to FY 1999. Setting up the LGWAN as a goal toward realizing e-government and e-municipalities was mentioned for the first time in the Basic Plan for informatization (December 1997), and then in the socalled ‘Millennium Project’ (December 1999, as stated in ‘Building up Infrastructure for e-Government by FY 2003’ and ‘Beginning of Field Test for Enhancing Informatization of LPEs’), and, in addition, in ‘Basic Outline for Promotion of Informatization of Application and Report Procedures, etc.,’ which describes the LGWAN as a basic infrastructure for informatization between central government and LPEs.74 The ex-Management and Coordination Agency intended to first build up a network linking forty-seven prefectural governments and twelve major city governments and extend the network to smaller local authorities.75 The initiative called for the establishment of a comprehensive online network to connect

Electronic government in Japan 163 prefectures and major cities by FY 2001 and smaller municipalities by FY 2003. The ministry planned to provide financial support to municipalities through tax grants and other measures. The envisioned local government intranet would be hooked up to the central government’s WAN for the online distribution of ordinances, White Papers, and statistical and press releases. The main applications of the LGWAN are expected to be the following: • • • • • • •

information exchange services (electronic documents exchange system); statistics and report-sending services (statistical processing system); administrative information database services (system offered in common information area); bylaw and regulations database service (local statutes retrieval system); notification and circular database service (circular retrieval system); document index services for e-FOIA (e-FOIA Index Database System); contents of K-WAN retrieval system (statutes and White Paper retrieval system).

What is important for the middle- and lower-class LPEs is that the Comprehensive Administration Network offers them access to the ASP system. This system could assist those LPEs which do not possess enough technical and human resources. Through the ASP system, the overall promotion of emunicipalities could be powerfully enhanced, by saving initial costs and running costs, and by minimizing program development costs and speeding up system development. Accordingly, the promotion of e-municipalities depends on the role of LASDEC as the network administrator for the LGWAN and the ASP system.

Applications of e-government and e-municipalities Through informatization reform, the ex-Management and Coordination Agency has promoted simplifying and improving the efficiency of administrative affairs and business, achieving advanced administrative management. Although major contributions have already been made to administrative informatization in terms of promoting the computerization of technical calculations, the carrying out of large and standardized jobs, and the otherwise simplification and improvement of the efficiency of administrative affairs and business, there has not always been sufficient use of information systems for internal management and authorization/permission. It has been necessary to further promote the simplification and efficient improvement of administrative affairs and business, and to stimulate the realization of advanced administrative management with regard to internal administrative affairs and business. For this purpose, the ex-Management and Coordination Agency has made use of the fruits of telecommunications technologies in reviewing a wide range of affairs with the aim of systematizing them; in working to speed up decision-making processes and to conduct precise information management by systematizing bottom-up consensus (ringi) and formal

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decisions; and in creating a comprehensive information management system equipped with an administrative information database. In addition, in order to contribute to the simplification and efficient improvement of administrative affairs and business, the ex-Management and Coordination Agency has been promoting outsourcing by entrusting the complete operation and management of information systems to the private sector. At the time of writing, the main applications of the e-municipalities to be implemented are as follows: • • • • •

senior care insurance classification and allocation system;76 total GIS;77 resident registry network system, which came into operation in August 2002, based on the Amendment Act to Resident Registry Act of 18 August 1999; prefectural and municipal tax collection system; disaster prevention information system.

Governmental portal On 29 March 2001, the Japanese government opened a governmental portal on the internet to offer administrative information from central government offices. It aimed at taking a positive stance on information disclosure. Information subject to disclosure on the internet includes press releases, legislation, statistics, and annual reports. The service is accessible at www.e-gov.go.jp. The Cabinet Office and all twelve governmental ministries (including the affiliated agencies of the ministries) now have their own websites. At the end of FY 2001, there were 1,310 homepages sponsored by public entities at all levels of central government. Regarding local government portals, LASDEC collects links to the official websites of the municipalities. According to LASDEC, 3,385 websites of 3,275 LPEs had been collected and linked by the LASDEC Nippon-Net website as of 16 October 2003.78 Electronic filing; applications It was necessary to promote the computerization of those administrative procedures required of the general public, such as the filing of applications and notifications; promote the use of telecommunications technologies in order to speed up and advance these procedures; and reduce the burden they impose on the public. Toward this end, in accordance with the ‘Guidelines for Review of Administrative Procedures for Applications and Reports in line with Digitization’ (approved by the Inter-ministerial Liaison Conference) adopted in September 1996, procedures regarding 871 of 8,397 applications and notifications were scheduled to be computerized by the end of FY 1997. In addition, under the Administrative Reform Program, the simplification and unification/sharing of and the digitization/reduced use of paper in administrative affairs and procedures have been promoted to reduce the burden on the public relating to the

Electronic government in Japan 165 filing of applications and other forms. Accordingly, the ‘Measures to Reduce the Burden Related to Applications and Other Procedures’ (Cabinet decision of 10 February 1997) provided for the prompt implementation of measures to computerize and eliminate the paper forms of as many applications, notifications, and other procedures as possible in principle by the end of FY 1998. In response to this, the above-mentioned Guidelines were revised in July 1997, and, at present, the further computerization of applications, notifications, and other procedures is being promoted. In addition, another issue which should be addressed from now on in the context of the computerization of administrative procedures is the improvement of convenience, including the extension of application processing hours and the introduction of 24-hour reception systems through automation, the amelioration of geographic limitations on applications through system networking, and the proliferation of access points. Furthermore, in order to sharply raise the level of public service in connection with administrative procedures and the provision of administrative information, the ex-Management and Coordination Agency has been promoting the step-by-step implementation of one-stop services which provide comprehensive and multiple administrative services (including guides and instructions for procedures and the provision of necessary administrative information, utilization guides and reservations for facilities, the receipt of applications and notifications, and the issuing of results) using telecommunications technologies while working in close cooperation with LPEs. Regarding electronic administrative procedures for the processing of applications and notices, there were 590 online applications and notices (a 5.3 per cent digitization rate) at the end of FY 2001, and it was anticipated that by the end of FY 2002, there would be 3,895 online applications and notices (a 35 per cent digitization rate), and by the end of FY 2003, 10,868 online applications and notices (a 97.7 per cent digitization rate), completing the digitization of all administrative procedures.79 In FY 2001, three ministries, METI,80 the Ministry of Land, Transportation, and Infrastructure (MLIT),81 and the MPHPT, put online application and notification systems into operation. METI began on 18 June 2001, MLTI on 19 June 2001, and the MPHPT on 27 March 2002, with ten procedures.82 In addition, the MPHPT put the ‘Experience Website for Electronic Applications’83 into operation, with which any interested person can experience the online application procedure as an experiment. As a pilot project, the New Media Development Association developed an ‘all-purpose electronic online application system’ with the assistance of a subsidy program of the IT Promotion Agency. This was a prototype XML (eXtensible Mark-up Language) online application system. The Association offers developed, all-purpose components and relating documents and manuals for the general public.84 The all-purpose application system is equipped with an electronically applied document processing function (with XML standards), a telecommunications management function, and system maintenance supporting functions.

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Tax filing In March 1998, the Act on Approval for Electronic Book-keeping Relating to National Tax85 was enacted. With this amendment, taxpayers can use electronically archived documents as substitutes for traditional paper-based documents in relation to the tax collection authorities. Since FY 2000, the National Tax Agency has studied electronic tax filing and return procedures, based on the report ‘Study Group on Electronic Tax Filing Procedure.’ In FY 2000, the Ministry of Finance announced on 29 September 2000 that it planned to allow taxpayers to file their annual income tax returns online by FY 2003 ending in March 2004. According to its action plan for the electronic submission and processing of public documents, the ministry intended to make 1,233 items available online, including procedures for paying national taxes and customs. The ministry excluded one item from its online processing list: the procedures relating to the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Law applicable when Japanese nationals leave and enter Japan. These procedures require faceto-face identification to prevent money laundering.86 Since FY 2001, some tax offices have performed field tests of online tax filing and return procedures with pre-selected taxpayer groups.87 In addition, on 27 March 2001, the government set up an advisory council to explore ways of introducing a system for the electronic filing of local taxes. The Council to Promote Electronic Filing of Local Taxes, chaired by Hiroshi Kaneko, a professor at Gakushuin University, studied ways for taxpayers to file their residency taxes, local corporation taxes, and property taxes via the internet.88 Set up by the MPHPT, the advisory council planned to design a prototype electronic tax filing system by FY 2002, to be made operational as early as FY 2003. The members of the council were drawn from the MPHPT, the National Governors’ Association, the Japan Association of City Mayors, the Association of Town and Village Mayors, local tax experts, and academics. Specifically, the council envisioned a computerized system that will automatically compute and check the tax data and recognize the identity of the taxpayer. In FY 2002, Okayama and Kanagawa Prefectures were selected as pilot prefectures to test the online filing of local taxes in the field. Electronic fee payment The Japanese government plans to allow fee payments for administrative services to be made over the internet and to permit online applications for licenses and authorizations. The new service is part of the e-government project that was due to be implemented from FY 2003, which will aim at reducing costs and enhancing the convenience of administrative services. The government is also considering not charging money-transfer fees.89 Currently, payments for administrative services are accepted only in cash or stamps. Thus, users of online services provided under the e-government initiative have to go to government offices or mail the money, defeating the purpose of putting the services online.90

Electronic government in Japan 167 The Revenue Funds Electronic Payment Application Systems are supposed to operate from FY 2004. E-bidding (internet bidding); e-procurement The City of Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture introduced a system in 1999 allowing contractors to bid for public works projects via the internet.91 The system, the first of its kind for Japanese public authorities, has helped to increase the number of bidders and promote competition. Under the system, the municipal government provides information on planned construction projects via its website. When it was first introduced, construction companies would print out bid application forms from the screen, fill them in, and then fax them to the government. It was not at that time a fully electronic online bidding system. They also mailed written tenders afterwards. The government opened the envelopes in the presence of witnesses to decide on the successful bidder and the bid price. The result was immediately reported via the website, and the names of all bidders and their bid prices were disclosed the following day. In the process, contractors did not need to visit the city hall, and bidding-related paperwork for city employees was greatly reduced. Yokosuka’s approach was successful largely because the city reformed its bidding system to prevent bid-rigging, as well as actively investing in information systems. Under the then new bidding system introduced in 1999, the city published contract conditions for each project and all companies meeting them could participate in the bidding. The improved transparency of the bidding process through information disclosure dissuaded contractors from bid-rigging. As a result of the bidding system reform and the use of the internet, the number of bidders per project grew to twenty-four in FY 1999, from nine in FY 1997, and competition intensified, resulting in lower successful bid prices. In FY 1999, the city saved ¥3.1 billion (US$28.4 million) of its public works budget. Yokosuka’s example indicates that the use of IT produces the maximum effect when accompanied by system reform that improves transparency and competitiveness. In September 2001, Yokosuka implemented its purely online bidding system. In FY 2002, almost all of Yokosuka’s public works contracts (approximately 600 cases) were performed online, with the electronic signatures of both the city and the contractors based on the city’s own certification authority.92 The ex-Ministry of Construction, which placed about ¥10 trillion worth of orders for public works annually, was also eager to utilize the internet in the bidding process. The ministry wanted to have all procedures at each stage of public works projects carried out on the internet, and tried to introduce such a system for some projects in FY 2001, and planned to completely digitize the bidding process for all public works projects under its direct jurisdiction by FY 2004. In October 2001, MLIT began a system of electronic procurement for public building works.93 The Construction Ministry aims to digitize procedures for all public works projects, including those of local government, by 2010.

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On 23 April 2002, Okayama Prefecture opened electronic bidding for the architectural contract for a planned annex to a prefectural industrial high school. The prefecture held the bidding for the contract for the facility over the internet.94 Okayama is the first of Japan’s forty-seven prefectures to have such a system. The prefecture plans to use the system for all bidding for public works in the future. Companies put in bids, including the bid price, through a dedicated prefectural server, using IC cards distributed prior to the bidding. The results are then published on the prefectural government’s website. The prefecture spent some ¥30 million in developing the electronic bidding system, which includes a certification system to identify companies that submit bids. Geographical Information Systems In FY 2000, the MPHPT supported a field test of ‘common land databases’ in order to promote GIS. Based on this field test, the MPHPT drew up common specifications for GIS95 and promoted setting up GIS at the municipal level. As an example of the municipal level, Urayasu City in Chiba prefecture had been designated as a participant in a field test on comprehensive GIS by the exMinistry of Local Autonomy in FY 1998.96 With the assistance of comprehensive GIS, works in municipal town halls regarding land planning, road maintenance, property taxation, and disaster prevention would be supported and enhanced. From FY 2000 to FY 2002, six ex-ministries (the ex-Land Ministry (now MLIT), the ex-MITI (METI), the ex-Transport Ministry (MLIT), the ex-Post Ministry (the MPHPT), the ex-Construction Ministry (MLIT), and the exMinistry of Local Autonomy (the MPHPT)) cooperated in the ‘Field Model Test of GIS.’ As a result of this project, a model area as large as a prefecture was tested. The importance of GIS has been recognized after the maps proved useful in tracing the devastated streets of Kobe following the 1995 Hanshin earthquake. Cities that are well known for their use of GIS are Nishinomiya, in Hyogo Prefecture, and Toyonaka, in Osaka Prefecture. Cyber notary With the amendment of the Notary Act,97 a designated notary public who has been designated in advance by the Minister of Justice may witness electronic documents (except for public documents) with his electronic signature. On 15 January 2002, the cyber notary started certifying documents submitted by citizens over the internet to save them the trouble of visiting public offices.98 Under the system, designated notaries publicly across the nation conduct certification procedures on documents carrying electronic signatures that are received via the internet, including attaching the date of certification. This reform not only saves time in doing away with the need to visit notaries’ offices, but it also helps prevent disputes arising from falsification or loss of documents.

Electronic government in Japan 169 Online information retrieval; e-FOIA Each ministry and agency has been promoting the provision of administrative information through electronic means and media in order to adapt to the needs of the citizens. In 1997, 340 organizations, including ministries and agencies, national universities, and research institutes, were utilizing the internet to provide documents for press announcements, information needed by citizens in their daily lives, and statistical data (Institute of Administrative Management 1998: 73). In addition, White Papers and annual reports were being made available on CD-ROMs and through other electronic media. Furthermore, in order to facilitate easy access to the desired administrative information, in accordance with the ‘Unified Specifications of the Locator System for Facilitating Wide Use of Government Information’ (adopted by the Inter-ministerial Liaison Conference on 18 June 1996), each ministry and agency has provided its own retrieval system. At the same time, the exManagement and Coordination Agency has advanced the development of a comprehensive system which can retrieve information from the systems of each ministry and agency to improve the convenience of accessing administrative information. In the ‘Decision of the Headquarters for the Informatization of LPEs in line with the IT Revolution’ (28 August 2000), the electronic provision of administrative documents or information was urged. On 29 March 2001, the Inter-ministerial Liaison Conference approved the ‘Basic Concept (Guidelines) on Electronic Provision of Administrative Information.’99 The Concept urged enhanced promotion of the electronic provision of administrative information, so as to utilize administrative information and realize transparent public administration. Accordingly, the ministries and agencies shall work out an ‘implementing program relating to electronic provision’ and implement the necessary measures. Some prefectures and municipalities have already introduced a purely online application and publication system (e-FOIA). According to a survey conducted in 2000, approximately 3 per cent of the thirty-seven prefectures surveyed had introduced such a system.100 In the municipalities, the City of Kashihara, in Nara Prefecture, has also introduced an e-FOIA. Intelligent Transport Systems The ex-Transport Ministry has been responsible for studying and developing ITS. Based on the ‘Overall Concept Relating to the Promotion of Intelligent Transport Systems’ (July 1996) and the ‘Implementing Guidelines for Informatization in Roads, Traffic, and Vehicles’ (August 1995), the ministry (now MLIT) has been promoting the development of ITS. Since the spring of 2001, the Electronic Toll Collection System has been tested in the field, whereby a car driver can pay a traffic fee with his IC card using wireless communication devices.

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Players Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications The MPHPT is responsible for the administrative systems that concern broad aspects of the lives of Japanese citizens. These basic systems include administrative bodies; public service systems; local administration and finance; elections; fire/disaster prevention; administrative communications; management and coordination; establishment of local autonomy; and postal services and telecommunications. The MPHPT has a central role in developing and realizing e-government and e-municipalities. The MPHPT was created from several ministries, the Post Ministry, the Ministry of Local Autonomy, and the Management and Coordination Agency, during the central government reform of 2000. The exAdministrative Management Agency is in charge of research and planning for administrative organization, improvement of efficiency, and operation of administrative inspections. Although the ex-Ministry of Local Autonomy strengthened local government power by giving prefectures and municipalities considerable autonomy, which meant less supervision by central government, the financial resources of these LPEs have been extremely limited, and they remain financially dependent on central government. IT Strategy Headquarters and IT Strategy Council As already described, in 2000, under the Mori Cabinet, the IT Strategy Headquarters and the IT Strategy Council were organized at the prime ministerial level. With such a highly political prioritized position, the Headquarters and Council could practice highly political decision-making, and also with strong political leadership. Through these advisory panels, existing measures aimed at realizing e-government were also strongly enhanced. The Headquarters and Council discussed several important policies for e-government, especially the draft of the e-Japan Strategy, the bill on the IT Basic Act, and the bill on the IT Comprehensive Law. At the joint meeting of the IT Strategy Council and the IT Strategy Headquarters, the ‘Basic IT Strategy’101 was adopted on 27 November 2000. With this high political priority and strong political leadership, the government has performed extensive top-down implementation, i.e. throughout the ministries and agencies of central government, the public corporations, etc., and throughout every LPE in Japan. In addition, as a result of the Millennium Project, the Basic IT Strategy has become a critical issue in economic policies of equally high priority. So as to reflect the interests of the economic sector, representatives from Japanese industry have had an important role in the IT Strategy Council.

Electronic government in Japan 171 Inter-ministerial Liaison Conference on Administrative Informatization The Inter-ministerial Liaison Conference was organized in 1983, the members of which are the chief secretaries of every ministry and agency or the competent personnel of high position relating to informatization, and the secretariat at the Department of Management and Coordination for Public Administration at the MPHPT. The Conference has taken an active role in effective and coordinated informatization, the introduction of computing systems, etc. As already described, the Conference has issued many important plans and guidelines in relation to informatization and e-government. On 30 July 2002, the Conference approved the ‘Implementing Policy for Setting Up an Inner-administrative Organization for Promoting Informatization of Administration.’102 According to the policy, certain targets – i.e. to clarify the governing personnel in charge of informatization, to enrich supporting staff, to enrich the comprehensive inneradministrative body for the promotion of e-government, and to complete the inter-ministerial cooperating and coordinating body – have been set. Local Authorities Systems Development Center The Local Authorities Systems Development Center (LASDEC), which was founded on 1 May 1970 with the cooperation of the LPEs, has supported the informatization of LPEs, especially as regards the introduction of computers, LANs, etc. In respect of the resident registry network, LASDEC was designated as the central information processing center for resident register network information. Since FY 2001, LASDEC has implemented the LPE support program (which includes a consulting service, an information service, seminars, IT exhibitions for municipalities, etc.) aimed at promoting e-municipalities. In addition, LASDEC has recently begun to provide through an ASP system some important uniform application services for LPEs. With these supporting services and functions, the overall development of e-municipalities, especially for medium-sized and small municipalities, has been promoted and enhanced. In Japanese administrative systems, designated private entities have played inevitable roles, operating between the state and private sectors. LASDEC is a significant example of a designated private entity that interconnects governmental policy implementation and private (or local) acceptance or coordination. Close partnership between government and business A significant characteristic of the role of government in Japan is its close partnership with the private sector. The so-called ‘three-way alliance’ involving politicians, bureaucracy, and big business is not a mysterious process. The close triangular relationship can be explained, first through the practice of personnel exchange. The private sector often offers its help and assistance to government

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agencies by loaning personnel or, if it is deemed more important, by sending competent personnel to advisory boards. On the other hand, private corporations often hire government officials upon their retirement from the civil service. These personnel help to ensure smooth communications between industry and the ministries. This phenomenon is called Amakudari, i.e. ‘descent from heaven.’103 Secondly, private corporations provide government with reports and statistical data necessary for policy-building, drafting new laws, planning budgetary policy, or the issuance of administrative guidance. Thirdly, various practices facilitating bureaucratic participation in the public sector can be singled out. Based on the familiar relationship between government and private business, ministries have resorted to Gyousei shidou, i.e. administrative guidance to force private corporations etc. to adopt so-called voluntary measures. Administrative guidance refers to the way in which spontaneous agreement and cooperation between ministries and private corporations is reached voluntarily, without coercion and without legal basis, by the former simply letting the latter know what they hope or wish to see done or realized. Administrative guidance functions effectively in Japan, despite its lack of legal effect.104 Some observers attribute this success to the attitude of the people in Japan, who are more inclined to informal negotiation; others refer to the people’s tendency to follow the advice of public officials even when it is not mandatory, and to the close relationship between the government and business enterprises. The Japanese Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) created a package of proposals for reforms to support the spread of IT, and in 2000 called for the creation of an internet-based e-government.105 Keidanren called for all procedures that involve applications from individuals and corporations, and various types of central and local government registrations in electronic form, to be accessible through the internet by the end of March 2004. At the time, only 110 out of 9,089 types of applications and registrations were available online. In the package, Keidanren urged the government to give priority to high-volume areas – such as residency cards, the registration of families, and import/export approvals – when deciding which applications or registrations should be switched over first. The proposals also called for the creation of an online tax payment system, which Keidanren claimed would reduce the cost of tax collection.

Implementation control/guidance The present e-Japan Strategy is based on the IT Basic Act. In the eyes of the law, however, the directives of the IT Basic Act do not have a concrete, binding nature as such, but rather the characteristics of policy guidelines. Through the paternalistic relationship between central and local government (and other public corporations etc.), and through the centralized nature of control in Japan, described already, however, informal and not legally binding guidelines and circulars, etc., do in fact have enough binding power. The financial power of the ministries has also been mobilized toward e-government and e-municipalities.

Electronic government in Japan 173 Because of the local public finance that has also been controlled by the competent ministries, the controlling power directed toward e-government is effective enough. Especially in relation to e-government, a number of centrally instituted systems, such as the resident registry network, the LGWAN, and the ASP systems provided from the information and consulting center, have been implemented. Under the strong influence of financial shortages at municipalities, such centralistic systems that are able to save the technological, personnel, and financial resources of the municipalities have steered municipal governments toward emunicipalities. In spite of discord at municipal and prefectural administrative practices, the implementing strategies of e-Japan can penetrate through these levels of government. In addition, the standards-based promotion of infrastructure and information systems by central government has been effective. For example, several types of PKIs, including organizational and citizen, have been strongly promoted by uniform system development and standard-setting. Furthermore, the central government has conducted field tests of major e-government applications or projects in conjunction with some of the municipalities and electronics companies. With the know-how and common standards that were acquired in these tests, the competent ministries have urged uniform implementation within the LPEs etc. In addition, the designated private entities, such as LASDEC, have enough supporting and coordinating functions especially for the medium-sized and small municipalities. Time limit-setting, goal-setting by rate or number, etc., have also been used in the implementation and control of measures aimed at e-government and emunicipalities. The rules and exceptions concerning going online have been transformed drastically, i.e. online procedures are the rule while paper-based procedures are the exception. In these policy circumstances, the MPHPT has conducted annually several surveys in relation to e-government and informatization.

Some concluding remarks Our governments have very important roles to play when it comes to achieving an information society – those of promoter, business partner in public procurement, and guarantor of essential facilities and services for citizens. The role of guarantor is very important now. It is essential to discuss basic informational rights, freedom of information, and the essential right of access to telecommunications networks. Based on such informational rights, we can develop a legally well-founded infrastructure for secure transactions that is necessary for e-business and e-government. One of the important goals of e-government is ‘e-government for all.’ Toward this goal, however, our governments must act more as guarantors or supporters of the informationally or technologically weak, through setting up publicly accessible terminals at public kiosks106 or citizens’ bureaus, or by

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subsidizing IC cards and card-reading devices, etc. Every citizen must have the opportunity and the devices needed to access network services and administrative services. And then a domino effect for e-business could be expected. On the downside, public finance is now in crisis. With regard to the state’s financial condition, state credits have been on the increase since 1964; in 1985, they snowballed to ¥34 billion, and at the end of FY 1987, to ¥37.3 billion. The outstanding balance of state debt came to ¥643.19 trillion at the end of 2002, up ¥11.67 trillion from the end of September 2001. Of the debt, government bonds totaled ¥492.59 trillion, up ¥14.25 trillion. Accordingly, it is not expected that the central government could support overall e-government and e-municipalities with critical public finance. In light of this situation regarding public finance, the central government has urged decentralization reform and municipal merger. The central government recently stepped up calls for mergers, aimed at reducing the number of LPEs from currently 3,218 to some 1,000. Mergers are becoming one of the major concerns for municipalities, as the special law on promoting such mergers, which includes preferential treatment from central government in terms of public finances, will expire in March 2005. According to a survey by the MPHPT, as of the end of December 2001, the number of municipalities that had set up joint bodies such as study groups or committees to discuss mergers was 2,026, or 62.9 per cent of all municipalities. The number of such bodies was 440. In such a situation, it is unclear whether the e-municipality policies and strategies will be well implemented by the set term.

Notes 1 Several measures are also being implemented by the government of Japan to ensure and reinforce the transparency and efficiency of public administration. The Administrative Procedure Act of 12 November 1993, Law No. 88, in conjunction with measures directed toward creating a system of access to government information (Freedom of Information and Public Access Act (the information disclosure law) of 15 May 1999, Law No. 42, and Freedom of Information and Public Access Act for Independent Administrative Corporations etc. of 5 December 2001, Law No. 140), involves procedural provisions to ensure that public administration becomes more transparent. 2 Cf. Local Autonomy Act, Art. 2, clause 5 (valid version), which was amended by Amendment Act of 16 July 1999, No. 87 (the Omnibus Amendment Act for Decentralization Reform 2000). The status of prefectures is substantially the same. 3 Public corporations (Tokushu Houjin) are state-funded special corporations (Tokushu Houjin) under special laws (Tsuji 1984: 35ff.). 4 Independent administrative corporations (Dokuritsu Gyousei Houjin) are also state-funded and were established to take charge of some executive functions that were to be separated from the planning and policy-drafting functions of government ministries and agencies. In 1999, sixty-one new laws regarding new independent administrative corporations were enacted. Of these new laws, fifty-nine were aimed at making fiftynine state organizations, such as the national archives and national museum independent administrative corporations, to streamline management. The new agencies would take over some of the executive functions of ministries and agencies and introduce corporate accounting. Staff at the agencies are, in the case of special independent administrative corporations, national public servants, and in the case of other

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corporations, those without such status. The fifty-nine laws stipulated each institution’s work and called for launching the new institutions in April 2001 or later. A typical example of a designated corporation is the Local Authorities Systems Development Center (‘Tiho Jichi Joho Center’ (LASDEC), one of the state-affiliated private corporations under the ex-Ministry for Local Autonomy), operating on behalf of the national resident registry network. The Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications (MPHPT) has surveyed the situation with regard to the informatization of public corporations etc. since FY 1995. This is a sign of importance. For a recent survey, see the MPHPT report on the informatization of independent corporations etc. FY 2001 (December 2001). Local Autonomy Act, Art. 14. With regard to the newly introduced system (after the Decentralization Reform 2000) of ‘by law delegated affairs’ (or ‘legally entrusted affairs’) (Houtei Jutaku Jimu), local assemblies may enact bylaws. See Local Autonomy Act, Art. 14 (valid version). Local Autonomy Act, Art. 2, clause 10 (former version). Although in line with the Decentralization Reform 2000, this Article was abolished. However, not based on this abolished Article, LPEs shall not handle judicial affairs. These affairs were also called ‘agency-delegated affairs or functions.’ Local Autonomy Act, Art. 150 (former version, abolished by Amendment Act of July 1999, Decentralization Reform 2000). Local Autonomy Act, Art. 151 (former version, abolished by Amendment Act of July 1999). According to the Local Autonomy Act, the scope of an LPE’s administrative authority is described as encompassing ‘those areas related to ordinary public entities’ public affairs, matters stipulated by law or cabinet order, and other administrative affairs in its jurisdiction which do not fall under the authority of the central government’ (Local Autonomy Act, Art. 2–1 (former version)). In 1995, the Promotion of Decentralization Act was enacted based on the several recommendations of advisory boards such as the Decentralization Promotion Board etc. Until the Decentralization Reform 2000 which abolished the system of state affairs delegated to LPE bodies, this control system had influenced almost every aspect of the activities of the LPEs. Local Autonomy Act, Art. 150, 151 (former version). A certain percentage of national tax, presently 32 per cent of the three principal national tax revenues, income tax, corporation tax, and liquor tax, 29.5 per cent of consumption tax, and 25 per cent of tobacco tax, is apportioned for local allocation tax grants. See Local Allocation Tax Act, Art. 6. These grants are classified into two categories: ordinary and special allocation tax grants. The amount any entity may receive is determined by subtracting the entity’s ‘basic financial revenues’ from its ‘basic financial needs.’ These rates or standards are calculated at the central government’s discretion. MPHPT, 28 March 2002. On administrative guidance generally, see Shiono, in Tsuji (1984: 203ff.). ‘Regarding Adoption of Guidelines for the Promotion of Administrative Reform in Local Public Entities,’ issued October 1994. The ex-Ministry for Local Autonomy has published several times ‘guidelines for local administrative reform,’ and has urged the planning of administrative reform (to work out ‘outlines of local administrative reform’ in line with relevant ministerial guidelines) and the outsourcing of administrative tasks to private contractors. The Local Autonomy Act, Art. 245 et seq. (valid version), provides for advice and recommendation, requests for information, requests for correction, approval, permission, order, and mandamus proceedings, etc.

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21 Decentralization Promotion Act of 19 May 1995, Law No. 96. The basic concept is to clarify the respective roles of national and local government and to increase the independence and self-reliance of LPEs. 22 Amendment Act of Local Autonomy Act etc. of 16 July 1999, Law No. 87. 23 According to a study by Nua.com, Japan’s internet penetration rate of 44 per cent ranked 16th in the world (MPHPT 2002: 6ff.). 24 The number of subscribers to mobile internet services (i.e. internet connection services via mobile phones) has surpassed 50 million, reaching 62.46 million as of the end of March 2002 (MPHPT 2003: 6ff. 25 Japan Economic Newswire, 12 April, 2002. 26 MPHPT (2002: 19ff.). See also ‘Report on the Situation of Promotion of Informatization,’ 8 May 2001, and ‘Report of the Survey on the Situation toward Informatization of Local Public Entities,’ 23 October 2001, both in Gyousei Jouhou System Kenkyujo (2002: 11ff., 151ff.) (Japanese version). 27 This plan was in operation from FY 1995 for five years. See www.soumu.go.jp/ gyoukan/kanri/b_01.htm (Japanese version). 28 See www.soumu.go.jp/gyoukan/kanri/suisin2.htm (Japanese version). 29 Kasumigaseki is the name of the district in which the ministries and agencies of central government are concentrated. 30 See www.kantei.go.jp/jp/it/990422ho-7.html (Japanese version). 31 See www.soumu.go.jp/gyoukan/kanri/minaosi.htm (revised Japanese version, 18 July 1997). 32 See www.soumu.go.jp/gyoukan/kanri/futan.htm (Japanese version). 33 Revision of the Master Plan for Promoting Government-wide Use of Information Technology, available online at www.soumu.go.jp/gyoukan/kanri/b_01e.htm. The Revised Master Plan was a five-year plan which ran from FY 1998 through to 2002. 34 See www.kantei.go.jp/jp/mille/index.html (Japanese version). 35 Nikkei Weekly, 13 September 1999, pp. 3ff.; 27 September 1999, pp. 3ff.; etc. 36 See www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/990209guideline-aits.html; www.soumu.go.jp/kokusai/ html/siryou04.htm. 37 See www.soumu.go.jp/gyoukan/kanri/kihonwak.htm (Japanese version). 38 Law No. 40, of 19 April 2000. 39 Law No. 126, of 27 November 2000. 40 See www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/it/council/basic_it.html. 41 Law No. 144, of 6 December 2000. 42 ‘The e-Japan Strategy’ (22 January 2001), available online at www.kantei.go.jp/ foreign/it/network/0122full_e.html. For further information, see www.kantei.go.jp/ foreign/it_e.html. 43 See www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/it/network/priority-all/index.html. 44 See www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/it/network/0626_e.html. 45 See www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/it/network/0204accelerate_e.html. 46 See www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/it2/kettei/020618honbun.pdf (Japanese version). 47 On the action plans of each of the ministries and agencies, see Chihoujichi IT Kenkyukai (2002). 48 Available online at www.soumu.go.jp/news/000828.html (Japanese version). In December 2000, the ministry decided on the ‘Action Plan of the Ministry of Local Autonomy for the Promotion of IT in Local Areas’ (25 December 2000), available online at www.soumu.go.jp/kokusai/pdf/ITacplan.pdf (Japanese version). 49 On recent developments in the digitizing of LPEs, see JMA Management Center (ed.), E-government Denshi-seifu jititai gaido [E-government e-Municipalities Guidebook] (2002); Tagaya (2002: 173ff.). 50 See www.soumu.go.jp/kokusai/pilot020508.html (Japanese version). 51 ‘The e-Japan Strategy II’ (2 July 2003), available online at www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/ it2/kettei/030702ejapan.pdf (Japanese version).

Electronic government in Japan 177 52 ‘The e-Japan Priority Policy Program 2003’ (8 August 2003), available online at www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/it2/kettei/030808honbun.pdf (Japanese version). 53 The personal numbers may also be used in other fields in the future. The Tax Commission is considering introducing them as a form of taxpayer-numbering system to help prevent tax evasion: A taxpayer-numbering system requires the exchange of tax information with private financial institutions, which would require a lifting of the ban on the use of resident codes by the private sector. Since basic resident registers also record whether or not a person can vote, the numbering system could also lead to an electronic voting system in the future. But because the individual information on residents will be used in numerous administrative sectors, there is a danger of the information falling into unauthorized hands, critics of the bill [on the Amendment Act to the Basic Resident Registers Act] say, which means it is important to create a new framework to protect privacy. It also carries severe penalties for civil servants who leak information. But it does not carry penalties for private companies that use leaked information. There will inevitably be arguments about expanding use of the numbering system. (Nikkei Weekly, 21 June 1999, pp. 2ff.). 54 The Amendment Act to the Basic Resident Registers Act, Law No. 133, 18 August 1999. 55 The amended law would be enforced within three years of being officially announced, on condition that a new privacy protection law be enacted as required by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the Liberal Party (LP), and the New Komeito. 56 A copy of the person’s resident register is the most frequently used document (without a photo) for identifying a certified citizen, his address, family relations, etc., for administrative procedures, in applications or notifications to administrative agencies, and for many private services such as insurance etc. A driver’s license or passport, which both include a photo, may also be used for identification purposes. 57 This institution was set up as a designated private corporation. This type of designated private corporation has often been used for efficiency, outsourcing, etc., in Japan (Yonemaru 1999: 311ff.). 58 Japan Economic Newswire, 6 June 2002. 59 Some municipalities, e.g. Yokosuka City, Goshiki Town in Hyogo Prefecture (see Kyoukai 2001: 59ff.), and the municipal group of Kawanishi City, Takarazuka City, Itami City, and Inogawa Town, have already introduced multi-purpose IC cards for both municipal administrative and other services, which have been tested in the field. On the use of IC cards in public administration, see Gyousei Jouhou System Kenkyujo (1999b: 45ff.); on their use in the City of Mizusawa in Iwate Prefecture and Yatsushiro in Kumamoto Prefecture, see Gekkan Chihoujichi Shokuin Kenshu Henshuubu (2002: 58ff); on the comprehensive field test of IC cards supported by METI (through the New Media Development Association), see www.nmda.or.jp. 60 The personal information protection bill was brought into the Diet on 27 March 2001, based on the report of an advisory panel. The bill was enacted in May 2003 as Law No. 57 of 30 May 2003. The Act regulates the electronic processing of personal information, both electronic and paper-based, not only in the public sector but also in the private sector. The Act obliges companies and other organizations that handle personal information to ensure that their employees and contractors will not abuse such information. Organizations also have to disclose the information they have on a particular individual upon his request, and, if necessary, correct its content. These obligations are not applied to mass media, academic, religious, and political organizations, but the Act requests them to make an effort for the protection of privacy. The

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Act allows a relevant Cabinet minister to give instructions to organizations as appropriate. Failure to comply with these instructions may result in a prison sentence of up to six months, or a fine of up to ¥300,000. Japan Economic Newswire, 9 July 2002. Japan Economic Newswire, 2 July 2002. According to their survey, Federation researchers contacted 3,247 cities, towns, and villages across Japan, and 1,601 had responded by 15 November 2001. According to the survey, 295 governments said the system would be a convenience to residents as it would let them obtain registries not only in their own municipalities but also at other locations. But 157 said it had more disadvantages than advantages as the danger of privacy leakage would increase (Japan Economic Newswire, 28 November 2001). The Federation conducted a second survey in June 2002. On 28 May 2002, the President of the Federation urged postponing the network. For more detail and the results of the second survey, see www.nichibenren.or.jp/jp/katsudo/katsudo/jinken/joho_ mondai/joho_mondai.html#3 and www.nichibenren.or.jp/jp/katsudo/sytyou/ kaityou/00/2002_8.html (Japanese versions). On 1 April 2003, a total of sixty-six citizens filed damages suits against the central government and nine prefectures, claiming that the resident registry network violated their privacy. The citizens filed the lawsuits in the district courts of Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka, each seeking ¥220,000 in damages and a suspension of the network. On 11 October 2002, the Yokohama municipal government announced 802,708 Yokohama residents – or one in four households in the city – had accepted Yokohama City’s offer not to submit their personal data to the registry network. The MPHPT has called partial registration ‘illegal,’ and the Kanagawa prefectural government has indicated that it would not accept a partial registry list from Yokohama. As preparatory work for this certification bill, an advisory panel at MPHPT published ‘Report on the Introduction of Public Personal Certification Services by LPEs’ (28 February 2002). For this report, see Gyousei Jouhou System Kenkyujo (2002: 339ff.). Act Concerning the Usage of Information and Communications Technology in Administrative Procedures of 13 December 2002 (Law No. 151). Act Concerning the Certification Services of Municipalities for Residents’ Electronic Signatures of 13 December 2002 (Law No. 153). See www.meti.go.jp/policy/netsecurity/digisign_ninteiitiran.htm. Japan Quality Assurance (JQA) and Japan Information Processing Development Corporation (JIPDEC) are two such companies that were tested and confirmed as testing and accrediting authority-designated. The seal certificate has traditionally been the most important certification document used by a member of the public to certify his own seal when agreeing on a contract to buy a house, land, etc. The traditional seal certification system of the municipalities has also up to now only had a certification effect without being authorized by law. The seal registers of the municipalities were established without national law, based only on municipal bylaws, which are obligatory, however, as a legal norm. Nikkei Weekly, 25 June 2001. The reorganization of government divisions on 6 January 2001, designed to slim down bureaucracy and increase political leadership, has lead to the rebuilding of the Kasumigaseki WAN. The Kasumigaseki WAN now connects twenty-eight government entities. ‘Last Report on Installation of LGWAN’ (Minister Chamber of Ex-Ministry of Local Autonomy, March 2000). Nikkei Weekly, 5 June 2000, pp. 5ff.; 6 June 2000; Jiji Press Ticker Service, 28 August 2000. Tagaya (2002: 259ff.); WAMNET was mentioned as a example in this respect.

Electronic government in Japan 179 77 Tagaya (2002: 273ff). The ex-Ministry of Local Autonomy urged the introduction of comprehensive GIS as a step toward realizing the informatization of LPEs in ‘Guidelines Regarding the Promotion of Informatization Measures in line with the IT Revolution.’ 78 See www.nippon-net.ne.jp. 79 MPHPT (2002: 18); ‘Report on the Situation of Promotion of Informatization,’ 8 May 2001 (adopted by Inter-ministerial Liaison Conference). 80 ITEM 2000. 81 See www.goa.mlit.go.jp. 82 See www.soumu.go.jp/s-news/2002/020327_3.html. 83 See www.taiken.soumu.go.jp. 84 See www.nmda.or.jp. 85 Law No. 25, of 31 March 1998. 86 Jiji Press Ticker Service, 29 September 2000. 87 The National Tax Agency conducted these field tests from November 2000 to March 2001 at the Koujimachi and Nerima Tax Offices in Tokyo. 88 Japan Economic Newswire, 27 March 2001. 89 Nikkei Weekly, 27 March 2000, pp. 4ff. 90 Japan Economic Newswire, 23 April 2002. 91 Nikkei Weekly, 14 August 2000. 92 Yokosuka City is the well-known example of an e-municipality. In achieving this status, Yokosuka has reformed its traditional inner-administrative workflow process (with the introduction of a new inner-approval system) and has introduced entire online financial and accounting systems. With this reform, Yokosuka has been able to save annually approximately ¥36 million. In December 2000, Yokosuka was the first government to be certified according to ISO 9001 in the IT field. On Yokosuka’s reform, see Takeshi Moriyama, in Shimada (2001: 335ff.); Jichi Kenshu Kyoukai (2001: 19ff.); NTT Communications Solution Jigyoubu (2002: 2ff.); Satomi Hirokawa, in Gekkan Chihoujichi Shokuin Kenshu Henshuubu (2002: 8ff); and the city’s website, www.city.yokosuka.kanagawa.jp. However, business process reengineering toward e-government and e-municipalities is not sufficient in Japan. 93 Nikkei Weekly, 14 August 2000. 94 Japan Economic Newswire, 23 April 2002. 95 See ‘Common Guidelines on Integrated Geographical Information System’ (12 July 2001) and ‘Providing Guidelines on Integrated Geographical Information System’ (12 June 2001), in Gyousei Jouhou System Kenkyujo (2002: 69ff.). 96 In FY 2002, Urayasu tested comprehensive GIS with the support of the MPHPT. See also Gekkan Chihoujichi Shokuin Kenshu Henshuubu (2002: 32ff.). For further information on the introduction of GIS, see Gyousei Jouhou System Kenkyujo (1999a). 97 Through the Amendment Act for the Amendment of the Commercial Register Act etc., of 19 April 2000. 98 Jiji Press Ticker Service, 11 January 2002. In the summer of 2002, twenty-nine public notaries were designated as cyber notaries. See www.moj.go.jp/MINJI/ MINJI24/minji24-02.html. 99 The Concept was revised on 30 July 2002. See www.soumu.go.jp/s-news/ 2002/020730_4.html. 100 Shimada (2001: 39ff.). 101 See www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/it/council/basic_it.html. 102 See www.soumu.go.jp/s-news/2002/020730_3.html. 103 This is similar to the phenomenon of personnel exchanges between central government and LPEs. This exchange between central and local government is also called Amakudari, and also has an important role in ensuring smooth communications between the two.

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104 Administrative Procedure Act, Art. 32 et seq. regulate administrative guidance. Although administrative guidance is now communicated in writing as required by law (Art. 35) and can be legally challenged, bureaucrats can still issue oral and informal guidance. 105 Nikkei Weekly, 14 August 2000; Jiji Press Ticker Service, 1 August 2000. 106 The city of Ichikawa in Chiba Prefecture is renowned for its online services utilizing information terminals installed at convenience stores. Ichikawa residents can make reservations for public facilities in the city through information terminals set up in stores in Chiba, Kanagawa, and Tokyo. The service is available 24 hours a day.

References Chihoujichi IT Kenkyukai (ed.) (2002) Jichitai Tetsuduki Denshika no Tebiki [Guide to Digitalization of Municipal Procedures], Tokyo: Gyousei (in Japanese). El Kahal, S. (2000) ‘Japan,’ in J.A. Chandler (ed.) Comparative Public Administration, London and New York: Routledge. Gekkan Chihoujichi Shokuin Kenshu Henshuubu (ed.) (2002) Denshi Jichitai Handbook [EMunicipalities Handbook], Tokyo: Koushokuken (in Japanese). Gyousei Jouhou System Kenkyujo [Institute of Administrative Information Systems] (1998) Gyousei Tetsuzuki no Densika no Suishin ni kansuru Chousa-Kenkyuu [Research Report on Promotion for Digitizing of Administrative Procedures], Tokyo: IAIS (in Japanese). —— (1999a) Chiri Jouhou System (GIS) no Seibi oyobi Shakaiteki Katsuyou ni kansuru Chousa Kenkyu Houkokusho, Tokyo: IAIS (in Japanese). —— (1999b) Gyousei Service Koujou no tameno IC card no Sougou Riyou ni kansuru Chousa Kenkyuu Houkokusho [Report on the Introduction of Multi-purpose IT Cards so as to Enhance the Qualities of Administrative Services], Tokyo: IAIS (in Japanese). —— (2002) Gyousei Jouhouka ni kansuru Siryoushu [Materials on Informatization of Administration], No. 9, March 2002, Tokyo: IAIS (in Japanese). Institute of Administrative Management (1998), Administrative Management and Reform in Japan, Tokyo: IAM (1998). Isozaki, Y. (ed.) (1997) The Local Administration in Japan, Tokyo: Gyousei. Jichi Kenshu Kyoukai (ed.) (2001) IT Kakumei eno Taiou [Correspondences to IT Revolution], Tokyo: Jichi Kenshu Kyoukai (in Japanese). Kamino, K. (ed.) (2002) Higashi Asia niokeru Gyousei no Jouhouka to Kouhou [Digital Government and Public Law in East Asia], Nagoya: CALE (in Japanese). MPHPT (Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications) (2002) Information and Communications in Japan, White Paper. —— (2003) Information and Communications in Japan, White Paper, available online at www.johotsusintokei.soumu.go.jp/whitepaper/eng/WP2003/2003-index.html. Nihon Nouritsu Kyoukai Jichitai Denshika Consortium (ed.) (2002) E-government Denshi Seifu/Jichitai Guide 2002 [Guidebook of e-Government and e-Municipalities], Tokyo: JMAM (in Japanese). NTT Communications Solution Jigyoubu (ed.) (2002) Denshi Jichitai Dounyu no Tebiki [Guide to Introduction of e-Municipalities], Tokyo: Nikkei BP (in Japanese). Shimada, T. (ed.) (2001) Jouhou Gijutsu wo Ikasu Jichitai Senryaku [IT Strategy of Local Government], Tokyo: Gyousei (in Japanese). Tagaya, K. (ed.) (2002) Denshi Seifu/Denshi Jichitai [e-Government/e-Municipalities], Tokyo: Dai-ichi-houki (in Japanese).

Electronic government in Japan 181 Tsuji, K. (ed.) (1984) Public Administration in Japan, Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. Yonemaru, T. (1999) Shijin niyoru Gyousei [Public Administration by Private], Tokyo: Nihon Hyoron Sha (in Japanese). Yonemaru, T. and Rossnagel, A. (2002) ‘Japanische Signaturgesetzgebung – auf dem Weg zu “e-Japan,”’ MMR (Multimedia und Recht) 2002: 798–806 (in German).

7

Electronic government in Australia Nico Roehrich and Mark Armstrong

Introduction This survey1 paints the picture of current structures and thinking about relationships between the different tiers of e-government in Australia. As a survey of e-government trends in all six States of Australia would be too vast, most of the State government examples are taken from Victoria and New South Wales. This is not to suggest that the other four States are less advanced. Overall, the Australian experience has been that e-government challenges the existing arrangements for coordination between different tiers of government, and among government agencies. Whilst the overall challenge has been the same as in other countries, there are some differences, which may be of interest in any attempt to compare experience internationally. Some of the features which may strike an outside observer are these: Under the federal Constitution, it is the States rather than the federal government which have the widest range of activities in e-government. There is little competition between different tiers of government to assert their control over e-government. Despite a fairly competitive federal system, the challenge facing all tiers of government to convert to an electronic mode is so great that no tier seeks dominance. In fact, cooperation is the norm. As with many aspects of inter-governmental relations in Australia, formal institutions do not have a significant practical role. Cooperation depends more on informal agreement. The major challenge is almost universally seen as coordination between agencies within each tier of government: for example, how to encourage different departments to cooperate with each other at the practical level. In all spheres of government, the most critical determinant in advancing egovernment seems to have been the commitment of key ministers, including premiers and prime ministers, in the relevant government.

The different tiers of government There are three main tiers of government in Australia: federal, State2 and local. The mixture of areas of competency is rather complex. A very broad compar-

Electronic government in Australia 183 ison can be made to the distribution of powers in other federations, such as Germany, Malaysia, Canada or the United States. The actual areas of authority are unique, as in every federation. The following is a very brief outline of the actual e-government practices at various levels. Federal (Commonwealth) The main list of federal powers is contained in section 51 of the Commonwealth Constitution.3 They include trade and commerce with other countries, and among the States; taxation; ‘postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and other like services’; and defence. Section 51(v) of the Constitution confers power to govern nearly all electronic communications. In theory, the power could be used to govern all e-commerce and e-government. In practice, the powers in relation to e-government have been used mainly in relation to activities of the federal government itself, with the States being left to administer the remaining areas. There has been no attempt to impose principles or standards on the States. In fact, the States have sometimes been critical of the federal government for being reluctant to show leadership in e-government and ecommerce policy. Most federal powers conferred by the Constitution are not exclusive. Rather, they are concurrent powers shared with the States. The primacy of the federal government within the areas of concurrent power comes from the provision of the Commonwealth Constitution that where federal and State laws in one of those defined concurrent areas conflict, the federal law will prevail. In e-government, as in most areas which involve burden or effort, the federal government has not sought to assert its potential supremacy. The contrast is with areas involving benefits, such as taxation, where the federal government has exercised its powers to the fullest extent, so as to leave little room for the States. State Whilst the federal government is dominant in national economic and social strategy, the constitutional arrangement remains the same in legal character as when the Commonwealth Constitution came into force in 1901. Six States, former British colonies, came together to create a federal entity which conferred specific powers on a federal government, retaining other areas within the State sphere, as they were before 1901. The six States are, in order of population size: New South Wales (NSW), Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. State governments are primarily responsible for the majority of services which affect the citizen, including education, transport, law enforcement, health services and agriculture, among many other fields. Thus, for practical purposes, the majority of e-government occurs at the State level.

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Local As a practical matter, local government is the third tier of government, but it has no recognition in the Commonwealth Constitution. From a technical legal viewpoint, local government is within the power of the States. For example, the States would be free to abolish all local government organisations. In practice, there is a long tradition of State legislation maintaining local government and laying down the procedures under which it operates. The operations of local government are usually subject to supervision by a department of its State government. There are over 700 local government shires and councils in Australia, covering a wide range of different areas. Over 80 per cent of councils are categorised as regional or rural (National Office of Local Government 2001: Ch. 2, p. 6). Yet Australia is highly urbanised, with the most densely populated 1 per cent of the continent containing 84 per cent of the population (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2002). The councils spend over AUS$14 billion per year and employ around 170,000 people. The scope of local government activity varies from State to State, depending on what functions the State parliament has assigned to it. Some typical activities include town planning, construction and maintenance of local roads, streets and bridges, water, sewerage and drainage systems, public health and sanitary services, supervision of building, and the development and maintenance of parks, recreation grounds, swimming pools, public libraries and community centres. Unlike its counterparts in some other countries, local government in Australia is not responsible for health, education or police. Federal territories There is yet another category of government, consisting of the ten federal territories; and it is difficult to generalise about their role. They include the Northern Territory, which operates for nearly all purposes as if it were the seventh State, and the Australian Capital Territory, which is also largely self-governing. There are also eight smaller entities including Christmas Island (in the Indian Ocean) and Norfolk Island (in the Pacific), which could loosely be compared to local government areas. The main thing which the territories have in common is that the federal government has ultimate authority over them all.

Government agencies Each government has an agency responsible for coordinating internet policies and activities, including e-government. Those current as of late 2003 are listed in Table 7.1. It may be seen that several of these agencies have innovative names, such as Multimedia Victoria (MMV) or the Office of Information and Communications Technology (NSW). Nevertheless, each of them is either a government department with a relatively conventional structure and staffing system, or part of such

Electronic government in Australia 185 Table 7.1 List of government agencies and their internet policies Government

Agency

URL

Federal (Commonwealth)

NOIE

www.govonline.gov.au www.noie.gov.au

Australian Capital Territory

ACT Government Department of Treasury

www.intact.act.gov.au

New South Wales

Office of Information and Communications

www.oit.nsw.gov.au

Technology in the Department of Commerce

www.commerce.nsw.gov.au

Northern Territory

Department of Corporate and Information Services

www.nt.gov.au/dcis

Queensland

Department of Innovation and Information Economy, Sport and Recreation Queensland

www.diiesrq.qld.gov.au

South Australia

Information Economy Policy Office

www.iepo.sa.gov.au

Department for Administrative and Information Services

www.dais.sa.gov.au/index.html

Tasmania

The eServices Group, Department of Premier and Cabinet

www.dpac.tas.gov.au/divisions/gis

Victoria

The Office of e-Government is part of Multimedia Victoria (MMV), incorporated into the Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development

www.mmv.vic.gov.au www.iird.vic.gov.au www.egov.vic.gov.au

Western Australia

Department of Premier and Cabinet

www.egov.dpc.wa.gov.au

a department. Even the federal National Office of the Information Economy (NOIE) has many practical similarities to a traditional department. All the agencies report to a minister in the elected government, and all are subject to government policy and funding controls. In general, the agencies responsible for e-government have limited powers and no special authority. Instead, they work with other government agencies on a cooperative basis. For example, in Victoria, MMV is part of the Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development. It works with other government departments, the information and communications technology industry, community groups, education and training providers and the wider business community to deliver the State government’s ‘Connecting Victoria’ policy. It has no special powers over any of these groups. The general approach to e-government is best described as collegiate rather than mandated. The Cabinet and ministers, at the federal and State levels, are

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able to compel agencies into action through fiscal and other pressures, but collaboration is seen as more productive than punishment. At the federal and State levels, the key decision-makers are the relevant ministers. In practice, the attitude of the minister, and on major issues the Cabinet, ultimately determines the pace of change and the emphasis in implementing programmes.

Roles of the different governments The federal government carries the largest responsibility for coordinating national strategies about e-government, but for day-to-day e-government, the States are the most visible. That is because the normal laws about buying, selling, contracts, education, civil liability, town planning, health and similar areas are generally made by State parliaments and administered by State governments. Typical use of websites may give some feel for the different roles. The average citizen wanting to access a train timetable, bushfire alerts, school examination results, tourism information or even lottery results will probably go to a State government portal on the web. Local government is also important. For example, a citizen wanting to check the local library catalogue, pay a parking fine or comment on an application to alter a nearby house is more likely to use a local government site. Federal sites are more concerned with national policies and initiatives, with some major exceptions, including tax and social security. Information about taxation, and electronic lodgement of tax returns, is via a federal site, as are pensions, disability payments and most other forms of social security. Two examples may illustrate some of the different roles of government entities. In the State of Victoria (population approximately 5 million), the government’s Maxi system is now processing large and growing numbers of consumer transactions per month. Of these, 40 per cent occur outside office hours. Transactions include: vehicle registrations; birth, death and marriage certificates; voter enrolment; searches of title to land; payment of local government rates; water and electricity bills; and parking fines. The Victorian government’s online strategy is supplemented by a programme called ‘VicNet’, which provides free website assistance to non-profit organisations and delivers low-cost internet services and training to public libraries and rural areas through mobile facilities (Tanner 2000). At the federal level, ‘Centrelink’ is one of the few agencies to have extensive dealings with the public. Centrelink provides 140 services, including social security payments. Each year it distributes AUS$51 billion in payments. In the year 2002, Centrelink had 15 million website hits, 6.5 million appointments, sent out 97 million letters and processed 23 million phone calls. Centrelink has 6.4 million customers, just under one-third of the Australian population. On a daily basis, Centrelink supports 14 million customer records and 12 million customer transactions. Centrelink outsources AUS$1.7 billion worth of business.

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Cooperation between different tiers of government With complex relationships between the three levels of government, it might be expected by Northern hemisphere analysts that there would be a corresponding mechanism for ensuring cooperation. The actual pattern has two features: high-level consultation about policy and strategy; and relatively unstructured cooperation at the practical level. There is no detailed, prescribed system for cooperation; and indeed, it would not be expected given how intergovernmental relations usually work in Australia. The first 100 years of Australia’s history as a federation has been marked by tensions between the State and federal governments over their respective roles: their relative powers, and the proportion of taxation revenue they receive. This has been a problem for large businesses, whose activities are affected by all levels of government. In some key areas, a coordinated national scheme was devised in the late twentieth century. The two most visible schemes relate to business regulation: corporations law and competition law. In each case, it took some years of effort to hammer out a package of federal–State agreements and laws. There has been no demand for a similar federal scheme in relation to either e-business or egovernment. Bodies which help coordination and cooperation at the policy level include the Online Council and NOIE. Practical cooperation between officials of State, federal and local government organisations is usually good. This occurs despite political differences: in 2003, every State was governed by the Labor party, whilst its opponent, the Coalition (Liberal and National parties), held power at the federal level. This did not intrude into operational or bureaucratic arrangements between governments. Cooperation is built through personal and practical links at the bureaucratic level more than through ministers. This reflects an aspect of Australian government culture unlike the tradition followed by governments of the European and North American countries. Informality of relationships is more frequent and more accepted. The federal government and the States are largely independent of each other in relation to administrative services. However, there is some cooperation in areas where interests overlap. For example, health services and hospitals are the responsibility of the State, but the national Medicare system is run by the federal government, which provides substantial health funding. There are some significant whole-of-government e-health initiatives under way, as mentioned below. One practical example of cooperation is through Centrelink, mentioned above. It provides administrative services to any agency which wants to utilise its service. While Centrelink’s most visible role is the distribution of federal social security payments, it also delivers some services to the public on behalf of other State and federal agencies, as well as some non-government community organisations. Centrelink provides these services on the basis of Business Partnership Agreements, which are a form of service-provider contract. Another example relates to metadata standards. The National Archives of Australia is the maintenance agency for the Australian Government Locator

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Service (AGLS) metadata standard. The standard is a set of nineteen descriptive elements which government departments and agencies can use to improve the visibility and accessibility of their services and information over the internet. It has been mandated for use by federal government agencies, but has considerable adherence across all spheres of government. The working group which guides development and implementation of the metadata standard consists of representatives from all government jurisdictions in Australia, as well as technical experts. The standard itself is based upon the leading international online resource discovery metadata standard, the Dublin Core standard. The AGLS standard was developed in late 1997 and early 1998. Whilst the National Archives is the lead agency for AGLS development and deployment, the initiative is a cooperative venture between NOIE and Online Council officials.4

Cooperation within government Services that involve more than one agency or level of government are the next phase of e-government. This is the view of most people managing the services. With most government services already online, the next phase of egovernment will focus on better integrating these services from the customer’s perspective. The critical element of these integrated services is that the customer should be required to deal with only one point of access to successfully complete a transaction. In the last decade, federal–State relations have not been seen as a major issue for e-government. State and federal officials and ministers have been occupied by a different issue: how to manage cooperation between their own departments and agencies. This has consumed a vast amount of energy in reorganisations and consultants’ reports. It is still recognised as a major challenge, with no State government, nor the federal government, being satisfied with the results to date. The problem is obvious enough: e-government calls for major changes in the way services are offered to the public, and in the way government obtains its inputs (such as contracts with telecommunications and IT suppliers). But the existing departments and agencies have traditions and alliances going back many decades. How to change the culture of agencies to meet the new approach, without disempowering them? The practical answers are less simple. They are certainly more complex than having coordinating committees or single agencies to manage the change. There is another politically sensitive question: how to avoid accepting total responsibility for such risky innovation. One otherwise respected federal minister was politically damaged by waste and confusion arising from his drive in the year 2000 for coordinated outsourcing of IT contracts for twenty-three federal departments.5 This example will not be forgotten for several years, and it serves to make government leaders more reluctant to accept responsibility for radical change in e-government. It should be remembered that intra-government cooperation on any topic is ultimately managed through the State or federal Cabinet. The Cabinet runs the executive. It is composed of senior ministers, all elected

Electronic government in Australia 189 politicians, who are responsible for the different government departments, and liable to political damage when things go wrong. Whilst e-government is not a visible issue, mistakes in implementing it can certainly become an issue, under the general heading of incompetence or waste. That is one of the reasons why all federal documents emphasise the cooperative approach in preference to the mandatory approach: it decreases the chance of one minister or official being held responsible for mistakes. As the focus shifts from offering government services online to a more integrated e-government approach, there is greater emphasis on developing inter-government interfaces and greater agency cooperation. Typically, intraagency cooperation is built through personal and practical links rather than through any organised or endorsed system. The following are practical examples6 of initiatives, large and small, where there was an obvious reason for cooperation in service delivery. Biotechnology Online7 This site is operated by Biotechnology Australia, a federal agency responsible for coordinating the government’s non-regulatory activities in biotechnology. The agency encompasses five federal departments as well as three other federal agencies. The website is primarily structured to provide information to the public on the biotechnology industry, for both teachers and children. The website has been produced in collaboration with the education authorities in all States and territories to ensure compliance with all curricula. ABS @ Your Service8 Australia’s official statistical organisation, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), provides access to its standard statistical products from clients’ desktops 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The information obviously involves a large number of federal agencies. The service replicates the latest ABS publications directly onto the client’s intranet. This product is currently delivered to several government departments and is expected eventually to be delivered to other clients throughout the three tiers of government. New South Wales emergency services initiative The NSW Emergency Services Sector initiative is an example of clustering emergency services, prompted by events such as a damaging hailstorm in Sydney where the response was uncoordinated. The NSW Office of Information Technology (OIT) is examining communication, dispatching, call-taking, operations and information systems for major emergencies. The objective is to use online and IT systems to support a multi-agency response, so that people requiring assistance should need to contact only one agency, which will then take all relevant information and share it with other agencies. In the case of a serious storm in the future,

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one call to the system would prompt all necessary services such as ambulance, police, traffic coordination, the State Emergency Service (to cover roofs), and power, water and telecommunications utilities to restore essential services. AskNow!9 This service is a collaboration of State and territory libraries and the National Library of Australia. It provides an online reference service to the public. The interface allows the general public to interact in real time with librarians from the various libraries. The software allows the enquirer and the librarian to view the same web-pages, whilst the enquirer is guided through the search. This service has proved especially popular with rural and regional Australian citizens, or those who have difficulty getting to a library. Graduate Recruitment Online10 This site allows graduates to apply for the federal graduate employment programme, build a résumé and undergo selection testing online. One federal department developed this system, using a company called nga.net.11 Eight other agencies joined the contract. The online system can automatically shortlist applications with parameters provided by the individual agencies. The agencies then interview and select appropriate graduates. Government Electronic Market (GEM)12 GEM is a comprehensive Western Australian online government buying service, providing an end-to-end online system where government buyers can browse and search the supplier registry, browse supplier catalogues, request information and quotations, place orders and have them approved online by their agency, receipt orders, and arrange payment to suppliers. NSW government licensing project13 This large project currently being implemented is to reduce red tape for business and produce savings to the government of around AUS$70 million in infrastructure costs. Under the project, the 200 different business and occupational licences administered by twenty-eight NSW government agencies will come together under a single system featuring online access. The project requires some redesign of most current licensing regimes, as well as many legislative amendments to licensing laws. Picture Australia14 This is a service based on a metadata index held at the National Library in Canberra, which links to pictorial images held on the websites of participating

Electronic government in Australia 191 cultural agencies around Australia. The service has a hybrid architecture with a centralised search index and distributed images. Users can search the central metadata index for their subject of interest, view thumbnail images of the results, then go to a participating agency’s website to view a larger version of the image or order a copy. This projects cuts across all tiers of government. GrantsLINK 15 GrantsLINK is a federal whole-of-government website offering direct links to existing information on government grant programmes. GrantsLINK also offers advice on finding the best source of funding and on completing application forms. Fishonline16 This service draws together targeted federal and Tasmanian government online services to provide the primary source of recreational fishing information for Tasmanian anglers and tourists. Patterns of cooperation and auditing Active cooperation usually occurs where there is a direct benefit to the parties involved. In some cases, this may be the adoption of common standards by all agencies. In other cases, it may be on a party-to-party basis. Much of the power is devolved to agency level, giving agencies scope in how they structure their relationships. Some relationships are governed by contract, such as Centrelink’s provision of services for other agencies, which is done on the basis of Business Partnership Agreements. Other relationships are less formal, such as an agency consulting with a stakeholder about electronic service delivery. Government auditors, who have a more independent role, also monitor the performance of e-government initiatives. Whilst their prime mandate is to ensure accountability and propriety within government generally, their work inevitably leads them to examine the quality of e-government. For example, in 2002, the Audit Office of NSW reported on the user-friendliness of government websites.17 Other examples include: •

•

Audit Office of NSW (2001), Performance Audit Report, e-Government: “Use of the internet and related technologies to improve public sector performance”. Australian National Audit Office (1999): “Electronic service delivery, including internet use by federal government agencies”.

Infrastructure for e-government Federal e-government initiatives were originally outlined in Prime Minister John Howard’s comprehensive industry statement ‘Investing for Growth’, in 1997.18

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These formed the basis of the federal government’s Online Strategy19 published by the Department of Communications Information Technology and the Arts in 2000. NOIE is the lead federal agency for e-government issues. Since March 2000, NOIE has produced regular reports on the ‘readiness’ of Australians to participate in the information economy. These reports chart the intensity of current social and economic activity being undertaken via the internet, and the impact this activity is having on Australian society.20 The surveys also report on the development of the Online Strategy, although that is covered in more detail in the Government Online Survey Results.21 Some examples of the results of these surveys are: In 2002, it was confirmed that all federal agencies had met the Government’s commitment to provide all appropriate services online by the end of 2001.22 Sophistication of services – online services are becoming more sophisticated, with a move from services providing static information only to those with transactional capabilities. Future online services will be more sophisticated – 55 per cent are predicted to be transactional or integrated services. Electronic payment of suppliers – the proportion of agencies paying more than 90 per cent of their suppliers electronically has increased since Round 3 (from 20 per cent to 30 per cent). Over three-quarters of agencies (79 per cent) pay more than 50 per cent of the value of their payments electronically. The major impediment cited by agencies with reference to overall e-procurement implementation was a lack of supplier readiness. E-procurement – nearly two-thirds of agencies (64 per cent) anticipated full implementation of simple e-procurement systems by the end of 2001. The majority of remaining agencies expected to implement simple e-procurement in 2002. (Government Online Survey: Round 4, p. 2)23 As the quotations above indicate, Australia’s current level of infrastructure is reasonably well matched to the e-government services currently available. This finding is supported by international studies. For example, research published by the US-based Economist Intelligence Unit gives Australia an ‘E-Business Readiness’ score of 8.29. This ranks Australia second after the United States (8.73) in terms of the provision of an environment conducive to the development of e-business opportunities.24 In July 2001, an estimated 25 per cent of Australians actively using the internet at home were estimated to have accessed online federal government services.25

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E-government strategies Strictly speaking, Australia might be said not to have a national strategy for egovernment. The most prominent and wide-reaching strategy is that of the federal government. It should be borne in mind that a full national strategy would be the combination of the federal and State strategies. Whilst cooperation between the governments is good, and they all aim for similar targets, they are not closely linked by a national strategy. At the State level, strategies have varied widely – from the very basic to active coordinated approaches like those of MMV. Victoria and Queensland were the two States to pioneer government online strategies in Australia. They are the second and third most populous States in the country. New South Wales, the most populous State, has often been regarded as the slowest State to implement proactive online policies, although it accelerated the process in 2002. The federal government was initially very cautious, but started to accelerate with the prime minister’s industry statement ‘Investing for Growth’, in 1997.26 That statement made a commitment on behalf of the federal government to show leadership in the information economy by adopting online technologies to provide better services and improve its own business practices. Specific commitments were made to: •

•

• •

deliver all appropriate federal services electronically on the internet by the end of 2001, complementing, but not replacing, existing written, telephone, fax and counter services; establish a Government Information Centre through the Office for Government Online (OGO) as a main point of access to information about government services (OGO was incorporated into NOIE in October 2000 after some major problems in managing whole-of-government contracts); establish electronic payment as the normal means for payments to the federal government by 2000; and establish a government-wide intranet for secure online communication.27

‘Investing for Growth’ formed the basis of the federal government’s April 2000 Online Strategy, already mentioned. It contained eight strategic priority areas: • •

• • • •

agencies to take full advantage of the opportunities provided by the internet; facilitation of enablers such as authentication, metadata standards, electronic publishing and record-keeping guidelines, accessibility, privacy, and security; enhancement of government online services in regional Australia; enhancement of the impact of the Government Online initiatives on development in the Australian IT industry; government business operations to go online; monitor best practice and progress;

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Nico Roehrich and Mark Armstrong facilitate cross-agency services; and communicate with stakeholders.28

The main target, to deliver all appropriate federal services via the internet, was achieved.29 The same target was adopted by the State governments. In November 2002, NOIE released ‘Better Services, Better Government: The Federal Government’s e-Government Strategy’,30 which sets out the framework for federal departments and agencies to provide a full service of information and administration to citizens. The responsibility to oversee future developments in egovernment, and to provide for collaboration between agencies, is with the Information Management Strategy Committee.31 This group is supported by a Chief Information Officer Committee. The e-Government Strategy sets six main objectives: • • • • • •

achieve greater efficiency and a return on investment; ensure convenient access to government services and information; deliver services that are responsive to client needs; integrate related services; build user trust and confidence, and; enhance closer citizen engagement.

Cooperation in the federal sphere The Online Strategy was intended to ensure that there was a whole-of-government approach by articulating common goals and priorities. As part of that approach, guidelines have been established for authentication, security, privacy, metadata, electronic publishing, record-keeping and accessibility. The strategy provided guidance to agencies about the nature of the commitment, and best practice for achieving it. There is little direct compulsion about delivering actual services online. As one expert has said: ‘the main thrust of the federal Online Strategy is its very strong agency-based focus – in other words, most of the responsibility for the online action is in the hands of individual agencies’ (Roper 2000: 61). Whilst this has not always had the desired results, it has at least raised awareness of the internet among agencies in terms of integrating the internet into their work. The federal government has been moving to a more integrated approach, as demonstrated by the creation of the Information Management Strategy Committee in 2003. Its members are the senior department secretaries and CEOs responsible for information. Similarly, the Ministerial Council for the Information Economy brings together the key ministers to frame a common, whole-of-government approach.32 Cooperation between agencies was part of the original federal strategy, but Australian National Audit Office analysis of progress in moving government services online indicated that cross-agency initiatives had been rather modest. Whilst the following figures are now out of date, they show that in 2000, most federal agencies were expecting to offer only limited online services in 2001. The Auditor-General found that by 2001:

Electronic government in Australia 195 • • • •

52 per cent of surveyed agencies would only have a website containing information about their functions and services; another 25 per cent would enable users to access the agency database; 21 per cent would allow users to enter secure information and engage in transactions with the agency; and only 2 per cent would offer an integrated online service involving informationsharing with other agencies.33

In April 2003, NOIE released minimum standards for the implementation of federal department and agency websites. These standards, entitled ‘Guide to Minimum Website Standards’,34 prescribe minimum information provision, metadata, record-keeping, security, privacy and more. The standards were developed in conjunction with various government agencies responsible for the provision of standards throughout Australia. These include the National Archives of Australia, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, the Defence Signals Directorate and the Privacy Commission. Each of the bodies mentioned above has developed detailed standards, which are available from their various websites. Online Information Service Obligations (OISOs) establish a minimum amount of information which federal departments and agencies must provide on their websites. This includes basic information such as organisation contact details and other corporate information, media releases, speeches, and legislative information.35 AusInfo produces guidelines for federal information to be published in electronic formats, providing information about best practice conventions for electronic publications. It was not difficult to persuade all agencies to have some kind of a web presence. The next step, the implementation of high-value cross-agency initiatives, is more challenging. It actually requires some changes to back-office functions. The federal government aims to improve online service provision through an increased focus on interactive transactions between government, individuals and business. A goal of integration will be to minimise the cost and administrative complexity for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) dealing on-line with more than one agency. Despite some top-down efforts by the government itself, it appears that much of the planning and implementation will continue to be at the agency level. The view in the national capital is that cooperation will be most successful where it is driven from within the agencies. Critics would say that clear leadership from the top of government would be even more effective. One example of cooperation has been the business entry point portal www.business.gov.au. It is a single entry point to government forms, applications and payments. It also provides assistance with starting a business, taxation, business registration, grants and financial assistance, licences, and permits. Another example is the government online entry point www.australia.gov.au, launched in February 2002 (Alston 2002). It aims to provide access to the full range of government services through the one location. The underlying concept is that services should be easily accessible

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without the need to have a detailed understanding of how government is structured. While the concept is simple, the realisation will be difficult. Integrating backend IT systems requires government process re-engineering that goes beyond aggregating content on a portal. It also requires a great deal of cooperation between government agencies. Furthermore, privacy laws may make seamless transactions difficult, as there are strict limits on the sharing of personal information. The www.australia.gov.au entry point will eventually comprise eighteen portals (arranged into customer and subject topics) with links to all areas of federal, State and local government. Even the portals will need some refining to prevent user confusion with similar portals such as the existing www.gov.au, which also serves as a single whole-of-government point of access. However, www.gov.au is built around government entities rather than services. The website www.publications.gov.au provides links to all federal government publications that are electronically available and those which are not. It provides direct links to the publications pages of the relevant agency/department websites. From these various sites, users may download the documents, or access links to electronic order forms. The site was developed by NOIE in conjunction with the various government departments and agencies. Several programmes aim to ensure that infrastructure is in place for an inclusive e-government strategy. They include the public key infrastructure (PKI) project, and ‘digital divide’ and public access programmes. Other initiatives to bridge the digital divide include the initiative to encourage the development of Community Technology Centres in the State of New South Wales, which assist regional communities by providing IT resources, including internet access.36 Formal pilot programmes include the Trials of Innovative Government Electronic Regional Services Program (TIGERS).37 This was a combined programme of federal, State and local government aimed at behavioural change in the way government information is accessed. There were a number of services included in the programme, including a variety of integrated, cross-jurisdictional government services and research projects. The programme, which ran for three years ending in mid-2003, was based in Tasmania, and largely funded by the federal government. One of the main conclusions from the project was this: ‘The key challenges in e-government and service integration are in managing the various organisational and financial relationships. Initiatives require the multiple agencies and jurisdictions to have a common vision, agreed plans and shared execution’ (Watson 2003: 59). In some areas, government initiatives have run ahead of the private sector. One example is the federal electronic procurement strategy. It set two goals: (1) the federal government to pay all suppliers electronically by the end of 2000; and (2) all simple procurement suppliers who wish to deal with the federal government electronically, using open standards, will be able to do so by the end of 2001.38 Whilst those goals seem to have been met, many suppliers are not ready to deal electronically with the government. This lack of readiness may be a hand-

Electronic government in Australia 197 icap in the short term, but it does provide a longer-term opportunity for more enterprises to move into the area of electronic supply and contracting. State strategies and targets State government initiatives set their own targets, and whilst they are phrased in similar terms to the national targets, they are quite independent of them. For example, MMV started its activities before there was any federal support for government online initiatives or any framework for cooperation. It is a common view outside the federal government that this was the correct approach, because coordination between different levels of government is still very difficult. This is despite the increased levels of experience and understanding of the benefits of egovernment. If the initiatives of different governments had been put on hold pending the introduction of a national strategy or framework for cooperation, they may have languished for some time. It would be possible to offer several States as examples of what is seen locally as local best practice in the e-government area, such as Queensland and Tasmania. For the sake of brevity, Victoria will be used as the example. MMV was a government agency created in the early 1990s with the strong support of the premier of Victoria, backed by a working party of State and national business leaders. Online readiness and awareness were promoted throughout the government of Victoria and to the public, in advance of most other States. MMV played a coordinating role by developing the following: •

• •

A standard transaction audit tool, allowing all Victorian agencies to identify and report on the transactions they engage in. This produced a clearer picture of the number of transactions that occur across the State government, and assisted in targeting services to be considered for online delivery. A suitability tool, allowing agencies to assess the suitability of different services for online delivery. Service-based business case guidelines. These helped agencies develop the business case for services to get online. The business case is a key part of securing Victorian Cabinet funding for projects. When a project gets funded, there are quarterly reports to Cabinet on progress, which is measured against criteria set in the development of the project proposal.

The information gathered during the development and application of these tools fed into Victoria’s new strategy, ‘Putting People at the Centre’, launched in March 2002.39 MMV chairs a fortnightly meeting of State government departments. The focus of these meetings is on sharing experience with colleagues from other departments and increasing knowledge though presentations from external parties. Whilst there is now a trend towards greater centralisation, Victoria, like other governments, is still working out what should be centrally controlled and what is better left diffuse.

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Electronic signatures The diffusion of electronic signatures has been driven by the federal government. There are three elements in the strategy: (1) a framework for public key technology use in the government called ‘Gatekeeper’; (2) the legal recognition of electronic signatures; and (3) driving the use of electronic signatures through electronic procurement and dealing. Gatekeeper The national strategy is called ‘Gatekeeper – a strategy for public key technology use in the Government’. It was launched on 6 May 1998.40 Like most of the first phase of the national e-government strategy, its origins were in the 1997 industry statement ‘Investing for Growth’. Australia was one of the first countries to adopt a government-wide PKI infrastructure. Gatekeeper targets the need for a national public key technology (PKT) framework to authenticate users of electronic online services. It provides the infrastructure by which government agencies can ensure integrity, security and authenticity in the transmission of information and the transaction of business. Many of the original expectations have not been fulfilled. Government Public Key Infrastructure (GPKI) is the collective term for the standards, products, services and service providers certified under the Gatekeeper strategy. It also refers to the policies created for the management of those standards, products and services, and the relationships between them. Australian Standard SAA MP75 describes the national Public Key Authentication Framework (PKAF). PKAF is a framework for the generation, distribution and management of public key certificates. These certificates are designed to bind the identity of users to their public key material in a trusted and legally based manner. PKAF sets out a certification hierarchy containing certification authorities, registration authorities and users. Gatekeeper does not have a specific legislative basis. It is administered through contractual arrangements between NOIE and other stakeholders. Requirements under the scheme are regarded as onerous by many, with extensive audit, legal review and technical standards. Accreditation criteria for certification authorities were released in 1998. They include compliance with federal government procurement policy, security policy, physical security, technology evaluation, certification authority policy and administration, personnel vetting, legal issues, and privacy considerations. Organisations which have achieved full Gatekeeper accreditation include the Health eSignature Authority Pty Ltd, VeriSign Australia, Baltimore Certificates and the Australian Taxation Office.41 The Gatekeeper accreditation process is managed by the regulatory branch within NOIE. To date, the take-up of Gatekeeper digital certificates has been limited. The main issue is the cost of providing the level of rigorous authentication required under the scheme. Also, most of the federal procurement needs are based on a

Electronic government in Australia 199 vertical supply chain, and in many cases the additional security provided by digital certificates has not been deemed necessary. As originally envisaged, there are a large number of organisations, especially in the private sector, using nonGatekeeper solutions for functions such as secure email, virtual private networks and remote access. The trend is for Gatekeeper to be used mainly by the federal government, and by businesses which have to deal with government on a secure basis. Businesses tend to use private sector solutions for dealing with their own customers. Legal recognition of electronic signatures The federal Electronic Transactions Act 1999 is based upon the Model Law on Electronic Commerce produced by the UN Commission on International Trade Law. It allows electronic communications to satisfy existing legal requirements for writing, signature, document production and the retention of documents, subject to certain minimum requirements. It is technology-neutral, in that it does not discriminate between different forms of technology.42 The Act was developed in consultation with the States and territories. With the exception of Queensland and Western Australia, they have all adopted it through their own legislation.43 The object of the Act is to provide a regulatory framework which: • • • •

recognises the importance of information to the future economic and social prosperity of Australia; facilitates the use of electronic transactions; promotes business and community confidence in the use of electronic transactions; and enables business and the community to use electronic communications in their dealings with the government.

The Act provides legal validity to transactions that take place electronically, and states that signature and writing requirements will be met if an individual follows the proper procedures. The Act also addresses the retention of records electronically, and the production of electronic documents as it relates to copyright law.44 Activities in this area need to be considered in light of the Australian Business Number Digital Signature Certificate (ABN-DSC; see below), which is widely used. Some of the most significant examples of electronic dealing occur through the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), the Australian Customs Service and through PKI in the health sector. Australian Taxation Office In Australia, tax agents complete the majority of tax returns on behalf of taxpayers. For some time, they have all dealt electronically with the ATO. Individuals have the option of lodging a written or online tax return. The

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introduction of a goods and services tax (GST) in 2000 accelerated the use of electronic signatures in two ways. First, it vastly increased the number of Australian Business Numbers (ABNs) issued. All businesses require an ABN regardless of size or structure. Sole traders, partnerships, trusts and companies all require an ABN. This makes the ABN a widespread unique identifier that can be tied to an electronic signature certificate, the ABN-DSC. When applying for their ABNs, many businesses indicated that they would like to deal electronically with the ATO. Secondly, the GST laws require businesses to lodge regular Business Activity Statements (BAS). To cope with this process, many businesses updated their IT systems. Consequently, the number of small businesses ready for electronic dealing has increased. The ATO’s implementation of an electronic commerce platform in June 2000 is seen as the world’s largest government-to-business rollout of digital certificates. This e-commerce platform is known as the Electronic Commerce Interface (ECI). It enables all Australian businesses, small and large, to lodge their BAS directly via the internet (Rimmer 2001). It is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and will eventually support a range of high-volume business transactions with the ATO. The ATO is a Gatekeeper-accredited certification authority. The ECI uses PKI endorsed by Gatekeeper (ibid.). However, the ATO-issued digital certificates are part of a closed PKI and are for use with the ATO only (Boyle 2000: 46). With the introduction of the GST in 2000, some 300,000 digital certificates were issued to businesses, and more than 65,000 businesses downloaded certificates for active use (Rimmer 2001). Australian Business Number Digital Signature Certificates As outlined above, the ABN-DSC is a digital certificate linked to an entity’s ABN. It is designed to facilitate online service delivery and foster the use of digital certificates and e-commerce among Australian businesses. An ABN-DSC issued for use with one federal agency can be used to deal with other agencies which offer online transactions based on digital signature certificates. The system is being extended to State, territory and local government agencies. ABN-DSCs can be issued by any Gatekeeper-accredited certification authority. The ABNDSC allows government agencies to identify businesses for online transactions.45 However, the use of ABN-DSCs is still limited. The first use of ABN-DSCs was confined to lodging tax returns and other documentation electronically with the ATO. The ability to issue an ABN-DSC has been extended beyond Gatekeeperaccredited certification authorities.46 Following an announcement by the minister for communications, digital signature certificates issued by Australian banks to businesses are now accepted by government agencies. Some see this as a crack in the government’s Gatekeeper project, because the bank-issued certificates are interoperable with government, whereas the government certificates are not interoperable with the banks’ system. The greater utility of the bank-

Electronic government in Australia 201 issued certificates means they are more likely to dominate the field, possibly reducing the chance for a competitive multi-provider environment (Dearne 2001: 25). It is not yet clear how the use of ABN-DSCs will mesh with existing legislation. For example, the Electronic Transactions Act allows for the use of electronic signatures only where the technology employed is appropriate for the use contemplated, and both transacting parties have agreed to its use. If ABNDSCs become used generally by businesses transacting with each other, the parties will need to ensure that their use complies at all times with the requirements set out under the Electronic Transactions Act. A failure to do so will run the risk of invalidating the entire transaction. Electronic signatures and e-health A vision for using online technologies to build a better health care system, cooperatively between the federal and State governments, is set out in a 2001 report entitled Health Online: A Health Information Action Plan for Australia.47 It has already helped to promote a nationally uniform approach to using information and communications technologies. The vision includes initiatives such as ‘HealthConnect’ and the ‘Better Medication Management System’. HealthConnect is a system for electronically storing medical records, to allow personal health information to be collected, stored and exchanged online with the individual health consumer’s permission.48 The Better Medication Management System will be based on a centralised database and a communications network containing personal electronic medication records. The objective is to provide better access for prescribers, dispensers and consumers to accurate information about an individual’s medicines, with a view to ensuring that an accurate history is available and reducing adverse outcomes. These systems require a PKI to enable the transfer of sensitive medical information across the internet whilst protecting a person’s privacy. The Health eSignature Authority (HeSA)49 has been established to meet the PKI needs of the medical sector. HeSA is a private company owned by the Health Insurance Commission, a government agency.50 HeSA has supplied digital keys and certificates to a variety of professions and organisations. PKI is already being used to transfer information between some doctors, specialists and hospitals. The HIC is using PKI for all new electronic data interchange and e-business solutions, and is planning to roll out a variety of new e-business solutions in the next few years. It is expected that the health care sector will be a leading user of PKI. Apart from the specific issues relating to PKI, the ‘Health Online’ initiative has already had an impact in promoting a nationally uniform approach to health information among the States and territories and at the federal level. It has been part of moving information management closer to the heart of health strategy, and promoting continuity of care and support. The importance of this is that health care in Australia is based on a complex relationship between the different

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levels of government, which is frequently the subject of dissension at the political level. Medicare, the national medical benefits system, is run by the federal government, but actual delivery of health care is a State responsibility. The online initiatives have opened up a new area of cooperation at the practical and bureaucratic levels, which appears to continue despite the political storms which circle above.

Who coordinates e-government? In many areas of government activity, such as telecommunications or the military, it is possible to point to a specific department, minister or agency with ultimate responsibility. In most areas of Australian government, such as health or transport, one can point to at least seven agencies, federal and State, who hold the pivotal roles. E-government is in the second category, except that because it is new, the lines of authority are less clear. Perhaps the closest analogy would be to town planning, where all levels of government have a number of agencies which affect what actually happens. In another sense, the responsibility is clear. Despite all the departments and agencies which serve them, at the end of the day the federal Cabinet and the Cabinets of the State governments are responsible. On paper, e-government may seem a small part of the total responsibility of the Cabinet. In practice, it occupies a little more attention. Cabinets have learnt to pay close attention, because when they do not, e-government languishes. Also, the level of change within government required by e-government tends to demand attention. As a result, all senior ministers in the federal and State governments have some level of immediate interest. The Online Council The Online Council brings together senior ministers from State, territory and local government twice a year to discuss policy issues related to the information economy. This is a high-level meeting focused on directions and objectives, as reflected in its terms of reference: •

•

to provide leadership to all areas of government, industry and the community at large in promoting and facilitating electronic communications and electronic service delivery; to provide a forum for federal, State and territory government ministers and local government to consider and reach agreement on national strategic approaches to the use of information and communications services.51

The list of members current as of late 2003 gives some indication of where egovernment sits within each government. Whilst the people who occupy ministerial roles change fairly frequently as a result of elections and the reallocation of portfolios, the ministries themselves change less frequently:

Electronic government in Australia 203 • •

• • • •

• • •

•

Federal: The Hon. Daryl Williams AM, QC, MP, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (Chairman); New South Wales: The Hon. John Della Bosca MLC, Special Minister of State, Minister of Commerce, Minister for Industrial Relations, Assistant Treasurer, Minister for the Central Coast; Victoria: The Hon. Marsha Thomson MLC, Minister for Information and Communication Technology, Minister for Small Business; Queensland: The Hon. Paul Lucas MP, Minister for Innovation and Information Economy; Western Australia: The Hon. Clive Brown MLA, Minister for State Development, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Small Business; South Australia: The Hon. Jane Lomax-Smith MP, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for Employment Training and Further Education; Tasmania: The Hon. Jim Bacon MHA, Premier; Australian Capital Territory: Mr Jon Stanhope MLA, Chief Minister; Northern Territory: The Hon. Dr Peter H. Toyne MLA, Minister for Justice and Attorney-General, Minister for Corporate and Information Services, Minister for Communications, Minister for Central Australia; Local Government Association: Councillor Mike Montgomery, President.52

Whilst the formal members are elected ministers, there is a senior bureaucrat, typically a department secretary, who accompanies his or her minister and takes responsibility for carrying through agreements and understandings made at the council. Within the State governments, the level of networking between departments and agencies varies. For example, in Victoria, which has been an e-government leader, MMV has organised fortnightly meetings attended by at least one representative from each department and each channel.53 The federal Minsterial Council for the Information Economy At a federal level, the coordination of e-government is somewhat formalised, through the Ministerial Council for the Information Economy (MCIE). The council is responsible for the coordination of Australia’s whole-of-government participation in the information economy. This council is chaired by the minister for communications, information technology and the arts. It includes ministers from the portfolios most concerned with e-government, such as treasury, trade, finance, health and education. The MCIE has the following responsibilities, consulting with the States and territories where necessary: • • •

framing an approach to e-commerce; formulating a comprehensive regulatory and legal framework for information and online services; further developing a National Information and Online Services Strategy, outlining public and private sector roles and priorities for action;

204 • •

Nico Roehrich and Mark Armstrong overseeing the government’s position in international forums; and, continuing to design a whole-of-government blueprint for the Australian government as a lead user of new information and online technology.54

National Office of the Information Economy and the State departments From week to week, NOIE and its State counterparts are the bodies which manage the transition to e-government. NOIE plays a key role in the coordination and facilitation of federal policies such as the Online Strategy. As mentioned earlier, federal departments and agencies have prime responsibility for ensuring online opportunities are realised, so NOIE is rarely in a position to dictate to the rest of the bureaucracy. As a federal agency, NOIE has no authority over State and local government. However, it has made considerable efforts to assist all levels of government in delivering a reasonably consistent approach. For example, all levels of government use the same metadata standards. NOIE has direct responsibility for the development and coordination of advice to the federal government on information economy issues, including: •

• • • • •

the impact of information technology and communications issues, including issues relating to technology, industry convergence, industry development and the digital divide; the regulatory and physical infrastructure needed for online services, including security, privacy, authentication and standards; the application of new technology to government administration, information and service provision; assistance to business and government agencies to deliver services online; the consistency of the government’s position relating to information economy issues in relevant international forums; promoting the benefits of the information economy as well as Australia’s position in it.

NOIE was originally a separate office within the portfolio of the minister for communications, information technology and the arts. Its establishment was announced by the prime minister in September 1997. It started with a high profile, advised by an external board of industry experts. For its first two years, it was seen by many as the body which could produce concrete results from all the challenges on the online economy. However, the industry consensus was that it did not make much difference in practice. A similar structure had delivered good results in the State of Victoria a few years earlier. One key difference was that the Victorian structure was attached to the premier and the treasurer, who had a strong commitment to the area. NOIE, on the other hand, was attached to a minister with less importance. Neither he nor the leading figures in the federal government were seen by industry as having any strong commitment to the online economy. Opinions differ about whether the personalities of the original

Electronic government in Australia 205 NOIE leadership or advisers were responsible for its limited impact. Some would argue that no new agency could have overcome the political inertia in the national capital at the time. In October 2000, the federal government brought NOIE into a more normal relationship with the rest of the federal bureaucracy. It became an Executive Agency within the communications, information technology and the arts portfolio. Executive Agencies are non-statutory bodies established under section 65 of the Public Service Act 1999. They are intended to have a degree of independence from departmental management where that is appropriate to an agency’s functions, and where a statutory authority is not required. The Executive Agency structure is seen as useful where the functions of the agency will cross portfolio lines and require it to take a whole-of-government approach. The head of an Executive Agency is appointed by, and directly accountable to, the minister responsible for the agency. In NOIE’s case, it is the minister for communications, information technology and the arts. The head has the same management responsibilities as a departmental secretary.55 As part of the restructure, the functions of the former OGO and the Industry Development Division (formerly part of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) were incorporated into NOIE. The restructure was to ensure a ‘co-ordinated approach to technical, regulatory and social issues affecting government, business and consumers, in the take-up of online services’. NOIE has around 170 staff (permanent and temporary), with offices in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart (as of February 2002). After the restructure, NOIE was given new leadership. NOIE has established whole-of-government guidelines for authentication, security, privacy, metadata, electronic publishing, record-keeping and accessibility. But it has done this on a cooperative basis with State and local government. It has direct responsibility for the development and coordination of advice to the federal government on information economy issues, including: •

• • • •

the impact of information technology and communications issues on the information economy, including issues relating to technology and industry convergence; the regulatory and physical infrastructure needed for online services, including e-commerce; the application of new technology to government administration, information and service provision; assistance to business and government agencies to deliver services online; and the consistency of the government’s position relating to information economy issues in relevant international forums.

It is also responsible for the promotion domestically and internationally of the benefits of the information economy. NOIE also provides secretariat support to the Online Council, discussed above, which was established in 1997 following

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agreement by the federal, State, territory and local governments that cooperation on online issues was needed to promote consistency at a national level.56 The State equivalents of NOIE were listed earlier in this chapter. (For details on the abolition of NOIE in 2004, see chapter 9, p. 246.) Local government cooperation The federal and State levels attract most attention in e-government, but this should not imply that local government is inactive. Many of the websites provided by local councils are more informative and lively in content than the State and federal sites. They often have interactive features for licences, applications, payments and other services. The reason why local government is less visible from a policy viewpoint is that most local councils are small, and do not have the resources to employ policy officers or to take part in some of the higher-level meetings on e-government topics. The variations between different local government bodies in Australia are vast. Some local councils are comparatively large: for example, Brisbane City Council is larger than the whole Tasmanian State government. At the other extreme, some councils have only one employee. Some are located in sparsely populated areas. These variations make it difficult to generalise. There is little overall strategy to address local government as a sector. As a result, local government represents the most extreme version of the cooperative approach between organisations, with only a small top-down component. The peak body of local government is the Australian Local Government Association. Its members are the State and territory associations, which in turn represent individual local shires and councils. Municipal consortia are one of the mechanisms which have been used to pool resources between councils. A lead partner develops or procures an electronic service, which is then cascaded across other members of the consortium. For example, this approach has been applied by the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV),57 the representative and lobbying body for the seventy-eight councils in Victoria. Another example is in NSW, where the Local Government and Shires Associations58 coordinate the programme called Online Action, explained below.59 Although local government is a State responsibility, the federal government does become involved through some funding initiatives. For example, when the federal government sold part of its shareholding in Telstra, the national telecommunications carrier, it established the ‘Networking the Nation’ fund. Of this fund, AUS$45 million was allocated to local government, ‘to support regional and rural local government authorities to use telecommunications services to deliver improved services and benefits to their communities’. The Local Government and Shires Associations of NSW used Networking the Nation funds to establish Online Action,60 which helps local government provide services through standard websites and tools. Local government populates the website with local information and services. There are two main Online Action programmes:

Electronic government in Australia 207 ‘Internet Tools’ provides packaged web publishing and basic community service delivery for all NSW regional and rural councils. It offers a standard software package that allows councils to develop and maintain their websites, as well as add new features. The Associations are developing a series of information and service areas such as council notices, community services, environment and local rates (taxes). The project has customised eighty-seven websites for NSW country councils at no cost. The operating costs were paid on behalf of the participating councils to January 2004, at which time the project had to become financially self-sustaining. ‘Online Services Delivery’ is a project investigating more complex, interactive and integrated service delivery applications. It aims to help local government identify the priorities for online services, and determine their value and the complexity of implementation. It will develop a framework for the rollout of the services, including services on themes common to a number of councils. Online Action consultants develop models for service delivery, project and implementation plans, cost schedules and training plans for each service module. The cost of this work would otherwise be prohibitive for many small councils. The programme also ensures that websites conform to the relevant standards. Although local government is a State, and not a federal, responsibility, the federal government does have a small role. There is a federal minister for regional services, territories and local government, and the National Office of Local Government (NOLG).61 NOLG manages contact between the federal and local government, and advises the federal minister about local government. Whilst it has no official role in e-government, it contributes to the informal networks through which much of the coordination is done in Australia.

Notes 1

2 3 4 5 6

The results and opinions set out here are those of the authors, Professor Mark Armstrong and Nico Roehrich, based on published material available in 2003, with updates to address some later changes. However, it was not possible to accommodate 2004 structural changes such as the abolition of NOIE. The authors also conducted in-depth interviews with a sample of e-government leaders in some key State and federal roles, including: Steve Alford, NOIE; Joe Gunning, NOIE; Michael Hudson, Multimedia Victoria; Colin Griffith, Department of Information Technology and Management, NSW; David Watts, consultant; Glenn Archer, Centrelink; Paula Flynn, Centrelink; and Peter Wilson, Australian Taxation Office. We are grateful to all those interviewees and to Timothy Stewart of Allens Arthur Robinson for some valuable research incorporated into this chapter. ‘State’ is capitalised, unlike ‘federal’ and ‘local’, to avoid confusion between ‘the state’ as a generic term for a body politic, and the specific States of Australia and their governments. Available online at http://scaleplus.law.gov.au/html/pasteact/1/641/0/PA000700. htm. See www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/gov_online/agls/summary.html. See, for example, M. Robinson and A. Clennell, ‘Billions in limbo: setback for Fahey’, available online at http://newsstore.smh.com.au. These are extracted from www.govonline.gov.au/projects/egovernment/Better_ Practice/BPGuide/bp_index.htm#Examples%20of%20Better%20Practice.

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See www.biotechnology.gov.au/biotechnologyOnline. See www.abs.gov.au. See www.asknow.gov.au. See www.nga.net.au/jobs/gro. See www.nga.net. See www.gem.wa.gov.au/Gem. See www.oit.nsw.gov.au/pages/5.4.3.nswglp.htm. See www.pictureaustralia.org/about.html. See www.grantslink.gov.au. See www.fishonline.tas.gov.au. See www.audit.nsw.gov.au/perfaud-rep/Websites-June2002/Websites-Contents.html. See www.isr.gov.au/growth/html/Statement.html. DCITA, ‘Government Online: The Commonwealth Government’s Strategy’, available online at www.noie.gov.au/projects/egovernment/Archive/GovOnlineStrategy. htm. ‘The Current State of Play: Australia and the Information Economy’, available online at www.noie.gov.au/projects/framework/Progress/ie_stats/State_of_Play.pdf. See www.noie.gov.au/publications/NOIE/online_survey/r4report.pdf. Government Online Survey: Round 4, p. 1, www.noie.gov.au/publications/NOIE/ online_survey/r4report.pdf. See www.noie.gov.au/publications/NOIE/online_survey/r4report.pdf. See www.ebusinessforum.com/index.asp?layout=rich_story&doc_id=367. See www.noie.gov.au/projects/framework/Progress/ie_stats/CSOP_April2002/ CSOP_pages/OnlineGov_penetration.htm. See www.isr.gov.au/growth/html/Statement.html. DCITA, ‘Government Online: The Commonwealth Government’s Strategy’, April 2000, p. 3, available online at www.noie.gov.au/projects/egovernment/Archive/ GovOnlineStrategy.htm. See www.noie.gov.au/projects/egovernment/Better_Government/StrategicPriorities. htm. Government Online Survey Results: Round 4, available online at www.noie.gov.au/ publications/NOIE/online_survey/r4report.pdf. November 2002, available online at www.noie.gov.au/publications/NOIE/better_ services-better_gov/index.htm. See www.imsc.gov.au. See www.noie.gov.au/projects/framework/Archive/MCIE.htm. Figures are from a speech by Lindsay Tanner, Shadow Minister for Finance, February 2000, available online at www.lindsaytanner.com/Its%20time%20to%20get%20a% 20move%20online.doc. See www.noie.gov.au/projects/egovernment/Better_Practice/MWSGuide/mws_ Index.htm. Further information about OISOs is available online at www.noie.gov.au/projects/ egovernment/Better_Information/oiso.htm. More information is available online at www.ctc.nsw.gov.au. See www.noie.gov.au/projects/egovernment/Better_Services/tigers.htm. See www.noie.gov.au/projects/egovernment/Better_Business/Strategy/Implemen tationStrategy.htm. Available online at www.egov.vic.gov.au/Victoria/StrategiesPoliciesandReports/ Strategies/eGovernment/egovcontents.htm (HTML version) and www.dpc.vic.gov. au/CA256D800027B102/Lookup/PuttingPeopleattheCentre/$file/people_at_the_c entre.pdf (PDF version). ‘Gatekeeper – a strategy for public key technology use in the Government’ is available online at www.noie.gov.au/projects/confidence/Securing/Gatekeeperstrategy.htm. See www.noie.gov.au/projects/confidence/Securing/GatekeeperAccreditation.htm.

Electronic government in Australia 209 42 Attorney-General’s press release announcing that the Electronic Transactions Bill had passed the House of Representatives. 43 The Electronic Transactions (Queensland) Bill 2000 lapsed on 23 January 2001. The Electronic Transactions Bill 2001 (WA) is still before parliament; see www.parliament.wa.gov.au/parliament/bills.nsf/ACF088A05136303348256C0E001492CD/$Fi le/Bill38-1.pdf. The Electronic Transactions Act 2000 (NSW), Electronic Transactions Act 2000 (NT), Electronic Transactions Act 2000 (SA), Electronic Transactions Act 2000 (Tas), and Electronic Transactions Act 2000 (ACT) are available online at www.bmck.com/Australia/australia_encryption.htm. 44 Electronic Transactions Regulations 2000 Explanatory Statement, available online at http://scaleplus.law.gov.au/html/ess/0/2000/0/019.htm. 45 See www.noie.gov.au/projects/confidence/Improving/abn-dsc.htm. 46 Ibid. 47 National Health Information Management Advisory Council, Health Online: A Health Information Action Plan for Australia, 2nd edn, September 2001. Available online at www.health.gov.au/healthonline/docs/actplan2.pdf. 48 See www.health.gov.au/healthconnect. 49 See www.hesa.com.au. 50 See www.hic.gov.au. 51 See www.noie.gov.au/oc/background.htm. 52 This list is available online at www.noie.gov.au/oc/members.htm. 53 The channels are business, education, land, legal, health and tourism. They may be accessed online at www.channels.vic.gov.au. 54 See www.noie.gov.au/projects/framework/Archive/MCIE.htm. 55 See www.noie.gov.au/admin/executiveagency.htm. 56 See www.noie.gov.au/oc. 57 See www.mav.asn.au. 58 See www.lgsa.org.au. 59 See www.local-e.nsw.gov.au/about. 60 See www.local-e.nsw.gov.au. 61 See www.nolg.gov.au/aboutus.htm.

References Alston, R. (2002) ‘Government Online a success as Australia moves to new era of eGovernment’, Media Release, 27 February, available online at www.noie.gov.au/ publications/media_releases/archive/2002/Feb2002/Alston_eGov.htm. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2002), Year Book of Australia, available online at www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs%40.nsf/94713ad445ff1425ca25682000192af2/fe3fa39a 5bf5aa5aca256b350010b3fd!OpenDocument. Boyle, K. (2000) ‘An introduction to Gatekeeper: the government’s public key infrastructure’, Journal of Law and Information Science 11(1): 38–54. Dearne, K. (2001) ‘Alston approves bank PKI’, Australian, 19 June, p. 25. National Office of Local Government (2001) 2000–2001 Report on the Operation of the Local Government (Financial Assistance) Act 1995, available online at www.nolg.gov.au/public ations/national_report/00_01/index.htm. Rimmer, J. (2001) ‘Electronic government in Australia’s information economy’, Speech, National Office for the Information Economy, in Government Week, Ottawa, Canada, 15 October, available online at www.noie.gov.au/publications/speeches/Rimmer/ Canada_Oct01.htm. Roper, G. (2000) ‘Getting government online’, Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration, No. 97, September: 60–62.

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Tanner, L. (2000) ‘It’s time to get a move online’, available online at www. lindsaytanner.com/Its%20time%20to%20get%20a%20move%20online.doc. Watson, H. (2003) ‘Lessons from the TIGERS program: Trials of Innovative Government Electronic Regional Services’, Telecommunications Journal of Australia 53(3): 57ff.

8

Electronic government in the United States1 Martin Hagen

Introduction One of the main drivers behind e-government is the desire to overcome a fragmented public administration. In particular, this is true in federal states where there tend to be many redundant and confusing responsibilities. Therefore, the United States promise to be a rewarding case study for the ambitions, but also the agonies, of e-government initiatives aiming to overcome the boundaries of individual jurisdictions. In international comparisons, the US are often regarded as a role model for egovernment. This is partly due to the fact that the US is the internet’s home country and that it developed innovative e-commerce applications more rapidly than other nations. The following description of American e-government initiatives focuses on projects which have been primarily targeted to overcome institutional barriers between different levels of government. It does not intend to compare and introduce individual agencies’ single projects that are much more numerous in quantity. To understand these programmes in context, the US political system and its determining factors in respect to e-government are outlined first. This is followed by an overview of the US federal e-government strategy. In addition to the Bush administration’s plans, the history of the initiatives pursued under the Clinton/Gore administration are also presented, because finished projects can be better assessed in regard to their effectiveness, which is more difficult with ongoing projects. Two case studies will conclude this section. The chapter will end with an outlook on the prospects of current intragovernmental e-government initiatives in the US.

Administrative structure and distribution of powers Outline of the federal government structure The US is characterised by a horizontal separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judiciary branches, and by a vertical separation between the federal government and the fifty states (see Art. I, section 8 and Amendment X, US Constitution). The federal government and the states are

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two sovereign entities.2 American citizens therefore enjoy an affiliation to two sovereigns. The third level of administration is local government. It is largely constituted by laws of the states. This level retains a high degree of independence in organizational matters too. Ultimately, however, local governments are ‘creatures of the state’, as their independency is not embodied in the American Constitution. Distribution of legislative powers The American Constitution originally provided for a limited number of powers for the federal government. In particular, they are limited to the domains of foreign politics, defence and interstate commerce (enumerated powers, Art. I, section 8 of the Constitution). All other powers are assigned to the individual states, a fact explicitly emphasised in the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution (police power). As these powers are not shared with the federal government, the US government system was for a long time described as being one of ‘dual federalism’. During the twentieth century, this dual federalism turned into a so-called cooperative federalism (Falke 1998: esp. 266). One of the reasons for this transformation was the establishment and development of public social welfare, which was largely driven by the federal government. Its most important programmes were the ‘New Deal’ under Roosevelt beginning in 1935, and the ‘Great Society’ initiative under Johnson beginning in 1965. Since then, the most important social security and unemployment insurance as well as social benefits and equal opportunity programmes have been predominantly part of the federal government’s responsibility. In return, the federal government is entitled to the majority of inland revenue (Gordon and Milakovich 1995: 88). Further extensions of federal powers are found within responsibilities related to infrastructure, such as transport and traffic, regional planning, education and science. One of the elementary causes for this is a broad interpretation of the socalled Interstate Commerce Clause and its necessary and proper clause in Art. I, section 8 of the Constitution. Whilst this clause originally referred specifically only to the regulation of commerce between individual states, it justifies many political powers today. Formally, administrative actions are regulated by the Constitution; specific provisions are regulated by the Administrative Procedure Act (cf. 5 USC, §§ 551ff. and 7 USC, §§ 701ff.) and internal administrative regulations as well as corresponding provisions of the states. In principle, administration is to act in a fair, informed and competent manner. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution provides that ‘[no person shall] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law’; the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution determines the same in analogy for the states. Therefore, the due process clause is one of the central foundations for the legal justification and control of administrative action, particularly in court proceedings (cf. in detail Brugger 1993: 183ff., 202ff.).

Electronic government in the United States 213 Distribution of administrative powers In vertical terms, the federal government and the states maintain administrative autonomy and their own budget responsibilities. In part, the states have transferred these to the local governments too. A high degree of autonomy can also be noted on the horizontal level. On the federal level alone there are fourteen departments presided over by secretaries who are members of the Cabinet. In addition, there are more than forty-five independent, monocratically run agencies, collegially run agencies and independent regulatory commissions, as well as an additional multitude of governmental institutions, companies, banks and others (Shell 1998: 245). There are no systematic functional differences between the ministries and the independent agencies. Therefore, a highly diversified and heterogenic structure of responsibilities is created on the horizontal level. As for the states, their administrations are structured similarly to the federal administration. On the local government level, there are very diverse forms of organisation. One can distinguish between municipalities (townships in New England), counties and special districts. The municipalities provide the basic public services to their populations (e.g. police, fire, street maintenance, etc.). Counties perform functions on an intermediate level in most regions, but may also be responsible for local welfare programmes. The special districts deal with separate topical fields of politics, in particular schools (school districts) and infrastructures such as water or energy supply (public utilities). As a result, a highly complex and interwoven administrative structure has developed in the US despite the individual administrations’ independence in organisational, legal and budgetary matters. Seen from the outside, all levels of government may be interpreted as a joint system of financing and administration. Quite often, the federal government has transferred the execution of its programmes and the necessary means for this to the states. Although the states’ departments are organisationally independent from the federal government, they work closely together with the latter when carrying out specific programmes. In several cases, the federal government delegates responsibilities to specific state government agencies, as is the case for example in unemployment insurance (see below, pp. 230–232). Contacts between citizens and administrations A typical characteristic of the administrative structure in the US is that citizens interact with all levels of government. Building permissions, business licences and matters of civil status are dealt with on a local level. The execution of several social programmes as well as elections, including the registration of constituents, is delegated to local governments. The states themselves are responsible for the administration of the vehicle registration and driving licence systems and their own tax authorities that are entirely independent of the federal government. Federal government public authorities often used by citizens are the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The US Postal Service has offices all over the US. One of the consequences of

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such an administrative structure is that the American administration presents itself to the citizen in a very fragmented form. In addition to local government agencies, state and federal authorities maintain local branch offices and intermediate departments. They are dispersed geographically with great variation, too. Whilst larger towns host a federal building with branches of federal administrations and/or a Division of Motor Vehicles (the state’s) next to their own city hall, this is not the case in all of the smaller communities. In comparison, citizens probably deal most often with the Divisions of Motor Vehicles. This is due not only to the motor vehicle’s predominant importance for American society, but also to the non-existence of a separate registration system for which the driving licenses which have to be renewed every five years constitute a functional equivalent. In addition, vehicle registrations have to be renewed every two years. The IRS and the SSA are also contacted often. As a result, most citizens are used to dealing with federal, state and local governments at the same time. This is important because it explains the wish by most governments in the US to better their service through cooperation with other levels of government. Inter-governmental relations The system of ‘cooperative federalism’ in the US is characterised by a tension between separate responsibilities and powers on the one hand and a close interaction of the individual levels of administration on the other. Cooperation between the levels of administration, their organization and governance is therefore a permanent cause for political disputes in the US. From a chronological point of view, centralisation and decentralisation alternate as guiding organisational paradigms. The manifestations of inter-governmental coordination, or inter-governmental relations, as this field is called in the US, are correspondingly diverse. On the legislative side, local- and state-level interests are represented by the 435 members of the House of Representatives, who, in principle, all represent equally large constituencies, and by two senators from each of the fifty individual states. For each representative it is a matter of fact that he must primarily represent his constituencies’ interests and not those of a party. Only the president, who is elected directly, has a national constituency. Therefore, it is the duty of the members of Congress to consider the interests of their respective local constituencies in the discussion of national concerns. However, another formal representation of the state governments in the federal legislature or executive does not exist. Besides cooperation with the congressional delegation (representatives and senators) of the respective state, the state governments are obliged to represent their interests by lobbying. As such, they compete with all other interest groups attempting to influence Congress and the president. General interests of the states are represented by the National Governors Association, an interest group consisting of the states’ heads of government. The principal local government lobby organisations are the National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties. In addition,

Electronic government in the United States 215 there are a multitude of interest groups that represent specific administrative departments in terms of special functions. Two examples are the tax administrations (represented by the Federation of Tax Administrators) and the unemployment insurance administrations (represented by the Interstate Conference of Employment Security Agencies – ICESA). When the federal government delegates the execution of programmes to the states, then cooperation is ensured institutionally too, by supervision. In some cases, specifically designated organisations take over coordination responsibilities, as for example ICESA does in the case of unemployment insurance. Similar models for the safeguarding of interests can be found in the states between local administrations and state governments. Once they have been vested with a responsibility, the administrations execute it independently. Each administrative unit maintains a completely independent apparatus of departments right down to the local level. Other administrations are employed for assistance only to a very limited degree. This makes the exchange of data in particular both a necessity and a problem. Generally, the rule applies that data must not be exchanged between administrative levels nor between individual states. Even in the few cases where an exchange of data between administrations does take place, the data is preferably collected twice if in doubt (see below, pp. 230–232). The multitude of federal funds (so-called grants) that are allocated to states and local governments play an important role in the interaction of the American administrative levels. In an increasing manner, the lower administrative levels depend on these grants as public budgets decline. This dependency is being taken advantage of by the federal government when certain conditions reflecting ‘national’ policies are attached to the allocation of the funds. For example, in order to receive funds for road construction, a state must codify certain traffic rules such as wearing a helmet; similarly, grants to improve schools are only allocated under the condition that affirmative-action rules are complied with. Thus, grants have been an effective tool in implementing federal programmes or policy objectives. Not surprisingly, this practice of grant allocation has been the subject of much criticism and reform. One of the arguments against it is the factual annulment of the separation of powers between federal, state and local government which some politicians and legal experts consider incompatible with the Constitution. Another argument criticises the development of highly specialised ‘grant administration islands’ with respect to each programme’s objective. These are hard for the respective politically responsible bodies (councillors, representatives) to control. However, the grant system has not been changed much in principle, even though it has undergone many reforms, including the concentration and generalisation of initiatives for ‘block grants’, a practice that has been pursued since the Reagan administration (see, for example, Gordon and Milakovich 1995: 80–118). Besides political initiatives, court decisions have been instrumental in shaping the current system. Central elements of the federal system (the necessary and proper clause) and basic principles of administrative action (the due process

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clause) have been defined by the courts and not by a specific administrative statute. For this reason, borderline cases continue to be subjected to legal interpretation. And these too can change with the times, and, in turn, with general political trends and demands. Questions of recurring dispute in this context are whether the allocation of funds can be subjected to conditions, and the problem of unfunded mandates, e.g. responsibilities delegated to states by the federal government without properly reallocating budgets. Despite the various forms of cooperation, it is important to note that the federal government and the states are separate entities not only by law but also in the eyes of the public. The antipathy towards centralised institutions is deeply rooted in American political culture. It is particularly visible in internal affairs, e.g. ‘the bureaucracy’.3 The separation between local, state and federal government is generally accepted by the American population as a fundamental part of the public order and as part of the system of ‘checks and balances’, and is not questioned in principle.

National e-government strategy Starting point: the existing IT infrastructure Public authorities in the US have been using information technology for a long time. The historical development of supported tasks and applied hardware and software equals that of other industrial nations. It extends from the automation of mass processes over supporting office functions up to the introduction of the internet and intranets.4 From a technical point of view, singular large-scale applications, mainframes with terminal connections and PC networks succeeded each other. In organisational terms, operation was transferred to computer centres. The PC era provoked the decentralisation of operational functions (Hagen 2001a: 71ff.). Since the 1990s, a trend can be observed of privatising the public administration’s functional IT responsibilities (Margetts 1999). After the main internet backbone was made accessible to the general public, there followed the ‘internet revolution’. For this reason, the American public authorities had a head start in world wide web and email applications in comparison to other nations. Despite the hype of the internet, one must not forget that public administration had already gained experience with btx-/videotext-based systems, which prefigured many of the internet solutions (for a summary of the situation in the US, see Abramson et al. 1988). Information technology was used to approach citizens in the US comparatively early. A survey revealed that in the US, two-thirds of all efforts to modernise administration had involved the deployment of information technology, whilst in Germany and Great Britain the figure was approximately only one-third (Löffler 1997: 14). In the meantime, an assimilation process is likely to have taken place, as Germany has substantially increased its e-government activities on all administrative levels during the term of office of Chancellor Schröder and Minister of the Interior Schily. This corresponds with a high acceptance of the new technology by the

Electronic government in the United States 217 population of the US. The rate of internet connection is now well over 50 per cent. Also, the use of modern information technology has been perceived as an integral part of the democratic order since the times of Thomas Jefferson. This trait of American political culture not only increases the acceptance of e-government but also of e-democracy (Hagen 1997). Nevertheless, concerns about the safety of data traffic and data security are substantial barriers to the acceptance of many e-government applications. This is displayed by various user surveys (Hart-Teeter 2000: 17ff.; Momentum 2000: 21).5 National e-government strategy The Clinton/Gore administration’s e-government strategy If e-government is understood as the targeted deployment of computer technology with the aim of making accessible the public administration’s formerly closed IT systems more or less for direct interaction with the citizens,6 then the introduction of e-government in the US began at the time when the Clinton/Gore administration took office in 1993. A year earlier, in the election campaign, Clinton and Gore had already been able to free the subject of information technology from the experts’ discourse and had made it a staple in reform politics (Kubicek et al. 2001: 20). The administrative reform, in which Al Gore was engaged, centred around increasing the efficiency of the administrative apparatus. This was the ideal road to follow for saving financial resources on the one hand but without having to narrow down the administration’s range of responsibilities on the other. The initial proposals made to achieve this were devised in the so-called National Performance Review (NPR) with the collaboration of members of all public authorities, and were published in the autumn of 1993 under the programmatic title ‘From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less’.7 The proposals included measures for a reduction of the budget process; the decentralisation of human resources management; the reduction of the procurement system; a modification of the Inspector General’s responsibilities (i.e. the internal audit); the abolition of unnecessary administrative regulations; and the strengthening of the states’ governments and administrations and of the local authorities by consolidating more than 600 different grant programmes (see above, p. 215) and making them more flexible. The central report ‘From Red Tape to Results’ was accompanied by a supplement report, ‘Re-engineering through Information Technology’, that emphasised the central importance of the deployment of information technology in the reform effort. Thus, the introduction of information technology became one of the central lines of reform of the Clinton/Gore administration, next to the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993, which introduced a new method of output-oriented budgeting and controlling, and the Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA) of 1998, the central reform Act of Clinton/Gore’s second term of office.

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The re-engineering initiative comprised several pilot projects. It differentiated between specialised and infrastructure projects (see Table 8.1). The projects were assigned to responsible agencies and/or working groups. These fell into three categories: individual agencies with distinct projects (projects 2, 5, 6, 7), agencies with a cross-cutting responsibility for infrastructure projects (8, 10, 11, 12, 13), and the so-called Government Information Technology Services (GITS) Working Group (see below) and its sub-group for basic components.8 Table 8.1 Re-engineering projects Goal/project

Responsible agency

Strengthen leadership in IT 1. Provide clear, strong leadership to integrate information technology into the business of government

Government Information Technology Services (GITS) Working Group

Implement e-government 2. Implement nationwide integrated electronic benefit transfer

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

3. Develop integrated electronic access to government information and services

Customer Service Improvement Team (CSIT) at GITS

4. Establish a national law enforcement/ public safety network

Formulate the Law Enforcement Wireless Users Group (FLEWUG)

5. Provide inter-governmental tax filing, reporting and payments processing

Treasury/Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

6. Establish an international trade data system

Customs

7. Create a national environmental data index

Commerce/NOAA

8. Plan, demonstrate and provide government-wide email

OMB e-Mail Task Force

Establish support mechanisms for e-government 9. Establish an information infrastructure

GITS sub-group

10. Develop systems and mechanisms to ensure privacy and security

Privacy Working Group of IITF, National Institute of Standards and Technology and others.

11. Improve methods of information technology acquisition

General Services Administration (GSA)

12. Provide incentives for innovation

OMB

13. Provide training and technical assistance in information technology to federal employees

GSA/Office of Personnel Management (OPM)

Source: GITS Working Group (1994).

Electronic government in the United States 219 During the first term of office of the Clinton/Gore administration, email was introduced nationwide and internet presence became ubiquitous. Important NPR projects, however, were not successful, for example the Kiosk Network Project (see below, pp. 232–234). At the beginning of Clinton/Gore’s second term of office in 1996, new projects were collected under the programmatic title ‘Access America’. Although customer orientation had always been the prime objective of the administrative reforms, it was only at this time that it began to receive significant attention. Prior to this, the improvement of internal efficiency had been the prime arena for action.9 In Access America, particular attention was paid to the thirty-two so-called ‘Customer Impact Agencies’, i.e. those agencies with the highest rate of customer contact. These agencies employ 1.1 million of the federal administration’s employees. The vice-president made the following programmatic request: ‘You should focus your efforts in three areas – partnerships, the use of information technology, and customer service.’ In most other respects, the Access America initiative was a reissue of the reengineering activities, from the point of view of not only its content but also its form. Access America named thirteen concrete ‘Electronic Government’ projects that were to be promoted under the motto ‘Serving the Public on its Terms’. They were as follows: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

improve the public’s access to government services; implement nationwide, integrated electronic benefits transfer; provide all federal payments using electronic funds transfer by 1999; bring environmental information to the public; build an electronic environment, safety and health assistance resource for business; establish the inter-governmental wireless public safety network; address the information technology needs of the nation’s criminal justice community; provide simplified employer tax filing and reporting; support international trade with better data, available faster; create electronic export assistance centres; use electronic commerce to streamline government business processes; expand the inter-governmental information enterprise; improve the sharing of information technology experience worldwide. (Gore 1997)

The cross-cutting initiatives were divided into the following ‘Support Mechanisms’: 14 guarantee privacy and security; 15 integrate the government services information infrastructure; 16 improve information technology acquisition;

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17 increase the productivity of federal employees; 18 enhance information technology learning. (Gore 1997) The projects illustrated the continuation of old projects, the shift of focus to the subject of access and customer orientation, and new projects, for example a data bank with information for foreign trade. The only project with inter-governmental character that was included was a consolidation of compulsory tax registration for employers (see the case study below, pp. 230–232). Access America became part of the NPR, which was institutionalised as ‘Partnership for Reinventing Government’ (see below). One of the NPR’s aims was the comprehensive bundling of all information and services. Further focus was put on the construction of integrated access websites under the mottos ‘Access for Seniors’, ‘Access for Students’, ‘Access for Business’, etc. Compared with the original project 3 (see Table 8.1) by GITS, this new focus represented the abandonment of an all-embracing portal. Access America accommodated the fact that individual administrations had already constructed service offers themselves without bringing them into agreement, and which now had to be coordinated (see the case study below, pp. 232–234). In the summer of 2000, the construction of a portal of portals was begun. The website www.firstgov.gov is basically a search engine that was ‘donated’ by internet pioneer Eric Brewer. It became the American federal government’s central access portal at the time of the Bush administration. The ‘Access for …’ portals were integrated successively. In consequence, the majority of the federal authorities’ and many of the states’ and local governments’ information and services can be accessed via this portal. The Bush administration’s e-government strategy In November 2000, Al Gore lost the presidential election to his challenger George W. Bush. This meant the end of the administrative reform programmes of the Clinton/Gore administration. This was true on a political level, as witnessed by the liquidation of the NPR organisation, and on a personal level. Typically, an estimated 3,000 executives are exchanged when a new president takes office. However, on the content level, the Bush administration continued the work of its predecessor. This becomes obvious in the administrative reform agenda that Bush presented at the beginning of his term of office. It provides for five key areas, one of which is ‘Expanding e-Government’, with the others being ‘Strategic Management of Human Capital’, ‘Competitive Sourcing’, ‘Improved Financial Performance’ and ‘Budget and Performance Integration’. The emphasis that Clinton/Gore had already put on information technology is exceeded once more by Bush’s agenda. Now it is no longer merely the most important means of promotion but also a goal in itself. The Bush administration’s e-government strategy was developed by the newly appointed associate director for information technology and e-government of

Electronic government in the United States 221 the Office of Management and Budget in the summer of 2001, and was presented in February 2002. Its programmatic subtitle is ‘Simplified Delivery for Services to Citizens’ (OMB 2002). The strategy purports to be founded on the following three principles: • • •

citizen-centred, not bureaucracy-centred; results-oriented; and market-based, actively promoting innovation. (ibid.: 3)

Here too it becomes evident that the earlier approaches to e-government are continued. One of the main problems of the development of e-government so far is seen to be the inefficient organisation of federal government that expresses itself by redundant and overlapping competencies. On average, nineteen authorities are involved in twenty-eight areas of business (ibid.: 2). Also, the existing administrative culture, the lack of a business architecture, a lack of trust, the lack of available resources, and opposition by the parties involved are identified as barriers (ibid.: 12). The e-government strategy chose 24 projects from approximately 350 known ones on the basis that they promise the highest degree of value for the citizen and an improvement in the agencies’ efficiency after an estimated implementation period of 18 to 24 months. The projects aim at improving internal processes and simplifying cross-agency cooperation. All projects are grouped into four ‘E-Government Portfolios’ characterised by their target group orientation. They differentiate between government to citizen (G2C), government to business (G2B), government to government (G2G), and internal efficiency and effectiveness (IEE). The G2C initiatives are designed to enable ‘one-stop’ and online access to services and also to introduce (customer) relationship management software (for this and the following, see Table 8.2). The G2B initiatives are designed to deal with the redundant collection of company data that is subject to registration, communication without a change of media and the implementation of eXtensive Mark-up Language (XML). The G2G initiatives are intended to improve and simplify the exchange of data between the public authorities at the federal, state and local levels, and to lead to an improved integration of the different programmes. In this context, disaster control and internal (‘homeland’) security play a particular role. The IEE initiatives aim at the introduction of standard systems for supporting materials management and procurement, human resources management, budgeting and document workflow (ibid.: 13). The two cross-cutting initiatives, ‘e-Authentication’ and ‘Federal Enterprise Architecture’, are of particular importance. The first one addresses the subjects of identity and security (see below). The second one intends to define an obligatory architecture for all of the federal government’s e-government activities and identify a collectively deployable basis technology. It differentiates access channels, lines of business and value creation chains. The lines of business are

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Table 8.2 Initiatives of the Bush administration’s e-government strategy Orientation

Name

Government to citizen (G2C)

Recreation One-Stop Eligibility Assistance Online Online Access for Loans US Services EZ Tax Filing

Government to business (G2B)

Online Rulemaking Management Expanding Electronic Tax Products for Business Federal Asset Sales International Trade Process Streamlining One-Stop Business Compliance Information

Government to government (G2G)

Geospatial One-Stop e-Grants Disaster Assistance and Crisis Response Wireless Public Safety Interoperable Communications – Project SAFECOM e-Vital

Internal efficiency and effectiveness (IEE)

e-Training Recruitment One-Stop Integrated Human Resources e-Clearance e-Payroll/HR (Payroll Processing Consolidation) e-Travel Integrated Acquisition Environment Electronic Records Management

Cross-cutting initiatives

e-Authentication Federal Enterprise Architecture

Source: OMB (2002); see detailed description and commentary there.

attached to the fields of policy-making, programme administration, compliance and internal operations/infrastructure. The value creation chains, i.e. basis processes, are differentiated by value-added information, procurement, and ‘command and control’. This highly abstract but integrated attitude of the federal government suggests that federal government is organised along the lines of a conglomerate and can be led in the same manner.10 In addition, further useful approaches to the development of e-government are to be researched (ibid.: 2). After the GPRA and the GPEA had been the central IT-related reform laws of the Clinton/Gore administration, the Bush administration’s major law is the e-Government Act of 2002 (Public Law 107–347). It institutionalised some important e-government drivers. Most importantly, it established the Office of Electronic Government at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for central steering functions and the Chief Information Officers Council as an

Electronic government in the United States 223 inter-agency forum to improve the delivery of electronic services (Title I). Of high significance is also a renewed attempt to help increase inter-governmental cooperation. The Law establishes the now so-called ‘e-Government Fund’ at the General Service Administration (GSA) and calls for a variety of integrated internet-based systems. Thus, the GSA and OMB are required to work together on these activities (Title II). Also, it promotes dialogue between all levels of government, as well as with business and the general public. The Law calls on each federal agency to develop e-government services, also in an integrated fashion. The creation and maintenance of websites with up-todate information is made mandatory (section 206). The agency heads are also required to address issues of the digital divide and make sure that the new services can be appreciated by the largest possible audience. The Law requires the agencies to comply with centrally determined standards for various aspects of communications systems, in particular those relating to electronic signatures (section 203). The Law also includes a variety of particular projects in various jurisdictions, such as the courts, science, education and disaster relief. Backed by this institutional support, the various projects of the Bush administration’s e-government initiative were well under way as of 2003 and have made progress along their action lines. The first and second status reports are witness to this.11 How difficult it is, though, to change the complete culture of the government on its way to being a paperless organisation is illustrated by a report from the General Accounting Office (GAO 2001). Its criticism was that agencies had been slow to respond to the requirements of the GPEA. This made it hard for anyone to measure the real impact of the government reform acts. The role of electronic signatures in US e-government strategies Electronic signatures in US business dealings have been admitted at both the state and the federal government levels. The states, in particular Utah, were pioneers in this respect. Their varying initiatives were finally bundled together in a model bill, the Uniform Electronic Transaction Act (UETA) of 1999. It essentially provides for a technically neutral regulation that is not bound to a technology, as is the case, for example, with public key infrastructures (PKIs). The law’s basic principle leaves it to the private actors in the marketplace to develop their own types of electronic signatures. However, this is a model bill, and states are implementing different governing schemes (see Miedbrodt 1998).12 At the federal level, Congress passed the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Law (in short, the ‘e-Sign Law’) in 2000. After it was signed by President Clinton, it became effective on 1 October 2000. This law stipulates the interchangeability of paper and electronic forms in all business dealings in principle. Exceptions are the redemption of credits, maintenance payments and life insurance policies, among others (see, in detail, OMB 2000b). Within the limits drawn by the e-Sign Law, the deploying agencies determine which electronic procedures are to be recognised as being equivalent to their respective

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paper-based versions. The regulations must, however, be neutral in regards to technology: the methods elected must not ‘require, or accord greater legal status or effect to, the implementation or application of a specific technology or technical specification for performing the functions of creating, storing, generating, receiving, communicating, or authenticating electronic records or electronic signatures’ (e-Sign Law, section 104(b)(2)(C)(iii); cf. OMB 2000b: 11). The fundamental admissibility of electronic signatures in administrative actions had already been set out in the 1998 GPEA. The question of the legitimacy of electronic signatures is also specified in technical statutes (see also OMB 2000a). For example, the 1998 IRS Restructuring and Reform Act grants the Commissioner of the IRS the possibility of admitting electronic signatures. The e-Government Act of 2002 then made the use of electronic signatures mandatory and charged the GSA to provide the necessary authorisation policies. Parallel to the creation of a legal framework, the American federal government is working on the actual introduction of PKIs and smart cards. Here too there have been a multitude of pilot projects. For example, the first report by the Federal Public Key Infrastructure Steering Committee in 1998 listed twentythree such projects (FPKI Steering Committee et al. 1998). A consolidation of the results and a recommendation for a collective infrastructure for the entire federal government have successively been part of the programme since the convocation of the GITS committee up until the latest e-government decision by the Bush administration. The fact that none of these initiatives has been successful yet is equally significant, however. The American federal government’s PKI initiatives are closely related to the introduction of smart cards. Since 1998, a credit (debit) card issued by the GSA in cooperation with one of five banks, with which federal government employees are able to buy goods and book travel arrangements, has already been in use.13 Projects in the social sector, for example the system of replacing food stamps with smart cards (Kubicek and Hagen 1998: 210; USDA 1997), have considered using cryptographic codes. The issuance of identity and signature certificates to citizens on a large scale has also been examined by the GSA, in particular in the project ‘ACES’. In an initial trial of the Access America initiatives, certificates were issued to students who applied for federal scholarships. Similar projects were also conducted by other parties, for example by the US Postal Service and the SSA (US Postal Service 1998: 31; Mitchel 2000). The problem is now one of the central action items of the Bush administration’s e-government strategy. The e-Authentication project is setting up the central e-Authentication gateway at the GSA. Major tasks to be addressed include the final drafting of authentication policies and the addition of more transactional services to the gateway. Institutional drivers of e-government Since the Clinton/Gore administration, e-government has been given top priority in the US. Al Gore in particular, but also Bill Clinton, publicly promoted the deployment of information technology, especially the internet, in the public

Electronic government in the United States 225 administration, and by doing so placed the subject on the agenda of administrative reform not only in America but also internationally (Kubicek et al. 1997). The working groups responsible for the preparation of the re-engineering and Access America initiatives reported directly to the vice-president. The GITS Working Group, put into office in November 1993, was assigned both to the administrative reform initiative NPR as well as to the National Information Infrastructure initiative, and gained particular significance. Representatives of the majority of the large agencies participated in this working group. It formed sub-groups on demand in which the respective agencies concerned, i.e. interested representatives, worked together. The working group was institutionalised in 1996 by an Executive Order as the GITS Board. The GITS Board was also granted limited funds, the IT Fund Program, which was part of the GSA’s FTS2000 budget (see below). The institutionalisation of the position of chief information officer (CIO) by the same Executive Order, a position which since then has become obligatory for all of federal government, has in the long term gained significant importance. Subsequently, information technology has been given the highest priority also in the secondary authorities and ministries. The Chief Information Officers Council (CIO Council) was set up as a coordinating committee. Since then, the CIO Council has become the central committee for inter-administrative communication and coordination of the American federal government, and was codified formally by the e-Government Act of 2002. A further qualitative step towards giving e-government the highest priority was taken when the Bush administration appointed the first associate director for information technology and e-government at the OMB. The OMB is part of the Executive Office of the President and is responsible for planning the budget. It is therefore the central public authority for the entire federal government. Its responsibilities also include the regulation of collective organisational questions in the federal government. As such, the OMB also determines the procedural process requirements through its administrative directives (‘circulars’). The associate director mentioned above is therefore vested with the function of a federal CIO. The e-government law ultimately institutionalised this function with the creation of the Office of e-Government within the OMB. In order to implement the e-government strategy, the federal CIO works together with the CIO Council. In accordance with the reorientation that took place after the change of government in 2000, this Council dissolved its Electronic Government Committee (which had absorbed the GITS Board) and instead set up four Portfolio Groups, with each one attending to one of the sets of measures described above.14 The CIO Council was also codified in the egovernment law of 2002 and is presided upon by the Office of e-Government’s director, the federal CIO. The GSA is also vested with a central function in all e-government efforts. This independent authority is not allocated to any ministry and has original competencies both in matters of technological infrastructure regarding federal government as well as for cooperation with states and local governments in this

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sector. In general, specific responsibilities are transferred to the agency by the president’s Executive Order. The budget is determined by Congress. The GSA’s main responsibility is conducting operative business. It is responsible, in particular, for all procurement management but also for information technology.15 With the Office of Government-wide Policy (OGP), it additionally promotes programmatic development in these sectors. A subdivision, the Office of Intergovernmental Solutions, attends to matters concerning cooperation between individual administrative levels. Thereby, the GSA is able to support other federal authorities by acting as a role model and by issuing recommendations and exemplary solutions outside the legislative function it has to enforce within the procurement process and outside other federal authorities’ funds for pilot projects. The imposition of sanctions on other agencies’ individual projects is only possible to a very limited degree and can only be enforced indirectly. In the sector of technological development, the GSA also fulfils a central function. The GSA is the decisive protagonist and promoter of the introduction of smart cards and the construction of PKIs, or, recently, their respective authentication policies. These initiatives are coordinated by the Office of eGovernment that is subordinate to the OGP.16 For a long time, innovations in the telecommunications and network technology sector were financed from a special budget, the FTS2000 Fund. This fund also financed projects that were realised together with states and local governments. An example in the area of e-government is the construction of the fibre-optic network Iowa Communications Network (ICN) in Iowa and, ensuing from it, the initiative ‘IowAccess’, in which inter-governmental e-government applications were to be developed towards the end of the 1990s (see below, pp. 230–232). In the e-Government Act of 2002, such a fund was created under the name of the ‘e-Government Fund’ (see above). Despite the fact that this fund is of crucial importance, it must also be noted that the amount of funding is rather limited. The Bush administration had initially planned to spend US$345 million on IT projects. However, Congress significantly reduced this figure. After it appropriated only US$5 million of spending in both 2001 and 2002, the OMB asked for US$45 million in funds for e-government in 2003. However, Congress cut these funds substantially and allocated only US$5 million in 2003 and US$3 million in 2004. Considering this institutional set-up, the implementation of any federal egovernment strategy is dependent on the more or less voluntary cooperation of the individual agencies. This is due to the fact that the OMB and GSA are able to draw guidelines but can only put a limited amount of directive pressure on other agencies. The dilemma of wanting to set standards on the one hand and having to respect an individual agency’s organisational sovereignty on the other is discernible too in both the GPEA’s and the e-Sign Law’s neutral phrasing in respect of a choice of technology. The OMB sets the organisational implementation directives for both statutes and thereby determines the limits for the agencies’ interpretations. This results, however, as is particularly evident in retrospect, in an extremely heterogeneous system environment in which various pilot

Electronic government in the United States 227 projects and technologies compete with each other. It remains to be seen to what extend the new signature legislation under the e-Government Act of 2002 will overcome this situation. During the Clinton/Gore administration, the NPR was of particular importance. The NPR was not a new agency, but rather a matrix organisation that was commissioned to develop, specify and support the individual reform initiatives of the earlier National Performance Review.17 Its staff were borrowed for a limited time from the specialised agencies. They conducted individual projects in cooperation with the specialised agencies. Several working groups have dealt with inter-governmental e-government in particular. Among these have been the Intergovernmental Enterprise Panel (IEP) and its Intergovernmental Advisory Board (IAB), which were coordinated by the GSA’s OGP, and in which federal, state and local governments were represented. These committees were only able to issue recommendations, however, and not set any binding guidelines. There is no obligation to set up any of these committees and their work is therefore largely dependent on their members’ commitment. If this commitment declines, they are threatened by short-term dissolution. It must be noted, however, that the e-Government Act of 2002 specifically made cooperation between the different levels of government an issue, calling for more cooperation. At the time of writing, the effect of this formal legalisation is not known. But it must be applauded as (another) step in the right direction. The GSA still seems to be the driving force behind actual projects. It recently engaged itself in the ‘Government without Boundaries’ programme (GSA 2002). The programme intends to overcome the institutional barriers created by the sovereignty of the different units by focusing on areas of mutual interest and concern between various authorities. These are to a very large extent common descriptions of content data and the need to integrate information services. In a pilot study in the area of parks and recreation, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the State of New Jersey and Fairfax County in Virginia cooperated for a joint service. Together, they created a pilot which shows the possibilities of vertical integration. Information on Virginia and Fairfax parks can now be accessed through the US Department of the Interior’s ‘Recreation.gov’ website (www.recreation.gov). The key here is that everyone is allowed to participate to the extent to which they feel comfortable. The whole approach is underpinned by a development methodology which makes use of object-oriented design technologies and XML data format descriptions. This rather informal form of cooperation contrasts with a more compulsory one. In areas in which the exchange of data is already practiced across all agencies, there are collective standardisation committees in which the individual agencies, including the state and the local governments, are represented. Examples of such committees include TIGERS (Tax Information Group EDI Requirements Standardization, a sub-group of the American National Standards Accredited Standards Committee X12-Government Subcommittee, which is also organised by the Federation of Tax Administrators) and the AAMVA (American Association of Motor Vehicle Authorities, which is the

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association of American registration and admissions agencies for motor vehicles). Formats for the exchange of data set out by them are binding for all agencies involved. Their practical significance is accordingly high. They are supervised and developed by permanent working groups in which representatives of the respective industries may also participate. In accordance with the principles of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) (consensus, due process, openness), standards are defined by mutual agreement after public discussion processes. Finally, there are various interest groups, lobby organisations, publishing bodies and scientific institutions that have committed themselves to the deployment of information technology in public administration, and who, by publishing recommendations and case studies or by public offers of competitions (see below), help to improve e-government in the US. The participation of private protagonists in the efforts for e-government remains formally limited to the latter organisations. However, it must be noted that the fluctuation between public and private sector is very strong, particularly on the executive level. On average, an executive’s term of office amounts to only 2.6 years (Shell 1998: 244). Because of its permeability to industry, the administration leadership is more likely to take into account the latest business practices from outside government, at least programmatically.18 This is also very well reflected in the recent work on the federal government architecture, which is very closely modelled according to private sector architectures. The limitations of this openness to the private sector are, however, also considerable. In the summer of 2003, the Bush administration’s first CIO, Mark Forman, left after only two years for a position back in the private sector. In a press release, it was reported that Forman openly admitted that the primary motive for this was the better pay in industry!19 Control instruments for implementing e-government strategies In order to implement its e-government strategy, the American government counts on a number of different measures. The most important control instruments for implementation are political leadership and the availability of financial resources (Mechling and Sweeney 1997; Mechling and Fletcher 1996; Intergovernmental Advisory Board 1998a, 1998b).20 The rapid expansion of e-government projects in the entire federal administration was due to the president’s and the vice-president’s strong personal commitment during the Clinton/Gore administration and the management officials appointed by them. The cooperation of the authorities was also required formally, again and again (cf. Executive Order 13011 of 16 July 1996, Federal Register, vol. 61, no. 140, pp. 37657–37662, and again George W. Bush’s egovernment strategy (OMB 2002) and the e-Government Act of 2002 (see above)). Assisted by the CIOs (or their functional predecessors), almost every federal American authority developed its own website relatively early on and started to

Electronic government in the United States 229 offer services via the internet. George W. Bush also prominently embodied the subject in his agenda for administrative reform. Whether he will continue to do so will only become clear at the end of his term of office. After 11 September 2001, the Bush administration became primarily occupied with the ‘war against terror’. Accordingly, his e-government strategy also emphasises its contribution to internal security – a focus that was less elaborated in preceding documents. A typically American means of promoting innovative projects is a competition. To win one is prestigious and inspires imitation, even if no financial reward is attached. The Clinton/Gore administration even invented a new award, the so-called ‘Hammer Award’, which was awarded to exemplary projects. The annual competition ‘Innovations in American Government’, for example, is also widely regarded. It is organised by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in cooperation with the Council for Excellence in Government.21 Financing e-government projects is a big problem. Even though they aim ‘To do more with less’ (the NPR’s slogan), up-front investments are needed. The e-government projects are financed to a major degree by the agencies themselves with their own funds and by the current budgets. The long-term fixing of these funds results in a shortage of funds for new e-government projects because there are only a few overall funds that can be used for egovernment projects. They are mainly managed by the GSA (as part of the e-Government Fund mentioned above). These funds are set aside to finance cooperative programmes.22 The strategic deployment of information technology is indirectly prescribed by the OMB’s directives for setting up outcome-oriented budgets. The GPRA requires the formulation of a strategy and subsequent implementation plans. These pay particular attention to measuring the quantity and quality of an agency’s services in relation to its customers. The deployment of information technology for reaching these goals was one of the GPRA’s integral elements (Clinton and Gore 1997: 13). The new team in the Bush administration has brought a distinctive business flavour to the toolbox of e-government accelerators. The Hammer Awards, which Gore personally presented to people and projects, are history. E-government initiatives are now monitored with highly aggregated, yet detailed and focused control instruments. For example, the progress of each initiative is measured using individual criteria. Also, the administration has developed an e-government scorecard, which awards each agency a green, red or yellow ‘light’ according to its maturity. A move from yellow to green is publicly applauded, and a stand-still at red is criticised (see, for a very informative illustration, OMB 2003a). An exceptional example of IT-project funding can be found in the education sector, where Congress and the Clinton/Gore administration developed their own support programme for connecting all schools to the internet. The initiative ‘Netdays’ encouraged all parents and volunteers to connect schools to the internet. These efforts were accompanied by the schools’ obligation to develop strategic technology plans presenting the intended expansion and operation of

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their computer equipment in order to be able to gain access to certain (federal) funds (the so-called ‘Technology Literacy Challenge’). This method was also copied by the states. Additionally, the federal government created a new source of income, the ‘Education Rate’, which operators of telecommunications networks and hospitals had to pay (see, in detail, Kubicek et al. 2001: 104ff.; Breiter 2000: 13). In the sector of the central administration, however, the federal authorities have not made use of an equivalent lever. A similar programme for equipping agencies with e-government is not conceivable because the political culture of the US (central) administration is principally independent and has its own organisational sovereignty. Such a programme could only be justified if it were proven, for example, that differing qualities in the form of administrative services (not their content) would impair the citizens’ equal opportunities. Such evidence, however, has not yet been furnished by the administration – regardless of the fact that all agencies strive for their improvement. In the absence of further funds, the exchange of knowledge and the creation of an internal network play important roles. The organisation of the various working groups pursuing this objective has already been examined above. Their activities are complemented by relevant publications, in particular regular newsletters and best practice compilations. Cooperation among the agencies themselves in actual projects, such as cooperation between administrative levels, is often mentioned in this context. Inter-governmental relations in US e-government On a programmatic level, there is a high awareness of the fact that intergovernmental cooperation is necessary for e-government. This is partly due to the strong visibility of the relevant programmes resulting from their respective political support and the work of the many interest groups, comprehensive working groups, scientific institutions, and other public and private organisations. This, however, contrasts with a big deficit of actual successes. Most projects included in the e-government strategies only affect a few federal authorities. And those that were planned across all levels have not been able to live up to expectations. The stories of two ambitious authority- and level-transcending egovernment projects, STAWRS und WINGS, illustrate both the promise and the reality of cross-agency cooperation in the US.23 Simplified Tax and Wage Reporting System In the US, employers are obliged to interact with tax and social security administrations at regular intervals. At the federal level, the SSA receives wage-related information. Unemployment insurance, though it is a federally controlled programme, is mainly dealt with by the individual states. In tax matters, there is a double responsibility: both the IRS at the federal level as well as the states’ tax agencies receive filings from companies liable for taxation. Thus, a minimum of

Electronic government in the United States 231 four separate agencies are contacted by individual employers on a regular basis. The burdens and costs incurred by this practice are considerable for both the public and the private sectors. Separate forms for each individual type of filing have to be produced, and the collection, keying-in, checking and correction of data is conducted at four different public bodies. This is a problem because a substantial part of the data is identical, referring to the names of employees, wages, and taxes paid or withheld. In the early 1990s, a coalition of federal authorities, state interest groups and employers set out to fundamentally simplify this system. Basically, the number of registration points for the forms was to be reduced. A single point of entry at the federal level was supposed to forward the data to the other agencies. However, the first concept, which had the most potential to decrease costs, was in the end too radical. The states, who had supported the initial idea, rejected it because they perceived it as a violation of their sovereignty. The problem therefore remained and became the task of the then-created Simplified Tax and Wage Reporting System (STAWRS), mostly funded by the IRS, but also by other involved departments. One of the reasons why the project found sufficient support was its comparatively huge savings potential. According to a calculation conducted by the STAWRS project office, the expenses incurred by the standard reporting requirements amount to approximately US$15 billion per year. The federal government and the states incur annual costs of US$650,000 (STAWRS 1998b: 3-1). After the failure of the top-down strategy, a bottom-up strategy was put in place. STAWRS was now attempting to develop role model concepts through small pilot studies with only a few partners which may then be adopted by the individual agencies. The initiatives focused on process optimisation, standardisation of report data and bundling of relevant information (the ‘One-Stop-Government’ concept). In order to standardise the common elements of report data, a working group consisting of representatives of federal government and the states, industry and interest groups developed a proposal: the Harmonized Wage Code (HWC). The HWC was only a subset of all data required, namely those elements and their instances that were used most frequently. A binding transfer of this collective data description could not, however, be achieved. Not STAWRS, but the national and state legislatures would have had to mandate its use. In regard to process optimisation, or Single Point Filing, STAWRS attempted to mitigate the problem of redundant data collection by using software to send the data to the various offices simultaneously.24 This approach was pursued in a pilot project in Iowa. Besides STAWRS, another prerequisite for this pilot study was its being funded through an umbrella e-government initiative in Iowa, IowAccess. As explained above (p. 226), this initiative was financed by federal funds from the GSA because it aimed to develop applications for a fibre-optic network in Iowa that had also been constructed with federal funding, the ICN. Although the project presented a possible solution, it did not proceed beyond the development of a rudimentary prototype. Also, cumbersome interfaces between paper and electronic media could not be overcome; partly, the data was saved on disks and then printed out

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and recorded again manually. Neither was the ICN used by this project, but instead networks proprietary to the IRS. The Iowa idea, however, was kept alive in one of the project’s successors. A project was started to develop a standardised piece of commercial software that would take over the automatic filling-out of the individual agency forms (amounting to approximately 100, as unemployment insurance and tax authorities in all fifty individual states have to be addressed in addition to the SSA and IRS). Thus, the history of STAWRS is marked by a powerful vision at the start of the programme and a subsequent downscaling and differentiation of the project focus. This is true despite the fact that all parties involved in the project worked very hard to bring the vision of a much better and easier wage reporting system into life. The institutional difficulties are very hard to overcome. Although all agencies agree with the aims of STAWRS in principle, for them participation in the project means expenses in the short run, and not only investments in IT and process (re)organization. Also, they lose operational independence. The already fragile project consensus is further undermined by the fact that the advantages realised by the introduction of such a system are too small for one individual agency. The major benefit of the completed system is accumulated on the private side, as 90 per cent of the savings will be realised by the employers. Despite its difficulties, this last fact is the reason why STAWRS, or at least the idea behind it, remains on the political agenda. The Bush administration’s egovernment strategy is now focused on the electronic application of tax numbers for companies (Employer Identification Numbers). One needs to understand that even though this is now an important part of e-government strategy, in itself it is only a small part of what was once envisaged: to substantially re-engineer the entire wage reporting system.25 Web Interactive Network of Government Services Clinton’s and Gore’s attention to re-engineering and information technology gave rise to a lot of ideas inside many federal authorities on how to use information technology in new ways in order to provide better service to their customers. The new GITS Working Group founded the Customer Service Improvement Team (CSIT) to implement action line 3 of their work programme, the development of integrated electronic access to administrative information and services. Its goal was to build an ‘on ramp’ to the information superhighway (Reisner 1999b). This effort was spearheaded by the US Postal Service (USPS). Under its leadership, the CSIT produced a report entitled ‘The Kiosk Network Solution: An Electronic Gateway to Government Service’ (Interagency Kiosk Committee 1995). In it, CSIT calls on the USPS to develop, implement and finance a comprehensive Kiosk pilot project for all levels of public administration (McCuiston 1998: 31). Subsequently, the USPS started the project under the name Web Interactive Network of Government Services (WINGS) (US Postal

Electronic government in the United States 233 Service 1996: 7). With approximately 40,000 post offices nationwide, it was believed that the USPS could apply its skills in managing such a big infrastructure to an electronic network as well. WINGS set itself three goals: the development of a kiosk network providing access to public services on all administrative levels; the construction of an infrastructure for authenticated and confidential transactions; and the development of electronic services on the basis of the principle of life events. All services with regard to life events, for example in the event of a birth, marriage or moving, were to be offered in a bundled fashion. WINGS searched for partners for its project among federal authorities, states and local governments. They were most successful in North Carolina. Inspired by WINGS, the state government developed plans for a specific kiosk network in North Carolina (NC CONTACT – North Carolina Computerized Online Network to Answer Citizen Topics; cf. IRM 1995).26 These plans were quickly ‘forgotten’ again in the course of an internal shift of priorities within the North Carolina administration. However, WINGS was successful in teaming up with the local governments of Charlotte and its surrounding county Mecklenburg in North Carolina. For Charlotte-Mecklenburg, WINGS was helpful because the administration had to integrate different projects which all intended to build public websites and portals on the internet; among them was a very successful community network called ‘Charlotte’s Web’. In a situation with different approaches fighting for supremacy, collaboration with a strong partner with financial resources and technical know-how such as the USPS seemed to be a solution worth pursuing. As a result, the local governments and the USPS installed and operated the first (and only) prototype of the WINGS kiosk network from mid-1996 until the end of 1997. In principle, the project demonstrated the possibility of de-centrally administrating a kiosk network via a TCP/IP network. Today a common staple in virtually every government, this was new in the mid-1990s. It made it obsolete to distribute information on static storage devices such as disks. Notably, WINGS was the largest customer of the new company Netscape at that time, whose browser was used in a modified version (Smoter 2000). Due to its novelty, the project had to attribute a considerable amount of resources to create the network. Considerable problems arose in respect to the operation and the maintenance of the kiosks. Central components such as the printers easily jammed or broke. In the end, the results were so frustrating that the pilot project was not continued after its termination (Kidd 2000). In hindsight, the timing of the project became a big problem. When it was conceived, the TCP/IP-connected kiosk network was state-of-the-art technology. But while the project was set up, and as it began looking for partners, the internet started its triumphant advance. Subsequently, the highly desirable, relatively easily accessible access platform became even more easily available (and cheaper) for many citizens via the home PC. In such an environment, a relatively expensive kiosk network had difficulties demonstrating added value for the citizens, especially since it was planned that users would pay for the services at the kiosks much like they would pay for telephone calls at public phone booths. In

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consequence, the idea of a kiosk network for public services lost support inside the USPS’s management, where an internal strategy dispute had been going on for some time, arguing whether the USPS should develop new business lines for other public sector agencies or if it should concentrate on its core business of postal services. In the end, the latter argument prevailed and thus ended the project on the part of the USPS. WINGS also failed in respect of its two other goals. The project’s management engaged itself with great energy in finding other agencies to participate across all administrative levels in the US. Although it was able to pick up letters of intent from all levels of government, which together can be taken as proof of general support for the project idea, most of them were not followed on through, except in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The federal authorities, states and local governments preferred to rely on their own developments. Furthermore, after the expansion of the internet, this was made relatively easy, so that one of the selling points for WINGS, the common technical infrastructure, seemed to be of less importance. WINGS was flexible enough to readjust the project goal, and focused in its later stage on delivering security, encryption and payment functions, e.g. those technologies which were not yet readily available to other agencies. The agencies’ interest in these specific services was accordingly high, as was also the case in the IowAccess project described above. But ultimately, WINGS never delivered on this promise. Considering the problems other countries experienced with the organisation of PKI and the administration of central transaction platforms towards the end of the 1990s, this technical deficit cannot be blamed on the project’s management. Yet, coordination and perhaps even synchronisation with other initiatives in this area, such as the above-mentioned ACES project, never took place. What might be even worse is that the lessons learned by the WINGS project in respect of the difficulties of achieving real cooperation between the different administrative levels seem to have been forgotten as well. The incorporation of WINGS into the NPR towards the end of the pilot project in Charlotte-Mecklenburg could not impede this. In the course of job rotations at the NPR, know-how disappeared together with the responsible people. However, at least one idea envisaged by WINGS very early on is still alive. The One-Stop-Government portal has become a classic, and has now been put into practice in the FirstGov project, which is officially endorsed by the e-Government Act of 2002.27

Conclusion The US began designing integrated concepts for the development of e-government across all government levels very early on, and have done so continuously since then. A multitude of internal and external administrative committees, interest groups and think-tanks continue to provide the necessary intellectual preparatory work. It is safe to assume that every e-government strategy of US public agencies refers to the goal of inter-governmental cooperation in building egovernment. However, a successful widespread implementation of integrated

Electronic government in the United States 235 e-government seems to be missing. There have only been a few pilot projects, and in general, to the frustration of their proponents, they have not been very successful. This applies both on the federal level as well as to the joint projects of federal, state and local government. Individual projects by single agencies focusing on single lines of business have been much more successful. One of the reasons for this lack of success is institutional. A strong federalism in which the federal government and the states maintain separate sovereignties is not at all conducive to inter-governmental e-government. The central actors lack power, money and legal control instruments in order to assert binding infrastructures or enforce a coordinated procedure. This can only be overcome by building appropriate networks of all relevant actors and by ‘embedding’ IT strategies in the organisational technical contexts (Fountain 2001; Kubicek et al. 2001). However, there is still a latent competition around offering infrastructure services among the federal authorities of the USPS, GSA, SSA and others, which is not helping the common cause. The dual federalism also leads to a more complex organisation of the administrative structure. This creates a dilemma: double competencies, for example in the tax and social authorities, lead to a serious problem that on the one hand inspires innovative solutions but on the other impedes their successful implementation. Despite the statements prominent in all US e-government strategies, most of the actual projects they promote only relate to one administrative level. This is not surprising considering the US political structure and culture. The following key features are characteristic of all e-government strategies, also on the state and local levels: • •

• •

•

information technology is regarded as a central instrument for improving customer orientation and the efficiency of administrative acts; planning the deployment of information technology is given top priority, illustrated both by the setting up of working groups that report directly to the highest executives and by the creation of the CIO offices; e-government programmes link visionary targets with a catalogue of projects already underway from independent initiatives; infrastructure projects, particularly in the fields of authentication, data exchange protocols and payment, are newly established in every e-government strategy, an indication of the inefficacy of previous attempts; the implementation of the overall strategy is transferred to working groups consisting of representatives of the participating agencies. Guidance and coordination is transferred to the central agency which is responsible for technological planning. Individual projects are implemented by the agencies concerned.

In effect, an American e-government strategy also reflects the relative independency of agencies on any one level. Their most innovative projects are emphasised and promoted by the strategy. The development of collective infrastructures and projects, however, is assigned to working groups. These consist of

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interested experts from the central agency and several specialised agencies. Consequently, a binding development for all agencies is often not possible. The outcome produced by these working groups regularly only consists of a recommendation. Compared to the preceding initiatives, the Bush administration’s e-government strategy deserves some credit, especially for the fact that it focuses on the rapid implementation of projects. Successes are already being produced within 18 to 24 months of initial implementation. In order to achieve this, appropriate milestones are defined accordingly. Complex projects are subsequently divided into different phases and smaller (sub-)problems. The history of STAWRS is a good example of this method of working. It allows for faster successes and an earlier sense of achievement, but also typically leads to an abatement of the goals that were originally targeted by more ambitious visions. That a bottom-up strategy seems to be more promising is implied by the recent Government without Boundaries project of the GSA, Fairfax County (Virginia), New Jersey and others. But in order to be successful, it will have to rely on the acceptance of its proposed methodology. Curiously, the OMB, with its central oversight function, is absent from this project. A number of innovative control instruments for fostering e-government in the US might be worth imitating. Of particular use could be aggregated control sheets, which use indicators, quantitative measures and visual pictograms simultaneously to control various initiatives and measure the success of projects (for an illustration, see OMB 2003a). Another one is the allocation of a budget that can only be used for projects in cooperation with other agencies, or subjecting the allocation of subsidies, i.e. grants, to certain conditions. The actual effect of these measures is limited in the US too, however, as they only concern a very small proportion of the finances allocated to e-government projects. The recent problems of the administration in acquiring even 10 per cent of its envisioned budget for e-government initiatives illustrate this. The federal structure of the US is one of the greatest barriers to the construction of comprehensive e-government. If questions of sovereignty and competency are involved, e-government in the US quickly reaches its limits, as the WINGS and STAWRS projects show. Cooperation of individual agencies, cooperation with states and local governments, and the construction of collective infrastructures require central legal and technological standards that have not been determined in the US. The current e-Authentication and Federal Enterprise Architecture initiatives of the OMB only target the federal level. While they might be of great value there, it remains to be seen if this will have any impact on state and local government, and, if at all, on inter-governmental initiatives. It is also remarkable that the e-government strategies of the American federal government have not changed substantially in content since 1993. A comparison of the initiatives outlined above illustrates that primarily the same projects and initiatives are supported every time (and over a period of ten years). This also

Electronic government in the United States 237 demonstrates the considerable difficulties involved in implementing the projects. It is also a reminder that often in the field of IT, old concepts are revived under new names. Despite the problems confronted in the inter-governmental e-government projects which have been the focus of this study, most governments in the US continue to offer an impressive array of e-government applications. This is due not only to the large size of the country, with its corresponding number of innovative contributions, but could also be credited to the exceptional IT know-how in the US economy. Therefore, the fact that the American administrative apparatus is rather open to new impulses from industry is also significant. When executives change from IT companies to administration, the know-how gained as a consequence is rapidly transferred to and implemented in government projects (but also quickly lost, as demonstrated by the sudden departure of the federal CIO back to the private sector in August 2003). In Europe, where in the late 1990s the e-government strategy was often reduced to one of introducing electronic signatures, projects designed for the introduction of electronic signatures and for the construction of PKIs are of particular importance. In this respect, the US has demonstrated that there are a number of pragmatic approaches and alternative solutions to the problems of authentication. Often, they are solved by deploying credit cards. This is convenient, because payment is also often an issue in e-government applications, for example in the case of renewing drivers’ and vehicle licences or paying parking tickets. In these fields, internet solutions are comparatively common (for examples, see Hagen 2001a: 87ff.). However, it must be taken into account that many of these services have been accessible via the telephone for years. Thus, the necessary infrastructure to handle credit cards was already available at least to some governments when the internet arrived. In cases where payment is not necessary (or compulsory), personal identification numbers and passwords are used, as for example in the ‘Telefile’ programme of the IRS, which allows for the online filing of tax returns, or the PEBES project, which allows a current SSA pension account to be viewed online. Thus, e-government is now a truly integral part of normal US public administration reform initiatives. It continues to garner increasing attention from the political leadership. The deeper issues of integration and cross-border cooperation have been known from the early projects on up to the present day. Many new initiatives are inspired by a will to overcome these issues. However, they are very likely to struggle hard with the institutional barriers of the US political system.

Notes 1

Parts of this article are based on a study funded by the Volkswagenstiftung and carried out at the University of Bremen (Kubicek et al. 2001; in particular, Hagen 2001b, 2001c, 2001d; the case studies have also been re-examined in Hagen 2001a: 150–184). I would like to thank LEGAL LECTORS for providing an English translation from the initial German draft.

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2 In addition to the different states, there are several other independent territories with various degrees of independency (District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Trust Territory). 3 In external affairs, in particular foreign affairs and trade, defence, and war, the opposite is the case, as was demonstrated by the reaction of the American population to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. 4 For an illustrative example, see the history of automation in the American social security administration (SSA Historian’s Office 2000). 5 A good example of the reality is the story of one of the first e-government applications in the US, ‘Online PEBES’. In 1997, the SSA made it possible to access personal earnings and benefits statements, i.e. lists of affected pension payments and future pension payments, via the world wide web. Although the system was safer in principle than the system of written requests that had been practiced for a long time, the SSA had to go offline with the system only a few weeks after having activated it because of certain remaining risks that could not be eliminated. Today, the retrieval of data is only possible by introducing a paper form into the process. 6 According to the interpretation offered here; cf. in depth Hagen (2001a: 18ff.). 7 David Osborne and Ted Gaebler’s treatise Reinventing Government (1993) was fundamental for contents and terminology. 8 The results and projects were also adopted in the comprehensive National Information Infrastructure initiative and its Agenda for Action (IITF 1993, 1994; Kubicek et al. 2001: 208ff.). 9 According to its own statements, the NPR, i.e. initiatives that were accounted to it, led to savings of US$127 billion and 330,000 jobs by 1998. Thirteen of the fourteen existing ‘cabinet offices’ (i.e. ministries) reduced their employees. Only the Justice Department increased its staff. 10 To which degree it will be obligatory cannot yet be conclusively estimated until experiences with similar initiatives (see pp. 217–220) have been made, despite its high formal significance. 11 For more details, see OMB (2002, 2003a: esp. 4, 2003b: esp. overview) or the website at www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/index.html. 12 This study does not examine the states’ efforts in this respect. For this, see the compendium at http://rechten.kub.nl/simone/ds-lawsu.htm. See also CARAT (1998). 13 The so-called SmartPay card. See www.gsa.gov and, in particular, www.gsasmartpay.com. 14 See also www.cio.gov. 15 Further responsibilities include estate management and management of the official fleet of cars, among many others (see www.gsa.gov). The only essential sector of cross-cutting responsibilities that is not covered by the GSA is human resource management. The latter is part of the responsibility of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which is as independent as the GSA. 16 See www.egov.gov. Not to be confused with the OMB’s Office of e-Government. 17 There were close ties to the OMB, though, with several officers being in a double function. Interestingly, the old website is preserved in a ‘CyberCemetery’ at http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/default.html. 18 For example, the specialised promoters of the two largest reform projects embracing all levels in the US (described below) came from private industry to the administration shortly before the projects began (cf. Reisner 1999a; Morgan-Gaide 1999). 19 He was quoted as saying: ‘I came from a much higher salary, and as you know, you get used to a certain lifestyle’ (IDA e-Government News, 19 August 2003). 20 This does not mean, however, that the others can be overlooked. As explained elsewhere, technical, organisational, legal, financial and cultural aspects must be taken into consideration simultaneously (Hagen 2001a: 185ff.; see also Fountain 2001).

Electronic government in the United States 239 21 See www.excelgov.org/displayContent.asp?keyword=aiHomePage. Entries in this competition formed part of the empirical base for the conclusions in Fountain (2001). 22 A comprehensive list of further possible forms of financing the deployment of information technology can be found in an Intergovernmental Advisory Board report (1998b). 23 Good summaries of further projects can be found in Office of Intergovernmental Solutions (1998, 1999). A very good and broad overview of another set of pilot projects, albeit more for singular agencies on the federal level, can be observed in various case studies conducted at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. An analytic summary and comprehensive overview of these is Fountain (2001: esp. 107–192). 24 A second approach consisted of the introduction of a consolidated form that was tested in a pilot project in Montana (STAWRS 1998a). 25 Another part of the STAWRS initiative, the one-stop information portal at www.business.gov, has meanwhile been integrated into the portal www.firstgov.gov. 26 Just as on the national level, many such initiatives were planned on the state and local government levels at that time. The reason for highlighting North Carolina here is because of its involvement with the WINGS initiative. 27 Still, FirstGov seems to be not ‘one-stop’ enough. The GSA has created yet another one-step agency, the ‘USA Service’, which is currently being piloted in Pueblo, Colorado. It focuses primarily on enquiries via the telephone (which is still the medium of choice for most citizens), but it also handles emails, which are then forwarded – with more or less success, as critics have been quick to point out – to the appropriate (federal) agencies (IDA e-Government News, 19 August 2003).

References Abramson, B.J., Arterton, F.C. and Orren, G.R. (eds) (1988) The Electronic Commonwealth: The Impact of New Media Technologies on Democratic Politics, New York: Basic Books. Breiter, A. (2000) Informationstechnikmanagement in Schulen: Gestaltung eines integrierten Technikeinsatzes in Schulen, Bremen: Universität Bremen. Brugger, W. (1993) Einführung in das öffentliche Recht der USA, München: C.H. Beck. CARAT (Certification Authority Rating and Trust Task Force) (1998) CARAT Guidelines: Guidelines for Constructing Policies Governing the Use of Identity-based Public Key Certificates (Draft), National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA). Clinton, B. and Gore, A. (1997) Putting Customers First ’97: Standards for Serving the American People, Washington, DC. Falke, A. (1998) ‘Föderalismus und Kommunalpolitik’, in W.P. Adams and P. Lösche (eds) Länderbericht USA: Geschichte, Politik, Geographie, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft, Kultur, Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. Fountain, J. (2001) Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. FPKI (Federal Public Key Infrastructure) Steering Committee, GITS (Government Information Technology Services) Board and OMB (Office of Management and Budget) (1998) Access with Trust, Washington, DC: FPKI, GITS, OMB. Freie Hansestadt Bremen, Universität Bremen and Eutelis Consult (1999) Bremen Online Services – Konzept: Kundenorientierung durch Integration elektronischer Dienstleistungen für Bürger und Wirtschaft aus einer Hand, Bremen: Freie Hansestadt Bremen. GAO (General Accounting Office) (2001) ‘Electronic government: better information needed on agencies’ implementation of the Government Paperwork Elimination Act’, MS, Washington, DC: GAO. GITS (Government Information Technology Services) Working Group (1994) Action Plan, Washington, DC: GITS.

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Gordon, G.J. and Milakovich, M.E. (1995) Public Administration in America, 5th edn, New York: St. Martin’s Press. Gore, A. (1997) Access America: Reengineering Through Information Technology, Washington, DC. GSA (General Services Administration) (2002) Government without Boundaries – A Management Approach to Intergovernmental Programs, Washington, DC. Hagen, M. (1997) Elektronische Demokratie: Computernetzwerke und politische Theorie in den USA, Hamburg and Münster: Lit-Verlag. —— (2001a) Ein Referenzmodell für Online-Transaktionssysteme im Electronic Government, München und Mering: Rainer Hampp Verlag. —— (2001b) ‘Registry of motor vehicles in Massachusetts’, in H. Kubicek, B. Beckert, A. Breiter and M. Hagen (eds) Staatliche Initiativen auf dem Weg in die Informationsgesellschaft: Ein Vergleich von Multimedia-Pilotprojekten in ihrem politischen Kontext: Deutschland, EU und USA, Wissenschaftlicher Schlussbericht an die Volkswagenstiftung, Bremen: Universität Bremen, Forschungsgruppe Telekommunikation. —— (2001c) ‘STAWRS’, in H. Kubicek, B. Beckert, A. Breiter and M. Hagen (eds) Staatliche Initiativen auf dem Weg in die Informationsgesellschaft: Ein Vergleich von MultimediaPilotprojekten in ihrem politischen Kontext: Deutschland, EU und USA, Wissenschaftlicher Schlussbericht an die Volkswagenstiftung, Bremen: Universität Bremen, Forschungsgruppe Telekommunikation. —— (2001d) ‘WINGS’, in H. Kubicek, B. Beckert, A. Breiter and M. Hagen (eds) Staatliche Initiativen auf dem Weg in die Informationsgesellschaft: Ein Vergleich von MultimediaPilotprojekten in ihrem politischen Kontext: Deutschland, EU und USA, Wissenschaftlicher Schlussbericht an die Volkswagenstiftung, Bremen: Universität Bremen, Forschungsgruppe Telekommunikation. Hart-Teeter (2000) E-Government: The Next American Revolution, Washington, DC: Intergovernmental Technology Leadership Consortium. IITF (1993) The National Information Infrastructure: Agenda for Action, Washington, DC. —— (1994) National Information Infrastructure: Progress Report, September 1993–1994, Washington, DC. Interagency Kiosk Committee (1995) The Kiosk Network Solution: An Electronic Gateway to Government Service, Washington, DC: GITS. Intergovernmental Advisory Board (1998a) Foundations for Successful Intergovernmental Management: Federal, State, and Local Government Experiences, Washington, DC: GSA —— (1998b) Innovative Funding Approaches for Information Technology Initiatives: Federal, State, and Local Government Experiences, Washington, DC: GSA. IRM (Information Resource Management) (1995) NC CONTACT: The Citizen Information Service Stations Along the North Carolina Information Highway, Raleigh: North Carolina State Government. Kidd, V. (2000) Interview with WINGS, Business Support Services Information Technology Division, Charlotte, NC, 12 September. Kubicek, H. and Hagen, M. (1998) ‘Von der Web-Seite zum “One-Stop-Government” – Die öffentliche Verwaltung der USA auf dem Information Superhighway’, Verwaltung & Management (July–August): 208–213. Kubicek, H., Dutton, W.H. and Williams, R. (eds) (1997) The Social Shaping of Information Superhighways, Frankfurt and New York: Campus/St. Martin’s Press. Kubicek, H. Beckert, B., Breiter, A. and Hagen, M. (eds) (2001) Staatliche Initiativen auf dem Weg in die Informationsgesellschaft: Ein Vergleich von Multimedia-Pilotprojekten in ihrem politischen Kontext: Deutschland, EU und USA, Wissenschaftlicher Schlussbericht an die Volkswagenstiftung, Bremen: Universität Bremen, Forschungsgruppe Telekommunikation. Löffler, E. (1997) The Modernization of the Public Sector in an International Comparative Perspective: Implementation Strategies in Germany, Great Britain and the United States, Speyer: Forschungsinstitut für öffentliche Verwaltung.

Electronic government in the United States 241 McCuiston, V. (1998) ‘WINGS’, Midlothian, VA: Human Systems Inc. Margetts, H. (1999) Information Technology in Government: Britain and America, Routledge Research in Information Technology and Society, London and New York: Routledge. Mechling, J. and Fletcher, T.M. (1996) Information Technology and Government: The Need for New Leadership, Cambridge, MA: John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Mechling, J. and Sweeney, V. (1997) Overcoming Budget Barriers: Funding Information Technology Projects in the Public Sector: Strategic Computing and Telecommunications, Cambridge, MA: John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Miedbrodt, A. (1998) ‘Anwendungserfahrungen ausgewählter US-amerikanischer Signaturgesetze’, Datenschutz und Datensicherheit 23(4): 194–198. Mitchel, K. (2000) Interview with STAWRS, SSA, Baltimore, 19 September. Momentum (Momentum Research Group) (2000) Benchmarking the eGovernment Revolution: Year 2000 Report on Citizen and Business Demand, n.p.: Momentum Research Group of Cunningham Communication Commissioned by NIC. Morgan-Gaide, M. (1999) Interview with STAWRS, Washington, DC, 26 February. Office of Intergovernmental Solutions (1998) The Challenging Road to the Government of the Future: Intergovernmental Management Issues and Directions, Washington, DC: GSA. —— (1999) Integrated Service Delivery: Governments Using Technology to Serve the Citizen International: Federal, State, and Local Government Experiences, Washington, DC: GSA. OMB (Office of Management and Budget) (2000a) OMB Procedures and Guidance on Implementing the Government Paperwork Elimination Act, Washington, DC: OMB. —— (2000b) Guidance on Implementing the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-Sign), Washington, DC: OMB. —— (2002) E-Government Strategy: Simplified Delivery for Services to Citizens, Washington, DC: OMB. —— (2003a) ‘E-government strategy’, MS, 4/2003, Washington, DC: OMB. —— (2003b) ‘E-Gov Initiatives at a Glance’, MS, 8/20/2003, Washington, DC: OMB. Osborne, D. and Gaebler, T. (1993) Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector, New York: Plume/Penguin. Reisner, R. (1999a) Interview with WINGS, USPS, Washington, DC, 25 February. —— (1999b) The On Ramp to the Information Superhighway (Paper submitted for Workshop on One-Stop-Government in Bremen, Germany, 30 September–2 October 1999), Washington, DC: USPS. Shell, K.L. (1998) ‘Kongress und Präsident’, in W.P. Adams and P. Lösche (eds) Länderbericht USA: Geschichte, Politik, Geographie, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft, Kultur, Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. Smoter, S. (2000) Interview with WINGS (by telephone), 15 September. SSA (Social Security Administration) (1997) Privacy and Customer Service in the Electronic Age: Report to Our Consumers, n.p.: SSA . SSA (Social Security Administration) Historian’s Office (2000) Early Automation Challenges at SSA, n.p.: SSA. STAWRS (1998a) Project Plan for Montana Paper Filing for Employers’ Quarterly Returns, Washington, DC: Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Simplified Tax and Wage Reporting System (STAWRS). —— (1998b) Technical Analysis (Pre-STAWRS), Washington, DC: Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Simplified Tax and Wage Reporting System (STAWRS). USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) (1997) Costs and Impacts of the Wyoming Smartcard EBT System: Evaluation of the Wyoming EBT System for WIC and the Food Stamp Program, Washington, DC: USDA, Food and Consumer Service, Office of Analysis and Evaluation.

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US Postal Service (1996) WINGS – Preliminary Business Plan, Washington, DC: United States Postal Service. —— (1998) Five-year Strategic Plan FY 1998–2002, Washington, DC: United States Postal Service.

9

Electronic government as a challenge for cooperation between different levels of public administration Lessons learned Martin Eifert and Jan Ole Püschel

Introduction The term ‘e-government’ indicates a state of tension that will be examined in the following chapter in more detail. On the one hand it is – as evidenced by the ‘e’ – a part of the electronic world. As is widely known, this e-world is characterised by economies of scale and network effects. ‘Government’, in contrast, is marked by fragmentation caused by decentralised responsibilities and a strong differentiation of administrative bodies. This even applies to centralistic states. The attempt to merge the two aspects quickly shows cooperation and coordination of the administrative bodies to be one of the central tasks. Mastering the problem of cooperation and coordination is probably the main factor for successfully achieving sustained and widespread e-government. This becomes obvious when one considers that a major part of administrative contacts in all countries relates to services that are traditionally provided to the citizen at the local and, at least partially, independent level.1 This level cannot, however, afford independent development, financing or even the mere operation of online services. This study was based on the hypothesis of the central importance of coordination and cooperation for the second phase of e-government, namely its spreading all over a given country. In this chapter, we will compare seven national reports in order to identify e-government-specific approaches to and patterns of dealing with the problem of coordination and cooperation. We will focus in particular on institutional arrangements between different governmental levels. The authors are fully aware of the fact that the introduction of egovernment as a complex technological, legal, political, economical and social innovation is being and must be executed in a much larger network, reaching far beyond administrative levels. It involves in particular private enterprises, various social groups and associations, and many hybrid public–private organisations. It is this complexity, however, that makes it necessary to examine and understand at least parts of this network. This study focuses only on the relationship between the administrative levels, a relationship which is organised on the basis of relatively independent rules and which appears to be of great importance to

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efficiency on the whole. This examination also questions to what extent institutional arrangements can be attributed to the success of implementation.

E-government in the face of the need for cooperation Advanced e-government as a problem of cooperation: an international consensus Initially, it must be mentioned that in all countries examined, the development of e-government is only the most recent stage of a process of modernising government that has been underway for a long time.2 Whilst the administrative reforms of the 1990s focused on New Public Management (NPM) models where an increase in efficiency, in particular by means of an ‘economising’ public administration, constituted the centre of interest, today it is new forms of service provision that are moving into centre stage. This perspective can tie in both with the NPM’s customer orientation as well as with the realisation that the modernisation of government is not possible without a massive deployment of information and communications technology.3 Both do not just enable but furthermore require the linking of the general modernisation of government with the development of e-government, which in many countries can also be observed on an institutional level. In France, for example, the Inter-ministerial Delegation for State Reform (DIRE) is responsible not only for a comprehensive reform of the organisation of the state but also for the promotion of networks and e-services (Chatillon 2004: 100). In Japan, the e-government strategy is not only part of the more comprehensive ‘e-Japan Strategy’ but it is also a component of an entire administrative reform and a reform of the organisation of the state. This administrative reform is intended to lead not only to an increased transparency of government but also to an increase in efficiency and a reduction in expenses.4 In Germany, the project group for the development of e-government at the federal level is also tied to the organisation of government modernisation.5 On the other hand, e-government is partly at odds with the general modernisation of public administration. This is partly due to the fact that the traditional provision of services was often decentralised in accordance with the guiding idea of a public administration that is tangible for the citizen. Furthermore, the independence of regional self-administrating units was strengthened at the legal level. Japan, Great Britain and France are examples of such a so-called ‘Devolution Process’ (cf. Pratchett 2004: 18ff.; Yonemaru 2004: 136ff.; Chatillon 2004: 83). The relative increase of independence and service delivery has brought in its wake an intensification of the coordination and cooperation problems with respect to the electronic provision of services. Unsurprisingly, in all the countries examined, advanced e-government is in fact perceived as a question of cooperation.6 The necessity of cooperation and coordination is continuously emphasised and improvements are widely demanded.7 There are differences, however, in the extent to which the countries

Lessons learned 245 rely on informal or institutionalised forms of coordination. External conditions for informal networks as well as an administrative culture seem to be determining factors. The question whether institutionalisation is necessary therefore initially depends on the extent to which dense, already-existing informal networks are available. Finland, for example, is a country with a small population, a low population density and decision-makers who share common backgrounds. Therefore, it possesses an extremely distinct informal network of high coordination capacity that is closely intertwined with the administrative culture and which can obviously be very successful without elaborate formal agreements. However, even Finland has started strengthening organisational approaches to coordination. The example of Australia illustrates even better that a strongly developed informal network does not necessarily result in the ability to entirely satisfy the additional demands for coordination and cooperation. Despite the strongly informal administrative culture and network, an Online Council had already been established in 1997 in Australia as a cooperation committee with the administrative support of the federal government. States, territories and local governments had agreed that only improved cooperation would be able to ensure the consistent development of e-government (Roehrich and Armstrong 2004: 204 ff.). Additionally, nowadays a reinforced top-down approach is regarded as necessary (Booz, Allen & Hamilton 2002: 50ff.). This is the case, in particular, because of the increasingly emphasised attempt in Australia to include more integrated and more complex administrative services within existing online services. In France, the remarkable speed of recent developments seems to be related not only to substantial financial expenditure but also to increased coordination (ibid.: 65). In Great Britain, an extensive development towards cooperative problem-solving can be currently observed within the general modernisation of public administration (Pratchett 2004: 20ff.; Cabinet Office 1999). However, these general cooperative relationships cannot fully satisfy e-government’s specific coordination needs, so that subsequently an additional complex institutional arrangement must be developed for this purpose. Furthermore, when one considers that in many countries IT coordination within the federal government is to be improved by organisational measures,8 everything suggests that an e-government-specific institutionalisation of cooperation between the administrative bodies and levels is necessary. That it has only taken shape relatively vaguely in most countries appears to be due to the complexity of the task rather than to a lack of demand. The increase of efficiency in vertical coordination could succeed the improvement in coordination at the respective administrative levels. That there is a general demand for and the necessity of reinforced cooperation may perhaps seem obvious. Nevertheless, it is important to emphasise this demand since the Zeitgeist points towards competitive federalism after the conclusion of the golden age of cooperative federalism in the 1960s and 1970s (on this in general, see Leisner 2000: 593ff.; Bauer 2002: 837ff.). E-government must not simply be overrun by the spirit of the times but must be treated according to its particular nature, i.e. more cooperatively than many other tasks.9

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Committees across all administrative levels for the systematic collection, advancement and circulation of knowledge as a starting point In many countries, cooperation between the different administrative levels has already increased quite distinctly in the area of the systematic collection and circulation of knowledge. At the centre of this activity are committees which are mostly based at the federal level, but which also successfully integrate members of the other governmental levels in the process of generating new knowledge and circulating existing knowledge (best practice models), or which at least demonstrate high sensitivity for the local levels. They also appear to be successfully partnered with the lower governmental levels in cases where comprehensive solutions are required which span the various administrative levels (such as guidelines). In some countries, a distinctive report system helps to direct the transfer of knowledge and its implementation, to record progress, and to detect new needs for control in due time. In Australia, for example, the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE), which was the central office for coordination, supported local governments in the development of integrated approaches since 1997 (Roehrich and Armstrong 2004: 204ff.). It did not have any regulatory powers in relation to the states or local authorities, but it has developed government-wide guidelines in matters of authentication, meta-standards, electronic file management, etc. in collaboration with the states and local authorities, and has brought them directly into the discussion at the federal level (ibid.). In addition to this, standards for the government public key infrastructure (PKI) are certified under the so-called ‘Gatekeeper’ strategy, which does not have a specific legislative basis either but is administered through contractual arrangements between NOIE and other participants (ibid.: 198). Most recently, NOIE has been abolished but its tasks have been transferred to the newly established Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) which is headed by the Australian Government Chief Information Officer. For further information see http:// www.noie.gov.au/publications/media_releases/2004/Mar/agimo.htm. The most advanced setting for the collection and circulation of knowledge exists in Great Britain. Here, knowledge is gathered systematically in two dimensions. An overview of the expansive development can be derived from the reports sent by all local governments to central government (and on the basis of which funds are allocated) (Pratchett 2004: 35ff.). On the other hand, the development of e-government is a performance parameter (ibid.) that is applied by central government in nationwide performance comparisons. The best practices are stimulated and distributed by a programme which also systematically promotes both innovative projects as well as the exchange of knowledge. The latter comprises an exchange among advanced as well as less advanced local governments (ibid.). Cooperation starts with the determination of targets, socalled ‘frameworks’, which are later applied as a measure for evaluating the implementation of projects. The frameworks are developed by central government in cooperation with representatives of the local governments, e.g. the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) (ibid.: 30). In addition, a general horizontal exchange of knowledge is promoted at the local level by central

Lessons learned 247 government incentives.10 The so-called ‘Promoting Electronic Government’ (PEG) campaign brings together numerous local organisations, and fosters selfassessments, the development of local strategies as well as the transfer of best practice examples (ibid.: 36). A separate platform which contains all the relevant ‘building blocks for e-government’ is an important means of knowledge-transfer to the local authorities. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, i.e. central government too, has responsibility for this as well as for the entire local e-government strategy. In France, several bodies at central government level exist that are responsible for the circulation to local administrative units of knowledge on, inter alia, the implementation of e-government. Alongside the Commission for Administrative Simplification (COSA), which was responsible for administrative forms, the Agency for Information and Communications Technologies (ATICA) played an important role in the technology-related field (on this, see Chatillon 2004: 99). ATICA, which was established by a prime ministerial decree in 2001 and expressly endowed with knowledge-management responsibilities,11 provided information and attended to the development processes of administrative units at all governmental levels. COSA and ATICA have since been replaced by the ‘Agence pour le developpement de l’administration électronique’ (ADAE), which was established by a prime ministerial decree in February 2003. In February 2004, the prime minister launched the inter-governmental program ‘Administration Electronique 2004/2007’ (ADELE), which was placed within the authority of the ADAE. On the ADAE website, information on interoperability, on the integration of services and on standards is available, in addition to information on basic legal requirements, recommendations and dossiers on the experiences of other countries.12 Besides the aforementioned committees, the ‘Commissariat général du Plan’ and DIRE constitute additional coordinating bodies which are in charge of the implementation of the e-government strategy. In Finland, the Information Society Advisory Board was a coordination body composed of members of government, parliament, employers’ and trade associations, as well as local central associations, and which worked together with the government according to specific targets (for more detail, see Hyyryläinen 2004: 71ff.).13 The government determined the central agenda for the Advisory Board and in return took the Board’s advice on action programmes for the implementation of e-government fully into consideration. The Board did not possess any legislative or regulatory power, but it was nevertheless regarded as the most important coordinating body for the implementation of the Finnish e-government strategy. The government relied on the fulfilment of this task by the Advisory Board and had therefore refrained from establishing a parallel governmental committee. The Advisory Board aimed at achieving a win-win situation in order to avoid the implementation of the strategy by means of coercion. The Information Society Advisory Board was recently replaced by the Council for Information Society, in which the prime minister himself takes part. Therefore, it is regarded as having a somewhat higher status than the Advisory Board (ibid.). Apart from the presence of the prime minister, the composition of the Council is very similar to that of the Advisory Board. Therefore, it stresses the need for

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effective cooperation and continues the approach of the Advisory Board at the same time. In Japan, a permanent working group consisting of high-ranking officials of the various administrative bodies (the Inter-ministerial Liaison Conference on Administrative Informatisation) plays a very active role in the advancement of egovernment at the central government level (Yonemaru 2004: 171). In addition, the sharing of knowledge at the local level is promoted comprehensively by the Local Authorities Systems Development Centre (LASDEC) (ibid.: 171). In the US, the so-called General Service Administration (GSA) ultimately performs the central functions. It is an independent authority that does not adhere to a ministry and which has authority both in matters relating to the governmental agencies’ technological infrastructure as well as in respect to cooperation with the states’ and local governments’ agencies in this field. The president has delegated these responsibilities to the GSA by Executive Order (Hagen 2004: 225ff.). The so-called Office of Intergovernmental Solutions is also part of the GSA. It engages itself specifically in cooperation between different governmental levels and offers a ‘collaborative framework’ – a kind of tool kit for inter-governmental services.14 Alongside it there are administrative in-house working groups across all levels that deal with e-government-specific questions (for example, the Intergovernmental Enterprise Panel and the Intergovernmental Advisory Board).15 However, they were not established by legal acts and do not have any binding decision-making authority (ibid.). Subsequently, their effectiveness is dependent on their members’ personal commitment. The e-Government Act passed in December 2002 by the Bush administration now demands the creation of a permanent office for e-government within the Office of Management and Budget that is to be appointed by the president.16 In Germany, attempts are being made at the governmental level to adopt, at least partially, a factual coordination role, mainly via the government’s Koordinierungsund Beratungsstelle der Bundesregierung für Informationstechnik in der Bundesverwaltung (KBSt) and the Bundsamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (BSI), by providing relevant information centrally. However, there is also the coordination board Koordinationsausschuss Automatische Datenverarbeitung Bund/Lander/Kommunen (KoopA ADV), a permanent body across all levels, and the permanent group of State Secretaries (Staatssekretärsrunde), which provides a continuous political forum for cooperation across all administrative levels in the field of IT deployment in public administration (see Eifert 2004: 130ff.). These are supplemented by scientific support linked to the promotion of local pilot projects, as well as by the transmission of project results by the federal level. Generally, and from an overall point of view, it can be noted that the management of knowledge, be it generated de-centrally or centrally, including its appropriate organisational infrastructure, is emerging as an important responsibility of the central administrative level in the dynamic field of the development

Lessons learned 249 of e-government. It is no coincidence that this pattern is repeated in the EU with respect to the Member States, where we can already observe the initial development of EU knowledge- and network-management.

Fields and instruments of cooperation in progress Alongside these general observations, more specific fields of cooperation, as well as means for nationwide implementation and for ensuring cooperation, can be initially identified. However, international development is still in a state of flux, as the demands for increased cooperation are clearly ahead of actual realisation. Fields of cooperation The fields where cooperation takes place between authorities across all levels are diverse. In the following, the main focus will be on those fields where continuous coordination is necessary for the specific development of e-government. Therefore, we will not examine mechanisms of coordination in procurement,17 for example, as they primarily provide opportunities for the individual authorities to make low-cost purchases of information technology and also appear in other fields – even though it must be stated at this point that they can be associated with factual standardisations that are relevant for e-government (for details, see below). Wide area networks (intranets) of public administrations The establishment and the reach of wide area networks (WANs) which link all administrative bodies is a wide-ranging cooperation topic. In France, a network for internal communication was established for the central administration in 1999 (Administration on Network – AdER), to which local authorities now want to be linked up because of its high security standards (Chatillon 2004: 88). But the issue is not limited to the ability of such a network to ensure the rapid and safe transfer of communications between the respective administrative units. In Japan in the near future, central government will also provide an Application Service Provider (ASP) system for the administrative online services of other administrations, e.g. data bank systems and software for file administration in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act. Thereby, the costs of development and operation are to be reduced and usage of the administrative network is to be made beneficial to smaller local authorities with their limited resources, speeding up the development of the system altogether (Yonemaru 2004: 161ff.). The Japanese example also demonstrates that the creation of WANs is not necessarily linked to a top-down approach. Since 1997, local and communal government units have been working on an expansive linking of their administrative units – and only when the local government intranet is established will this bottom-up initiative be connected to the central government’s network (ibid.).

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Finally, in Great Britain there is the ambition to integrate local governments into the network that was built originally at the central level (the Government Secure Intranet – GSI), in order to create a uniform administrative network. The main appeal is seen as being a uniform security infrastructure as well as possible cost reductions (Pratchett 2004: 28ff.). In Germany, the aim is also to establish common WANs. For example, in the initiative ‘BayernOnline’, sixteen individual data networks of Bavarian government authorities were united into one collective network (‘Bayerisches Behördennetz’), to which at present 1,100 government agencies and over 600 local agencies are connected.18 The Bayerische Behördennetz (as a closed network) and the ‘Bayerische Hochschulnetz’ (as an open network) are merging to become the so-called ‘Bayernnetz’.19 This is motivated by the higher efficiency of a common WAN, as well as by advantages in respect to security and cost efficiency.20 The structure and the selection of the comprehensive network functionalities which are gradually being developed in the context of the European project TESTA are functionally comparable. Correspondingly, in Germany, public authorities are increasingly linking via TESTA Germany. Integrated portals The necessity of cooperation becomes obvious when considering the increasing desire to offer administrative services via integrated portals. After having constructed portals more around administrative units than around services in the past (on Australia in particular, see Roehrich and Armstrong 2004: 194ff.), nowadays an interlinking of the different administrative bodies’ offers is increasingly being discussed and aspired to. This process corresponds with the frequent demand to exploit the internet’s potential and to not simply create mere ‘digitalised images’ of already existing administrative structures. Instead of these, new forms of the authorities’ service provision with a higher benefit to the citizen are to be created. The citizen does not differentiate between different levels of government and responsibility, but selects according to the subject matter of his request. So-called ‘life events’ or ‘business episodes’, on the basis of which the separate administrative levels already construct their range of services, often exceed vertical administrative limits.21 On the basis of this assumption, there is a discussion in Great Britain as to whether the UKOnline website should not also host relevant local content. This would present an opportunity to local government and decentralised administrative units to offer their own content on the internet at a low cost and provide access to it via a single window (Pratchett 2004: 27). The government of Tasmania in Australia also offers a uniform portal based on the life event principle together with the federal and local authorities across departmental limits and across all levels. Similar efforts to construct a uniform front-end solution have been made in the state of Victoria (Booz, Allen & Hamilton 2002: 51ff.).

Lessons learned 251 In Germany, local online services are also accessible via the federal portal and will increasingly be organised around life events. However, the explicit aim here is to achieve a linking of offers and not a full integration. At the state level, some projects of states and local governments do, however, aim at a full integration of their services.22 This development towards integrated portals is characterised by a constant tension between usability on the one hand and the complexity of cooperation on the other. Integration on the level of mere links only requires a little cooperation, leaves offer maintenance in the hands of the bodies responsible for their processing, but on the other hand limits usability. The exact opposite is the case for the more advanced steps of integration. At present, linking-up – which is less demanding organisationally and less incisive in respect to competencies – appears to be the preferred procedure, at least in the case of highly independent administrative levels.23 Standards The field of standards is a traditional field of cooperation. As the determination of the appropriate standards requires a broad knowledge of the subject, and as their implementation is ultimately always dependent on their broad acceptance, cooperation plays a more important role in their determination than hierarchy. Disregarding the question as to whether the administrative structure is more central or de-central, all administrative levels work together with respect to standards. Differences, however, arise in the implementation of the determined standards. In federal states, their implementation until now has only been ensured by the binding effects of mere political (i.e. not legally binding) agreements, whilst in centralised states they are also partly ensured by statutory requirements.24 In Australia, guidelines that were passed at the federal level for authentication, data security, metadata and file administration had been developed beforehand on the basis of close cooperation between individual states and local governments (Roehrich and Armstrong 2004: 205). The same applies in Australia to the AGLS’s metadata standard (ibid. 2004: 187ff.). Thereby, the chances of such guidelines being accepted at the level of the individual states and local governments, and, subsequently, of arriving at a uniform standard for all levels, will have clearly improved. Standardisation is being made attractive to states and local governments by financial incentives. For example, licences for software products that correspond with the standard are being purchased by the federal level and passed on at lower prices to the lower state levels. The same applies in cases where software development is conducted by government itself. A similar form of cooperation takes place with respect to recommended standards in Finland. They are often initiated by central state initiatives but actively involve the local governments at the developmental stage.25 Thus, cooperation across all levels and ministries already takes place in the definition of the so-called ‘action programmes’. The target objectives of the respective programmes are

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simultaneously assigned to the different institutions for fulfilment, thereby predefining key partnerships (e.g. in the area of uniform forms that can be used interactively, responsibility lies with the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of the Interior and the communal representative ALFRA). The targets defined in the action programmes are not binding at the communal level, yet the fact that the local governments are integrated into the process illustrates clearly that the general success of the introduction of e-government is dependent on their involvement (Hyyryläinen 2004: 76). Such early involvement deprives the communities of a reason to refuse to implement the recommended standards later on. In Great Britain, there are also centrally developed frameworks which are intended to ensure interoperability (the e-Government Interoperability Framework – e-GIF). All applications with interfaces to non-local applications are obliged to adhere to the standards defined (e.g. for metadata) (Pratchett 2004: 28). Here too standards were not simply dictated, but were developed in close cooperation with the local government organisations and institutions (e.g. with IDeA and SOCITM; see ibid.: 30). Moreover, in order to foster the dissemination of standards, every system that wishes to use new service developments of the national portal (UKOnline) must comply with the specified standards. However, this also constitutes an obstacle for more advanced online services as long as the numerous local systems do not fulfil these requirements (ibid.: 28). In addition to these approaches, a local e-government standards body was established in 2003. It is a pilot partnership involving local and central government as well as the private sector. The goal of this body is to facilitate the interoperability of local egovernment systems and applications by providing information on e-government schemes, standards and gaps in standardisation. It will also be looking at organisational change and best practice. By and large, this body underlines a tendency towards further institutionalisation in this field. In the US, there are some legally binding forms of cooperation in areas where the exchange of data is already carried out across all governmental levels (comparable to Great Britain). In this field, there are joint standardisation committees in which the individual authorities, including those of the individual states and communities, are represented (e.g. TIGERS – Tax Information Group EDI Requirements Standardization). The standards determined are binding for all authorities involved (Hagen 2004: 228). Industrial participants may take part in particular working groups for the continuous update of these standards. The uniform principles of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) are applied to the determination of the standards. Furthermore, the e-Government Act of December 2002 requires the setting up of a so-called ‘inter-agency committee’ for the development of uniform standards, but is confined to federal authorities. The project ‘Government without Boundaries’ of the Office of Intergovernmental Solutions also developed standards for interoperability in a pilot project – an ‘inter-governmental project’ for demonstrating the necessary and realisable vertical and therefore comprehensive integration of services across all levels (Office of Intergovernmental Solutions 2002: 7ff.). The federal government, state governments and a county participated in this project.

Lessons learned 253 In France, the development of comprehensive standards is delegated to the agency ATICA, which is subordinate to the prime minister. The agency is attached to the ‘Conseil d’orientation’, whose members are, among others, the local level representatives.26 In addition, the agency subjects its drafts to public debate. The results of these debates are regularly integrated into its recommendations.27 In Germany, the development of standards is ultimately the responsibility of the only body that is composed of representatives of all levels. The KoopA ADV is responsible for the harmonisation of applications and the development of standards. Its power is limited to recommendations, but they do have a high political impact. Members of the KoopA ADV are representatives of federal government, the states, the communities and the ‘Kommunale Gemeinschaftsstelle’ (KGSt). In addition, the federal level is engaged in spreading the more comprehensive but more generic architecture and standards (SAGA) that were developed initially only for itself, and in merging them with some developments in the states. Also, regional networks are increasingly being established for the introduction of e-government in which the local players are developing uniform, technologically compatible standards for specific applications (e.g. MEDIA@Komm-City Bremen,28 the Bundesland Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), and numerous other districts, towns and communities) (c.f. Eifert 2004: 130). Shared applications A fourth field consists of shared applications, or at least the development of similar homogenous applications, for parallel deployment. Both areas are regularly characterised by substantial economies of scale and, subsequently, by remarkable cost savings. In each of the countries examined, a trend towards joint developments can be observed alongside shared applications. The former do not only help to avoid the situation where the same application is developed twice, causing unnecessary expense, but they also promote the dissemination of uniform standards, as they are also intended to be transferable. Effective forms of cooperation are real success factors for this development. However, the notion alone that, for example, joint software developments promise increased cost effectiveness and interoperability is not enough. Additionally, some institutional setting is necessary in order to make cooperation effective and to avoid unclear responsibilities.29 This will in part make it necessary to assign the final responsibility to a joint office.30 In Japan, for example, central government has taken over the responsibilities of developing an application for the local issuance of passports and of making that application available to local governments (Yonemaru 2004: 157ff.). In the so-called ‘resident registry network’, the entire basic identification database is contained in a central government network to which the communities also have access (ibid.).31 In Great Britain, the so-called ‘Government Gateway’ constitutes a central point for the authentication processes of all public authorities. It must be added, however, that its real usage is still very moderate due to general political debates

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on questions regarding, for example, data protection (Pratchett 2004: 28).32 The plan for the future is to connect local authorities to the security infrastructure of the central government’s communications network (‘GSI2’) (ibid.: 29). In the US as well, this procedure is apparently being discussed in order to expand the central role of the federal portal ‘FirstGov’ (Chevallerau 2002). In October 2003, however, the US government abandoned plans for an e-authentication gateway and decided to focus on the development of a public PKI instead.33 Central data banks, i.e. collective content, are a very particular field. In this area, centralisation developments are also taking place (Pratchett 2004: 29). However, cooperation between the separate federal levels is limited to individual specialised applications. In Germany, for example, a joint geo-data infrastructure for the field of geo-information has been constructed by the federal government and the states. The core element consists of the federal meta-information system ‘Geo-MIS’. The body responsible for it is an interministerial committee, the ‘Interministerielle Ausschuss für Geoinformationswesen’ (IMAGI), which also involves the working group of the relevant agencies of the states (Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie 2002). In Germany, there is also a project for content-provision across all levels in the field of federal statistics, called ‘Genesis’ (‘Gemeinsames neues statistisches Informationssystem’). Genesis is a statistic information system jointly developed by the statistical offices of the federal level and the states, for which a portal was developed and activated.34 Software for this project is being developed by the federal government and the states in a joint development programme.35 In order to further optimise electronic data processing, the federal and communal registration offices for statistical data were obliged to provide the data in appropriate electronic forms. In the US, geo-data is also the subject matter of a joint initiative. The socalled ‘Geospatial One-Stop’ (GOS) project of the US Department of the Interior aims to provide a general user-interface for geo-data and geo-services for all administrative levels (government to government). GOS is based on the socalled ‘National Spatial Data Infrastructure’ (NSDI) to ensure interoperability. The participating parties of GOS are representatives of the federal state, the states and the local authorities. GOS is just one of twenty-four multi-agency projects of the Office of Management and Budget.36 Emerging regulatory approaches – but no distinct model of success The above statements on cooperation have already clearly illustrated that despite there being unanimity over the various aims of cooperation, the actual approaches vary from country to country. This is also the case with respect to the approaches to guidance and control which are intended to improve cooperation within the different countries and to ensure an extensive spreading of e-government. In this respect, only initial emerging patterns can be identified.

Lessons learned 255 Focus on soft tools Soft instruments are predominantly deployed – independent of federal and administrative structures – in the form of incentives and offers provided by the higher administrative levels and addressed to de-centralised units. This is due not only to the legal boundaries that sometimes exist but also to the awareness that means of coercion are disadvantageous to the cooperation relationship as a whole. They tend to have a rapidly counterproductive effect, since the development of e-government is a creative task that is particularly dependent on the participants’ motivation. As integration development is still in its infancy, the question of how best to deal with blockades or individual protesting parties is at present not yet a major issue. Only in Japan are there indicators that, ultimately, regulatory power and command have to be deployed in individual cases. For example, a conflict has arisen in the course of the introduction of a national Japanese computer system for the registration of citizens designed to enable easier identification when, for instance, the citizen contacts an agency electronically (‘Juki Net’; for more details, see Yonemaru 2004: 157ff.). One part of the system consists of a so-called ‘resident registration card’, which at the same time provides the basis for the infrastructure for a future ‘multi-application smart card’. Several of the individual communities have refused to use this system. The Japanese federal government insists, however, on a broad interpretation and implementation of federal law in the face of the individual communities’ refusal to be involved in the extensive and comprehensive project.37 The Japanese federal government is therefore attempting to create some technological infrastructure for all e-government applications on the basis of individual federal authorities. Ultimately, this corresponds with the Japanese tradition of the strongly centralised control of administration and finances (ibid.: 139ff.). Reliance on incentives and offers, however, carries the risk of different rates of development. Responsive units are being supported repeatedly, whilst ignorant authorities increasingly fall back in this respect. This dilemma between a (central) determination to accelerate and spread e-government implementation and the (legal) limitations of influence to that effect can be mitigated by the use of indirect measures. For example, in Great Britain the communities were obliged to appoint an e-government commissary (an ‘e-champion’) to ensure that the issue was comprehensively and organisationally secured onto the communal agenda. In that sense, the report system and the e-government commissary were the results of reactions to an increasingly growing gap between advanced and backward local governments in Great Britain (Pratchett 2004: 35ff.). Financial incentives for cooperation Financial incentives emerge as crucial means of ensuring cooperation. They range from tax concessions and earmarked funding to competitions for financial support. In Japan, for example, tax concessions for communities are intended to encourage connection to the central government’s administrative network

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(Yonemaru 2004: 162). In Australia, the federal level maintains a special telecommunications fund that is also accessible to the local governments for earmarked projects.38 In the US, the e-Government Act of 2002 established the so-called ‘e-Government Fund’, which calls for integrated internet-based systems which necessarily entail some coordination (Hagen 2004: 223). In Great Britain, the allocation of funds by central government is massively used to exert influence.39 Geographically, allocation of the altogether substantial funds is connected with the aforementioned local governments. Central government (the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) defines guidelines intended to aid the local governments to achieve the given targets.40 Thus, the application of standards can be controlled and uniformity can be ensured. In addition, individual (‘Pathfinder’) projects are continuously supported,41 and competitions for advancement and new developments in which local governments can apply for (more limited) funds are publicly advertised for tender (Pratchett 2004: 35ff.). Financial incentives also go some way to encourage so-called ‘Local Public Service Agreements’. Local government units set up partnerships in order to better comply with the specific priorities of central government. A higher ‘service outcome’ leads to an increase in central government financial support. This form of ‘output controlling’ presents an opportunity to provide incentives for increased cooperation in the implementation of electronic administrative services across administrative borders (ibid.: 22). Ultimately, however, there are limits to financial means of control, even in a traditionally unitary state such as Great Britain. For example, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister only has a limited ability to subject the general financing of local government to the condition that e-government-specific criteria are fulfilled (ibid.: 36ff.). In Germany, the support of pilot projects within the framework of the MEDIA@Komm initiative were not only part of a strategy for the dissemination of information but were also subject to the condition that the projects’ objectives contained transferable solutions. As a follow-up project, the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Arbeit has planned a diffusion campaign which involves twenty cities nationwide as ‘ambassadors’, and which is intended to help spread the best practices developed in the pilot projects. The nomination of the twenty cities which will receive some federal support is subject to public tender. Of course, the power of money always depends on its amount. Just to give an idea of the dimensions of financial support provided, we would like to mention that in Great Britain, approximately £350 million (€525 million) has been paid to the communities for e-government over a period of four years (ibid.: 33), in addition to the £50 million (€75 million) that has been made available to the central national agency for coordination for financing ‘partnership developments’.42 In the US, a new fund will be created on the basis of the e-Government Act passed in December 2002 which in contrast will ‘only’ contain US$350 million for the next four years.43 In Germany, the federal government provided almost €30 million during the course of the MEDIA@Komm initiative. However, when examining these specific financial incentives, it must be taken into consideration that there is, of course, an addi-

Lessons learned 257 tional or further strong financial dependency of the local levels on the central levels that can also be exploited for control. This is still the case despite a strong increase in self-administration.44 Framework agreements as means of increased cooperation Framework agreements between administrations and IT suppliers constitute financial incentives for cooperation and at the same time provide means of standardisation. In almost all countries examined there are such agreements that also apply generally across all levels, mostly concerning software or hardware. The central, i.e. federal, government negotiates an increased amount of uniform framework agreements and offers participation to all administrative levels on favourable terms. In the US, partnerships are promoted not only between local governments but also between local, state and federal governments. For example, the eGovernment Act of December 2002 permits so-called ‘cooperative purchasing’ in order to beat down the price of a large order (Hasson 2002). States and local governments are permitted to obtain IT from the General Services Administration’s Federal Supply Schedules. Similar approaches also exist in Germany, where the Federal Ministry of the Interior partly concludes framework agreements for software for the entire public administration thereby providing a financial relief with respect to the procurement of software (on this, see Eifert 2004: 121). For example, a contract on software for electronic archiving was agreed between the ‘Beschaffungsamt des Bundesministeriums des Innern’ (Procurement Office of the Federal Ministry of the Interior) and a private software producer which facilitated procurement for all federal authorities and ancillary administrations. In consequence, individual authorities do not need to advertise public invitations to tender. The federal government invited local and communal authorities to also take advantage of the framework agreement (Bundesministerium des Innern 2001: 53ff.). In Great Britain too there are numerous examples of public–private partnerships, in which the central government offers incentives for investment to commercial organisations on the basis of framework agreements (Pratchett 2004: 36). The ‘strategic service delivery partnership’ between Liverpool’s City Council and British Telecom illustrates that these are not merely small investments. The latter are investing £35 million (€52.5 million) in the city’s online system (ibid.). Gain of reputation as instrument of guidance The importance of competitions conducted for the allocation of finances as means of guidance and control (see above) does not only lie in the funds that are promised. Moreover, the prize to be won in such a competition constitutes an image advantage and a prestige gain, which are already incentives in themselves. For the advertising authority, such competitions present an opportunity to exert

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controlling influence on the form and quality of the implementation despite limited public funds. In the US, for example, there are certification models and official decorations without ancillary monetary funds (Hagen 2004: 229). The Clinton/Gore administration invented the so-called ‘Hammer Award’, which was awarded to exemplary projects. Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in cooperation with the Council for Excellence in Government organises the annual competition ‘Innovations in American Government’. The Bush administration has developed an e-government scorecard system (ibid.). Comparable systems of recognition exist in the other countries too. In Finland, the best digital service solutions are recognised by an annual award and displayed on a specific website (Hyyryläinen 2004: 53). In France, the best administrative forms are furnished by COSA with a kind of certificate of quality, which may be used in documents and is therefore regarded as an indicator of quality. This also ultimately leads to an improved image and enhanced reputation for the successful agency (Chatillon 2004: 106). In Germany, the ‘D21’ initiative organises competitions supported by the industry and by the public administration. The ‘Deutsche Hochschule für Verwaltungswissenschaften Deutschland’ and several private or private–public initiatives also regularly organise competitions. Furthermore, the federal initiative ‘BundOnline 2005’ is accompanied by the awarding of the newly established ‘BundOnline-Star’. This prize is given to outstanding applications within the areas of government-to-citizen, governmentto-business and government-to-government transactions. One of the first applications to be awarded this prize was the online auction system of the German Customs authority.45 Finally, the idea of stimulating innovation through competitions and ‘official’ awards or other forms of recognition has also been adopted by the European Commission to promote e-Europe.46 The most outstanding applications in the areas of e-government and e-health are awarded with the so-called ‘eEurope Awards Trophy’. The eEurope Awards are organised by the European Institute of Public Administration and aim to promote best practices among the Member States. Central mediation of cooperation? In addition to being responsible for knowledge-management across all levels, as described above, the central level of administration in some countries also acts as an intermediary agent for partnerships between communities or other local authorities, i.e. third parties. The framework agreement in Great Britain has already been mentioned as an example of the promotion of partnerships between local governments and private bodies by advocacy and incentives. In Great Britain, there is also a programme to support cooperation between local governments. This so-called ‘partnership programme’ was developed by central government, and grants financial support to selected local authorities for an increased establishment of partnerships among themselves. The aim is to reduce financial expenditure, to offer collective services, to achieve rapid devel-

Lessons learned 259 opments, and to exchange expertise and experience. Local strategic partnerships, however, are designed not only to promote coordination and cooperation, or to act as think-tanks, but also to fulfil the function of an arbitration board (Pratchett 2004: 22). In 2002, more than 100 local partnerships applied for support. Of these, 64 were finally supported with almost £50 million (€75 million).47 Of the £350 million (€525 million) which has been expressly allocated for the promotion of e-government at the local level over the next three years, £75 million (€110 million) is to go to support local and regional partnerships, according to the responsible Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.48 In Germany, the government of the Land Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westfalia), for example, initiated the project ‘Digitales Ruhrgebiet’ in which the local units enter into intense cooperative relationships.

Communal umbrella organisations with central functions Cooperation and coordination across all administrative levels is confronted with a large number of parties in particular at the local level. It is obvious that the involvement of all local governments by the means of comprehensive multilateral cooperation is impossible on a regular basis. Therefore, communal umbrella associations and collective institutions of the local units play a central role in coordinating and cooperating in the implementation of nationwide e-government. In Japan, for example, one (!) joint data processing centre has been established by the association of local governments since the 1970s, which today not only supports and attends to the development of e-government but also provides uniform applications via an ASP system and is responsible for the central Japanese database for identification data (Yonemaru 2004: 171). In Australia, communal associations have taken over the coordination of egovernment programmes for all levels in the particularly advanced federal states of Victoria and New South Wales. Furthermore, they have founded a syndicate for the development of applications. In the case of the state of Victoria, internet tools and comprehensive, specifically project-related advice services are provided (Roehrich and Armstrong 2004: 206). In Great Britain, both the Local Government Association as well as SOCITM, the IT managers’ association – the latter having substantial influence on the central e-government agenda – play an important role (Pratchett 2004: 34). In Finland, the association of the communities (ALFRA) is a regular partner in a multitude of government programmes (Hyyryläinen 2004: 74). And in Germany, the communal organisations are contract partners at all levels. They represent the communities in the coordination committee KoopA ADV and are also contractual partners to Freistaat Bavaria in the latter’s e-government agreement with the communal level. However, in Germany there are different local and regional bodies of selfadministration, which are organised primarily on a state basis and each of which has one federal umbrella organisation. Thus, communal self-administration experiences a lesser degree of central organisation than in other countries.

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On the whole, however, the local level’s ability to self-organise and the extent to which it allows representation by associations seems likely to play a crucial role in the spreading of e-government.

Conclusions Many of the technological questions concerning e-government have been solved. The next major questions arise at the beginning of the second phase: how to allow for a sustainable implementation of e-government that ensures nationwide and financially realisable as well as advanced solutions across all administrative competencies. Regardless of the actual structures of government and public administration, this is universally conceived by all countries as a problem of effective coordination and cooperation between the authorities and the different administrative levels. In all countries, however, such demands are consistently more advanced than the actual attempts to provide solutions. This even applies to those countries that are generally attested to be at a comparatively advanced stage of e-government development. For example, in the US as well as in Great Britain there exists a high awareness of the necessity of inter-governmental cooperation between all governmental levels as a prerequisite for the successful and expansive introduction of e-government.49 Regarding actual progress in this respect, however, there are high deficits in both countries.50 In Germany also an increased interaction of all governmental levels (federal state/Länder/communities) is called for, but the actual approaches are limited. As a result of these discrepancies, we could identify approaches and patterns, but not yet any distinct ‘success models’. The success of any model derived from these approaches will most likely depend on its details and, above all, the concerted interaction of the different approaches. Regarding such patterns, the collection, generation and dispersion of knowledge are primarily emerging as the collective responsibility of the superior levels of central administration. This responsibility emerges regardless of the structures of federal government and public administration, which anyway do not regulate information-related acts. The actual means, however, in particular those for gathering information, are subject to the distribution of competencies between the administrative levels. We could identify the construction of WANs and integrated portals, the setting of standards (in particular for ensuring interoperability), joint developments and applications, as well as coordinated procurement as fields of increased cooperation and coordination needs which have partly led to first solutions. The particularly significant development of standards is characterised by very cooperative and mostly institutionalised procedures. However, at present, the only country in which its implementation is at least partially ensured by law is the UK. This corresponds with the general observation that coordination between the authorities and the administrative levels is motivated above all by soft means such as financial or other incentives and support provided by central authorities.

Lessons learned 261 The latter also corresponds well with the knowledge-management approach. In view of these means, the difference between centrally and federally organised states is not yet really of importance. However, the question will remain for the time being whether these soft approaches are sufficiently effective or can at least be made effective, or whether the control instrument of regulatory power will not after all become necessary at least as an auxiliary instrument. The degree of the communal level’s self-organisation could well be a decisive factor in this respect. However, if hierarchy and binding specifications should in future gain more importance for coordination and cooperation, further development will of course be more strongly influenced by questions relating to the constitutional structures of the state and public administration. At present, however, all countries can still learn from one another by examining the more advanced solutions of other countries for their own unsolved questions. This study is meant to contribute to this mutual learning.

Notes 1 The same applies, of course, to other countries. For example, in Great Britain, it is assumed that the quantity of transactions at the local level by far exceeds those of central government. See Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (2002: 11). 2 On the relationship between e-government and the modernisation of public administration in Germany, see Hill (2002): 30ff. 3 In 1995, the Technologierat of the German federal government was already describing information technology as ‘the key to administrative reform’ (Technologierat der Bundesregierung 1995). The integration of the federal German e-government initiatives MEDIA@Komm and BundOnline 2005 into the programme for the modernisation of public administration (‘Moderner Staat – Moderne Verwaltung’) took place correspondingly. 4 On the reform of the public sector in Japan, see, generally, Nakamura (1999: 123ff.); Toshiyuki (1999: 215ff.); Takada (2002: 265ff.). 5 Initially, this was the administrative department ‘Moderner Staat’ of the Bundesministerium des Innern (Ministry of the Interior), which has now been re-transferred to general organisation again. 6 Roehrich and Armstrong (2004: 182); Pratchett (2004: 26, with a cross-reference to the second annual report of the e-envoy). The Swiss national e-government strategy of February 2002, for example, is also based on this insight. Here the creation of the best possible conditions for cooperation between the federal state, cantons and the local authorities has been given central attention, and the initiative ‘eVanti.ch’ has reinforced this approach. See www.admin.ch/ch/d/egov/egov/strategie/strategie. htm. The question of cooperation has also moved into focus in the Italian e-government strategy. For example, in December 2002, a paper on strategies for future e-government activities in Italy was presented in which cooperation between the federal state, regions and local authorities is emphasised as a crucial issue. See www.innovazione.gov.it. A similar development can be observed in Spain. Most recently, a new inter-ministerial organisation (CIAE) was founded in order to ensure cooperation and the implementation of the new e-government strategy. 7 See, for example, KableNet, 12 June 2002: ‘Whitehall and town hall need teamwork. A conference has been told that central and local government in the UK could work more closely in the cause of e-government’ (Nick Raynsford, Minister for Local Government and the Regions, ‘Local government cannot succeed alone’, in

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14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

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Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (2002: 3). In Australia, a so-called Online Council had already been appointed in 1997 by the federal government as a result of an agreement between the states, territories and local government entities that a uniform committee was necessary for dealing with questions concerning the internet at the most superior level (see Roehrich and Armstrong 2004: 206). Cf. in the US the e-Government Act of 2002 recently passed by the Senate. On the particular importance of cooperation between different governmental levels, see Lenk (2002b: 8, 2002a: 100ff.) and Eifert (2001: 115ff.). See, for example, the White Paper Strong Local Leadership: Quality Public Services (2001), or the Consultation Paper e-gov@local: Towards a National Strategy for Local Government (2002). Décret no. 2001–737, 22.8.2001, JO no. 194, 23.8.2001, p. 13509. See www.adae.gouv.fr/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=2; on ADELE, see www.adae. gouv.fr/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=59. The Swedish government established a high-level ‘Delegation for the 24/7 Agency’ in November 2003 which brings together members from central and local government, industry, and academia. One priority of this group will be to promote and increase cooperation between the state, county councils and local authorities. For details on the Agency, see Statskontoret (2000). On this, see Office of Intergovernmental Solutions (2002: 8ff.). The Intergovernmental Advisory Board is part of the Federation of Government Information Processing Councils (FGIPC) and is committed in particular to supporting cooperation between federal, state and local agencies. See www.fgipc.org. See e-Government Act 2002, H.R. 2458, section 3603 (Chief Information Officers Council). In the US, the GSA has legislative power in the field of procurement (including information technology). See Hagen (2004: 225ff.). Press release, Bayrischen Staatskanzlei, 3 December 2002. See www.baynet.de. Sometimes, the increased need for investment is the object of criticism and not the full integration of all administrative entities. Cf. Oberster Rechnungshof Bayern (2002: 181ff.). This is one of the decisive grounds on which the project ‘Government without Boundaries’ of the Office of Intergovernmental Solutions in the US was set up as it became clear that ‘vertical integrations’ and, consequently, stronger cooperation between governmental, state and local government was necessary in order to achieve a consistent one-stop government (see Office of Intergovernmental Solutions (2002)). Switzerland attempted an approach to a ‘single window’ administration and, subsequently, a point of access independent of levels by constructing the portal ‘Guichet Virtuel’. On this, see Lenk (2002c: 32). On cooperation between federal cantons and communities, see Weiss (2001: 274ff.). Cf. www.service-bw.de. The same discussion is currently being conducted within the EU regarding panEuropean government e-services (cf. European Commission, ENTR-D-2/PMU (2002), 5.4.2003). For the European dimension of interoperability, see Commissions Staff Working Paper, ‘Linking up Europe: the importance of interoperability for e-government services’, Brussels, 3 July 2003, SEC(2003) 801. Information provided by Hyyryläinen, interview, 12 September 2003. Cf. Art. 6, 10 décret no. 2001–737, 22.8.2001, JO no. 194, 23.8.2001, p. 13509. Cf. ‘ Circulaire du 21 janvier 2002 relative à la mise en oeuvre d’un cadre commun d’interopérabilité pour les échanges et la compatibilité des systèmes d’information des

Lessons learned 263

28 29 30 31

32

33 34

35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

43

administrations’, available online at www.legifrance.gouv.fr/WAspad/UnTexteDe Jorf ?numjo=PRMX0205357C. Bremen Online Services won the eEurope Award for their integrated portal for egovernment transactions, including the use of legally binding electronic signatures. See, further, www.e-europeawards.org. On the criticism of the joint development programme of the Statistische Bundesämter, see Rechnungshöfe des Bundes und der Länder (2002: 16ff.). In Rechnungshöfe des Bundes und der Länder (2002: 17), a distinct definition of priorities and the assignment of undivided responsibility for economic results are stated as contributing factors to the success of a joint development programme. In France, a project on an electronic ‘passport’ based on an integrated PKI was announced by Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sakozy. By 2006 at the latest, the electronic card should enable people to use federal as well as local e-government services. See www.interieur.gouv.fr. During the first eleven months of operation, 178,000 contacts with citizens and 10,000 contacts with businesses were recorded. Similar developments of so-called ‘government-wide middleware infrastructure’ have also started taking place in Ireland, Canada and the US, for example. In Ireland, the so-called ‘Public Services Broker’ takes over the role of an intermediary between the respective administrative units and the citizen. In Canada, both a Service Broker as well as a so-called ‘secure channel’ providing comprehensive security and identification for all federal government services are part of the Federated Architecture Program. A working group has been established to develop an alternative architecture for ‘federated identity authentication services that will scale government wide’. See www.cio.gov/eauthentication. See www.genesis.destatis.de/genesis/online/logon. Nevertheless, a study conducted by the Bundesrechnungshof and eleven Landesrechnungshöfe criticised the insufficient cooperation between the different Statistische Landesämter which led to an annual waste of €100 million. The study recommended reorganising the sixteen statistical agencies into five units, arguing that independent software development offices and data processing centres were not necessary for almost identical tasks. See Rechnungshöfe des Bundes und der Länder (2002). On the bundling of the information and communications responsibilities of the federal and local statistical agencies, see Rechnungshöfe des Bundes und der Länder (2002: 16ff.). See www.geo-one-stop.gov. See n-tv.de, ‘Wirbel um “Juki-Net” – Japaner gegen Nummerierung’, 6 August 2002, available online at www.n-tv.de/3055758.html; Japan Times Online, 3 and 5 August 2002, available online at www.japantimes.co.jp. AUS$45 million has been made available for supporting regional and local administrative entities in fostering the diffusion of infrastructure for e-services (Roehrich and Armstrong 2004: 000). On the integration of central government’s control of finances into a top-down strategy for local e-government, see Pratchett (2004: 30). On the funding of local e-government, see Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (2002: 67ff.). On the distribution of funds to the separate Pathfinder projects, see Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (2002: 67ff.). Local governments, however, quote expenses for local e-government at £2.5 billion (€3.75 billion) should they be required to reach all electronic service delivery targets by the year 2005. See Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (2002: 67). E-Government Act 2002, H.R. 2458–8, section 3604 (e-Government Fund): ‘There are authorized to be appropriated to the Fund (A) $45,000,000 for fiscal year 2003;

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(B) $50,000,000 for fiscal year 2004; (C) $100,000,000 for fiscal year 2005; (D) $150,000,000 for fiscal year 2006; and (E) such sums as are necessary for fiscal year 2007.’ For example, Japan reinforced the communal sector in the course of deregulation and the administrative reform; however, the local offices for self-administration still remained dependent on central government’s financial resources. See Yonemaru (2004: 170). See www.zoll-d.de/auction. For further details, see www.e-europeawards.org. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Press Release 013, 19 June 2002: ‘Nearly £50 million boost for local e-government partnerships – 64 projects to receive funding.’ For more information, see www.localegov.gov.uk. Recent statements have even mentioned a figure of £675 million (€1 billion) being provided by central government for the support of local authorities in the creation of e-government services by 2005. See KableNET.com, 27 November 2002: ‘Leslie unveils the master plan.’ On the US, see Office of Intergovernmental Solutions (2002: 6ff.). Hagen (2004: 234ff.); Office of Intergovernmental Solutions (2002: 5): ‘A source of funding and authority is needed to support intergovernmental programs. The current vertical, program specific funding models in use do not adequately support horizontal intergovernmental initiatives. Without dedicated sources of funding for these initiatives, government will continue to build highly stove-piped, process centered applications that do not adequately serve citizens, and cause costly redundancy in government services’; Pratchett (2004: 39): ‘there is some considerable divergence between, on the one hand, the national consensus and vision, and, on the other, the reality of individual local authorities … Therefore, while on the surface central–local collaboration on e-government appears good, beneath the surface the picture is more fragmented.’

References Bauer H. (2002) ‘Entwicklungstendenzen und Perspektiven des Föderalismus in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Wettbewerbsföderalismus’, Die öffentliche Verwaltung 55: 873ff. Booz, Allen & Hamilton (ed.) (2002) E-Government und der moderne Staat: Einstieg, Strategie und Umsetzung, Frankfurt am Main: FAZ-Institut für Management-, Markt- und Medieninformationen. Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie (ed.) (2002) Geoinformation und moderner Staat, Frankfurt am Main: Interministeriellen Ausschusses für das Geoinformationswesen (IMAGI). Bundesministerium des Innern (ed.) (2001) BundOnline 2005: Bundesverwaltung präsentiert Erfolgsmodelle, Berlin: Stabsstelle Moderner Staat – Moderne Verwaltung. Cabinet Office (1999) Modernising Government, Cm. 4310, London: Stationery Office. Chatillon, G. (2004) ‘Electronic government in France’, Ch. 4 of the present volume. Chevallerau, F.X. (2002) ‘Consultant’s viewpoint on e-Government’, available online at www.qlinks.net/quicklinks/egov8.htm (Quicklinks, Issue no. 232, April 2002). Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (2001) Strong Local Leadership: Quality Public Services, London: Stationery Office. —— (2002) e-gov@local: Towards a National Strategy for Local Government, London: Stationery Office. Eifert, M. (2001) ‘Electronic Government als gesamtstaatliche Organisationsaufgabe’, Zeitschrift für Gesetzgebung 16: 115ff.

Lessons learned 265 —— (2004) ‘Electronic government in Germany’, Ch. 5 of the present volume. Hasson, J. (2002) ‘E-gov bill offers state and local buying’, available online at www.fcw.com/geb/articles/2002/1118/web-buy-11-19-02.asp. Hill, H. (2002) ‘Electronic Government – Strategie zur Modernisierung von Staat und Verwaltung’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, Beilage zur Zeitschrift Das Parlament 39–40: 24ff. Hyyryläinen, E. (2004) ‘Electronic government in Finland’, Ch. 3 of the present volume. Leisner, A. (2000) ‘Europa als Wettbewerbsgemeinschaft von Staaten – Kompetiver Föderalismus und europäische Integration’, in P. Kirchhof, M. Lehner, A. Raupach and M. Rodi (eds) Staaten und Steuern, Festschrift für Klaus Vogel zum 70, Geburtstag, Heidelberg: Müller, pp. 593ff. Lenk, K. (2002a) ‘eGovernment als Schlüssel zur Modernisierung von Staat und Verwaltung’, in D. Spahni (ed.) eGovernment 2, Bern, Stuttgart, Wien: Verlag Paul Haupt, pp. 94ff. —— (2002b) ‘Elektronische Bürgerdienste im Flächenland als staatlich-kommunale Gemeinschaftsaufgabe’, Verwaltung & Management 1: 4ff. —— (2002c) ‘Electronic Government’, in Center for Science and Technology Studies (ed.) Bundesaktivitäten für die Informationsgesellschaft – Expertenberichte, Schweiz: CEST. Nakamura, A. (1999) ‘Reforming government and changing styles of Japanese governance’, in H.-K. Wong and H.S. Chan (eds) Handbook of Comparative Public Administration in the Asia-Pacific Basin, New York: Marcel Dekker Inc, pp. 123ff. Oberster Rechnungshof Bayern (ed.) (2002), Jahresbericht 2002, München. Office of Intergovernmental Solutions (2002) Government without Boundaries: A Management Approach to Intergovernmental Programs, US General Services Administration, available online at www.gwob.gov/report/gwobfinalreport.pdf. Pratchett, L. (2004) ‘Electronic government in Britain’, Ch. 2 of the present volume. Rechnungshöfe des Bundes und der Länder (eds) (2002) Empfehlungen zur Wirtschaftlichkeit des öffentlichen Statistikwesens, Munich. Roehrich, N. and Armstrong, M. (2004) ‘Electronic government in Australia’, Ch. 7 of the present volume. Statskontoret (2000) The 24/7 Agency – Criteria for 24/7 Agencies in the Networked Public Administration, Stockholm: Swedish Agency for Administrative Development, available online at www.statskontoret.se/pdf/200041.pdf. Takada, A. (2002) ‘Die “Verwaltungsreform” in Japan’, Die öffentliche Verwaltung 55: 265ff. Technologierat der Bundesregierung (ed.) (1995) Informationsgesellschaft – Chancen, Innovation und Herausforderung, Bonn. Toshijuki, M. (1999) ‘Evaluating administrative reform: an insider report’, Social Science Japan Journal 2(2): 215ff. Weiss, J. (2001) ‘Die Idee des guichet virtuel’, in M. Gisler and D. Spahni (eds) eGovernment – Eine Standortbestimmung, Bern, Stuttgart, Wien: Verlag Paul Haupt, pp. 274ff. Yonemaru, T. (2004) ‘Electronic government in Japan’, Ch. 6 of the present volume.

Index

Access America 219 access to key public data 91 Act of 13 March 2000 (Fr) 92, 97 action plan 63 action programme (Fin) 68, 72 AdER (Fr) 88, 92 administrative forms 99 administrative reform (USA) 217; 244, agenda 220 Advisory Board on Information Management in Public Administration (Fin) 51, 66 advisory councils 127 Agence pour developpement de l´administration électronique (ADAE) (Fr.) 247 Agence pour les technologies de l’information et de la communication dans l’administration (ATICA) 87 Agency for Information and Communication Technologies (Fr) 105 Al Gore 217, 220 ALFRA (Fin) 48, 50, 58, 65, 74 ff. American National Standards Institute (USA) 228 APCG (Fr) 100 Applied Comparative Analysis 4; Defenition of the issue 4; Determination of the sample 5; proxy criteria and indicators 6–7; generic categories of guidance and control 8–9 ARF (Fr) 101 Associate Director for Information Technology and e-government (USA) 220 Associate Director for Information Technology and e-government in the Office of Management and Bureau (USA) 225

Association des Maires de France (Fr) 100 ATICA (Fr) 98, 99, 103 Australian Business Number Digital Signature Certificate 200 Australian Government Locator Service 187 Australian Standard SAA MP75 198 Australian Taxation Office 199 awards 53, 76, 106 BayernOnline 250 Benchmarking 4 Bertelsmann-Stiftung 124 best practices 4, 74, 77, 105, Bosca, John Della 203 Brown, Clive 203 BundOnline-Star 258 Bush administration’s e-government strategy 220 Business Partnership Agreements 187 Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations bank (Fr) 92 Carcenac 90 Center for Registration of Administrative Forms (CERFA) (Fr) 106 Central Direction for Information Systems Security (DCSSI) (Fr) 99 Central Population Register (Fin) 60 Centrelink as example of cooperation 187 Charlotte-Mecklenburg 233 Chief Information Officer (USA) 225 Chief Information Officers Council (USA) 222 Citizen’s Electronic Forms Service (Fin) 54 Clinton/Gore Initiative 217 CNIL 110 COFRAC (Fr) 97 Commission on State Reform (Fr) 104

Index 267 Commission pour les Simplifications Administratives (COSA) (Fr) 87, 99, 104, 106 Committee for the Improvement of Administrative Language (COSLA) (Fr) 107 communal umbrella organisations 259–260 computer emergency response team and administration (CERT/A) (Fr) 94 cooperation 2, 4, 187; at local government level (Aus) 206; intra-agency cooperation 189; metadata standards 187; overlapping interests 187; personal and practical links 187; within government 188; an international consensus, 244, fields and instruments 249–254; financial incentives 255–257; central mediation 258 cooperative federalism 214 Coordination of e-government (Aus) 202 COSIFORM (commission for the simplification of formalities) (Fr) 103–6 Council for Information Society (Fin) 63, 71 Council of Ministers 70 cross-agency steering committee 123 Customer Impact Agencies (USA) 219 D 21-initiative (Ger) 120 data sharing 75 DCSSI (Fr) 98, 99 Decentralisation reform 83, 86 DIfU (Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik) 124 digital divide 92, 196 DIRE (Fr) 98, 100, 104 document-management system 122, 123 E-Business Readiness score 192 E-Government Act of 2002 (USA) 222 E-Government Fund (USA) 223 E-Government Portfolios 221 E-Procurement 192 E-Sign-Law (USA) 223 Edita Prima Ltd. 54 eHealth (Aus) 201 electronic authentication 76 Electronic Commerce Interface (Aus) 200 electronic ID-card 70 Electronic payment of suppliers 192 electronic service delivery targets 2, 65, 94 electronic signatures 71, 92, 96, 223

Elisa (Fin) 62 encryption technology 93 evaluations 74 Federal Electronic Transactions Act 1999 (Aus) 199 federal funds 215 Financing e-government 229, 255–256 Finnish Communications Regulation Agency (FICORA) (Fin) 48, 51, 71 Finnish Local and Regional Authorities (Fin) 48 Finnish National Archives (Fin) 51 Finnish National Fund for Research and Development (SITRA) 73 formal interministry coordination system 56 forms 91 framework agreements 257 funding 92, 74, 112, 119, 206 General Secretariat of National Defence (SGDN) (Fr) 97, 98 George W. Bush 220 Geospatial One-Stop (GOS) (USA) 254 German Institute for Standardisation (DIN) 126 Gerneral Service Administration (GSA) (USA) 248 GITS Working Group (USA) 218 good practices 66; 76 governance 46 Government Action Programme for an Information Society (PAGSI) (Fr) 89 Government General Secretariat, SGG (Fr) 91 Government Information Technology Services (GITS) Working Group (USA) 225 Government Information Unit 2003 (Fin) 46, 63 Government Paperwork Elimination Act (USA) 217, 224 Government Performance and Results Act (USA) 217 Government without Boundaries (USA) 227 Government’s general secretariat (Fr) 87 GTFA (Groupe de Travail Fournisseurs – Administration) (Fr) 97 guidance: gain of reputation as instrument 257–258

268

Index

Guide to Minimum Website Standards (Aus) 195 Hammer-Award 229 Health eSignature Authority (Aus) 201 HealthConnect (Aus) 201 informal agreement 182, contacts 78 Information Management Strategy Committee (Aus) 194 Information society (LSI) (Fr) 93 Information Society Advisory Board (Fin) 62, 63, 71, 76, 247 Information Society Interministerial Committee (Fr) 102 Information Society Programme (Fin) 46, 66, 78 integrated data systems 59, 60 integrated service 94 interactive on-line procedures 106 interchangeability 223 Intergovernmental Advisory Board (USA) 227 intergovernmental coordination 214 Intergovernmental Enterprise Panel (USA) 227 interministerial agencies 87; Information Society Interministerial Committee 87, 88; Interministerial Committee for State Reform 87, 88; Interministerial Delegation for State Reform (DIRE) (Fr) 100; Interministerial Delegation for State Reform 87; Interministerial Committee for State Reform 94; interministerial committee on IT (Ger) 121 interministerial coordination 63; interministerial group 63; interministerial networks 102; interministerial register of management public keys infrastructures (IGC) 99; Interministerieller Ausschuss für das Geoinformationswesen (IMAGI) (Ger) 254; interministry working group 73 Internet accesses 61 Internet revolution 216 intranet 123, 126, 130 Investing for Growth 191 IT infrastructure 88, 216 IT-penetration 119 JHS-recommendations 51, 66, 76 John Howard 191

Joint Advisory Body for Municipal Finance and Administration (Fin) 58 joint services 75 Jospin 91 JUHTA (Fin) 51 Juki Net (Jap) 157, 255 JULHA directory service (Fin) 62 Kärkiverkosto 73 key partnerships 76 KGSt 130 knowledge: committees for the systematic collection, 246 KoopA ADV 130, 248 L´Agence pour les technologies de l’information et de la communication dans l’administration (ATICA) (Fr) 99 L’Assemblée des Présidents des Conseils généraux (APCG) (Fr) 100 Lasserre 90 L’Association des Régions de France (ARF) (Fr) 101 Lipponen 66, 75 Local Authorities Systems Development Centre (LASDEC) (Jap) 248 Local Government Act (Fin) 50, 52, 57, 58 Lomax, Jane 203 Lucas, Paul 203 Mark Forman 228 Minister of the Public Service and State Reform (Fr) 109 Ministerial Council for the Information Economy (Aus) 194 Ministry for the Interior (Fin) 57 Ministry of Economics and Labour 119 Ministry of Finance (Fin) 51, 57, 62–65, 76 Ministry of Finance, Economy and Industry (Fr) 96 Ministry of Justice (Fr) 97 Ministry of the Interior (Fin) 54, 55, 58, 62, 66, 76 Ministry of the Interior (Ger) 119, 121 Minsterial Council for the Information Economy (Aus) 203 mobile phones 61 Model Law on Electronic Commerce 199 Modernisation High Civil Servants Officers (Fr) 98 Montgomery, Mike 203 moving notification service 60

Index 269 National Archives of Australia 187 National Association of Counties (USA) 214 National Defence General Secretariat (SGDN) 87 National League of Cities (USA) 214 National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) 185, 192, 204 National Office of Local Government (Aus) 207 National Performance Review (USA) 217 National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) (USA) 254 National Technology Agency of Finland (TEKES) 73 network security 93 New Public Management 1, 6, 8, 244 Office for Government Online (Aus) 205 Office of Electronic Government (USA) 222 Office of Government Wide Policy (USA) 226 Office of Information and Communications Technology 184 Office of Intergovernmental Solutions (USA) 226 Office of Management and Budget (USA) 221 One-Stop-Government 1, 221, 231, single point filling 231 Online Council (Aus) 187, 202 online forms 106 Online Information Service Obligations (Aus) 195 online services 75 PAGSI (Fr) 89, 90–94 PAGSI’s representatives (Fr) 98 performance contracting 54 performance goals 54 Personal Identity Number 60 PKI 98, 224 PKI infrastructure (Aus) 198 Population Register Centre (Fin) 59, 62, 65, 70 Portals 76, 91, 122; Service-Public.gouv.fr 91; vie-publique.fr 91; bund.de 120; Suomi-portal (Fin) 69; regional portals (Fin) 69; www.firstgov.gov (USA) 220; integrated 250–251 Prime Minister 71, 98, 104 privacy 110, 122

programme director for Information Society Programme 63 Projects Australia: ABS@Your Service 189; AskNow! 190; australia.gov.au 195; Biotechnology Australia 189; Centrelink 186; federal governments Online Strategy 192; Fishonline 191; Gatekeeper 198; Government Electronic Market 190; Graduate Recruitment Online 190; GrantsLINK 191; Multimedia Victoria (MMV) 197; NSW Emergency Services Sector Initiative 189; NSW government licensing project 190; Online Services Delivery 207; Picture Australia 190; TIGERS 196; www.business.gov.au 195; www.publications.gov.au 196 Projects Finland: Balanced Scorecard (BSC) 67; eStra-project 67; Health Pilot-project 68; JUNA-project 66, 68, 74; MOVE@-project 67; Public Workstations for Citizens-project 67, 68; TYVI-system 70; Virtual University 70; XML-project 67, 68; YTJ-directory 70 Projects France: electronic access points 108; file-holding point 108; Interministerial XML (eXtensible Markup Language ) schemes register 99; interoperability frame 99; notification of trade in goods 107; online VAT 107; public tenders 107; tax declaration and payment 96; Vit@min 100 Projects Germany: BundOnline 2005 119; Deutschland Online 122; Initiative BundOnline 2005 120; local initiatives 124; MEDIA@komm 119, 126; MEDIA@komm-Transfer 120; Modern State Modern Administration 121; SAGA 121; TESTA 130 Projects USA: Access America 219; Charlotte’s Web 233; Commonwealth of Virginia, the State of New Jersey and Fairfax County 227; EAuthentication 221; E-Authentification 236; Federal Enterprise Architecture 221, 236; IowAccess 226; NC CONTACT 233; Netdays 229; STAWRS 230; TIGERS 227; WINGS 230, 232 Projets France: Tax General Direction 97; protection of personal data 93; public interest grouping on the modernisation

270

Index

of social notifications (GIP-MDS) (Fr) 107 Public Key Authentication Framework (Aus) 198 Raffarin 85, 86 Re-engineering of administrative processes 57 Resident Registry 128 responsibility for innovation 188 Sapin 94 September 11, 2001 229 shared applications 253–254 shared services 89, 121, 126 smart cards 224 Social Insurance Institution (SII) (Fin) 70 Social Security Agency (USA) 230 soft tools 255 Sophistication of services 192 standards 75, 99, 100, 109, 121 ff., 130; 251–254; OSCI 130; XML 129 Stanhope, Jon 203 State grants 47 State of Bremen 123 State of Victoria 186 State Reform Interministerial Committee (Fr) 102 statutes on automated data processing 126

tax proposal 59, 60, 65 Technology Literacy Challenge (USA) 230 TEKES (Fin) 73 The Government Machinery For Achieving Administrative Simplification and Modernisation of the State (Fr) 104 Think Tanks 234 Thomas Jefferson 217 Thomson, Marsha 203 Toyne, Peter H. 203 Uniform Electronic Transaction Act (USA) 223 United States Postal Service (USA) 232 Vanhanen 46, 63, 72, 76, 78 VicNet 186 vision 62 War against Terror 229 whole-of-government guidelines (Aus) 205 Wide area networks (WANs) 249–250 Williams, Daryl 203 XML’s programs 103