E-government developments on delivering public services among EU cities
Introduction
Since the late 1990s, governments at all levels have launched electronic government projects, albeit at different speeds, aimed at providing electronic information and services to citizens and businesses. The dramatic development of e-commerce in recent years and the evolution projected for the near future has encouraged consumers to demand more and more customized, rapid, and at home services. In the private sector, research surveys suggest that customers achieve high levels of satisfaction from e-commerce vendors,1 so the consumers of public services are starting to demand the same level of responsiveness and service from their governments as they expect from the private sector.2,3
According to Relyea,4 the term ‘e-government’ was introduced by a joint report – Access America: Reengineering Through Information Technology – of the National Performance Review and the Government Information Technology Services Board in 1997. At that time, however, e-government was little more than a general recognition of a confluence of information technology (IT) developments and the application and use of these technologies by government entities.
At present, there are various ways to understand what e-government means. An early definition is provided by Kaylor et al.:5 “E-government is taken to be the ability for citizens to communicate and/or interact with the city via the Internet in any way more sophisticated than a simple email letter to the generic city (or Webmaster) or e-mail address provided at the site.” In an empirical survey, the United Nations (UN) and the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) defined e-government as “utilizing the Internet and the World-Wide-Web for delivering government information and services to citizens.”6 Both indicate that e-government is an umbrella term covering many diverse applications. More useful was the subsequent US/ASPA division of e-government into five stages: emerging, enhanced, interactive, transactional, and seamless.7,8 More recently, e-government is defined by the OECD as “the use of ICTs, and particularly the Internet, as a tool to achieve better government.”9
In the definitions mentioned above, the differences are not just semantic but reflect priorities in government strategies. The definitions fall into two groups: in one, e-government is defined as the Internet (online service delivery) and other Internet-based activity such as e-consultation, and in the other, e-government is defined as a capacity to transform public administration through the use of ICTs. Internet use by governments should not be isolated from the broader digitalization of government activity as a whole.
The construction and management of Web sites is becoming an essential element of modern public administration, but little is known about the effectiveness of public Web sites. Given the substantial investment in time and other resources in governmental online initiatives, it is essential to begin undertaking the evaluation of governmental Web sites in terms of quality and effectiveness.10 To date, there are no comprehensive benchmarks of the progress of city government Web sites in this regard. The objective of this article is to study the quality and usage of public e-services to citizens in Europe. We study the degree of implementation of online services through the identification of which services are currently offered online by local governments in the countries studied. How Web sites allow interaction with citizens, to what extent they cover the ‘circle of life’, and the breath and depth with which citizens can receive services through the Internet are important issues for simplifying relationships with public administrations.
This study focuses on the Web sites of European Union (EU) local governments with more than 500,000 inhabitants. Local governments in the EU play a key role in the national pattern of government since they administer the welfare policies, together, in some countries, with regional governments and they are the public administration tier closest to citizens. According to Torres and Pina,11 there is a great degree of coincidence in the quantity and variety of services delivered by the biggest EU cities, except in services related to public health and education. This sample is only a small selection of cases given the large number of local government systems across the world and limits discussion to some economically developed nations. Notwithstanding, the advantage of this choice is that these countries serves to provide an exploratory setting for studying the effectiveness and quality of local government Web sites.
The next section discusses the context for e-government initiatives and provides an analysis of key efforts that seek to assess and classify e-government efforts. The ensuing sections present the study's methodology, results, and conclusions.
Section snippets
The context
In Western-style democracies there are three broad styles of public management: Anglo-American, Nordic, and European continental, the second of which is considered by some to be a mix of Anglo-American and European continental types.12 Anglo-American countries emphasize efficiency, effectiveness, and value for money. They are more likely to introduce market mechanisms and notions of competitiveness and envisage the citizen primarily as a consumer of services, as a client. This group includes
Background
E-government initiatives are recent, but they have become a rapidly developing field of empirical study. Institutions and academics have tried to evaluate the performance and characteristics of e-government initiatives in order to give a profile of best practices. At the institutional level, various audit offices have proposed and developed tools for the monitoring of e-government developments. At the academic level, almost all previous research conducted regarding the evaluation of
Methodology
This section describes the method by which the study gathered information about the cities studied and the depth and breadth of the services they currently offer online. The empirical survey used focuses on e-services, a term describing the use of electronic delivery of government information, programs, strategies, and services available online “24/7”.
The research was conducted on the Web sites of 33 EU cities. The cities were large, and generally the national capitals or other cities with high
Analysis of results
As can be seen in Table 1, the average SMB score of the sample is 46.8%, and since 67 services are delivered through the Internet, this result shows a low degree of development of e-government among the biggest cities of the EU. The most common service offered is municipal tax payment, which has been implemented by 85% of cities. Other services such as library catalogues, booking of sports facilities, public employment, public procurement, permission for loading, unloading and driving in
Discussion
The analysis of 33 Web sites of some of the most populous EU cities shows that almost all city governments are shifting from the traditional bureaucratic paradigm to the e-government paradigm albeit with different levels of development. Our survey shows that EU municipalities are already offering citizens up to 67 e-services. The biggest EU cities have embarked upon a wave of e-government initiatives that make use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). However, within such cities
Recommendations and implications
During the last 10 years municipal governments have greatly expanded their presence on the Internet in the EU, so that in these countries it has become easier for citizens to locate and download official information, to communicate with public officials through email, and to conduct transactions through the Internet.
Although worldwide governments recognize ICTs as powerful tools for enhancing citizen engagement in public policy-making and as a way of enhancing citizen trust in governments, for
Conclusions
This article presented the results from a study of the quality and usage of public e-services in Europe. Its objectives were to identify which online public services are currently offered by local governments in the countries studied, to analyze the level of interactivity of online public services, and to gather information about to what extent basic public services are being developed. A first finding shows that, at present, the issue is no longer whether government is online, but in what form
Acknowledgments
This study was conducted with the financial support of the Spanish National R&D Plan through research projects SEC2001-2433 and SEJ2004-0791-ECON.
Notes and References (49)
E-gov: Introduction and overview
Government Information Quarterly
(2002)- et al.
Gauging e-government: A report on implementing services among American cities
Government Information Quarterly
(2001) - American Society for Quality. (2001). American customer satisfaction índex, lst quarter. Available:...
Meeting demands: Citizens, empowered by technology-driven access to customized services, are now demanding similar service from state and local government
Minnesota Cities
(1999)State and local e-government
Prospects and Challenges American Review of Public Administration
(2003)- United Nations/American Society for Public Administration (UN/ASPA). (2002). Benchmarking e-government: A global...
- Ibid., p....
Government on the Web 11. House of Commons 2001–2002 Session, HC 764
(2002)- OECD. (2003). The e-government imperative: Main...
- et al.
Managing WWW in public administration: Uses and misuses
Government Information Quarterly
(2001)
Public-private partnership and private finance initiative in European union local governments and Spain
European Accounting Review
Public management in the United States and Europe
The administrative modernisation policy in France
Local governance in Western Europe
Administrative reform in public management paradigms, principles, paradoxes, and pendulums
Governance
A public management for all season
Public Administration
Administrative argument
Public management report: A comparative analysis
Emerging issues in public administration
Public Administration
A North American perspective on administrative modernization in Europe
The new public management
Cited by (211)
Examining the role of E-government in controlling corruption: A longitudinal study
2023, Information and ManagementDigital government as a business facilitator
2022, Information Economics and PolicyCitation Excerpt :ICT-based solutions may reduce time, search and coordination costs associated with traditional bureaucratic procedures, to citizens, firms, and the government, and using digital technologies as an integrated part of governments’ modernization strategies can unlock additional economic and social benefits for society (EC, 2016). Innovative electronic service delivery has long been pointed out as a driver of the public sector's modernization (e.g. Lenk, 2002; OECD, 2004; Torres et al., 2005). At the policy level, the European Commission has encouraged EU Member States to adopt digital government innovations (e.g. electronic ID, interoperability, e-certification), aiming at public administration modernization, the achievement of an internal digital market, and the engagement of more citizens and businesses to improve the quality of the services (EC, 2016).
Critical factors in the institutionalization of e-participation in e-government in Europe: Technology or leadership?
2021, Technological Forecasting and Social ChangeMeasuring governments’ online accountability
2024, Electronic GovernmentICT diffusion in public administrations and business dynamics: Evidence from Italian municipalities
2023, Annals of Public and Cooperative EconomicsFood with Dignity: Public Values in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Mobile Applications
2023, ACM International Conference Proceeding Series