Has e-government made things less efficient rather than
more streamlined, asks Simon Moores.
The Republic of Yemen apparently wishes to investigate
the opportunities for e-government in that country, and why
not?
I was on a trip to the Middle East this month, and the United
Nations have invited me to pop over to Sanaa in December for a chat
with the Yemeni prime minister.
What about Hawaii, I asked. “Sorry, they already have
e-government, but how about Baghdad?”
No thanks, I replied. "The Yemen sounds fine. Do you have any of
those nice blue Kevlar vests I could borrow?"
On the last trip to the region, Kuwait in
fact, I was representing myself and not the UK government, which
meant my PowerPoint deck, could have a picture of Karl Marx with
the caption “Bureaucracy is the ultimate purpose of the state", and
a second photo of my friend Alan Mather with the quote
“e-government is brutally hard”.
Anyway, this time, when people asked me for my
opinion on the success of our own e-government programme, I was
able to say what I thought, rather than offer the official message
from Whitehall’s department of e-communcations or Pravda.com as
it’s better known.
“E-government is supposed to involve a more
streamlined and cost effective method of delivering government
services and this is, after all, why you need it so much in the
Arab world which still suffers from the legacy of 500 years of
Ottoman bureaucracy."
“However, in the UK, while we are doing some
great things with XML, we seem to have got it back to front, and
the bureaucracy is steadily increasing, despite the introduction of
expensive new technologies and ambitious e-government
projects.”
I told them that we now have 524,770 people
working for central government ministries and quangos, an increase
on last year of 26,550 employees. And even though most people still
don’t file their tax returns online, the army of the Inland
Revenue, which has one of most expensive e-government projects of
all, has grown by 13,000 more people.
By 2006 the UK’s public sector workforce is
predicted to rise to 684,000 at a cost of £19.5bn. Since 1997, the
cost of running central government departments has risen by 50% to
£6.7bn, although the Office of Government Commerce has now
negotiated a more favourable deal for Office licences with
Microsoft and is trialling open source.
“In the UK, we proudly describe this as the
advance of the information economy and the triumph of e-government,
and you can have this too,” I declared.
"But,” said the Arab minister, “we are trying
to streamline our top-heavy civil service, make it smaller and more
efficient and certainly more cost effective than it’s been in the
past.”
His friends from Egypt, Dubai and other states
nodded. After all, this was the march of progress and didn’t the UK
know about such things?
I explained that joined-up government tends to
make the administration larger rather than smaller.
It creates more opportunity to create new
public sector jobs around technologies that didn’t exist in the
past, for example, speed cameras, congestion charges, taxation,
equal opportunities statistics, the list is endless.
In the end, government becomes so efficient
that it employs everyone, which brings us back to Karl Marx and
bureaucracy as the ultimate purpose of the state.
“Believe me, in the UK, we have all the
answers, and a Government Gateway too,” I said.
“I know,” said the man from Egypt, “You tried
to sell it to us.”
“See,” I said. "This just proves that we in
the UK with our e-government exchange programme can help the
Egyptians master the science of bureaucracy.”
What do you think?
Has the internet streamlined your dealings with government?
Tell us in an e-mail >>
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Setting the world to rights with the collected thoughts and
opinions of leading industry analyst Dr Simon Moores of
Zentelligence.
Acting globally, Zentelligence (Research) advises
governments, suppliers, business and the media on the evolution,
application and delivery of leading-edge technologies and
specialises in the areas of eGovernment and information
security.
For further information on Zentelligence and its research,
presentation and analyst services visitwww.zentelligence.com