World Of E-Government, The

Gregory G. Curtin, Michael Sommer, Veronika Vis-Sommer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135023898
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Explore the latest groundbreaking e-government insider information!

The World of E-Government investigates how electronic communication is helping to revolutionize democracies across the globe. Using case studies, cutting-edge research, and commentary from some of the field's foremost researchers, practitioners, and industry leaders, this first-of-its-kind volume explores the enormous future potential of e-government as it links all world citizens locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. This pioneering text offers the experiences of many leading countries using electronic government, showing you what mistakes they made, the benefits they've reaped, and the impact of e-government to democracy, traditional government, and international commerce.

Contributors to this timely book include some of the world's leading practitioners in e-governmentpeople who were actually involved in establishing and shaping the experiences of countries now ranked as leaders in e-government projects. These authorities reveal how their countries successfully implemented e-strategies to directly benefit their citizens. The World of E-Government details how electronic government is being used to govern and change the lives of citizens online in such areas of the world as:

• the United States
• Singapore
• Canada
• the European Union
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Germany

This book will give you a better understanding of:

• how to best plan for citizen use of e-government
• how countries have avoided waste and unnecessary spending
• how e-government can move forward by using optimal planning and previous experiences
• what citizens expect of e-government in countries around the globe
• the realities, the latest initiatives, and the future of e-government in America, Europe, and elsewhere

The World of E-Government is an essential book for all elected officials and their staffs, e-government practitioners, researchers, and information specialists to use in order to stay up-to-date with the growing needs of the general public. The advice offered in this text can help you improve service delivery, provide vital information to the public, and enhance public participation online. This volume contains useful bibliographies, additional readings, tables, and figures to further your career or research studies in public administration, government, political science, law, education, or information technology.

RESEARCHING
E-GOVERNMENT

NEW ZEALAND

An Evaluation of Local Government Websites in New Zealand

Rowena Cullen

Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Deborah O’Connor

New Zealand Institute of Economic Research

Anna Veritt

National Library of New Zealand

Rowena Cullen, MA, MLitt, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in the School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington.

Deborah O’Connor, MA, MLIS, is an information specialist at the Institute for Economic Research, Wellington.

Anna Veritt, MSc, MLIS, is a librarian at the National Library of New Zealand.

Address correspondence to: Rowena Cullen, School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand (E-mail: [email protected]).

The research was funded by the Trustees of the National Library of New Zealand.

SUMMARY. The study assesses the effectiveness of New Zealand local government Websites in providing equitable and appropriate access to government information. All local government Websites that could be identified were evaluated using 37 criteria, and visitors to approximately half of these sites were surveyed to determine their perceptions of the effectiveness of the sites. Results show that although there is a good range of information provided on the better sites, some smaller regional or district councils sites provide little in the way of basic information to their citizens. The study also found a limited range of transactional services available on New Zealand local government Websites, and a widespread lack of disabled-enabled access to sites, along with poor provision for user privacy and security. User comments focused on the need for more information and more up-to-date information to be provided, and better search facilities on sites. Although over 90% of users approached a particular site seeking specific information, less than half were able to find the information they sought. Significant indigenous and ethnic minority groups were underrepresented among users. The study concludes that there is room for considerable improvement in the use of the Web as a primary communication and transaction channel within the context of the government’s vision for extending e-government in New Zealand to local government and other agencies. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Government information, Internet, WWW, local government

INTRODUCTION

The Policy Framework for Government-held Information which was adopted by the New Zealand Cabinet in 1997 (State Services Commission 1997) articulates two key principles concerning the dissemination of government information in New Zealand. These have since been built on by a series of more detailed policy statements issued by subsequent governments (Ministry of Commerce 1999; State Services Commission 2000). The core principles remain unchallenged:

1. Government departments should make information available easily, widely and equitably to the people of New Zealand, except where reasons preclude such availability as specified in legislation.

2. Government departments should make the following information increasingly available on an electronic basis:

• all published material or material already in the public domain;

• all policies that could be released publicly;

• all information created or collected on a statutory basis (subject to commercial sensitivity and privacy considerations);

• all documents that the public may be required to complete;

• corporate documentation in which the public would be interested (State Services Commission 1997).

This policy, along with legislation such as the Official Information Act (1982) reflects the underlying principle that ready access to official and government information can empower individuals and groups in society and promote effective democracy. However, this principle can find itself in conflict with other legislation originating in the so-called state sector reforms of 1984, which were cemented in place by the introduction of the State-Owned Enterprises Act (1986), the State Sector Act (1988), and the Public Finance Act (1989). These acts brought substantial change to the public sector, encouraging agencies to regard information as an economic asset subject to Crown Copyright and discouraging the free exchange of information between government agencies or between agencies and citizens.

Since the establishment of the Electronic Government Unit in the State Services Commission, many more policy documents, vision statements, and guidelines have emerged to provide guidance to government agencies on accessibility to government information, secure exchange of data, cooperation and interoperability between agencies. These policies include the promotion of joint online purchasing of supplies, or ‘e-procurement,’ to achieve efficiencies in the state sector, and the use of information and communications technologies to support online or ‘e-commerce’ transactions between citizens and state agencies. The breadth of this activity is summarised in the E-Government Unit’s operational vision for e-government in New Zealand, and their stated intention to make ‘New Zealand … a world leader in e-government.’ The Unit’s mission reads:

By 2004 the Internet will be the dominant means of enabling ready access to government information and services.

The New Zealand government aims, under its e-government strategy, to create a public sector (including the public service, Crown entities, State-Owned Enterprises and local government) that is: structured, resourced and managed to perform in a manner which meets the needs of New Zealanders in the information age and which increasingly delivers information and services using on-line capacity. (State Services Commission 2001a)

This vision will be manifested in a newly designed New Zealand government Web portal to be launched in October 2002, which is intended to provide seamless access to government information and services. While the vision encompasses local government (which includes city, district and regional councils with separate rating or revenue gathering powers from central government), the State Services Commission has no direct authority in this sector, and must achieve its objectives by persuasion, identifying and modelling best practice, and offering expert advice.

Emergent Issues in the Provision of Government Information on the World Wide Web

The E-Government Unit has taken on board some of the issues emerging from previous research in New Zealand and elsewhere, and consulted extensively in its development of guidelines and standards to assist Web developers in the government sector. An evaluation of central government Websites by Cullen and Houghton had shown that while central government Websites were, in the main, technically competen, and some were excellently designed, there were several shortcomings across all sites that needed to be addressed. These included:

• Lack of a clear purpose, and a failure to communicate this purpose to users;

• Lack of good metadata;¹

• Lack of good contacts for feedback and update of information;

• Statements about (and adequate provision for) confidentiality and privacy of personal data, statements of liability and copyright;

• Access for disabled users;

• Availability of publications in both electronic and print formats (Cullen and Houghton 2000, 246).

Key issues to emerge from a user survey carried out in conjunction with the evaluation included: the need for better search engines, indexes, site maps to help people find out quickly if the information they are wanting is likely to be there, and to locate it; assistance in identifying where it is available; and assurance that the information on government Websites is accurate and up-to-date (Cullen and Houghton 2000, 256).

An evaluation carried out by a research team at Brown University in North America revealed similar shortcomings in US government Websites, especially security and privacy issues, and disabled-enabled access (West 2000). An evaluation a year later, by the same research team, of the same state and federal sites, found some improvement in the extent of electronic services offered on sites, but continuing problems with security, privacy and disabled-enabled access. The same team’s evaluation of city government Websites found considerable variation across cities in the amount of material on city Websites, and that a large number of cities also needed to address problems in the areas of privacy, security, and special needs populations such as the handicapped (West 2001). The team also found that:

• 7 percent of sites were multilingual, meaning that they offer two or more languages;

• 25 percent of Websites featured a one-stop services “portal” or have links to a government portal;

• 13 percent offered services that were fully executable online;

• the most frequent services are paying parking tickets online and filing complaints about street lights, rodent control, and potholes;

• 64 percent of Websites provided access to publications and 38 percent had links to databases;

• 14 percent showed privacy policies, while 8 percent had security policies only;

• 11 percent of the Websites had some form of disability access.

A separate review by the Civic Resource Group of major US city Websites concluded that ‘limited information’ and ‘limited interactivity’ were offered by these sites, and that ‘most cities used their Websites as an electronic brochure’ rather than as a medium through which to interact with citizens (Curtin et al. 2002). Opportunities for publishing budget information were used by only 65% of cities overall, and other forms of business information and records by far fewer. The team noted severe limitations with regard to privacy issues (less than 10% of cities included any readily identifiable privacy statement), and that most of the nearly 50% of cities which used ‘cookies’ to identify previous site visitors, or to track a visitor’s progress through the site, did not acknowledge this: ‘it was inferred that the use of the cookies was not perceived by cities as a privacy concern.’ The study also found that basic navigation tools to help visitors find information were lacking in many sites, and that transaction services were offered overall by less than 10% of cities. Disabled-enabled access was referred to by only 5% of cities, although the number whose Web design permitted uninhibited disabled access may well have been higher than this.

A recent survey commissioned by the NZ Ministry of Economic Development found that although there had been ‘a hug...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• About the Editors
• Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Governance by E-Government
• The “Business” of E-Government
• Researching E-Government
• Index