Australian Government~~Future Challenges for Egovernment Volume01

7/31/2019 Australian Government~~Future Challenges for Egovernment Volume01

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FUTURE CHALLENGES

FOR E-GOVERNMENT

V o l u m e 1 o f 2


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FUTURE CHALLENGES

FOR E -GOVERNMENT

V o l u m e 1 o f 2


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Overview

John Halligan and Trevor Moore .................................................................................................................................................................................................1

Preface........................................................................................................................................9

Community collaboration

Local e-government in Western Australia: how prepared are councils to

deliver services and interact with communities in an electronic environment?

Deborah Stanton...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................12

Elements of good government community collaboration

Raelene Vivian...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................27

The Internet and democracy

Roger Clarke........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................47

Multi-channel delivery

The changing role of multi-channel service delivery

Trevor Moore and Paula Flynn....................................................................................................................................................................................................

64A new strategy for micro-business e-business adoption policy

Linda Wilkins and Tim Turner ...................................................................................................................................................................................................77

Collective accountability

A realistic approach for developing a whole-of-government enterprise architecture

Peter Croger, Roger McShane and Glenn Appleyard .................................................................................................................................90

Making better determinations

Peter Johnson and George Masri ....................................................................................................................................................................................102

The rise of transparency networks: a new dynamic for inclusive governmentPhil Dwyer .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................114

Accountability in cross-tier e-government integration

Tim Turner ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................128

Accountability in a shared services world

Barbara Reed ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................139

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Privacy and legal

Electronic health records for Australia: some legal and policy issues

Shaun Gath ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................6

Managing privacy in identity management the way forward

Chris Connolly...............................................................................................................................18

E-government legal and administrative obstacles to sharing data held by Australian

government agencies

Anne Caine ..................................................................................................................................29

Fraud in e-government transactions risks and remedies

Milind Sathye, Eugene Clark and Anni Dugdale ............................................................................41

Accessibility

E-government accessible to all

Andrew Arch and Brian Hardy ......................................................................................................54

Connecting the dots accessing e-government

Anni Dugdale, Anne Daly, Franco Papandrea and Maria Maley......................................................75

Value and evaluation

Value assessment in e-business transformation

Peter King, Andrew McWilliam, Paula Flynn and Jane Treadwell. ..................................................92

Organisational and management issues

The e-Volution of the i-Society in the business of e-Government

Wallace Taylor .............................................................................................................................108

Centralisation and flexibility in delivering e-services: tensions and complements

Robert Smith ..............................................................................................................................126

New government digital government: managing the transformation

Lionel Pearce ..............................................................................................................................136

Acknowledgments ...............................................................................................................151

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CONTENTS VOLUME 2 OF 2


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John Halligan and Trevor Moore

This overview introduces the themes discussed in this monograph. A brief discussion of the impact

of information and communication technologies provides a context for this review and several

connecting themes that have emerged from the project form the basis for concluding observations

about information and communications technology-enabled transformation of government.

Impacts of information and communications technology:

comparative perspectives

Technology has always been a driver and an enabler for change. In recent years the rate at which

information and communications technology has become available has increased. At the same time

these new technologies are widely and conveniently available. The ubiquity of the Internet has been

a major driver of commercial, governmental, societal and personal change.

The early uses of information and communications technology were largely applied to automating

existing processes, such as through the Internet. Early uses of web sites focused on the simple

provision of information or the ability to download a form. Lately, however, information and

communications technology has been used to transform the way in which business is done with a

consequent impact on the experience we have of the organisations with which we deal.

The term e-business was coined early in the Internet revolution to denote use of or integration of

the Internet into the operation of a business. The comparable term in the public sector is

e-government. There are many definitions of e-government most of them post hoc but the

OECD (2003) definition is the use of information and communication technologies, and particularly

the Internet, as a tool to achieve better government. Ultimately, e-government can be seen as being

about the availability to citizens of the full range of government activities including policy

development (Margetts & Dunleavy 2002).

The early implementation of e-government led not only to efficiencies on the supply side that is,

to cheaper and often more effective operation but also to efficiencies for the customer. For

example, the ability to register a business over the Internet saves business people time and money.The time saved converts into economic opportunity, that leads to greater economic activity and

commercial benefit accruing earlier or more quickly.

A second major impact of e-government has been the impact on society. Richards observes that the

internet forces the public service to operate in a new model: the network model. This new model

can have a profound impact on the quality and quantity of relationships that governments

increasingly need in an era of growing disenchantment about the public policy process (Richards

2000, p. 1). The theme of strengthening relations with citizens is echoed by the OECD which notes

the potential for better policy making and establishment of a core element of good governance. The

OECD observes that use of the Internet:

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allows governments to tap new sources of policy-relevant ideas, information and resources when

making decisions. Equally important, it contributes to building public trust in government, raising the

quality of democracy and strengthening civil capacity. Such efforts help strengthen representative

democracy, in which parliaments play a central role (OECD 2001, p. 2).

It seems obvious, in the light of this, to ask how Australias performance compares with other countries.

Australia exists within a competitive world. The effective use of information and communications

technology is one tool in developing and exploiting our competitive position. Several surveys have

attempted to measure our relative position and, while these need to be handled with care, they indicate

that, from an e-government perspective (that is, the use of information and communications technology to

improve government administration and the interaction with citizens) Australia has been among the leaders.

The topics researched

The discussion above suggests that information and communications technology has a pivotal role to

play both in changing the way government carries out its business and in how the commercial fabric of a

government jurisdiction is constituted. The focus of these research projects is on the former impact

although some contributions address the latter the two are clearly related.

There are several models that attempt to explain the way in which e-government has evolved or is

evolving. One model portrays the increasing maturity of information and communications technology

usage in e-government. The first step into the e-government or online government world is a basic

Web presence. Accenture (2003, p. 8) describes three levels of online delivery capability before the final

(depicted) stage of service transformation. The word transformation is important. The previous three

levels are essentially about automation that is, taking existing processes and computerising them with

little or no change. These processes typically exist within a single government department, ministry oragency. One aspect of transformation is that online service transcends organisational boundaries by

integrating departmental silos. It achieves what is referred to in Australia as a whole-of-government

approach.

Government is hampered by large and monolithic legacy systems which are not well-integrated. Retail

banks and insurance companies are similarly hampered it is still difficult for most banks to gather all

their data holdings about a customer.

Government transparency and accountability have long been designed into the system of public

administration. But if the transformation of government service delivery transcends traditional

organisational boundaries, there are bound to be questions about who is accountable for what. The issueof accountability is, therefore, one of the themes in this monograph.

Where the private sector does seem to have made great progress is in the customer experience

Internet banking and online grocery shopping are now different experiences to what they were in the

past although they are no more than automation of a formerly physical process. Government has also

made substantial progress in this area completing an online tax return or paying a parking fine online

are different experiences to the old paper-based process. The experience a customer has is conditioned

by a number of factors and the debate is often based around the concept of choice. This line of thinking

pointed to the need to consider the question of multi-channel service delivery.

Usage of the term channel might be extended to cover the ways in which the business and process ofgovernment interfaces with those it serves or represents. This introduces the notion of information and

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communications technology in general and the Internet in particular as a facilitator of community.

Information and communications technology encourages and enables the formation of networks

and these networks can change the dynamics of policy making and of political representation. This

gives rise to another issue that of community collaboration which is in turn related to the

digital divide. The digital divide is an issue of social inclusion and of accessibility if information

and communications technology is to become a significant enabler of governmentcitizen exchange

we need policies to optimise inclusion.

With so much information now available and with the notion of different departments and

enterprises working together coming increasingly to the fore, the issues of what is done with

information, who owns it, and how it is protected are of vital concern to everyone. Particularly

topical is the question of electronic health records storing everyones health information in a

single place is a useful thing to do in aiding treatment but there are reasons that people may

wish to segregate parts of their records. There may be issues around whether government can

combine, say, a taxation record with a social security benefit record. Hence privacy and legal issuesare significant.

Finally there is the ever-present question of money. Many governments have committed money

specifically to e-government. Singapore and the United Kingdom were among countries to allocate

funds explicitly to e-enabling services. More cynical observers were prompted to note that e-

enablement was funded by longer hospital waiting lists or higher taxes. As with all government

initiatives, e-government is a trade-off between conflicting demands for limited resources.

These trade-offs are made ultimately on the basis of value. Accordingly, the value and

evaluation of e-initiatives is an important topic for consideration.

The main messages

Alternative approaches to community collaboration

The international trend is towards online service delivery and greater citizen interaction. It is widely

accepted that citizens expect seamless service delivery. But how far has this gone and what can we

learn from experience so far? Three papers survey the field, one provides an overview of the

spectrum of options and two focus respectively on a single agency and a level of government.

In The Internet and Democracy, Clark reviews a range of possibilities under the rubric of

e-democracy. These cover e-voting, e-politics and e-government, and community engagement.

Vivian dissects the Elements of good government community collaboration. The Australian Taxation

Office has redesigned its approach to community interaction by moving beyond consultation to

collaboration. This involves community participation in the design of products and services. From this

experience a number of principles can be extracted for good collaboration, including the centrality

of the user and following an iterative process. A model outlines the several elements, such as

mapping pathways a representation of total experience for client segments. A number of tools

and processes are available to support collaborative processes.

The potential for community engagement might be expected to be strong at the local level. The

paper by Stanton, Local e-government in Western Australia, asks How prepared are councils to

deliver services and interact with communities in an electronic environment? Her study analyseslocal government authorities progress towards embracing mature levels of e-government. It seeks to



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rank the maturity of web sites using four categories ranging from publication of information through to

transactions and engagement of citizens. A cybernetic management model is employed as a basis for

mapping change as councils implement aspects of the model. The results indicate that Western

Australian councils are beginning to operate cybernetically but an outward focus of active engagement

remains limited.

Multi-channel service delivery

Technology has changed the ways in which governments interact with their constituents. These

constituents may be grouped into two categories: people and organisations (or groups). There are two

papers on this theme: Moore and Flynns The changing role of multi-channel service delivery and Wilkins

and Turners A new strategy for micro-business e-business adoption. A third paper Dwyers The rise

of the transparency network that addresses factors relating to the interface between the government

and the governed, is categorised in the Accountability theme.

Moore and Flynn deal primarily with the issue of government relationships with citizens. They argue thatwe have tended to confuse the term channel as the means of delivering a product to a customer with

the technology that enables the channel. They argue that it is the collection of channels independent

of the technology that contribute to an interaction experience which is the basis of the new

relationship between government as a service provider and citizens as consumers or customers. What is

important about the interaction experience is that it changes the nature of the providercustomer

relationship. Government as a service provider is but one component of a value network that delivers

government policy; customers are not on the periphery of that value network, they are part of it.

Wilkins and Turners paper addresses another aspect of the connection between government and its

customers, that is micro-businesses (those with fewer than five employees). The paper suggests that the

success of encouraging e-business adoption among micro-businesses might be increased by drawing on

the multi-channel strategies in the government-to-citizen sphere.

Wilkins and Turner argue within a government-to-business (G2B) context, and ask whether it is realistic

not to differentiate between large, medium and smaller business in G2B e-business initiatives. Perhaps

unsurprisingly they answer in the negative. Their argument is essentially a multi-channel argument based

on the importance of customer segmentation. The argument reflects Moore and Flynns observation that

the customer/channel/product combination is an interaction experience that needs to be tailored. Wilkins

and Turner argue that, as with government-to-customer (G2C) a one-size-fits-all approach cannot be

appropriate or practical in the G2B arena.

Accessibility

The rapid growth of the Internet as a major force for change has created a technological divide between

sectors of the population. The digital divide is a phenomenon that arises from many factors other than

the obvious one of affordability. People with disabilities or impairments and people living with low

bandwidth connections are among groups for whom accessibility may be an issue. Both papers on

accessibility are concerned with the substantial number of Australians who are unable to participate in

Internet services. A starting point is conceiving access in citizen-centric terms that emphasises interaction

and recognises diversity.

The Dugdale, Daly, et al. paper, Connecting the dots: Accessing e-Government, employs an extended

concept of access to cover infrastructure, and the skills needed to use services and provide opportunities

for influencing and shaping decisions about e-government. For each of the several dimensions to access

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there is a need for capacity-building through strengthening communities and social capital, and

investing in development of specific capabilities. The relationship between changing public sector

organisations and e-government raises questions about embedding information and

communications technology and the relevance of innovations, such as learning organisations.

The focus of Arch and Hardys paper, E-government: accessible to all, is people with disabilities or

impairments. Their concept of accessibility focuses on the users capacity to adjust the interface of

web and software applications to meet their visual, hearing, dexterity, cognitive or speech needs.

The two means discussed are customising options and assistive technology products. Many online

services in Australia (and overseas) have been inaccessible because governments have given priority

to making information available but neglected interaction with citizens. Accessibility issues include

recognising the need for off-line and online channels to be integrated in an entire end-to-end

process, industry skills and practice, and enhancing skills. The authors support a number of

requirements, such as best practice, multiple delivery channels, accessibility across an end-to-end

process and quality assurance systems.

Privacy and legal issues

It is information that is at the heart of the e-government challenge. Gaths paper, Electronic health

records for Australia: some legal and policy issues, addresses a specific aspect of privacy and

contains a useful summary of the issues relating to ownership of information.

Caines paper, E-government: legal and administrative obstacles to sharing data held by Australian

government agencies, tackles the consequences of the ownership issue. She refers to an OECD

report (2003), which warns that as e-government becomes more significant, an appropriate balance

will need to be struck between meeting citizens needs with improved services and protecting their

rights. Gath hints at a practical implication of this in his discussion of electronic health records when

he comments on the potential benefits that might accrue from establishing a national network of

electronic health records. The issue with electronic health records is about ownership. Caine provides

a useful review of the types of information held by the Australian Government and surveys the legal

and regulatory regime that attaches to handling information of particular types.

We also face the issue of identity management which Connolly addresses in Managing privacy in

identity management: the way forward. In their paper Fraud in e-government transactions: risks

and remedies, Sathye, Clark and Dugdale observe that in online situations, users can disguise their

identities. So identity management is a key aspect of privacy. Connolly discusses both distributed

and federated identity management and makes the point that electronic authentication isqualitatively different for the public versus the private sector because of governments unique

relationship with citizens. The paper notes that many documents used to establish individual user

identity lack security.

This factor leads to the discussion in the Saythe et al. paper. Fraud in e-government transactions is

an issue. It is not, perhaps, so much that fraud is new but that technology enables different kinds of

attacks on secure and private systems and information. They conclude by proposing a number of

options for reducing cyber fraud.

Collective accountability in a shared world

The major issue here is about accountability issues that arise from the improved targeting capability

afforded by new technologies. Better and broader information means government (and the private



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sector) can target their services at people more effectively. In the regulatory sense this means government

compliance activity may take place based on detailed information and the ability to fuse separate bits of

information to create new information. New challenges for accountability arise when horizontal and

cross-boundary processes are prominent.

Reeds paper, Accountability in a shared services world, focuses on recordkeeping as a case for

examining governance issues. Rejecting as dated the view that recordkeeping is essentially a paper trail,

Reed argues that in electronic environments it becomes paradoxically both easier and more difficult. The

paper seeks to connect new accountability with the multiple interpretations of shared services. Four

forms of shared services are reviewed: intergovernment, interagency, privatisation and outsourcing, and

integrated service delivery.

Turner addresses the question of Accountability in cross-tier e-government integration, with particular

attention to the case of a complex multi-jurisdictional activity. Four types of integrated services are

distinguished: service sharing without electronic integration, collection of services by theme, the agency

as single service provider, and technological integration of services. Despite legal and political constraints,

the supra-governmental organisation can still be viable and subject to accountability through managing

oversight (for example, cross-jurisdictional auditing).

The paper by Johnson and Masri Making better determinations points to another important impact of

the evolution of information and communications technology. As well as improving our ability to store,

access, match and combine data, technology enables us to automate some of the decision-making

functions of government. Johnson and Masri focus on decisions that determine the rights, entitlements

or obligations of people. These types of decision can be the subject of administrative and judicial review,

and as they often have significant impact on people and business performance, it is important to get

them right and for processes to be transparent. Automation is a sensible option where it can improveperformance in cost, quality and/or accountability. Safeguards and dangers are also discussed. The

protection of individual (and corporate) rights extends beyond protection of information into the

safeguarding and transparency of the processes that use that information.

In The rise of transparency networks: a new dynamic for inclusive government, Dwyer examines

communities that are networked and that share information and scrutinise public and private

organisations. Although the forebearers of transparency networks have been recognised for some time

under various names, such as epistemic communities, the recent variants are distinctive. They have

several defining characteristics in terms of purpose, organisation structure, operational mode, behaviour

and impact. Transparency networks exhibit six dimensions of variability, including goal congruence,

compliance mechanisms, scale, issue definition and culture clash. The paper concludes with several broad

guidelines.

Croger, McShane and Appleyard, present A realistic approach for developing a whole-of-government

enterprise architecture, which draws on ongoing work with implementing this approach at the state

level. Enterprise architecture offers a roadmap based on a framework that consists of several integrated

domains. The approach can facilitate and support interoperability and joined-up decision making.

Value and evaluation

There is one paper in this theme. The way in which e-business initiatives could or should be justified has

always been a challenge. The challenge is different for government than it is for the private sector. Thereare several reasons for this. One is that the notion of revenue (or increased sales) has no direct analogy in

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government. A second is that, while a private sector organisation can (in theory) close down certain

channels and save money, that option is not open to government. Another reason is that some cost

saving options such as sending business processes off-shore are not open to government.

Nevertheless, as the King, McWilliam et al. paper on value and evaluation observes, business casesfor e-government programs still require the conduct of rigorous demand and value assessments to

ensure program improvements are at reduced costs. A key word is value. The challenge of

measuring e-government performance has been addressed in several papers over the years most

recently by Stowers (2004 p. 9) who states that public sector performance measures are typically

quantitative ways of determining the resources that go into providing services (input measures), the

immediate results of those services (output measures), and the longer-term results of providing those

services (outcome measures). Understanding the relationship between input and outcome is a key

component of demonstrating accountability for the effective use of resources and, in particular,

determining return on investment.

Organisational and management issues

Finally, three papers focus on a range of organisational issues.Taylor, inThe e-Volution of the

i-Society in the business of e-Government, explores the challenges facing government in terms of

changes to existing structures from the impact of information and communication technologies.

Smith, in Centralisation and flexibility in delivering e-services, explores several fundamental

questions about handling complementarity among the components of e-government and balancing

centralised management and flexible, accessible services. Ultimately, this represents a move from

e-government to e-governance. The cases of two state governments, one in the United States

(Michigan) and the other in Australian (Victoria) and recent literature provide the basis for examining

infrastructure to support e-government and the importance of governance styles.

In the final paper, New government, digital government: managing the transformation Pearce

inquires into whether it is possible to define for e-government a suitable, comprehensive, holistic

management model. He reviews stages in growth models for e-government and develops change

management through an organisational development approach to e-government. The model of

intervention involves six steps to mature e-government.

Conclusion: connecting themes

Several themes emerge from these papers.

Citizen engagement

Many papers refer to the way in which the Internet, in particular, but also information and

communications technology trends, have made government more immediate and approachable.

At one level this is reflected in changes in the way services are delivered both in terms of the

channels for delivery and the interactive nature of that delivery. But the levelling power of the Internet

is also impacting on the way policy is developed by enabling formation of online pressure groups.

Organisational integration

The recent Management Advisory Committee (2004) report on whole-of-government responses to

Australias priority challenges points out that this focus on horizontal issues is the current reflection

of the coordination tradition in Australian public administration. Many of the papers in this

monograph reflect this point. However, recent advances in technology have thrown the challenges



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associated with achieving integration into much sharper relief. These challenges which are both inter-

and intra-governmental are technological, organisational and cultural.

Networked governance

Another impact of the levelling effect of technology is the emergence of value networks. The

Management Advisory Committee (2004) observed that most whole-of-government priorities require

close cooperation with external groups, such as community organisations, businesses and other

jurisdictions. Technology accelerates this need because it facilitates rapid, peer-to-peer (or stakeholder-to-

stakeholder) communication. The role of the private sector in government service delivery and, indeed,

policy development is often overlooked or under-estimated. While the public may traditionally have

thought of government as synonymous with bureaucracy, in the future government will be highly

networked and delivering outcomes through federations of organisations and agencies.

E-governance

The culmination of these trends, if realised, is a broader conception of e-government that encompasses a

range of non-government participants and which addresses the challenges in the complexities of service

integration across agencies and governments.

References

Accenture 2003, e-government Leadership: Engaging the Customer,

.

Australian National Audit Office 2004, Quality Internet Services for Government Clients Monitoring

and Evaluation by Government Agencies, ANAO, Canberra.

Management Advisory Committee 2004, Connecting Government: Whole of Government Responses to

Australias Priority Challenges, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra.

Margetts, H & Dunleavy P 2002, Cultural barriers to e-government, in Building Public Services through

e-government, report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, HC 704111, London.

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 2001, Engaging citizens in public policy-

making: Information, Consultation and Public Participation, PUMA Policy Brief No. 10, OECD, Paris.

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 2003, The E-Government Imperative,

OECD, Paris.

Richards, E 2000, Lessons from the Network Model for Online Engagement of Citizens: A project by

Canadian Policy Research Networks with Public Works and Governments Services Canada, paper

presented to the LENTIC Colloquium: Quelle administration publique dans la socit de linformation,

Brussels May 1819.

Stowers, GNL 2004, Measuring the performance of e-Government, IBM e-Government Series.

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Each paper was examined by a Steering Committee of eight members made up of representatives from

industry, the public sector, academia, the Institute of Public Administration Australia and the Australian

Government Information Management Office.

The papers in these two volumes have raised a number of fresh issues and extend understanding ofsome familiar questions.

A central element of the project was publication of these papers for the Business E-volution of

Government conference held by the Institute of Public Administration Australia on 2627 May 2004.

The views expressed in these papers indicate the depth of debate surrounding e-government in Australia.

The Steering Committee does not necessarily concur with all the views expressed but believes they make

a substantial contribution to the debate in Australia.

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COMMUNITY COLLABORAT ION

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Synopsis

Australian governments at all levels are participating in the global trend towards delivering services online

and interacting with communities in an electronic environment. The primary focus thus far has been an

internal one as governments put in place the management and technology models to support this

transformation. As this transformation is achieved, an outward looking phase focusing on citizen

interaction and active participation is developing with the thrust past e-government to e-governance

and e-democracy becoming more pronounced.

Just how prepared are local governments in Western Australia to take up this challenge? In this

practitioner-based paper, the attitudes of elected and appointed representatives from all councils in

Western Australia towards online service delivery and interacting with citizens in an electronic

environment are discussed based on a study undertaken in 2003. A management model to support

local e-government is presented and its dimensions used to predict the capacity of Western Australian

local governments to implement local e-government. Various themes relating to e-governance ande-democracy, including that of trust, are explored and some gaps between thinking and practice in

managing to enable local e-government in Western Australia are discussed.

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LOCAL E-GOVERNMENT IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA:

HOW PREPARED ARE COUNCILS TO DELIVER

SERVICES AND INTERACT WITH COMMUNITIES

IN AN ELECTRONIC ENVIRONMENT?

Discussion

paperno.1

DJ Stanton*

* Division of Community Development, City of Nedlands, Western Australia.

School of Management Information Systems, Edith Cowan University, Australia.


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Introduction

Western Australia makes up approximately one-third of Australia and 10.42 per cent of its

population. Services are provided through 143 Local Government Authorities, making up 23 per

cent of Australias local governments. The median age of households is 34 (WALGA 2003). SomeLocal Government Authorities are also grouped into voluntary Regional Local Government Bodies,

established to provide better service through collaborative resource sharing.

Increasingly, citizens are demanding more accountability and transparency in their dealings with

government and seamless interaction between government departments to complete transactions

efficiently. This has provided a strong and irreversible impetus for the move towards e-government at

all levels. E-government has been defined as ... the use of information and communication

technologies and particularly the Internet, as a tool to achieve better government (Organisation for

Economic Cooperation and Development 2003). This definition can be further broadened to

encompass the application of technology to ... provide citizens and organizations with more

convenient access to government information and services; and to provide delivery of public services

to citizens, business partners and suppliers, and those working in the government sector

(Warkentin, Gefen, Pavlou & Rose 2002, p. 157). Implicit in these definitions is the provision of

information and services to citizens online. The components of e-government can be further defined

as ... e-access; e-provision; e-delivery; e-policy; e-community and e-democracy (Huang, DAmbra &

Bhalla 2002, p. 577). This further definition indicates the citizen-centric context within which e-

government should be placed.

The Office of E-Government was established within the Western Australian Department of the

Premier and Cabinet in February 2003 in an effort to harness the use of information and

communication technologies to transform the public sector. According to its strategic plan, themission of this office is to transform the operations of government, using technology as a tool, to

improve internal efficiency, service delivery to citizens and community participation (Office of

E-Government 2003).

Various reports by government and business have sought to define the extent of actual and

proposed implementation of e-government at a national (Accenture 2001; World Markets Research

Centre 2001; UNDPEPA 2002; Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 2003),

state and local government level (DTLR 2002; Multimedia Victoria 2002). For councils traditionally

the closest interface between government and citizens use of the Internet is increasingly

becoming the medium of interaction, with generations from the baby boomers onward seeing theInternet as the premier business channel. Indeed, the imperative to interact with citizens in an online

environment is illustrated by figures for usage of government online services which peak in the

2534 year age group, remaining strong in the 3544 years age group and then declining (Dexter

and Parr 2003).

Providing choice: The interactive component of e-government

The impact of this urgent move towards e-government and its extensions of e-governance,

e-democracy and e-participation is that local government is now being required to provide a choice

of channels for interaction between itself and the community. The effect of e-government overall

and local e-government in particular is thus to aim to provide a more customer-centric servicefocused on access, choice, and engagement for the citizen.



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(the Mayor or Shire President and Councillors) are now viewed as the Chairman and Board of

Directors whose role is to set strategic and policy direction. The role of the appointed representatives

(the Chief Executive Officer and Executive staff) is to implement this strategic and policy direction

operationally. Indeed, the Local Government Act 1995confers sole operational responsibility on the

CEO. Hansen (2001) suggests that in the local government context, New Public Management could

be renamed New Public Government, with debate about the extent to which the institution of

government is being reorganised using New Public Management principles, along with the

administration of government. Whatever the outcome of this debate, the benefits of New Public

Management in increased customer focus, transparency and accountability are tangible and present,

however clear distinction between the strategic and operational levels is often still an issue,

particularly for elected members (Marton 2003).

It is also becoming clear that information and communications technologies should not used as an

end in themselves, although certainly they will provide New Public Management outcomes of

efficiency and effectiveness in government. Rather e-government development must sit within thecontext of the vision ... of society with which people want to identify and make part of their life

experience (United Nations 2003(b)).

Management models for transforming to local e-government:

geocentrism versus cybercentrism

What management skills are required to achieve customer-focused outcomes in an e-government

environment? Councils are commonly perceived as operating under hierarchical, bureaucratic

management models. A recent OECD report (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and

Development 2003) cites various requirements for effective e-government, including leadership,

better e-government skills for managers and public-private partnerships. It would appear that a

different management model incorporating increased flexibility and a focus on interacting in the

virtual, rather than the purely physical, environment is required.

In transforming to local e-government, councils are beginning to operate in a new virtual

environment, reliant to a far greater extent on information and communications technologies to

produce this transformation. This requires implementation of a new management model to support

this shift and act as an enabler for this transformation. The cybercentric management model,

proposed by Gordon (2000; 2001) is suggested by the author as the new management paradigm for

interacting in the local e-government environment. The dimensions of Gordons original cybercentric

management model have been adapted for local government (Stanton 2002). In contrast to the oldmodel of geocentric management with its focus on the physical environment and marginalisation of

information technology and management information systems from the decision-making process,

cybercentric management is designed to enhance customer outcomes through flexibility, efficiency

and increased accountability. Its various dimensions support public sector implementation of New

Public Management principles to provide outcomes in a digital age as local governments move from

a place to a space orientation in interacting with citizens.

A comparison of the elements of the geocentric and cybercentric models drawn from Gordon (2001)

and adapted for local government by Stanton (2002) is shown in Table 1. The applicability of these

cybercentric dimensions as enablers of local e-government is further supported by the inclusion of

leadership characteristics and guiding principles for successful e-government implementation derived

from the literature as indicated.



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Table 1: Comparison of Gordons Geocentrism and Cybercentrism Dimensions, adapted for local e-

government implementation

Cybercentric model Features of Geocentric Features of Cybercentric

dimension Management Management

Management Information Technology (IT) and IT and MIS brought into key decision

Management Information Systems making.

(MIS) segregated from the rest of Single points of entry to multiple agencies

the business. allowing the opportunity to interact seamlesslya.

Integration of e-government as an

enabler into broader policy and service delivery

goalsb.

Corporate Structure Broad, hierarchical structure with Flattening of the organisation with

vertical command. horizontal authority.

Accountability, monitoring and evaluationb

Strong performance management focusc.

Continued next page

Cybercentric model Features of Geocentric Features of Cybercentric

dimension Management Management

Company Goals Goals/objectives are known and not Goals/objectives are elastic and reinvented as

questioned by management. the market evolves and changes.

Creating innovative solutions for the citizens

and businesses serveda.

More structured knowledge management

strategies to facilitate greater information

flows, better knowledge of the customer and a

greater sense of organisational identityb.Reengineering business processes to change

the way the organisation worksb.

Importance of focus on implementation as well

as strategiesb.

Market Position Defined by competition and view of Virtually-extended company understands the

market structure as defined by agility of e-commercec.

physical presence. Importance of customer relationship

managementa.

Customer focus providing access, choice,

citizen engagement and privacyb.

Sustained customer focus and development of

improved services, not just improved accessc.

Competitiveness The company fights for market share, The company looks for opportunities to

and bitterly defends its knowledge. enjoin other companies in mutually beneficial

R&D ventures.

Inter-agency collaboration in customer-focused

groupings. Information and communications

technology funding seen as an investmentb.

Councils work together and with public sector

agencies to deliver e-governmentc.

Employment Lifetime employment. Contract workers and consultancy.

Skills required by managers are not solely

technical [or administrative] but also embracefacility in participating in the information and

communications technology decision-making

processb.

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Information and communications

technology skills and knowledge are

essential and should be accessed from

more than one person or employment

source to build capacity requiredc.

Strategic Vision Vision defines strategies according to Cyber vision offers a wide range of

strategic

a limited choice of options. options limited only by the ability to alter

perceptions, intervene, or destabilise

existing realities.

Vision and implementation. Striking the

right balance between political leadership

& administrative simplicitya.

Vision/political will including leadership

and commitment at both political and

administrative levelsb.

j18

Practical and realistic vision and political will with a change management emphasisc.

Notes:

a Accenture 2001, e-government Leadership: Rhetoric vs Reality Closing the Gap.

b Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 2003, The e-government imperative, OECD, Paris.

c Audit Commission 2002, Message Beyond the Medium: Improving Local Government Services Through

e-Government.

E-government drivers and the cybercentrism continuum

There is basic agreement on the drivers enabling transformation to e-government. These include

vision/political will; common frameworks/cooperation; customer focus and responsibility encompassing

accountability, monitoring and evaluation (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

2003); strategic investment; and civic engagement (in defining a shared vision of e-government)

(InfoDev 2002). These drivers apply equally to global and local levels of government. The cybercentric

dimensions described above can thus be seen as required enablers of e-government implementation.

Using the cybercentric dimensions of the model, the preparedness of elected and appointed council

representatives for e-government implementation can be mapped onto a continuum (see Figure 1).



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identified as one of the key factors for e-government adoption and citizen uptake (Warkentin et al.

2002), making a total of eight dimensions examined.

A total of 134 responses were received. Of these, 84 were from CEOs and 50 from Mayors/Shire

Presidents, with 34 paired responses from the same council. The overall cybercentrism of response isshown in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2: Overall comparative cybercentrism of response

Source: Stanton 2004

The average CEO response is 3.77 ranging from 3 to 4.6. The average Mayor/Shire President

response is 3.74, ranging from 2.0 to 4.4 with 1 and 5 indicating the geocentric and cybercentric

extremes respectively.



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Discussion

There can be no doubt that Australian usage of online services has become part of our way of life.

Government funding of programs at all levels, simplification of web sites and introduction of citizen-

focused portals has sustained this growth. A corresponding focus on addressing the problem of thedigital divide, particularly in regional areas has produced a high level of uptake of e-government

services. An average 50 per cent of producers in regional Western Australia use the Internet

regularly (Curtis and Stanton 2001). This is confirmed in a study of Internet use in various countries

including Australia (Prattipati 2003) where 58 per cent of our citizens had used the Internet in the

previous month, 79 per cent of that usage being for online government services. Not surprisingly,

this study identified public access to the Internet as the most important factor associated with use of

government online services and thereby influencing the implementation of e-governance.

Western Australians, in both regional and metropolitan areas, are well placed to use appropriately

targeted online services provided through local e-government. An assessment of Western Australian

council web sites in August 2002 (Gentle 2002) indicated 50 per cent of councils had a web site.

The site rating for these web sites indicated 65 per cent were introductory (corresponding to the

publish category); 30 per cent were medium (corresponding to the interactive category) and 5 per

cent were advanced with backend integration (corresponding to the transaction category). By

December 2003, the number of councils with web sites had increased to 88 per cent.

Dexter and Parr (2003) point out that while global Government Online usage has remained relatively

stable at 30 per cent in both 2003 and 2002 (up from 26 per cent in 2001), consulting continues to

be the least used online service overall at 4 per cent, with no change from 2002. However,

Government Online use in Australia in 2003 was 47 per cent (up from 31 per cent in 2001) but

stabilising, with 29 per cent using interactive services in 2003 compared to 22 per cent in 2002. Ofthis figure, 9 per cent was attributable to consulting usage. Similarly, while the global average for

transacting and providing increased by 1 per cent to 8 per cent and 9 per cent respectively, the

corresponding Australian figures are 20 per cent and 18 per cent. In fact, a recent United Nations

report benchmarking e-government in its member states ranks Australia second only to the United

States in its implementation of and capacity to develop e-government (UNDPEPA, 2002).

Citizen interaction, customer focus and cybercentrism

Overall, the responses to this study indicate Western Australian local governments are beginning to

operate in the cybercentric mode necessary for implementation of local e-government. This suggests

that overall the attitude of appointed and elected representatives is moving towards providing anenvironment for service delivery online and for interacting with citizens in an electronic environment.

However, the study shows that different cybercentrism dimensions have been addressed to different

extents, which may slow the transformation to local e-government and beyond.

Agreement is apparent between elected and appointed representatives on the importance of

customer focus, illustrated by the response to the market position dimension. While this dimension is

cybercentric, it is clear that the focus is still an internal one, with dimensions relating to internal

structure outranking the market dimension in importance.

Although numerous councils have developed consultation policies, guidelines and strategies in

recent years, the majority of these centre on implementation in the physical environment usingtechniques such as workshops, forums and information sessions. This raises issues of access and



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equity of participation as well as cost-effectiveness. Physical methods of consultation are costly, however

use of e-participation methods is limited. Overall, there is limited readiness as yet within Western

Australian councils to pursue an outward focus, actively engaging citizens and businesses, despite an

awareness of the importance of the customer. It is also clear that this shift in focus cannot take place

while the dimension of strategic vision dimension, with its reliance on knowledge of customer needs,

ranks relatively lower than those dimensions with an internal focus.

Trust and cybercentrism

Clift (2003) suggests that Increasing citizen satisfaction and service is the bridging outcome between

traditional e-government projects and online efforts to promote participatory democracy. Trust is also a

vital aspect in this process, just as it is a central aspect of our economic and societal interactions

(Warkentin et al. 2002) and the basis for transparency and accountability, two much-touted outcomes of

e-government. Pavlou (2001) shows that trust is one of the four important variables (which also include

perceived risk, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) for predicting the intention to use online

transactions. Even in a virtual environment, local e-government is the most intimate level of government

for our citizens. For this level of e-government to succeed, it must be preceded by an intention to engage

and a lack of trust will inhibit the development of this intention.

Marshall and colleagues (2001) point out that a trusting relationship is a fundamental critical success

factor in the virtual organisational environment. Cybercentristic management styles, with their emphasis

on flattened hierarchies, flexibility and communication flows provide the environment for development of

trust. It is evident that development of trust between both internal collaborative and external

participative e-government stakeholders must be a condition for effective interaction in this virtual

environment.

It is important that trust is developed between levels of government offering online services as well as

between the government and the citizen in providing that service. The quality of initial local e-government

interactions will influence uptake of online services and ultimately the e-participation of the citizen. If trust

can be built between the council and the citizen, increasing participation in local e-democracy and e-

participation initiatives will result in improved policy-making and increased citizen satisfaction.

This study shows conclusively that elected and appointed council representatives have recognised

the importance of trust building in a local e-government environment, with trust emerging as the most

cybercentric dimension tested in the study. However, the strategic vision to implement this outcome and

interact comprehensively with citizens in an electronic environment is still in transition from the

geocentric to the cybercentric. This transition effect is likely to limit the transition to locale-democracy and e-participation as the provision of a wide range of strategic options is limited.

New Public Management principles form one of the pillars supporting the move towards

e-government at a national, state and local level. They act as enablers of the change from a geocentric to

cybercentric management environment in the Australian public service through the transformation of the

culture of the public service from a rules-bound bureaucracy to an entrepreneurial and performance-

based focus in which the public service is at arms length from the state (Van Gramberg

& Teicher 2000, cited in Anderson, Griffin & Teicher 2002 p. 14). A new management model for local e-

government utilising the dimensions of cybercentrism is suggested to support this change.

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Slow progress in developing some of the cybercentric foundations for local

e-government

There has been some evidence that implementation of cybercentric principles leads to increasing

flexibility in skill sets and a workforce able to do more with less (Anderson, Griffin & Teicher 2002).In the present study, however, it is apparent that the council approach to employment is only

marginally cybercentric, with little progress being made away from the geocentric dimension of

lifetime employment to the cybercentric dimension of contract workers and consultancy to provide

more flexibility in skill sets and staff distribution. This is reinforced by the geocentric attitude towards

corporate structure, where a vertical, hierarchical structure is preferred to a horizontal, flattened

structure which would provide more flexibility and more options in the field of work.

The performance-based and increasingly accountable culture of New Public Management shifts the

focus onto citizen satisfaction and the provision of services and opportunities for interaction and

participation that enhance this. However, incomplete transformation to the cybercentric

management model, with central control maintained in some areas, has led to slower progress,

particularly in relation to implementation of e-governance and its subsets of e-democracy and e-

participation.

Conclusion

This study has examined the attitudes of elected and appointed council representatives towards

provision of services online and interaction with citizens, placing these attitudes within the wider

context of national and global e-government and the requirements of New Public Management. A

management model to support the transformation from a physical to a virtual environment and thus

implementation of local e-government has been proposed and its characteristics identified.

The responses provided by elected and appointed representatives have been mapped on a

continuum to visually represent the overall level of implementation of the cybercentric management

model. This has established a baseline for progress in implementation of the management

dimensions critical to sustainable implementation of local e-government, including local e-

governance.

Significant levels of agreement are apparent between elected and appointed representatives in all

dimensions of the cybercentric management model. However, significant lag in transforming some

management dimensions to a cybercentric mode has been noted and it is predicted this will impede

the transformation process. If the local e-government effort is to be successful and timely thecorporate structure, employment and market position dimensions must become cybercentric to

support the development of trust and thus citizen satisfaction.

This study shows that Western Australian councils are embracing local e-government and that

progress is being made towards implementing the cybercentric management paradigm required for

this to be successful. Significant overall agreement between elected and appointed representatives in

all dimensions tested indicates an overall harmony in attitudes. The necessity and value of trust and

the need to bring technology skills into decision making if information and communications

technologies are to be used to improve service delivery is recognised. Recognition of the necessity

for collaboration and resource sharing for successful local e-government is also obvious.



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However, while the employment dimension remains only marginally cybercentric and the corporate

structure dimension remains geocentric there must be concern about the ability of Western Australian

local e-government to provide effective outcomes. It appears that, while elected and appointed council

representatives have embraced the ideology of local e-government and its necessity, inconsistent progress

is being made across the cybercentrism dimensions overall to ensure a sufficiently flexible corporate

structure to deliver cost-effective local e-government.

While implementation of Western Australian council web sites has increased by over 70 per cent since

August 2002, the majority of sites are no more than transactional at best, indicating councils are still at the

initial implementation stages for local e-government and have some way to go in progressing from local e-

government towards local e-governance. Consistent implementation of the cybercentric management

model, along with funding and political vision, will be the enablers of this further transformation.

Further work

Further work will analyse and rank council website maturity at the time of the study, thus providing a

benchmark for longitudinal study of progress. Case studies and interviews linked to this baseline and

implementation of cybercentrism dimensions will be undertaken with regional and metropolitan councils

at various stages on the cybercentrism continuum to assess best practice indicators for local e-

government and e-governance in Western Australia.

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Synopsis

Community collaboration on design and implementation of products, services and systems is

growing at a rapid rate. Government agencies are now recognising that the process of collaboration

is critical to achieving successful interactions with the community. The Tax Offices recent experience

in collaborating with the community has enabled a deeper understanding of its clients and their

evolving needs, expectations and processes. The Tax Office experience has brought about a focus on

community participation in designing products, services and interactions, not just at early

development stages, but through to implementation and evaluation. There is a strong recognition

that a one size fits all approach will not meet the expectations of the community.

The Listening to the Community initiative has provided the Tax Office with the opportunity to develop

a model on which good community government collaboration must be based. This model

incorporates elements of sound methodology; collaborative tools and processes; community access

processes; human capital; client experience/pathway; and assurance processes with client perspective.


ELEMENTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT

COMMUNITY COLLABORATION

Discussion

paperno

.2

Raelene Vivian*

* Deputy Commissioner, Ptax, Australian Taxation Office


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Introduction

The Tax Office has a major change program to transform the client experience making things easier,

cheaper and more personalised for taxpayers. This is an intensive program which started from listening to

the community to understand what changes were important from the communitys perspective. Thisinvolved a shift in how collaboration was undertaken from a consultative approach to an approach

more focused on user-centred design. These improvements in collaboration have been achieved by

evolving usage of information and communication technologies by both government and the

community.

This paper explores how the Tax Office has undertaken this collaboration with the community in

developing the change program, and from this experience a model is proposed detailing the core

elements required for good government collaboration and engagement with the community. This model

is reflective of the growing expectation of government agencies to provide products that:

better meet the community needs are personalised to their circumstances

are available with quicker turnaround times

can be continuously improved once implemented

are safe, in terms of security and privacy.

Lessons from government community collaboration

Tax Office Listening to the Community project

Listening to the Community was established in March 2002 by the Commissioner of Taxation, MichaelCarmody. The Listening to the Community project aimed to find significant improvements

to the Tax Offices systems to make tax easier, cheaper and more personalised for the community.

To deliver these improvements, the Commissioner was adamant that the Tax Office listen to the community,

understand their issues and work directly with the community to design solutions to their issues.

Listening to the Communitys user-based design involved 30 user clinics, eight creative retreats and 54

user observations, using activities that followed the discover, invent and evaluate process of user-based

design (see Figure 1). At each stage of the process there was strong collaboration with users of the tax

system. The process was based around three community segments individuals, small businesses and

tax agents.

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The Tax Office learnt from Listening to the Community and the subsequent Change Program that

community collaboration in design is an evolving process. As the Tax Office continues to develop

products and services to improve clients experience with the tax system, it has been necessary to

continue refining design methodologies, collaboration processes and build and enhance tools to assist in

engaging the community. The Tax Office will continue to improve how it engages the community as

additional products and client experiences are included in the Change Program to address shifts in

community needs, the availability of improved technology and the introduction of new tax laws.

Learning from these experiences

Listening to the Community, with its associated collaborative design approaches, was fairly extensive in

terms of the numbers of clients engaged in the process and the facilities and resources employed.

The scale of this exercise was, in part, a function of the need to provide visibility and promote good

community relations, as well as the need to employ a methodologically sound and effective collaborative

process. However, other researchers in the field have confirmed that the underlying discovery and design

philosophies employed could be pursued, in appropriate cases, using less extensive approaches.

Particularly in the case of cyclical or other amendments to existing products and the redesign of products

a great deal can be discovered about the performance of existing products through one-on-one close

observation of a client engaging with the product.

The point about raising the issue of these additional techniques is to indicate that many of the important

advantages and benefits of the collaborative processes advocated in this paper, can be achieved through

lower scale, lower cost and less resource intensive processes. However, judgements about methods must

be made taking into account all aspects of the problem or issue to be dealt with, while at the same time

ensuring the methodological underpinnings that ensure collaboration in discovery, design and testing are

carried into every choice of approach.

From this case study and other collaborations undertaken by the Tax Office, it is apparent that there is a

need to find ways to closely work with the community to understand their needs, perspectives and

capabilities. The most important learning has been the need to understand collaboration and design from

the perspective of the community of users, understand how any proposed changes will impact the way

they do their business and interact with the Tax Office. The community must also have a sense of trust in

the agency and the process that it is worthwhile them contributing to the collaborative process.

To engage the community, the government must make contributing as easy as possible for citizens, for

some this means traditional methods of consultation such as public meetings and hard copies of

documents. However, the evolving direction of community consultation provides scope for relying moreheavily on information and communication technology products such as web sites, SMS and email. There

is also some argument for using a clearly identifiable figurehead to encourage the community to engage

in the process. Most importantly though, is the need for government agencies to work together and find

ways of integrating their products and services from the perspective of the community.

There is strong evidence to suggest that citizens expect seamless service delivery from government

agencies and want services delivered in clusters, rather than the silo approach. There is a need to treat

citizens in segments and recognise that blanket treatment will not meet the expectations of the

community (Andrulis & Hirning 2002). For example, the Tax Office has approached collaboration in

design by considering taxpayers as part of a respective segment. A portal for tax agents has been

developed to provide tax agents with a seamless point of entry and communication with the Tax Office. The

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Tax Agents Portal enables tax agents to send and receive secure messages, view client accounts and

ultimately will allow tax agents to request payments and transfers between client accounts.

Principles for good government collaboration

Principles can be drawn out from this case study which underlie how government can approach

collaboration with the community. The following Tax Office design principles evolved through

development of the Integrated Administrative/Taxation Design approach and are fundamental to

improving the community experience.

Take a user-centred approach

As the community is the end user of most government products and services, it makes sense for

government agencies to fully understand the community needs, values and expectations as changes

are made. Taking a user-centred approach to design facilitates creating products and services that

are easier, cheaper and more personalised for the community.

Make the emerging design visible early

For collaboration to be a fast, energetic process the community must be engaged to move with the

government quickly towards a shared product design goal. Producing design documentation and

prototypes provides both the community and the government with a practical and tangible focus as

well as providing a powerful way to engage in the collaboration and progress the design together.

Information and communication technology can assist in both prototype development and

engagement processes.

Work collaboratively in interdisciplinary teams

A key feature of successful collaborative design is the core design team, comprised of people with

diverse expertise who are all motivated to improve the communitys experience with government

products and services. It is imperative that the core design team has representatives of the voice of

intent, the voice of experience and the voice of design. Without all three voices, the success of the

product is jeopardised and there is potential for poor integration between different, yet related

systems and products (see Figure 2).



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Figure 2: Three voices of design

Build a shared understanding of intent

In any governmentcommunity collaboration the intent, that is the specific concrete purpose of what

government is trying to achieve, must be made clear. Collaborating to design a change must ensure the

delivery of intent which means both community and government representatives involved must have a

shared understanding of what they are ultimately trying to achieve, and they need to maintain that

shared understanding over time as the intent invariably evolves.

Follow a disciplined yet flexible process

It is important to have some basic processes to follow in any collaboration leading to design of new

products and services. It is essential these processes stay true to the design principles and achieve higher

quality in less time ensuring that intent is understood and shared; a blueprint is developed of the overall

design; specific products or services are designed and built; and products and services are tested to

ensure they deliver on the intent and are implemented.

Design the entire change up front

In any collaborative process an overall plan of the entire change is necessary to measure and evaluate the

quality of the designed change and to ensure that the intent has been delivered. A blueprint provides a

description of how the intent will impact on the community and also provides internal focus for the

government agency detailing the business processes that will support the products and services and the

impacts on agency staff and technology. An understanding of community infrastructure is also necessary.

For instance, an electronic solution may not be viable if only a small percentage of the community can

interact electronically with the agency.

32

The Three Voices of Design must be

represented in any collaborative design

process. Failure to listen to a voice will

result in a product, or solution that isunstable and unlikely to be sustainable

The Voice of Intent is often represented by

the Projects Sponsor. This voice has an

unwavering understanding of the intent

of the project and has responsibility forensuring that the intent is realised

The Voice of Experience is represented

by the internal and external users of the

product. This voice provides a detailed

understanding of the issues and can

ident

Australian Government~~Future Challenges for Egovernment Volume01

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