The Institute of Directors regards the government's
performance on its e-government initiatives to be like the curate's
egg - good in parts.
First the good. The government has become much more realistic about
the deployment of its e-government services and it is focusing on
those that are most likely to be of real benefit and widely used,
rather than simply trying to tick all the boxes for getting
everything online.
There have been some unsung heroes. For example, the system for
electronic land records reduced the time required for searches in
house conveyancing. The ultimate solution to gazumping was simply
to remove the time window in which it occurred.
Similarly, under Peter Gershon's leadership, the Office of
Government Commerce has greatly sharpened up the government's act
in terms of purchasing new information systems and the project
management of those systems through the Gateway processes.
Our chief area of concern is that the public sector still thinks in
terms of information system projects to deliver e-services, rather
than business change projects that happen to be mediated by new
information systems.
All too often, new information systems are funded centrally, yet
the funding for business change, including training,
communications, incentives and opportunity costs, has to be found
locally.
These local soft costs will generally be higher than those for the
information systems. Perhaps because so few public servants have
been enthused with the potential for service improvement (as well
as for cost reduction), take-up of those services already on offer
has been disappointing.
Figures from the Department of Trade and Industry's Business in the
Information Age international benchmarking study, published in
December 2003, suggested that the UK's drive towards a knowledge
economy is stalling.
Companies and individuals are failing to exploit the new tools and
channels and competitor economies such as Canada and Australia are
overtaking us in the e-government stakes.
Jim Norton is a senior policy adviser on
e-business and e-government at the Institute of Directors