2006 Leadership in Customer Service Report: Building the Trust -- Full Text

High Performance in Government
They look at value from the perspective of the citizen — the primary stakeholder and most important beneficiary of government activities. By focusing also on cost-effectiveness, high-performance governments strive not only to do the right things, but also to do them in the right way.

High-performance governments share some common characteristics. They generate maximum public value. They are relentlessly citizen-centered and outcome-focused. Their capabilities and operational activities all support the delivery of outcomes defined by their mission, and they measure their performance based on those outcomes — not just inputs and outputs. At the same time, high-performance governments are committed to cost-effectiveness. They hold themselves accountable and they make their operations and results transparent to all. They are innovative and flexible, continually striving to improve value delivery, and are able to respond creatively to new challenges and opportunities. They work in open and collaborative ways, understanding that their organization is part of a larger system, and cultivating working relationships with other agencies, organizations and stakeholders. Finally, high-performance governments reflect their enthusiasm for delivering public value. This evident passion engages both internal staff and external stakeholders in active support of their organizations’ missions.

In this, the seventh year that Accenture has examined the global landscape of public-sector service, we find that government executives around the world continue to press forward toward high performance.
We first looked at the emerging trend of “eGovernment” in 1999-2000, and we have followed that trend as it moved mainstream and became, eventually, an essential and integrated part of governments’ broader vision of leadership in customer service.

Each year, our report has included a comparative assessment of national governments’ service delivery performance; over time, Accenture’s “eGovernment rankings” have become a recognized international benchmark. Yet we also recognized that leadership is not a static concept — that to remain at the top requires a determined push against the limitations of today and a rejection of complacency in favor of future progress.

To that end, this year’s report, Leadership in Customer Service: Building the Trust, takes a decidedly different approach. While we have kept certain elements of the study (such as our citizen research and country-specific profiles), we have not conducted a country ranking for 2006. After years of rapid eGovernment development, countries’ maturity advances have slowed. As leadership in customer service became more difficult to achieve, the time it took for governments to make noticeable improvements grew. More visionary citizen-centric strategies and cross-cutting initiatives needed time to mature and take hold.

We also noticed that certain countries had remained consistent leaders over time. While their positions in the absolute rankings might rise or fall slightly from year to year, these countries have consistently been among the top ranked. They were among the first to move to transactional services, to explore the concept of one-stop service, to embrace multi-channel offerings and so on. In our own experience with governments around the world, we were often asked, “What sets these leaders apart? What do they do to perform so consistently well?”

While we plan to return to the rankings next year, this year we try to answer those questions. As the starting point of our report, Leadership in Customer Service: Building the Trust, we set out to interview top government executives in the countries comprising the two highest-ranking categories from our 2005 report (the “trendsetters” and “challengers”).

While the approaches in these leading countries might differ, the leaders all share an extraordinary passion for customer service — and they are eager to share with and learn from each other. We spent numerous hours interviewing nearly four dozen high-level government executives. These executives went out of their way — making time by arriving early in the morning or staying late into the evening to accommodate us in their already full schedules; providing us with highly useful information sources; pointing us to other potential interviewees and invariably making themselves available for additional questions. Notably, all the executives exhibited a keen interest in learning from their peers. They are making some truly innovative moves in their customer service programs and are hungry for inspiration wherever it resides. As one government executive we interviewed said, “Now you have heard what I have to say. Tell me what other people are saying.”

These executives recognize that they are at a critical juncture in their customer service programs. This year we were impressed by the number of governments that had either just announced or were in the process of formulating innovative new service strategies to put them on the path to high performance in customer service. They are moving beyond tactics to a level of service in which their interactions are designed to build an implicit trust — where citizens and businesses feel the value their governments provide and where governments’ first aim is to do right by those they serve. It’s the next phase of leadership in customer service, and it’s a concept Accenture calls “building the service trust.”

No country has achieved this pinnacle of service yet. However, Leadership in Customer Service: Building the Trust seeks to provide the most useful lessons from the leaders, insights into what the citizens themselves say and a thoughtful analysis of individual countries’ strengths and weaknesses which, taken together, will help governments determine their next steps toward ever-higher performance.

In our 2005 report, Leadership in Customer Service: New Expectations, New Experiences, we presented a new vision for government customer service: one that was catalyzed by eGovernment, but that went far beyond it.
In it, we looked at the many facets of excellence in customer service and identified the hallmarks of high performance. Leadership in customer service, we said, would be marked by service that is citizen-centered, cross-government, multi-channel and promoted through proactive communication and education.

Governments that embraced these principles, we asserted, would deliver greater value for their stakeholders by providing better outcomes more cost-effectively. At the same time, they would position themselves for the next wave of new aspirations and challenges.

But what is the next wave? For leading governments that are on their way to mastering the four pillars of leadership in customer service, what lies in the future? And for governments that are looking to catch up to the leaders, how do they close the gap?

This year’s report, Leadership in Customer Service: Building the Trust, aims to answer these questions.

Since our very first study in 2000, we have watched the evolution of leadership in customer service; we saw governments take their first tentative steps by publishing information online in the late 1990s. In the early to mid-2000s, governments increased their efforts to move more individual services online and build greater transactional capability. At that time, the paramount objective was take-up.

In the past few years, governments have expanded their perspective — aiming to provide truly citizen centered, integrated one-stop service experiences. This involves making horizontal (and to a lesser extent, vertical) cross-government linkages and developing multiple channels of access, allowing citizens to interact with their governments wherever, whenever and however they choose.

Defining Leadership in Customer Service
Our vision for leadership in customer service puts citizens firmly at the center. The vision has four important elements:

A Citizen-centered Perspective
A “citizens-first” point of view, in which all the necessary information is organized around the citizen. Government frontline agents providing the service have access to all this information, and use it to tailor interactions to each citizen’s needs and circumstances.

Cohesive Multi-channel Service
Service that is fast, efficient and convenient, regardless of the chosen channel. Interactions that involve more than one channel (for example, mail and telephone) are seamlessly coordinated.

Fluid Cross-government Service
Government agencies working together at the local, regional and national levels to provide integrated services to the citizen.

Proactive Communication and Education
Active outreach and communication, which ensures citizens are well informed about government services. Governments provide citizens with information and education designed to increase adoption of government services through appropriate channels, improve ease of use and strengthen citizens’ ability to comply with what is expected of them.

Governments that embrace these four pillars of leadership in customer service will be well on their way to delivering the outcomes their stakeholder’s desire and to achieving high performance through greater public-sector value.

In this, our seventh study, we see that many governments have internalized the principles of leadership in customer service and are using their new vantage point to define the next phase of service for both their citizens and themselves.

Accenture believes the high-performance governments of the future will reinvent service completely. Current service models — and the processes, structures, governance and cultures that go with them — will no longer suffice. Transformation will occur not only in the service delivery mechanisms, but also in the services themselves — in their very nature, content and essence — as well as in the far broader outcomes they achieve.

In the future, leadership in customer service will be defined by service that builds an implicit trust between citizens and their government. Here, trust means even more than a belief that governments are acting in citizens’ best interests; it implies an inviolate institution. Citizens will know with absolute certainty that their governments are acting to the best of their ability to ensure citizens enjoy the highest quality of life. Citizens will feel the value government provides. Governments, in turn, will lead more boldly because they enjoy the confidence and support of their constituents. This is an outcome far beyond the citizen satisfaction levels with individual services that many governments already measure.

The implications of building trust can be seen as a virtuous circle: trust in government builds a more connected populace, whose true needs inform the development of more effective policy, implemented via excellent service, resulting in a strengthening of trust. And the cycle repeats (see Figure 2, page 9).

Who will lead the way toward service trust? Those governments that approach customer service with an insatiable hunger: the ones that continually aspire to move to a higher level of performance and to create an environment in which citizens thrive.

Since 2000, Accenture has assessed the service delivery programs of more than 20 national governments. We have looked at the breadth and depth of their services, and their maturity. Government executives have told us they value these rankings: they provide a snapshot comparison of their performance against their peers and offer insight into areas for improvement.

Over the past few years of research, however, we have noticed some consistency in our rankings. Year after year, some countries seem to stay ahead of the curve in vision and in implementation, consistently pushing toward the horizon. As we talk to our clients, they often ask us what these high performers have done to be successful, what challenges they have faced and what lessons they can share.

To provide a more comprehensive perspective on these questions, we have decided against ranking countries in 2006. Rather, this report delves into the high-performance aspects of those countries that we already identified as leaders in 2005, by interviewing the executives that have been most instrumental in moving their countries to the position they are in today. (See sidebar on page 10, Our methodology in brief.)

Through numerous hours of interviews with nearly four dozen government executives, we have examined successful service delivery strategies and learned what the leaders plan to do to sustain leadership in customer service. We probed their “behind the scenes” accomplishments—activities that are perhaps not yet visible externally, but which nevertheless lay the foundation for substantial improvements. As today’s more complex programs and initiatives need time to take root and begin to yield results, allowing more time between rankings will provide a truer picture of progress over time.

Of course, it is important to understand that what one country defines as excellence may not be another country’s ambition at all.

However, many government executives shared that learning what other organizations have done — and especially, the way they have aligned their vision, their policies, their organization and their culture to improve customer service — will boost their own ability to improve.

Our intent is not to provide all the answers; but rather, to share the hard earned insights from experience. These lessons cannot simply be copied; each government must tailor and apply them, based on a deep understanding of its own unique strengths and weakness, challenges and opportunities.

In the words of one executive: “It’s almost like a toolkit to me. So I might have just shared with you a wrench, a screwdriver and a hammer. Someone in another government would look at these tools and say, ‘O.K. Can I use some of this?’ And then they’ll figure out how they’ll use them to work in their own space, recognizing that they are starting with a different piece of wood than mine.”

Citizens will know with absolute certainty that their governments are acting to the best of their ability to ensure citizens enjoy the highest quality of life.

What have we learned from the leaders? Five key findings emerged, and we present them in the first section of our report.

First, leading governments are introducing services on par with the best of the private sector.
While a common perception exists that government trails business in introducing service innovations, our own survey of the landscape shows that in fact, this is not always the case. Governments are using a range of technologies — from short message service (SMS) and text applications to kiosks and interactive voice response (IVR) — to provide unique and interesting services that range from the merely helpful or convenient to the truly life changing.

Second, governments are at a critical juncture for service success.
Leading executives recognize they have “reached the limit” with their current approaches to customer service and must step into the uncomfortable arena of transformation. First, they are re-assessing and re-crafting their customer service strategies, not just to satisfy citizens, but also to create lasting value. Second, they are veering away from a “best practice,” one-size-fits-all template. Governments are building their strategies based on their own unique challenges and value propositions. Leading countries, in particular, have recognized that there is no set definition for citizen-centricity. They are putting the “custom” back in government customer service.

Third, successful governments are advancing by putting in place new modes of operation that vary dramatically from the past.
As governments have developed increasingly rich eGovernment programs, they have created a new vantage point — a platform from which they can now see that the true picture of leadership in customer service is much more complicated than they had previously understood. Much of their existing infrastructure, built for a government-centric view of service, will be inadequate to support their ambitious new strategies. In response, they have begun to implement new internal structures and processes that vary quite dramatically from those of the past, including strong new organizational designs, relentless simplification, business reengineering, consolidation and forays into shared services.

Fourth, successful governments are using a combination of four proactive tactics to promote adoption of their service strategies.
These approaches — the stick, the carrot, marketing pull and high-touch push — are being used to create genuine enthusiasm for their most effective channels.

Fifth, today’s leaders won’t necessarily be tomorrow’s leaders.
Leadership will be contingent upon governments’ ability to address future challenges that are both broad and deep. What would typically be considered leading service practices in the private sector (such as data mining or offshoring, for example) remain difficult, if not impossible, for some governments? Building the ability to cooperate across boundaries and levels of government also defies easy answers. In fact, many governments are compromising their ability to prepare for their future by focusing too heavily on tactical service levels and not enough on the bigger picture. Whether and how public-sector executives rise to meet these challenges will determine which governments are able to lead the way in creating an environment of implicit service value and trust.

In addition to providing a snapshot of the leading countries’ progress in the journey toward service trust, our second section provides recommendations for moving ahead. We base these recommendations not only on this year’s research, which includes executive interviews, background research and the citizen survey, but also from years of research and extensive experience gained from working with hundreds of government clients around the globe. This section presents key areas governments need to address to take the next steps toward high performance by building citizen trust. Finally, as always, we conclude the report with individual overviews of the state of customer service in each of the 21 governments we surveyed, drawing together our results and conclusions within the context of each country.

Our Methodology in Brief
We have omitted the scoring (and ranking) component of our evaluation this year. Instead, we have spent more time investigating the accomplishments of the countries that have performed consistently well for the past several years. In 2006 you will see intense concentration on the countries we identified as leaders in last year’s Leadership in Customer Service: New Expectations, New Experiences report.

We conducted a series of 46 in-depth interviews with high-ranking government executives in the governments of the top two categories (“trendsetters” and “challengers”) of our 2005 rankings (see Figure 3). These countries are Canada, the United States, Denmark, Singapore, Australia, France, Japan, Norway and Finland.¹

Our goal in these interviews was to gain a deeper understanding of what contributed to these countries’ world-leading service programs. We talked with the executives who were responsible for these programs to uncover the challenges they faced and how they handled them, what factors contributed to their successes and what innovative approaches they could share. This first-hand glimpse provided us with invaluable insight into why these programs have been successful. Their lessons learned are as relevant to those countries that have consistently performed well as they are to those progressing more slowly. As Linda Lizotte-Macpherson, Associate Secretary of the Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada, says, “We are now moving into a new era. We’re in the next generation of major transformation. So there really is benefit from learning from each other, no question.”

This year we continue both the background research and citizen survey components of our traditional research approach. We have profiled individual countries and surveyed a total of 8,600 citizens for both the leader categories and for the remaining countries in the “followers” and “formative” categories as well.² This research informs the entire report and in particular, feeds heavily into the individual country profiles at the end of this report.

Leading governments have introduced services on par with the best of the private sector.

At each point of the process you need to see what sort of coordination is required. It is about dynamism and flexibility.

Ann Steward
Chief Information Officer
Australia Government Information Management Office

A common perception persists that the public sector trails the private sector in terms of innovation in service delivery.
In fact, our research this year clearly showed us how widespread this opinion is. We asked citizens in 21 countries to assess the progress of the private sector versus the public sector in developing online services. In 20 out of 21 countries, citizens felt private-sector business was doing a better job. Singapore, in fact, was the only country where citizens felt the opposite was true.

In some cases, this perception gap proves to be quite large: 20 percent or greater in some countries . The largest gap (27 percent), in fact, was in the United States, where fully 65 percent of the respondents said private-sector business was doing a good or excellent job, while only 38 percent said the same about government. Yet, the United States ranked number 2 in our 2005 survey of leadership in customer service.

What’s behind these perceptions? First and foremost, many people hold a picture of government customer service that is incomplete and out of date. Our extensive research has shown us that, contrary to the prevailing belief, leading governments have introduced many services that are on par with the best of the private sector. While they may not always be recognized for their accomplishments, they are using technologies—mobile, short message service (SMS) text messaging, interactive voice response (IVR) and others—to craft services that are every bit as innovative and exciting as what businesses have offered.

For example, Finland introduced a system to pay for parking via mobile phone in multiple cities, as well as in some private parking facilities and parking facilities owned by public companies (such as the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport). The PARKIT parking payment system allows users to start, end or extend parking time by making a phone call, without even going to the vehicle. The service saves time, trouble and money, as the user need only pay for the parking time actually used. PARKIT accepts diverse payment methods: mobile phone invoice, credit card invoice or a specific itemized bill. Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany, likewise, offer pay-by-phone parking in certain cities.

The PARKIT parking payment system allows users to start, end or extend parking time by making a phone call, saving time, trouble, and money.
Australia offers a similar example. Various councils in the country already provide the capability to pay for parking (on specific parking meters) using mobile phones. In some cases, the system will send an SMS warning if a parking meter is about to expire. Now the government is experimenting with “virtual parking meters.” No physical infrastructure is required other than a sign telling people what number to call. Customers register their mobile phone and vehicle details online. They can then prepay their parking fees by credit card and check their account balance and parking history online. They can also update their vehicle information anytime online. To pay for parking, customers simply call the number displayed at the car park to start the virtual parking meter when they arrive, and call again to stop it when they leave. SMS messages to the customer confirm fee payments and warn if an account has insufficient funds. Parking inspectors can view a list of vehicles authorized to park in the area using a wireless application protocol (WAP) phone or handheld computer.

Through innovative pilots, other countries are exploring the potential of mobile, SMS and other technologies for additional services, from the practical to the truly life-changing. In Singapore, for example, the Ministry of Transport and Industry piloted a project in November 2005 called “Type and Go,” which brings mobile technology to bear for comprehensive events management for businesses. The system allows business people to receive alerts, register and receive reminders or notices of changes for free-registration government events and seminars through SMS. The system also allows users and event organizers to exchange feedback and responses during the events. Initial estimates from the 10 pilot events showed an average cost savings of 12.5 percent per event.

The city of Melbourne, Australia wants visitors and residents alike to feel at home there. It has introduced iHubs —kiosks that are, in effect, like mini-chambers of commerce. These will be installed around the city and provide information about events, dining, entertainment, shopping and transport. Users identify where they are in the city on a detailed map and by moving an icon across the screen, locate points of interest or make reservations for events. Information will be shown in the lower quarter of the screen so it is wheelchair accessible, and the city plans to implement voice instructions for the visually impaired. In the Netherlands, the “Burgernet” (Citizens Network), a local phone network of citizens and businesses taps the power of the collective for safety and justice. When the police start a search (for a missing child, burglar or stolen car), participants receive a phone call with descriptive information and a number to call back if they have relevant information. This initiative provides the police vital sets of “eyes and ears on the ground,” enabling them to respond much more quickly in critical situations. The Netherlands has also begun a local pilot that sends out SMS alerts within a radius of several hundred meters from where a child has gone missing or a burglary or a car theft has been reported. Participating citizens receive a message with this information and if they have relevant information, can call the number provided in the message.

When the police start a search (for a missing child, burglar or stolen car), participants receive a phone call with descriptive information and a number to call back if they have relevant information.
Beyond SMS and mobile technologies, a number of countries have been exploring the use of interactive voice response (IVR) and natural language processing to increase access for the disadvantaged. Norway. no, Norway’s public-sector information portal, recently developed a service for those who would like information from the Web portal, but who are not on the Internet. By using the phone and a toll-free number, users can have information from the site (news, contact information and other site topics) read to them. The system is voice sensitive and users who say “help desk” are put straight through to a live person.

Italy is venturing down a similar path with its national citizen’s portal. Users can find information held in a selection of the Italia.gov pages via the telephone, using an interactive telephone capability. The main services that are currently available (grouped into the following main five areas: labor, disability, retirement, education and health) can be accessed through a guided vocal navigation that, with just a few commands, allows users to hear the desired information.

In Australia, voice-based technology features prominently as part of the government’s existing multi-channel approach. For example, Centre link is an agency of the Department of Human Services that delivers a range of services to the community. Centre link’s automated phone services use both IVR and natural language speech recognition to allow the customer to direct the Centrel ink reporting system instead of pressing phone keypad buttons.

Other countries are breaking new ground by combining technology and true cross-government collaboration to improve social inclusion and build greater connections to the citizen. In Sweden, under the VISAM-project, the “Tekniskt möte” (Technical Meeting), initiative has received much attention within the public sector. Within the project, a number of “customer workspaces” were set up at different government agencies. These workspaces are kiosks with a phone, video camera and video screen, through which the citizen can contact personnel at any of the five collaborating government agencies (the National Tax Board, the National Social Insurance Board, the Swedish Enforcement Administration, the Swedish National Board of Student Aid and the Customs Office). In addition to government cost savings, citizens and businesses receive better service in places where any of these agencies lack offices. These customer workspaces help secure equal service and consistent treatment irrespective of the user’s geographical location.

Still other countries are collaborating at an international level for technology enabled citizen-centric service on a grand scale. For example, the tax administrations of Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland have established an innovative common tax portal, Nordisk eTax, built on a history of close cooperation and a deep understanding of each other’s languages, cultures and experiences.

Nordisk eTax brings together all the tax rules and regulations of the participating countries in all of the languages. The tax administrations are collaborating to simplify life for citizens in the participating countries in a real way. Thanks to Nordisk eTax, a Finn moving to Norway to work, for example, can learn about Norway’s tax rules in Finnish or a Norwegian going to work in Iceland can learn about Icelandic rules in Norwegian.

While these examples provide just a sample of the best of today’s government customer service, they reflect the innovative approaches governments are adopting. To take the lead in customer service—looking beyond constituents’ in-the-moment “demands” toward their unexpressed needs—governments need to retire strategies that focus solely on the tactics of online service delivery. In the next section, we discuss how the leaders are breaking away from the pack and moving toward a model where services are constructed to foster an implicit trust in government.

Governments are at a critical juncture for future service success.

We have yet to realize the full potential from integrating data and creating cross-sector business processes, but that’s where we’re going.

Mikkel Hemmingsen
Deputy Director
Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation

Many government executives recognize they have “reached the limit” with their current approaches to customer service and are now at a critical juncture in terms of service success.
The leaders are facing this challenge by stepping into the uncomfortable arena of transformation. First, they are re-assessing and re-crafting their customer service strategies. Second, they are veering away from a “best practice,” one-size-fits-all approach. They are putting the “custom” back in customer service.

Presently, most leading countries are in a phase of re-crafting their strategies (or have just announced dramatically new strategies) with a much broader emphasis on service that creates value, rather than on simply putting services online. That is, they seek to understand not only what citizens want now, but also what they need in the context of broader social outcomes. This is part of their push toward service trust. As Wu Choy Peng, CIO of Singapore explains her government’s service aspirations:

“How can we better position ourselves to deliver services our customers would value, but do not expect? How can we be proactive? For example, today a businessman looks at government as someone who may hold him back. How can we bring the regulatory agencies together not just to simplify compliance, but to actually help that business do better through enhancing the efficiency of its business operations?”

Especially striking is the number of leading countries that are making significant strategic shifts in their service approach. Seven out of last year’s nine trendsetters and challengers (78 percent) have all announced or (as of this writing) plan to announce major new central service strategies in the year since our last report. In contrast, only two countries of last year’s remaining 12 follower and formative countries (17 percent) have announced bold new approaches to customer service. Figure 5 illustrates which countries have announced a major new strategy in the past year (as opposed to a minor update or refresh of an existing strategy) and which countries are relying on strategies two or more years older.

Of particular interest to us are the anomalies: the two leading countries that have not made any announcements of major changes to their service strategy (France and the United States) and the two “follower” countries that have (Spain and the United Kingdom). France’s next steps are somewhat unclear; its current ADELE (Administration ELEctronique) strategy is set to expire in 2007 and the government has reorganized in the past year, which will undoubtedly affect the country’s approach to service modernization. How soon this will happen is an open question. While executives in the United States describe an evolutionary process of continual refinement, other countries seem to be taking more dramatic steps.

Countries on the move are developing far-reaching service strategies intended to strengthen social fabric and improve economic prosperity.

Spain and the United Kingdom are notable for appearing to be on the verge of dramatic advancement. These countries (14th and 10th, respectively, in our 2005 rankings) have articulated new strategies quite similar in tone to those of the leaders. In the United Kingdom, the “Transformational Government” strategy reflects a critical shift to a view of technology as an enabler rather than an end in itself. It also acknowledges the important structural and governance changes that must occur in tandem to close the gap between providing service for citizens and creating value for them.

In Spain, the government’s Plan Moderniza subsumes the majority of the government’s current eGovernment objectives under a much broader agenda of improving the Spanish government’s relationship with its citizens. In addition, the Spanish government is looking beyond its own borders in the development of its Plan Avanza, which was approved by the Board of Ministries in November 2005. The Plan Avanza is the strategy for developing Spain as an information society and for positioning it as a leader in Europe and on the international scene.

Today’s and tomorrow’s leaders are shifting their service focus toward value creation, but this concept means very different things in different cultures. As governments make their service transitions, they in fact do not look alike; rather they are building their strategies based on their own unique challenges and value propositions. Canada, for example, is embedding Canadian values into service delivery and building trust in government: “The basic impetus [behind Canada’s service transformation agenda] is to increase the level of Canadians’ confidence in their government,” explains David Marshall, Deputy Minister, Public Works and Government Services Canada. “It is a recognition that the well-being of Canadians, inasmuch as their view of whether they’re well governed or not, is not only dependent upon the elected officials. There is a big part to be played by how the public service or the bureaucracy carries out the policies of the elected officials. And to the extent that these policies— in the sense of service delivery and efficient use of funds and so on— is well done, it either improves or decreases the confidence of Canadians in their government. . . So at the root of it is a generation of confidence in the competency of their government.”

Singapore emphasizes building the international competitiveness of the country. In contrast, Japan has a high-tech focus, where ubiquitous technology will lead to increased efficiencies to help reduce the national debt while contributing to a safer and more secure society and building a whole new relationship between the government and those it serves.

Denmark’s Mikkel Hemmingsen, Deputy Director at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, outlines still another view on value. He explains that having a key set of identifiers standardized across government — a person, a company, an address, income and so on — has enabled Denmark to reuse data across agencies and thus provide service in a whole new way. Hemmingsen continues, ”You could say that we have this system of knowing about people. We know where they live. We know how much tax they pay and where they work. We know how many children they have. We use this knowledge to reduce the administrative burden on citizens. We have yet to realize the full potential from integrating data and creating cross sector business processes, but that’s where we’re going.”

Determining citizens’ real current and future needs is not easy; the further government looks to the future of customer service, the less likely its citizens’ needs will be expressed versus implicit (see Figure 6 on page 22). Leading countries, in particular, have recognized that generic terms such as “improving performance” and “becoming citizen-centric” are almost meaningless when the concept is without national and cultural context. (See sidebar on page 24, A new view of citizen-centricity.) As Andrew Sheffield, Director of Service Transformation at the UK Cabinet Office describes, “We have a huge difficulty with language. It is perfectly respectable to talk about customer focus and customer-centricity, and acknowledge that we have to design our services such that the users —the customers —will use them. But there is only a sort of a passing understanding of what that actually means in practice.”

Once governments can articulate those needs, they can begin to align their capabilities and strategies to meet them—constructing service as a lever to accomplish bigger social outcomes. Of course, new strategies alone — even the most ambitious — will not propel governments toward service trust (and ultimately, high performance). Strategies must take into account a variety of factors, including the unique needs of each country’s populace. Executing on these new strategies requires new organizational foundations (new policies, processes and organizational models). In the next section, we discuss the mechanisms the leaders are putting in place for rapid service advances in the future.

“How can we better position ourselves to deliver services our customers would value, but do not expect? How can we be proactive? For example, today a businessman looks at government as someone who may hold him back. How can we bring the regulatory agencies together not just to simplify compliance, but to actually help that business do better through enhancing the efficiency of its business operations?”

A New View of Citizen-centricity
Governments are recognizing that being citizen-centric encompasses more than just recognizing who their “customers” are and what they want, and they are altering their strategies to take a bigger picture view. For many of these governments, their redefinition of what it means to be citizen centric has led to increasingly local citizen touch points. These leading governments are making innovative use of their local connections to build bridges to citizens across all levels of government.

For example, in Denmark the “Structural Reform” is one of the biggest and most important reforms of the public sector in many years. The Structural Reform will impact both the national and local level governments, but will affect local government the most, as fewer municipalities will soon deliver an increased share of public functions and services. As Hugo Prestegaard, Head of Division at the Danish National IT and Telecom Agency, explains, “Denmark is traditionally a country with a strong decentralization of administrative power. And the new reform is putting that more in a forward way, focusing more on that. . . In fact, the target for this reform is to put the citizen in the center — ensuring that a citizen can have all his or her problems solved in one stop, either by calling the local services center or going there in person. The local center will have access to systems often run by central agencies. So it’s very different than many other countries with big national call centers and things like that. Here the ambition is to empower the municipalities by decentralizing tasks from central government and giving citizens most of their assistance locally.”

Finland’s growing emphasis on local service delivery is evident in its use of its network of 213 Citizen Centres to deliver an increasing number of government services and an enhanced focus on coordination down to the local and municipal levels. (The government, in fact, initiated a Local and Regional Service Strategy last year to guide its actions to 2010.)

The United Kingdom’s Transformational Government strategy emphasizes determining what has to be delivered centrally, while increasing local involvement. Local government representatives serve on the Service Transformation Board and local authorities are working in parallel to determine how to deliver. “It’s kind of early days, but a strategy like this simply wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s written on if you didn’t have local involvement,” says Andrew Sheffield, Director of Service Transformation at the UK Cabinet Office.

Service Canada is a collection of services to individuals that have been brought under a single leadership, and is now rolling out to improve services to Canadians at a local level. For example, Service Canada is opening up small boutique offices in shopping centers and has negotiated special deals on cell phone usage for its agents. Moves such as these are helping Service Canada become more mobile and reach smaller communities — and ultimately, to become more relevant.

What’s behind these approaches? “At the heart of governance is connecting with the people you govern,” says Maryantonett Flumian, Deputy Head of Service Canada. “And the electronic channel does many things, but it also disassembles that relationship. Government operates best at the retail level. . . Governments make policy, but they only connect at the retail level.” Governments are beginning to realize that if they give up their personal interface with citizens, then people begin to lose their understanding of the relevance of government. In contrast, by building local connections with the people they govern, they can begin to use these connections to inform policy in meaningful ways. The aim is to bring a strong and reliable customer voice into the design of individual services. As Bjarne Hope, Norway’s Director- General of Taxation, says, “Intimate relationships with citizens can give you a better look to the future.”

Successful governments are advancing by putting in place new modes of operation that vary dramatically from the past.

The starting point is not the technology. The starting point is the customer.

Ng Wai Choong
Deputy Secretary, Industry
Singaporean Ministry of Trade and Industry

As governments have developed increasingly rich eGovernment programs, they have, in effect, created a new vantage point.
Leaders have seen that high-performance customer service is much more complicated than they had previously understood. They have begun to recognize that many of their existing internal mindsets, structures and processes—built for a governmentcentric view of service—will be inadequate to support their ambitious new service strategies and, ultimately, their pursuit of building service trust. Moving to a higher level of performance will only come by shaking off their old routines and acting in ways that are decidedly non-traditional for governments.

To that end, a number of the leaders have begun developing new foundations. Far more than a retrofit of the existing machinery of government, these approaches involve implementing new internal structures and processes that mark a departure from the past. They include strong new organizational designs, consolidation and forays into shared services, business reengineering and elimination of some unnecessary citizen interactions altogether.

Strong New Organizational Designs
In Canada, where the government has a history of making progress through horizontal cooperation, the government’s service transformation agenda advances through a model of “business-like cooperation” that begins with a weekly breakfast meeting of deputy ministers. “It’s a very, very effective mechanism because every Friday you know you’re going to see every other deputy minister. Everybody shows up at those meetings,” explains Canada’s David Marshall. “More importantly, you have to face your colleagues week after week. So you know if you’re obstructing another colleague’s initiative, you had better have good, sensible reasons for your position. You can’t just do things with impunity. You’ll be facing that person every week. This creates incentives for a business-like cooperation.” In Denmark, in conjunction with the Structural Reform, the government is shifting power from the central and regional levels to the county and municipal levels. Hugo Prestegaard, Head of Division at the Danish National IT and Telecom Agency, explains: “Denmark now has 14 counties, and these will be transformed into 5. And many tasks that have been done centrally will be moved down to the municipalities. The municipalities will then have a greater power. They’ll become bigger— have more force to take on a bigger role. They will go from 271 to 98. So we will have major players that have more power and more people. The idea is to make sure that when you go into a citizen service center, they will take care of your problem. Even though the people actually taking care of it may be sitting in other agencies elsewhere, you shouldn’t even be aware of that. We’ll take care of you. That is the idea.”

Consolidation and Forays into Shared Services
In terms of consolidation, in France, the Ministry of Finance (MINEFI)—and more precisely, its Budget Department— created the Direction generale de la modernisation de l’État (DGME) as a new division to drive state modernization, including the development of eGovernment. The DGME has been formed by merging four former agencies, three of which previously reported in to the Prime Minister. The Norwegian government established a new Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs to better coordinate the Norwegian Public Employment services, the National Insurance services and the municipalities’ social services. The government is reorganizing a number of departments into one Labor and Welfare Department (expected to be finished by July 2006) so that the many users in need of services from two or more of the authorities do not have to contact several departments to resolve problems. In addition, in each municipality, a municipal-central government “first-line” office will provide coordinated services adapted to the users’ needs, replacing various offices that are located in the municipalities today. New offices will be opened in all municipalities before 2010.

In Finland, the government is coordinating all the information management in the state administration. The organization charged with this objective is new, and its establishment represents a shift in mindset for the Finnish government: now focusing on centrally providing the services that will be common to all the agencies and ministries.

Beyond consolidation, other governments have taken deeper dives into shared services. For these governments, the benefits are threefold. First, they create good management tools and information to enable external service delivery—in effect, marrying internal excellence with external service delivery. Second, by acting as one in the back office, they remove significant impediments to agility and responsiveness to the customer. Finally, they gain increased efficiencies and economies of scale, liberating resources to devote to service delivery initiatives.

In Singapore, for example, the government set up its VITAL.org-Centre for Shared Services in April 2006 to deliver selected human resources and finance processing services to government agencies. Likewise, a number of Australian states (such as Western Australia and Queensland) are introducing shared services, and the Cross-Jurisdictional Chief Information Officers’ Committee in Australia continues to identify the potential for shared services and infrastructure where appropriate.

Canada created the Shared Corporate, Administrative and Information Technology Services to make the government’s internal operations more efficient and effective, as one key component of the government’s overall service transformation agenda (with the other being the out ward facing Service Canada). The initial focus is on human resources, financial and materiel management services, and distributed computing/desktop and data center services. Bruce Deacon, Assistant Deputy Minister of Canada’s Corporate Administrative Shared Services initiative, explains the rationale: “It’s the idea of competitive government. In a global world, companies in a country have to have confidence that their government can function as competitively as they do. But it is also about good management, accountability, transparency and the capacity to respond to changing priorities. We have to be able to be flexible, to change things to respond to needs. If we move to shared services, we will be able to stand up as an organization to address a need more quickly. We can divert money to higher priorities; we can manage horizontally.” In the sidebar on page 32 entitled Some advice on building public-sector shared services, Bruce Deacon offers insights from his experience.

Funding and governance of broad corporate initiatives such as shared services is an ongoing challenge. Canada’s model relies initially on central funding to give the initiative legs, with agencies bearing an increasing share of the costs based on their use of the services once the service has been well established. Ken Cochrane, Chief Executive Officer, Information Technology, at Public Works and Government Services Canada, describes the funding model during Canada’s shared services evolution: “Having a central funding source, at least in the early days, and maybe for a while longer, is very critical to encouraging take-up. And once you achieve an appropriate level of take-up, you arrive at volumes and a critical mass where the service makes sense. This is key. In the case of Government On-Line, if we had asked departments to ante up their resources to support the central service, they wouldn’t have had the capacity to figure out which services needed to be made available, to reengineer their own businesses and to redesign their systems and solutions to enable these changes. That’s heavy lifting, too. In fact the lifting in departments, if you put it altogether, is substantially heavier than the central investment.” Beginning in 2004, the US government established Lines of Business (LoBs), which seem to be the starting point for the country’s greater push to shared services. These LoBs (financial, human resources, grants, health and case management systems and IT security) are areas where US federal agencies could team to increase efficiencies and improve economies of scale by reducing duplication. Lead agencies with the greatest competency are acting as government-wide service providers. Rather than expend significant effort and resources modernizing existing agency-specific systems, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) developed a comprehensive reference model that highlighted the LoB overlaps. Using the power of the purse, OMB led a migration to common, government-wide solutions. The goal of the effort is to identify opportunities to reduce the cost of government (estimated to be in the tens of billions of dollars over ten years) and improve services to citizens through business performance improvements.

Says Karen Evans, Administrator of E-Government and Information Technology at the US Office of Management and Budget, “If you look at eGovernment programs, including Lines of Businesses, the intent is to improve efficiency so more attention can be focused on achieving the mission—delivering service to citizens. The savings from cost avoidance can then be redirected to serving those citizens better and more effectively.” In the United Kingdom, there is a significant and explicit push to implement shared services and redeploy resources to the front line. The government created a cross government team to promote shared services, and appointed a Shared Services Director to work in the Cabinet Office, acting as a catalyst to drive progression to shared services. The government clearly supports the notion that merging functions such as call centers or human resources yields big savings from scale efficiencies that can then be used elsewhere. In addition, the government plans to operate on the presumption that only by agency sharing and teaming will it provide the best value for money. This will make it harder for wasteful, duplicative projects to be funded.

Simplification and Business Reengineering
Leading governments have come to recognize that true citizen-centricity encompasses removing as much work from the system as possible for citizens. As Andrew Sheffield describes, “I’ve no doubt that British citizens are no different from any other citizens in the world. They don’t particularly want to use government services. You know, it’s not like we’re offering them nice things to buy in a shop, or airline tickets for holidays.”

Ong Joon Lim Wilson, the CIO of Singapore’s Inland Revenue Authority, echoes the sentiment: “People don’t have a choice; they have to pay a tax. Whether they like it or they don’t like it, they have to pay it. We have to make it as painless as possible, so that at least, people don’t feel so dreadful when they are paying taxes. That’s the basic premise we start with for our services.” For most citizens, government interactions can be disruptive and time consuming, and therefore, they seek to minimize them. Leaders have taken this to heart and have been relentless about examining their existing processes, simplifying and reengineering the way they do things in line with a more far-reaching vision. As a result, some are eliminating unnecessary touch points for citizens and businesses altogether.

For example, when the Singaporean Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) developed its Online Business Licensing Service, it undertook an extensive government-wide review of all startup licenses required by more than 30 government agencies. Irrelevant and obsolete business licenses were removed. In addition, other licenses were merged or converted into onceoff lifetime licenses to create a more pro-enterprise environment. “The starting point is not the technology,” explains Ng Wai Choong, Deputy Secretary, Industry, at MTI. “The starting point is the customer. First we do a policy review: ‘Do you really need all these licenses? Are there alternatives to this license?’ Next we ask, ‘How do we make it more effective and more pleasant?’ And we do serious business reengineering. Finally we ask, ‘How do we leverage technology to enable this?’ Our ultimate aim is not to require licensing where possible. Certainly, the results are very encouraging.”

In Australia, students in tertiary studies receive government subsidies. Historically students had to apply via paper forms and physically appear at a social service center to register changes in their status. The Student Notification of Employment Income Initiative introduced by Centrelink has simplified students’ reporting requirements while multiplying their choice of channels.

Leading governments have come to recognize that true citizen-centricity encompasses removing as much work from the system as possible for citizens.

Online licensing enables easy registration for business owners so they can spend their time at work on other matters.
Now students can log in directly from their universities at their convenience. Designing self-service options also provided Centrelink with the opportunity to streamline business processes, increase the use of electronic recordkeeping and improve data integrity.

Norway introduced a service revolution in 1999 when it launched pre-filled tax forms in conjunction with an early version of an electronic tax filing service. Originally, the government pre-populated tax returns using only information from its own registers. Since then, the government has aggressively pursued third-party information (from organizations such as banks and insurance companies) to pre-populate tax forms for its citizens. The service has reached a level where more than half of all taxpayers need not change or add anything; their information is accurate and complete. In addition, in 2005 the government expanded its electronic filing service so that it is available to all individual taxpayers, regardless of the complexity of their tax situation.

Bjarne Hope, Norway’s Director-General of Taxation, describes his agency’s relentless drive for improvement: “I think what we have experienced through these years is that every time we have moved a step forward, and we thought that we had solved a problem or reached a new position, we have seen new possibilities. What we are working on now, for instance, is also to use the pre-filling procedure and the electronic service to make a better tax return for corporations and businesses. So we have tried to use our experience and the best practices on the personal taxpayer side and expand that to the business side, gathering all the information that we can to make things simpler.”

To that end, the Norwegian Tax Authority is now making innovative use of the existing “Alt Inn” common reporting system for businesses to try to retrieve information directly from companies’ accounting and wage systems as they compute relevant tax information. “That is a new way of doing it,” says Hope. “Not filling out forms, but retrieving information directly from the underlying basic systems of the organizations.”

For several years, we have emphasized that it does not matter whether governments provide excellent services if citizens will not use them. We have seen this problem with eGovernment in particular—even as governments improved their online offerings, citizens failed to embrace them. The result was that many governments have struggled to achieve the anticipated time and money savings from extensive citizen self service. In some cases, the problem has been access—citizens lacking the necessary physical hardware or Internet connections. Just as often, however, citizens have not known what services were available or how to use them. In this case, governments’ efforts at proactive communications and education are critical. In the next section, we discuss the innovative ways some countries are using a combination of proactive tactics to continue to build user awareness and adoption.

Some Advice on Building Public-sector Shared Services
The Canadian government is currently building its shared services initiatives through an approach that balances private sector principles with public-sector realities. Bruce Deacon, Assistant Deputy Minister of Canada’s Corporate Administrative Shared Services (CASS) initiative, offers advice from his experience developing shared services in the public sector.

Don’t stop when it gets daunting. “Tell yourself you really know the answer. If you talk about it, you’ll be 90 percent right. If you do too much analysis, it can be paralyzing. All you see is complexity.”

Keep scope in check and stay focused. “You always have the problem of scope creep. Keep it in check and stay focused. You may find that you are in an environment where, for whatever reasons, the pressure to move faster is there. Governments are no different from a major company. If leadership changed, opportunity changed, you would adjust accordingly. We are in an environment where those things can change. You can adjust if you have the right people and have done your detailed analysis.

“The agencies themselves also need to be thinking about how and where to do shared services. It is moving forward rapidly. All of this is going to happen; it’s just a question of how quickly, and what scale.”

Acquire, retain and develop the people capacity. “Transition management is not something you learn to do for a few months. Develop teams of people with specialized expertise. As they get better and better, build on your success. You will have people who will move. You can plan that. If you do it correctly, you plan a degree of churn. Have departments cycle people into the transition group. In Canada, we advise those that will be transitioning to shared services in a later phase should have their best and brightest working with the transition team now to get experience: to get involved, build resources and position themselves.” Relate the back end to the front end. “The back office of internal corporate services affects the front office—the direct client service. For example, you need to understand that how well you operate the back end impacts how quickly and reliably payments are made, how easily customers reach the right people when there is an administrative problem, and so on.”

Get strong commitment from senior leadership. “Strong commitment is essential to success; it must, however, be proactive and sustained. Strong commitment isn’t ‘I think this a good idea.’ It has to be ‘I think this is a good idea and how can I support you?’ You need a commitment of leadership and also a sustained commitment of funding.”

Think like a business and capture the returns. “If a company is outsourcing, there is formalized supply and demand, articulated with Service Level Agreements. In the same way, if you run shared services, you are now delivering a service for a price, and you have to construct it and manage it to drive out costs. The service provider must operate along business lines, with activity costing and continuous productivity improvement. On the other hand, the consumer has to organize to receive the services, as well as to effectively manage the supplier relationship.”

“If you put the relationship on a supplier / client basis, it becomes explicit. You can articulate what you are spending and what the savings are—and you can project and plan. You can capture savings and often reallocate them into higher service levels. Agencies should think of themselves as outsourcing: they have to rethink things and learn to manage the contract. If you don’t run it as a business, you won’t drive out the unnecessary cost.”

Capture these keys to success. “Success in shared services depends on a number of key factors. You need a clear commitment and mandate; a defined policy framework within which to design services; adequate capacity, both in terms of funding and the right people; strong governance from the beginning and rigorous processes for managing transformation; and certainly not least—you need the right attitude, including a sense of urgency.”

Successful governments are using a combination of four proactive tactics to promote adoption of their service strategies.  

Leadership really is about strong beliefs about what is right to do, and the willingness to take doubt and criticism and stay with a vision and move forward.

David Marshall
Deputy Minister
Public Works and Government Services Canada

Last year we pointed out that, despite citizens’ relative Internet savvy and familiarity with online government in advanced countries, the telephone continues to be the predominant means they use to communicate with government.
This year in our citizen survey, we saw the trend continue, as we saw a number of our leading countries still struggling with converting even high Internet use into genuine enthusiasm for the channel.

Obviously, the value of live communication should not be underestimated. From our citizen survey, we see that inperson communication has the highest ease-of-use rating in advanced countries, and it is expected to deliver the best level of service across all country categories (advanced, developing and emerging countries). In developing and emerging countries, walk-in centers are the main priority for investment. While it will be difficult for any other channel to replace personal contact, governments continually strive to move the boundary in terms of what services citizens are willing to transact online. A key component of their effort is changing perceptions through proactive marketing. However, despite a growing recognition of the value of marketing and some initial “testing of the waters,” in most countries, eGovernment usage rates have remained relatively constant from 2005 to 2006.

The challenge stems at least in part from governments’ relative inexperience with marketing, lack of robust marketing  capabilities and often overly simple approaches. However, despite the continuing struggle, we did find evidence that some leading countries are beginning to apply effective methods to improve citizens’ acceptance of their most efficient online channels. Beyond basic and ad hoc campaigns (such as running a public service announcement on television, for example), these leaders are using a combination of four proactive tactics:

Stick
Strong pressure or mandatory use of more efficient channels for some services.

Carrot
Incentives for online use.

Marketing Pull
Innovative campaigns to increase awareness and educate users on how to access and use the available services.

High-touch Push
Help and support; showing people and businesses how to get the most out of services.

For example, Denmark has used the stick technique in different ways to good effect. Denmark’s E-Day Projects first gave public organizations the right to demand electronic communication from each other, and then expanded that right so that all citizens and all businesses could demand to communicate with the public sector electronically. While the E-Days were based on agencies’ voluntary compliance, the pressure to comply was strong and persuasive: “Basically this was a voluntary agreement that all public organizations signed up for. They agreed to make it available so that all citizens and companies can communicate with the public sector electronically and safely. It was a voluntary thing, but we followed up and actually published on the Internet who was not ready yet. So, the agencies were put under pressure. And that’s quite a unique way of enforcing it without enforcing it,” explains Carsten Loesch, Project Manager, Ministry of Finance.

Also in Denmark, as of February 2005, all government organizations have been required to accept only electronic invoices from suppliers. After some start-up problems, the new e-Faktura system was in place by mid-2005 and handling approximately 70 percent of the invoicing transactions that it is eventually expected to facilitate. The somewhat radical decision to close down the offline channel will affect some 15 million invoices from approximately 500,000 Danish businesses each year. This bold move by the government was supported by a strong business case showing significant benefits for both business and government. Analysis indicated that the potential savings from electronic invoicing could be as high as € 120 to € 150 million per year across government, and about € 50 million for business. In Japan, which has built a world-class online capability but has struggled with low take-up, the government seems to be taking a new, harder line to promote electronic transactions. A special committee recently recommended that “the budget (investment) for the eGovernment [services], which are not expected to achieve 50 percent or more online transactions as a goal, should be frozen.” If the cabinet fails to present concrete countermeasures, the majority Liberal Democratic Party will request these strong sanctions go into effect. Other countries are using the carrot approach, providing incentives to encourage people to take more advantage of self-service. This approach is particularly common among revenue agencies. The United States, for example, encourages people to use online tax filing services by promising earlier refunds for those who file electronically. Norway offers a two-month extension on the filing deadline (from end of March to end of May) for electronic filing.

Other countries, including Singapore and Ireland, offer similar approaches Implementing these stick and carrot approaches is not always easy. Particularly in countries that value individualism, or in those that strongly believe all citizens must receive the same service advantages (irrespective of where they live or their abilities, for example), any approach that appears too heavy-handed by the government or implies favored treatment for a particular group, may cause trouble.

In Japan, for example, both stick and carrot approaches present challenges. “As we look back, the e-Japan initiative has operated too much from the viewpoint of the supply-side, and therefore, it was not always in sync with the needs and requirements of the Japanese citizens,” says Takuya Hirai, Japan’s Parliamentary Secretary of the Cabinet Office. “Honestly speaking, it is very difficult to force people to use the Internet—and if we abolish the paper bases, it would force people. That means that what we have is a very steady and continuous stream of public relations and publicity in order to educate the people. I think that the way to have very convenient and easy-to-understand services for the citizen is by reducing the costs or fees they have to pay.”

Certainly, the stick and carrot approaches will not be the only levers for improving adoption. Other leading countries are putting their own spin on traditional marketing pull as well as high-touch push approaches, to good effect.

For example, France uses the Internet channel extensively to promote e-services (via pop-up ads, commercial links and so on). Denmark recently launched its first concerted marketing campaign across all government with great results. Before the campaign started, an equal number of citizens (42 percent) preferred to contact the public sector via phone as did those who preferred the Internet channel. After three months of marketing, the number preferring the Internet grew to 46 percent, with only 38 percent preferring phone for their contacts with government. In the United States, the USPS has turned its unmatched reach into every home in the country into an invaluable marketing asset — to drive awareness of its most innovative services. “

During last fall’s busy holiday mailing period, every household in America received our Holiday Mailing Guide, which provided our customers with helpful and timely information designed to make their preparations less hectic,” said Susan Plonkey, Vice President of Customer Service. “It included mailing deadlines, packing tips, and information about the services available through our website, usps.com, which they could use to save time, print postage and send packages— from home or at the post office.”

“And we’re building on that,” Plonkey said. “We got such great feedback, that we’ve started a regular series of mailings to every home and business in America. We’re telling them about My Desktop Post Office, a great application that links their home computer right to usps.com, and provides shortcuts to the tools and services they use most. We want them to know about Carrier Pickup, too, which allows customers to log on, let their post office know they’ve got a package ready to ship, and have their letter carrier pick it up with the next day’s delivery, at no extra charge.”

“This is just the beginning,” added Plonkey. “We’re going to do a series of these mailings throughout the year. What better way than the mail for the USPS to let people know about great products and services we offer?”

Singapore often has some of the most creative approaches to marketing. Its recent “Why Q? e-Pay” campaign was a six-month joint promotion by Singapore’s Ministry of Finance, its Infocomm Development Authority and the Network for Electronic Transfers Pte Ltd. (NETS), a private financial services company. Consumers and business users were eligible to win attractive prizes when they made payments to the government using online payment modes from NETS, namely eNETS Credit and eNETS Debit. A total of 386,198 transactions were made via eNETS between July and October 2005, representing a 44 percent increase over the same months in the previous year.

In another campaign, the Singaporean Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), promoted a competition among users of its BizFile system 2. “The public uses our BizFile online filing system, and we need their feedback to improve it,” explains Bernice Quek, Head of IT at ACRA. “So, we offered prizes for the e-mail suggestions that would have the most impact on the system.” The competition offered a few top prizes (including an iPod mini) and consolation prizes, and generated significant interest and participation.

High-touch push is the final proactive technique that leading countries have incorporated. By providing support and showing people how to get the most out of the governments’ online service offerings, the government wins eGovernment converts one by one. This year we saw more evidence than we had ever seen previously of this type of approach, and it is symptomatic of the growing recognition that a highly personal level of interaction will often be necessary for driving citizens to the more efficient online channel. This is particularly the case when the services are complicated or have big personal implications for the citizen (or perceived negative ramifications if done improperly). Such services include applying for benefits or paying taxes, among others.

Countries are using the “carrot” approach, providing incentives to encourage people to take more advantage of self-service. 
For example, the Irish Revenue helps foreign nationals at regional offices learn how to use online filing channels: “Because of Ireland’s booming economy, we have a large number of non nationals. In the recent 2005 census, our actual number of new employees coming into the workforce increased by approximately 60,000. Of those, some 40,000 were non-nationals coming to the country for the first time,” explains Declan Rigney, Principal Officer, Customer Service Policy, of Ireland’s Office of the Revenue Commissioners. “Obviously, there are language barriers over the phone. The face-to-face channel has been popular. In fact, some 75 percent of the contacts who come into our public offices are non-national customers. It is costly, but it is necessary: our tax process still has many features that require complex explanation. If we are offering good alternatives, we believe we can reduce the amount of contacts. We are working on putting in PC facilities and support in our offices to encourage online services.”

When Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) introduced BizFile, its business registration and filing process, it moved that service completely online, with no manual systems running in parallel. However, the agency did provide a number of key support mechanisms to cushion the blow. Juthika Ramanathan, Chief Executive of Singapore’s ACRA, explains: “Our system is completely online, Web-based, 24/7. And to address different customer segments and enable them to transact with us online, we made help readily available. For those who could do it themselves— because they are IT-literate and English-speaking—the system is designed to be transaction-based, as opposed to form-based. You just have to come in knowing what you want, rather than having to know the legal requirements of your actions.”

“For those who are not IT-literate, or not able to speak English, we have made available professional advisors— such as lawyers, accountants, chartered secretaries—to do the filing for them. We also have authorized service bureaus, where they can go and get a knowledgeable employee to actually handle their requests for them. We also have at our premises, what we call a ‘cyber guide,’ who can do the filing for them on their behalf, as well. The other category would be people who are literate in English, but may not have access to the Internet for some reason or other. For them we provided 12 self-help kiosks, which are fully equipped with a scanner, printer and a PC, which they can use free of charge to do their filing. And they also have access to our filing self-help desk free of charge. So, if they are stuck or need to ask any questions, they can just pick up the phone and speak to someone who can guide them,” Ramanathan adds.

Other Singaporean agencies have similar high-touch programs in place to migrate individual citizens to online services. Many agencies provide selfservice Internet terminals in offices that offer counter services. These terminals create greater awareness, enable higher usage of the agency’s e-services and offer greater convenience to the customer when the queues are long. Agency staff provide assistance and guidance. To date, approximately 1,000 self-service terminals exist at the premises of 36 agencies. The success has been encouraging: since July 1, 2005, customer service officers at 10 agencies’ counters were able to successfully divert a total of more than 1,000 walk-in customers to transact online via the self-service terminals.

Another high-touch program, called eCitizen Helper, involves private citizen volunteers and aims to provide all users with the means of transacting online with the government, even if they do not own a computer or do not know how to use the Internet. For specific seasonal events, such as income tax filing, agencies typically arrange for special road shows and events staffed with volunteers to help people use the online services. Thanks in part to this approach, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore achieved a usage rate of about 70 percent for online filing.

When France’s UNEDIC began shifting its emphasis from simply collecting contributions and paying unemployment to the much farther-reaching mission of helping unemployed people get back to employment as fast as possible, it also emphasized moving as many services to a self-serve model as possible. The goal was to further its broader social agenda by reallocating internal employee effort to the frontline and providing real assistance to the unemployed. Many of these online services are for the employers themselves, and UNEDIC provides continual support to drive take-up. It’s an intensely high-touch approach, with lots of one-on-one interaction, rather than just a dissemination of published information.

“We have very close contacts with employers, as every month we collect contributions from them and unemployed people to deliver our services. So we frequently contact them by phone either to explain a new regulation or to propose a new service that we can offer. And this way, each time we speak with them, we can explain what new services are online,” remarks Philippe Dialinas, Director of Services within the Information Services of UNEDIC.

In conjunction with the Ministry of Finance and a number of other agencies, UNEDIC also sponsored an innovative promotion called “Le train de la création d’entreprise de nouveau sur les rails” (The train for the creation of new enterprise, on the rails). The promotion, which began in 2003 to educate the public about opening and sustaining a business, expanded in 2005 to promote the creation of jobs. In September 2005, the train made a 10-day trip with stops in 13 towns across 7 French regions to present the whole complement of tools available to help contractors and employers to engage, create, develop and sustain their companies. Aboard the head ministerial car, the visitors talked to administration representatives, received counsel and collected documentation. As they traveled through other cars, the visitors exchanged information with notaries, auditors, lawyers, service companies and other related functionaries.

Clearly, leading governments are breaking new ground in customer service to secure true and lasting value for their citizens. However, even all they have done—the innovative services they have implemented, the new strategies they are crafting, their different approaches to organizational structures and processes and the increased emphasis they have placed on driving take-up—all of these will not guarantee a future position of leadership in customer service.

Governments’ future challenges are broad and deep. How governments rise to meet these challenges—to connect strategy to implementation in a meaningful way—will determine which governments are able to create an environment of service value and implicit trust for citizens and be the leaders of tomorrow.

Today’s leaders won’t necessarily be tomorrow’s leader.

We need to have the ability to be quite self-critical. Even if we’ve launched something we think is absolutely terrific, we should still be going back and saying, “Actually, you know, we could make it even better.”

Andrew Sheffield
Director of Service Transformation,
UK Cabinet Office United Kingdom 

As governments make great strides in using innovative service approaches to connect effectively with citizens, it is becoming clear that some critical divides remain. 
Whether and how governments close these divides will become the new determinants of which countries lead in the future. As Figure 9 shows, the digital divide is not just about technology. In many countries surveyed — even among past world eGovernment leaders — citizens’ increased confidence in using the Internet is not matched by improvements in their perception of eGovernment. The gaps that remain—inherent in the structure and organization of government, as well as in the culture of a country and in its citizens’ deeprooted attitudes and perceptions— present the real challenge for the future. As they enact their new service strategies, governments are encountering some unexpected difficulties beyond technology. How governments handle these challenges will determine which ones rise to the top, becoming among the first to develop service trust with their citizens.
 
Challenge: Service channels are exploding, and so is the complexity for governments.
The proliferation of devices (channels of interaction) offers governments unparalleled opportunities for connecting with their citizens (see Figure 10). As new channels open, they provide governments with unprecedented new reach. Yet they create both expected and unexpected pitfalls as well. Andrew Sheffield of the United Kingdom gives an example from the United Kingdom’s earlier days of eGovernment: “When we had renewing your car tax online, there was a requirement to put the vehicle’s mileage in a box in the form. People didn’t know what their car mileage was so they were leaving their computers, going outside, opening the car up, looking at the mileage and coming back—by which time the session had timed out. And it’s those tiny little things that you miss that cannot only mess up that service but can give customers a very, very poor experience, which will prevent them from using other services.”

While the United Kingdom resolved this particular issue, it illustrates the types of challenges that can arise and impact negatively on service trust when governments expand channel options.

“So at each stage of the design process you have to keep taking it back, checking that it’s absolutely right before you launch it, taking it through detail and usability testing. And then once you have launched it, you have to keep an eye on the management information: find out what user attitudes are to it, find ways of improving it. We need to have the ability to be quite self-critical. Even if we’ve launched something we think is absolutely terrific, we should still be going back and saying, ‘Actually, you know, we could make it even better’,” says Sheffield.

Challenge: Citizens’ fears, beliefs and value systems may run counter to what is considered best practice.
In our 2005 report, our findings revealed that in most countries, governments’ concerns about citizens’ privacy fears were overblown. Our 2005 citizen survey showed that with few exceptions, citizens are amenable to allowing government to have access to and share a whole range of information, from nationality down to health insurance details, and to a lesser extent, social security numbers and tax information.

Some countries, such as Norway, Denmark and Finland, have unique identifiers in place, and their populations are familiar—and comfortable— with governments cross-sharing information. However, privacy remains a thorny challenge in a number of other countries.

In Japan, for example, the implementation of a residents’ registration system using an electronic network (“Juki Net”) was met with strong opposition by some individuals, who started demanding either the system be dismantled or individuals be given the right to opt out of it.

Takuya Hirai of Japan talks about the challenge: “I think that’s a very important issue, and the biggest issue in service delivery,” he says. “In Japan there is a personal information protection act. However, people have responded to it at a level that has actually prevented some information that should be provided from being provided. It’s very important to develop a better balance, but the concept of privacy itself is not well defined and not well rooted. We need a new wisdom in order to create the best balance.”

Similarly, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia face battles over biometric passports. Current events (for example, recent controversies in the United States over the reach of the US Patriot Act and over domestic spying) hamper governments’ ability to move toward greater information sharing.

The French government has plans for developing a biometric ID card, called the Identité nationale électronique sécurisée (INES). The goal is to deploy INES in 2008 and use the card to verify identity and to allow access to eGovernment services. However, 2005 saw considerable public concern over INES regarding the collection and storage of biometric data and the creation of a national population database. The approach has raised notable issues about people’s civil liberties.

Resolving citizens’ concerns about privacy will be critical to enabling the holistic view of citizens that will allow governments to begin to proactively manage their needs. However, some governments seem in no better position than they were a year ago. In some cases, the challenges are growing as new initiatives have brought privacy concerns to the fore.

Challenge: The cost of technology is rising for governments.
Governments are burdened by the costs of their legacy systems. Private sector companies have the option to offshore some functions and activities that others can perform more effectively. Yet for most countries, including world leaders Canada and the United States, offshoring is unpalatable, prevented by unions, or goes against the cultural grain.

Some countries have sidestepped the rising cost of technology for now. For example, the strength of Norway’s economy from its natural energy resources has meant that the cost of infrastructure typically is not seen as a driving issue.

Singapore has been able to parlay its low-crime rate, its tech-savvy population and its probusiness environment into an attractive package for many high-tech companies. The country has benefited from many private companies looking to the country as a test bed for their latest technology innovations. These examples are isolated, however, and for most countries, the challenge of staying abreast of technology while managing the costs of implementation (both of which factor into the country’s ability to remain competitive in a global environment) is a growing issue.

Challenge: Ad hoc cooperation works on a small scale, but does not have the strength to tackle big challenges. The greatest service innovations often come from an individual or small group of people who champion an idea and rally enough resources to make it happen.

For example, Norway.no started out as a government project under the jurisdiction of a county governor’s office in 1999. With just three employees, the portal grew into a recognized success that stayed largely in the hands of those who started it. “This county governor’s office had been active within information technology development. Perhaps it was because of this that the government chose to start the information portal project out here. When we were reorganized as a public agency last year—under what was then called the Ministry of Modernization—the government never really considered moving us. So now we have employees from all over the country that come to this little village to work. Which I think makes it quite a unique and special environment,” explains Sarah Jane Hails, Product and Service Developer for Norway.no.

Norway.no was a success because the Norwegian government allowed innovation to flourish where it started, and the passion of the people made the product really good. When the government needed Norway.no to have a more formal structure, it brought the portal under a ministry and gave it funding. They allowed the entrepreneurial spirit to flourish to its maximum extent and then brought the project under a more formal arrangement at the appropriate time.

Yet while the Norway.no portal is a fine example of how governments can successfully convert informal cooperative structures into more formal arrangements, such examples are rare. As illustrated in, we found that in fact, in more than half the countries we surveyed, citizens’ perceptions of how effectively their government works together is declining.

What is happening? Most governments struggle with translating their historically informal connections into organized models when the time—and the scale of the challenges—demands. These governments find it uncommonly difficult to answer the question of how long to allow processes to grow organically, versus when to apply the “muscles and the money” to drive programs forward. The result is that “seamless” cross-government service quite often begins to unravel when put under the pressure of scale.

In some respects, Canada is still working on connecting vision to implementation with Service Canada. The country has been ahead of the curve for years and it has a history and a culture of working cooperatively. The Service Canada program has already launched incredibly innovative pilots—starting small and growing organically. But moving Service Canada forward on a large scale remains a challenge, due at least in part to the collaborative nature of the Canadian government that has been key to its very success.

Deputy Head of Service Canada Maryantonett Flumian describes the challenge: “I know that technology can power its way through a lot of stuff. So I have to figure out, ‘Who are the partners I need to make it happen?’ There’s the tax department and I definitely have to go talk to every province… So it’s a simple idea. The complexities come when you try to implement it. But there are simpler threads through the implementation than people give credit for. It’s not a whole new legislative base. It’s not trashing every department and every program. It’s not, ‘This can only happen in a unitary state.’ But you can clang all those alarm bells and then you get to paralysis.”

Challenge: Some governments are stuck in their own service processes.
Leading governments have listened to the call for citizen-centricity. They understand that the ultimate determinant of service success will be whether, in fact, citizens use the service. With so much riding on citizens moving to the more efficient self-service channels, it is little wonder that they are trying to tune in to citizens’ attitudes and perceptions. Most executives that we interviewed described how they implemented satisfaction surveys for citizens after completing their transactions. Others talk about working to service level agreements.

While these steps are important, the challenge arises when governments do such a good job at implementing service-level metrics and at measuring satisfaction against what citizens ask for, they forget to consider what citizens really need. Some leading governments are broadening their horizons. (See sidebar on page 48, A world-class approach to building citizen insight.) For example, Singapore’s Land Transport Authority involved stakeholders in every step of the process when building its e-Services@ONE.MOTORING suite of services.

“During the requirements gathering, we involved the industry partners as part of our focus groups discussion. And as we went along to develop the prototype, they were brought in again to give their views, and to confirm or verify whether the inputs were correctly interpreted. We did not wait until the system was ready before we involved the stakeholders. They were engaged during the major stages of development,” says Rosina Howe-Teo, Group Director of Information Technology and Chief Innovation Officer of the Land Transport Authority of Singapore.

France is one of the few countries we saw that regularly measures awareness, take-up and satisfaction with its online services on a national level (via its annual “Online Administration Barometer”). More than that, France has also made progress by systematically measuring the value of its services. Its methodology not only examines quantitative money and time savings, but also looks at services in qualitative terms, including the services’ social impacts and contributions to furthering the government’s mission and mandates. Likewise, Australian agencies survey their stakeholders annually. A number maintain a questionnaire on their websites to gauge user needs, preferences, difficulties and expectations. The Australian Government Information Management Office plans to develop a consistent and coordinated measurement approach across government, by taking stock of the measurements different agencies now use, and continuing to complement agency based measurements with annual whole-of-government measurements.

Moving beyond point-in-time snapshots is critical for developing the citizen insight that can eventually be translated into service trust. As Juthika Ramanathan of Singapore’s ACRA, says, “I think, if I look at what our initiatives were, they really are set up to serve their [business] purpose— rather than be driven by an outcome of a customer satisfaction survey.”

“The trick in government is not only to imagine the possibilities, but see if those possibilities are robust enough to actually get you through the legal screens,” explains Maryantonett Flumian. “Focus less on all those inputs and more on those outcomes: ‘Is this a reflection of what people want to achieve?’ Because if you focus on what governments are there to do in terms of the social contract— the contract between citizens and governments —and then focus on outcomes, boy, can you do a lot with stuff in between.”

Most governments struggle with translating their historically informal connections into organized models when the time — and the scale of the challenges — demands.

A World-class Approach to Building Citizen Insight
Canada’s program of developing insights into citizen needs and expectations is among the most robust we have seen in our leadership in customer service research. Beginning in the late 1990s, when the intergovernmental Citizen-Centred Service Network (CCSN) released a series of reports, tools and recommendations aimed at improving citizen satisfaction with public sector service delivery in Canada, the Canadian government has not looked back. It moved to form the Institute for Citizen- Centred Service as an ongoing center of expertise in 2000.

The flagship of the ICCS’s research is Citizens First, a biennial survey of Canadians that measures about 80 different federal, provincial and municipal services in terms of what citizens want, how well the government is doing and what the government could do to improve.

“Citizens First gives us the forward agenda, writ large, every two years,” explains Brian Marson, Senior Advisor, Policy and Service Transformation, Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada. “We also have a companion survey for the business sector called Taking Care of Business that we started two years ago and will be repeating in 2006. So now, each year we’re either going out to citizens or going out to the business community to find out how satisfied are they, what drives their satisfaction and what their priorities are for service improvement; this helps us define the next phase of the service improvement agenda across the entire public sector.”

In addition, the ICCS supplements its Citizens First and Taking Care of Business research with a 10,000 people-strong Internet panel, to gather input before changing a governmental website or introducing a new program on the Web. Members are recruited every year and are allowed to serve for a two-year term. The mechanism allows ICCS to track sophisticated users versus novices, and the members represent a range of demographics (geography, age and so on). The Institute also runs focus groups throughout the year on special areas of interest, such as a recent deep dive into citizens’ preference for the telephone channel, what’s wrong with it and how to improve it.

The ICCS research is complemented by the surveys that departments do themselves. To help them in their efforts, the ICCS has developed a repository of leading practices in citizen-centric service, as well as a Common Measurements Tool (CMT) to facilitate benchmarking across jurisdictions. Individual managers can use the CMT to construct a client satisfaction survey by selecting the questions that meet the needs of their organization. The CMT identifies a set of “core” questions that measure the key drivers of satisfaction, based on knowledge gained through Citizens First.

But what really sets the Canadian model apart is the degree to which the research is done collaboratively. Brian Marson explains: “It would be as though in the United States all the states got together with the federal government and the major cities every two years and did a mega survey of what citizens want from the public sector, how well they are doing, what citizens’ service improvement priorities are. And then those federal, state and local jurisdictions would need to get together several times a year to push the agenda forward and to work on the projects that required inter-governmental collaboration. That’s where the Canadian model is so different from anything we’ve been able to see in the United Kingdom, Australia, France and other countries —collaborative research and collaborative action across the whole public sector to meet citizens’ service needs.”

While this year’s findings provide a snapshot of leading countries’ accomplishments, many governments hunger for concrete advice on how to move ahead.

In this section, we provide recommendations for next steps on the journey toward service trust—and ultimately, high performance. (See sidebar on page 53, Our recommendations in brief .) Our recommendations stem not only from what we have learned in our research this year, but also from an understanding of public-sector service based on our seven years of in-depth study and Accenture’s extensive experience working with hundreds of governments around the globe.

Drive out complacency.
The leaders of the future will be the ones that have a taste for continuous improvement. Carsten Loesch of Denmark articulates the point well: “I would say we are good internationally, but we’re not where we want to be. I mean, we want to go even further. So, we don’t just lie back and enjoy that we’re good. In some instances, we actually think there are plenty of things we can do better.” Loesch’s attitude was nearly universal among all the executives we interviewed. Not content to rest on their laurels, leading governments talk to each other; send delegations to each other’s countries to gain a more in-depth understanding of how their service programs compare; and have a voracious appetite for any information the world outside their borders can provide.

For these leaders, measures that yield incremental citizen satisfaction are not adequate. Instead they will begin measuring more far-reaching goals, such as citizen engagement, confidence in government and expectation of prosperity. These trust-oriented measures will capture a government’s ability, not just to provide established services, but also to design the services that enable citizens to thrive.

Sustaining a high level of intensity is challenging, particularly when strong external motivators are absent— or far off on the horizon. Singaporean executives, for example, emphasize that national competitiveness is absolutely essential for their ongoing survival. Singapore continually feels the pressure of being a city-state with no wealth-generating natural resources and it motivates them. On the other hand, Norway (which still performs exceedingly well in customer service) is a wealthy country with a relatively content population and for now lacks such a burning imperative. Countries in a similar position must be extra vigilant that they do not lose momentum. When it comes to leadership in customer service, standing still is equivalent to falling behind.

Set your own standards for excellence.
Governments in pursuit of high performance must develop a more strategic vision of service that reflects their own culture, aspirations and values. Governments focused on building the service trust do not ask, “Did we answer the phone on time?” but rather, “Did we give the customers what they need?” Because the definition of customer service excellence varies in different cultures, high-priority needs in one country may not even appear on the agenda of another. Likewise, leading governments look beyond the service norms and strive for an ideal they may not yet even have considered. Greater citizen connections will result in deeper customer insight, which must help shape policy development. It is incumbent on those with influence to stand firm as their policies shift from global “best practice” to those that are locally distinctive.

Organize for effective execution.
Policies that reflect service trust are vital, but stand as empty promises without effective execution. Most governments, however, still earn higher grades for policy development than for execution. This must change. Tomorrow’s leaders will recognize that good policy is only possible when it is linked to good execution. “Real citizen centricity, I think in a nutshell, means whatever we do, we think from the customer’s perspective. So it goes all the way from policy-making down to how we execute administrative procedure,” says Ng Hock Keong, Director, Customer Relations Division, Central Provident Fund Board of Singapore. Effective execution involves orchestrating both the top-down and the horizontal organizational structures in the right way. For successful governments, that means taking bold steps: These governments tap operating executives, rather than those steeped in policy, for key roles. They give funding power to the leaders who are charged with accomplishing specific goals. And they create funding pools for prototyping good ideas.

As governments progress to an ever more true manifestation of citizen-centric customer service, learning how to make collaboration really work has become imperative. Effective execution starts with strong leadership— a visionary with the ability to mobilize people around the transformative idea. Excellence in leadership, however, must be coupled with an equally strong governance structure—from the top (ministerial or agency-head) level and working down through the organization.

Leading governments create committee structures that allow for collaboration across organizational lines, starting at the top and then cascading down through each level.

In Denmark for example, the steering group for cross-public-sector cooperation, or STS (which prior to January 2006 was named the Board of eGovernment), includes the very highest levels of civil servants. The chairman is the deputy secretary from the Ministry of Finance and the members include three other deputy secretaries, as well as the director of local governments and the director of regions.

This is a powerful setup, says Carsten Loesch. “Whenever we do a project, we create steering committees underneath STS. And those steering committees are then organized using representatives from all relevant organizations, whether it’s regional governments or localgovernments or state organizations. The Digital Taskforce often works as a secretariat for the steering committees and runs the projects from an administrative standpoint. So, we organize across the public sector.” To break a logjam of no consensus: “We go through other channels in which the Ministry of Finance might force the local governments to cooperate through a budget negotiation that is taken outside of the normal structure of cooperation. . . And sometimes it’s a question of people: I mean, how tough are you when you sit in meetings and you have the Ministry of Finance sitting at the head of the board? Sometimes we will have to do this — to cut through.”

Leading executives underscore the point that the collaboration process is not static. “At each point of the process you need to see what sort of coordination is required. It is about dynamism and flexibility,” says Australia’s Ann Steward, CIO of the Australia Government Information Management Office.

Governments focused on building the service trust do not ask, “Did we answer the phone on time?” but rather, “Did we give the customers what they need?”

Strengthen connections with the citizen, while using technology to continue to try to push the limits of what can be done online.
Building service trust means increasing citizen engagement. Through rich and continuous two-way dialogues, high performance governments will combat the distrust and apathy that can characterize the relationship between governments and citizens.

For example, in Norway, the government used its relationships with different professional societies to identify innovative ideas to guide its future direction. “We are getting a lot of good proposals and impressions from these contacts,” explains Bjarne Hope. “And they are very important for us. We ask users—especially those in the professional area of trade and industry—what kind of future do they see? What will simplify their relation to us? And they are full of ideas and preferences that they communicate to us. And that is the basis for our proposals to our ministry when we are establishing new projects. Also, these societies have political contacts and are influencing the ministries and the Parliament when they decide on the budgets and on the different developments. So that is a very important part and a long-range influencing factor.”

Tomorrow’s leaders will rely on their past investments in technology infrastructure to cultivate daily dialogue with citizens. In Singapore, for example, every government official’s e-mail address is listed on the government website. But e-mail is only the beginning. As communications capabilities advance, governments will develop creative ways to involve citizens directly in decisions. If American TV viewers can cast tens of millions of votes for a favorite singer on American Idol each week, it follows that citizens could just as readily provide feedback on proposed policies.

Leading governments use technology to gain incremental improvement without having to discard what is already in place.

Our Recommendations in Brief
 
Drive out complacency.
The leaders of the future will be the ones who have a taste for continuous improvement. When it comes to leadership in customer service, standing still is equivalent to falling behind.

Set your own standards for excellence.
Governments in pursuit of high performance must develop a more strategic vision of service that reflects their own culture, aspirations and values.

Organize for effective execution.
Tomorrow’s leaders will recognize that good policy is only possible when it is linked to good execution. Organizing for effective execution means getting both the top-down and the horizontal organizational structures right.

Strengthen connections with the citizen, while using technology to continue to try to push the limits of what can be done online.
Building service trust means getting citizens engaged. Tomorrow’s leaders understand that sophisticated technologies, coupled with growing citizens’ trust, allows governments to push the boundaries of what services citizens will willingly transact online.

Aggressively incorporate private sector learning’s, but in a way that makes sense in a public service context.
Tomorrow’s leaders will aggressively pursue the private-sector’s best thinking and lessons learned. They seek out the innovations and fold them into the governmental framework.

Develop accountability and transparency, especially across initiatives that span multiple governmental organizations.
How well governments act as one — both within and across jurisdictions — depends on strong models for building accountability that will ensure progress is made.

Develop continuity of leadership.
Without continuity of leadership, transformative initiatives quite easily fall apart. Even in countries with frequent turnover of administrations, leadership continuity can be established in the ranks of the civil service.

For them, how much service can be moved online is a constantly moving target. These governments understand that with a whole layer of sophisticated IT in the background, coupled with growing citizen trust, governments can move the line of what services citizens will seek online over time.

Aggressively incorporate private-sector learnings, but in a way that makes sense in a public-service context.
In their quest for high performance, leading governments seek out the best practices in customer service, wherever they reside. While they constantly monitor what other governments are implementing, they are also aware that, in general, citizens view the private sector as ahead in terms of innovative customer service.

To that end, the leaders aggressively pursue the private sector’s best thinking and lessons learned. Far beyond simply studying what is going on in business, they seek out the innovations and fold them into the governmental framework. From a tactical perspective, many borrow private-sector business practices that make service personal and efficient, such as load balancing across call centers, providing electronic navigators to public service and “pop-ups” on customer service representatives’ screens. “We’re moving more into voice recognition with our telephony system,” says Ireland’s Declan Rigney. “We had so many inter-office calls. Someone might call saying, ‘Have you got my letter?’ and we would have to ring another location and ask them. Now when you call us, we use voice recognition and we’re capturing the seven-digit and one-character tax ID number. Then, we route the call to the right place and a screen pops up the citizen’s record and correspondence —from any physical location. We’re currently evaluating how much time it is saving.” The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will be rolling out a similar service during 2006. Its customer relationship management (CRM) system will provide ATO call center staff with a single consolidated view of a taxpayer’s information and their history (including phone calls and letters), as well as automatically transfer details of a taxpayer’s inquiry with the call. This system is expected to end taxpayers’ frustration caused by having to repeat the same information if they are transferred to another ATO officer.

The Government of Canada asserts and protects its “brand” as diligently as any private-sector enterprise. “We’re very conscious of the brand, with a common look and feel to our services regardless of the channel,” explains Jim Alexander, CIO of the Government of Canada. “That brand we created— that was a lot of tough work starting back in the late 1990s, but it has paid off hugely in that the Government of Canada service brand is really very well recognized. And that’s a piece that we’re not going to let drop away.” As central government entities such as Service Canada partner with the provinces on service delivery, the government ensures a common look and feel and federal identity, even in cases where they co-brand. The Service Canada that citizens see is the same Service Canada in Ontario as it is in New Brunswick or British Columbia, even though a citizen might receive provincial services from it.

Some governments take an even more intensive approach to adopting private sector best practices. For example, as France’s UNEDIC shifted to a more customer service-intensive mission, its employees learned successful service strategies by working side by side with the private sector. “For instance, for hotline support, we first asked private companies which specialized in this kind of customer service support [for their advice], and then we asked internal people to go and work with them: to show them that it was not so terrible. What other people could do, they could do,” explains Philippe Dialinas. The Singaporean government, similarly, sends its customer service representatives to work for a time at best-in-class private-sector call centers.

In the government of Canada as a whole, part of the management capability is to aggressively bring in people from the private sector and vest them with the most transformative jobs—such as the CFO and the CIO. Singapore and Japan are likewise hiring in from the private sector.

In Singapore, the Ministry of Defense (MINDEF) is taking a private-sector model to whole new heights, pioneering a breakthrough approach to outsourcing for its MINDEF.com website. MINDEF learned from its initial outsourcing concept that it needed to foster new thinking and new ways of working with its outsourcer. Its entwined pay-to-operate/pay-to-perform concept fosters both agreed service-level performance as well as innovation. (See the sidebar on page 57, An innovative take on outsourcing, for greater detail.) The model has proven so successful, that other Singaporean agencies that have watched it closely are now embarking on similar approaches.

Develop accountability and transparency, especially across initiatives that span multiple governmental organizations.
As governments take the next bold steps toward building service trust, governance emerges as one of the most pressing issues. Accountability becomes much more complex in a horizontal world. Building a single window to citizen service across jurisdictions sults. “If you look at what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, there is a combination of ground-up and top-down factors. For example, our interagency task force is a ground-up force: to say, ‘Hey, here’s how I would do it.’ Then we have the President’s Management Agenda scorecard. That drives a top down accountability. If you said you’re going to do ‘X,’ you need to do ‘X.’

“People are very competitive. We rank things in the United States all the time. The idea that you’re not green [on the green/yellow/red stoplight-type of scorecard], or the idea your score will drop compared to last quarter is a big motivator. The President takes this seriously. He holds meetings with cabinet secretaries where he talks about how important this is. So that is a huge motivation factor,” Evans says.

Develop continuity of leadership.
Of course, to progress toward service trust, strong leadership is essential. If the leaders are strong enough, knowledgeable enough and vocal enough, then people will follow. But true leadership in customer service requires consistent and continual leadership — a challenge raised by many of the government executives we interviewed. Without continuity, transformative initiatives quite easily fall apart. Particularly often in government, leaders move on to different career opportunities. And so initiatives start and stop and start again. Or new leaders come in and try to pick up the pieces and the initiative goes nowhere, because the new executive does not share the predecessor’s vision. Successful transformation to service trust requires consistent, sustained and inspired leaders.

Pushing the Customer Service Envelope
One of the biggest lessons from eGovernment is that people will move between channels. If the citizen perceives a service as higher value-add, it is more likely the citizen will conduct that service face to- face. Some people just will not make certain investment decisions [of time or money] unless they have the comfort of a high-touch interaction. Says Ireland’s Declan Rigney, Principal Officer, Customer Service Policy, Office of the Revenue Commissioners: “We haven’t put our eggs in one basket. We have made moves to beef up telephony and have plans to put terminals in offices to help people self service, but we haven’t given people only an online option.” On the other hand, the answer is not that some services will always just be “one and- done” online. Or that other  services (such as seeking benefits) are all personal and should all be handled in a face-to-face manner. There is not a simple dichotomy between technology-enabled services or not; the picture is far more sophisticated. Essentially, technology reshapes citizens’ expectations of customer service over time and, necessarily, the nature of the services themselves. “We are looking at a greater integration of offerings,” explains Ann Steward, CIO of the Australia Government Information Management Office (AGIMO). “We are not looking at information communications technology (ICT) as an insolating, but as an enabling component, that complements and supports government service delivery while increasing productivity.” Pushing the customer service envelope One of the biggest lessons from eGovernment is that people will move between channels. If the citizen perceives a service as higher value-add, it is more likely the citizen will conduct that service faceto- face. Some people just will not make certain investment decisions [of time or money] unless they have the comfort of a high-touch interaction. Says Ireland’s Declan Rigney, Principal Officer, Customer Service Policy, Office of the Revenue Commissioners: “We haven’t put our eggs in one basket. We have made moves to beef up telephony and have plans to put terminals in offices to help people selfservice, but we haven’t given people only an online option.”

On the other hand, the answer is not that some services will always just be “oneand- done” online. Or that other services (such as seeking benefits) are all personal and should all be handled in a face-to-face manner. There is not a simple dichotomy between technology-enabled services or not; the picture is far more sophisticated. Essentially, technology reshapes citizens’ expectations of customer service over time and, necessarily, the nature of the services themselves.

“We are looking at a greater integration of offerings,” explains Ann Steward, CIO of the Australia Government Information Management Office (AGIMO). “We are not looking at information communications technology (ICT) as an insolating, but as an enabling component, that complements and supports government service delivery while increasing productivity.”

An Innovative Take On Outsourcing
Alphonsus Pang, Director of the MINDEF Systems Organization, describes how the Singaporean Ministry of Defense introduced a successful payment program for its MINDEF.com outsourcer, which first cemented performance levels and then promoted innovation over time:

“Basically, the initial concept of the MINDEF.com program was there would be a service provider offering the hosting services on behalf on MINDEF. They would be free to bundle private-sector offerings as part of their effort. The return on investment to MINDEF came because the service provider had revenue opportunities elsewhere, so they could actually lower their cost of services to MINDEF.

“We have evolved from this into a new business model that we are putting in place, which we call the pay-to-perform and pay-to-operate model. The pay-to-operate model is based on the premise that certain operating services are commoditized, and hence, the operation of such services is expected. For example, maintaining a certain level of uptime for the portal, and the various call centers, and so forth, would be covered under pay-to-operate. This pay-to-operate model provides a base revenue to the outsourcer, but if they do not maintain that, they will get a penalty.

“The other side of the coin is the pay-to perform model, which is really to incentivize new ideas, new modes of services and radical thinking and to enhance customer centricity. The outsourcer will be incentivized, from a revenue standpoint, to provide value added services.

“Both models are intertwined. It’s part and parcel of the outsourcing contract. The model evolves over, for example, a five-year period of the contract. At the start of the contract, the pay-to-operate has the heavier weight, to give us assurance the service levels will be maintained. But as time goes on, the ratio and the emphasis will move away from the pay-to-operate to the pay-to-perform, thereby changing the behavior of the outsourcer to want to generate new ideas, to want to come up with new services, and so forth, because, again, that’s where the revenue emphasis will go. So the model is partly intertwined, but it evolves over the years to move toward a pay-to-perform emphasis. So we developed fairly aggressive ratio models, in which we’ll drive the change of behavior for an outsourcer from one of providing commoditized hosting services to one, subsequently, where he’s really incentivized to develop new services, new offerings, in partnership with MINDEF.”

Conclusion

Governments have reached a defining moment in their journey toward high performance.
Their future approaches to citizen service will determine whether they build an implicit trust with citizens and continue to progress—or fail to improve their connections to citizens, and stall.

Transformation of this magnitude certainly takes time. Yet, as Jim Alexander of Canada explains, this transformation can seem both slow and blindingly fast at the same time: “When I look back over the last five to six years, one thing I see is how slow some of the changes have been to come. The second thing I see is what a remarkable distance we’ve come. Right now, there actually is no real resistance in the Government of Canada to the idea of acting as one. And yet in 1999, it was, ‘How could you even think of such a thing?!’ So on the one hand, there have been remarkable changes in attitudes, but on the other hand, boy it takes a long time!”

The payoffs are great. Citizens’ unexpressed needs are anticipated and met, and governments use their insights to develop the most effective policy from the outset. Leading governments recognize the power of building and maintaining trust.

Alphonsus Pang, Director of Singapore’s MINDEF Systems Organization, encapsulates the mindset of these high-performance governments perfectly: “In driving a transformation in the thinking, in the mindsets of our people, in the way the organization is structured and transacts, and in the way we look at the horizon, what we aspire to is to be in time for the future. So what we have done is take our government one step ahead. When you recognize that a large organization needs time to change, it is actually an imperative for us to be ahead of the expectation curve, so that we can try out new ideas, we can try out new technologies, we can try out new business processes, new concepts, and the like—and so that we can learn from it. That way, when all these new cohorts of people come through our system with their new expectations, their expectations will be met in time.”

In the past, significant government change was often caused by external pressures and crises. In the absence of such an event, nations modernized at their own pace, implementing new services and administrative efficiencies in small doses. Today, global demographic, socio-economic and political shifts are gathering force, causing governments to consider dramatic change in the way they serve their constituents. They realize their countries cannot thrive on a steady diet of citizen apathy, or worse, distrust.

Leaders are already taking action. They are employing all the tools at their disposal—from advanced technology platforms and deep understanding of citizens to bold organizational moves and courageous leadership — to orchestrate a new understanding. The result will be self-renewing high-performance government, in which citizens have confidence in their governments and governments, in turn, sustain and build on that trust over time to foster the most positive social outcomes.

Country Reports

Contents
Australia                              62
Belgium                               64
Brazil                                    66
Canada                                 68
Denmark                               70
Finland                                  72
France                                   74
Germany                               76
Ireland                                   78
Italy                                        80
Japan                                     82
Malaysia                                84
The Netherlands                  86
Norway                                  88
Portugal                                 90
Singapore                              92
South Africa                          94
Spain                                       96
Sweden                                   98
The United Kingdom            100
The United States                 102

Australia

Australia launched its new eGovernment strategy, Responsive Government: A New Service Agenda, in early April 2006.
This new strategy is evolutionary (rather than revolutionary), building on Australia’s existing eGovernment strategies and frameworks to meet four priorities: meeting users’ needs, establishing connected service, achieving value for money and enhancing public-sector capability. Due to the federated structure of Australia’s government, however, the strategy will not be mandated. Rather, a principles-based approach will be taken, with each level of government creating and implementing its own eGovernment strategies, taking into account each other’s directions.

Without central mandates, progress will require a high level of collaboration. To promote cooperation and collaborative service delivery, Australia has created a number of crossjurisdictional committees. For example, members of the Online and Communications Council include the Australian eGovernment Minister, as well as state and territory ministers who have portfolio responsibility for eGovernment matters. The Information Management Strategy Committee and the Chief Information Officer Committee also have strategic roles in the operation of eGovernment.

The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) supports these groups’ efforts, developing whole-of-government information and communications technology (ICT) management policies, standards and methodologies, and providing guidance to agencies on applying ICT to improve government operations. AGIMO’s work promotes the goals outlined in Australia’s broader Strategic Framework for the Information Economy 2004–2006: Opportunities and Challenges for the Information Age, which include raising Australian public-sector productivity, collaboration and accessibility through the effective use of information, knowledge and ICT.

Additionally, with the endorsement in August 2005 of the National Service Improvement Framework (NSIF) and the related National Service Improvement Program, a new reusable business process is now available to assist agencies in designing and implementing collaborative service delivery arrangements within and across jurisdictions. In fact, several projects have already successfully implemented the NSIF. For example, the first cross-jurisdictional agreement developed under the NSIF was signed in January 2006 between Centrelink (under the Department of Human Services), the New South Wales Department of Commerce and the South Australian Department of Health. This agreement has resulted in the development of a Federated Service Finder for the human services sector, which will assist users in locating a service or a provider of a service seamlessly across linked directories.

We saw a number of innovative cross government projects gain traction during the past year. Among the most notable, the Australian Taxation Office is enabling individual taxpayers (and from 2006, also their tax agents) to use the “Etax” electronic tax return lodgment facility to pre-populate their tax returns with data provided through Medicare Australia and Centrelink. The Medicare Australia and Centrelink information was provided through Etax on a pilot basis from July 2005, and is expected to be available for all users from July 2006. The synergies are flowing both ways; these three agencies are also working together to develop the use of ATO data to assist in correctly completing transactions in both Centrelink and Medicare Australia.

From an internal government perspective, cross-government collaboration, as manifested through shared services, is still in its infancy. While there has been considerable interest and studies into the feasibility of shared services at the federal level, the actual implementations are occurring at a state level (Queensland and New South Wales, for example). Even at a state level, however, shared services remains relatively rare.

In terms of multi-channel service, the new Australian eGovernment strategy provides overarching direction for consistent service through all delivery channels. The aim is that electronic delivery will underpin all other delivery channels, ensuring a consistent base to all activities and providing consistent service no matter how government is approached. To that end, AGIMO will develop a Web access strategy for the Australian Government and integrate it with other service delivery channels. (Again, due to Australia’s federated nature, this strategy will not be implemented via a top-down, mandated approach, but rather at an agency level.) In addition, the Australian Government Service Delivery Access and Distribution Strategy provides a blueprint (which the IMSC already endorses) for delivering services in an integrated, multi-channel environment.

This year, we saw a number of interesting examples of Australian state governments and national government agencies already implementing multichannel strategies and providing a consistent service experience across delivery channels. For example, Centrelink’s Electronic Welfare Services Framework uses natural voice recognition, text messaging and other technologies to implement the principle of “no wrong door” access. In another example, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations’ Job Search website allows job seekers, employers and recruitment agencies alike to use electronic channels to fin d jobs, build résumés, advertise jobs or seek seasonal work. Job Search is delivered via a personalized Web page, e-mail, telephone or a text message to a mobile telephone—according to the user’s preference.

Australians still use the telephone most often when contacting the government. According to this year’s citizen survey, Australians were nearly twice as likely to have used a landline or mobile phone when they contacted government (86 percent) as they were to have used the Internet/e-mail/SMS/ text channels combined (44 percent).

In addition, 30 percent of Australians expected to receive the best customer service from the phone channels, versus only 11 percent who expected best service from online channels (Internet/email/text/SMS). Further, a plurality of Australian citizens (34 percent) believes the phone channel should be the priority channel for government’s investment. (In fact, of the nine leading countries from our 2005 survey, only in Australia and Canada did the telephone channel rank as a higher priority for government investment than the Internet.)

These findings imply that although the Australian government currently does not have plans to integrate its existing government call centers into a single, cohesive government-wide capability, the phone channel itself warrants significant future attention. As Australia looks to its future of leadership in customer service, it does so from a position of strength. In response to demand for quality customer service from its very e-savvy public, the government has enacted critical technology, process and governance initiatives to increase its service sophistication. Going forward, the Australian government should focus on the content of the services themselves: to proactively deliver the services citizens need in tandem with building the service trust.

Belgium 

Belgium continues to make steady, if not dramatic, progress in improving customer service, with a continued emphasis on improving its eGovernment offerings.
The recently published eGovernment strategy for 2006 builds on priorities of the past, but with a greater emphasis on items related to security and social inclusion.

There seems to be a definite emphasis in Belgium on both improving services for and reducing the administrative burden on citizens and businesses. This objective seems to take precedence over cost reduction and efficiency gains, although these are clearly also being achieved. In addition to the eGovernment strategy, the government’s Kafka Plan (under the oversight of the State Secretary for Administrative Simplification) continues to be a major driver in the government’s efforts to provide better service to citizens. A key remaining task of this plan is the introduction of a system that will require citizens to provide their personal data only once to have it shared with agencies that need it.

The Belgian government does not have a multi-channel strategy as such, but its federal and regional eGovernment strategies specify the need to make appropriate use of alternative channels. As many Belgian citizens still do not have access to the Internet, the government is explicit that to serve inclusiveness, it will promote an increase of alternative channels, such as mobile phones and interactive television, with the most suitable platform(s) for each interaction.

The government’s channel strategy is pragmatic; channel choice depends not only on the user’s wishes, but also on the capabilities of the platform and applications as well. It should pay off in big dividends as well, as the Belgian population seems highly disposed toward new technology options. For example, according to our citizen survey, Belgians were among the most likely to feel at a personal advantage in daily life when it comes to their ability to use a wide variety of technologies; 75 percent of all Belgians surveyed expressed a sense of advantage. Of all countries surveyed, Belgians were also the most likely (86 percent) to say they feel confident using SMS/text messaging.

In any case, the government shows no sign of forcing its users to the Internet, either through the elimination of channels or through penalties for use of traditional channels. However, to continue to close the existing digital divide, the Belgian government has launched a number of important initiatives. Among the most notable, beginning in April, Belgian citizens can buy an “Internet-for-all” computer package. The price of € 850 includes a PC, card reader, software, four hours of training and a year’s worth of broadband Internet access. In addition, those who buy the package will get back the Value-Added Tax (a maximum 􀃴€147.50 for a PC and €172 for a laptop) via a tax credit.

Other initiatives include the national “Gingelom-project,” in which companies give old computers to schools, which make them user-ready and loan them to individual children for one year. The goal is to build good computer skills and demonstrate the value of computer ownership to parents. The Gingelom-project is the product of voluntary cooperation between local companies and primary schools. At a local level, in the Brussels region, the government plans to provide free Internet access to all Brussels citizens.

Belgium faces a significant challenge in promoting cross-government collaboration. Its governance structure is highly complex, with five different layers of government. Nevertheless, cross-government collaboration is being driven very hard by both the Ministry for Administrative Simplification, in terms of streamlining government structures to serve citizens better, and also by Federal Public Service ICT, in terms of enforcing a common eGovernment framework.

In tandem with this push is an increasing emphasis in Belgium on issues of security and privacy. Belgium is eager to position itself as a leader and exemplar regarding eID implementation and to share its ideas with other European countries. The national eID card is a fundamental enabler, and the Belgian government continues to make real efforts to strengthen its security. The current Belgian eID card is a firstgeneration version. Second-generation cards will be issued until the end of 2007 and a third generation of cards will be issued after that date. As the card evolves, the ADvanced APplications for electronic IDentity cards (ADAPID) project will investigate the security and privacy issues of the first- and second-generation eID cards and propose a more suitable design for the third generation.

The two “basic” identity authentication sources with unique identification data are the National Register for citizens and the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (CBE), both of which have been featured in past reports. These two initiatives continue to be the foundation of cross-government efforts and are having significant impact. For example, thanks to the CBE, as of January 2006, it now takes three days to start up a business, compared to an average of 26 days in 2004.

To further foster cross-government service delivery, Belgium launched the BELgian Government Interoperability Framework (BELGIF) in May 2005. BELGIF is a cooperative project among the federal government, regions and communities, stemming from the need to promote interoperability both at national and European levels. The hope is that going forward, BELGIF will ensure the interoperability of e-government applications developed by the Belgian regions, communities and federal authorities.

Already, some new and innovative cross-government services are emerging. In October 2005, the Belgian Social Security launched the “Communit-e” application, aimed at simplifying the benefit application procedures for disabled persons. The Communit-e application allows municipalities to enter benefit applications directly into the social security network made available by the Crossroads Bank for Social Security. They then receive, by return, an acknowledgment of receipt of the application, as well as the administrative and medical forms (pre-completed with identification data), which can be given immediately to the applicant. The Communit-e application has won best practice awards at both the national and European levels.

Belgium’s consultative approach with citizens in developing its eGovernment strategy should continue to create stronger links between citizen centricity and policy. On the agenda for 2006 is an initiative that will have government examining the wishes and priorities of end users every two years and using that information to inform which priorities will be set. In tandem with these efforts, the government now needs to become more visionary — looking to what lies beyond service delivery to what service value means to its citizens and how it can be achieved.

Brazil
 
Brazil made conservative progress toward leadership in customer service in 2005.
The current administration has maintained the major components of the existing eGovernment program, reinforcing a broader social inclusion and encouraging an open-source strategy. Progress has been slow, with most projects only partially implemented, and a number discontinued.

Last year we mentioned the government’s plan to launch a new portal — ”Portal Brasil”— as a way to integrate the content and services offered previously via both the brasil.gov.br and Rede Governo sites. Portal Brasil was launched in November 2005, as planned, and designed to provide government services and institutional information to citizens. The services are provided for all levels of government, and the portal is a positive step toward organizing service in a citizen-centric way.

The digital divide continues to separate Brazilians from their government, however, with non-users citing lack of access to computers (51 percent) and no or slow access to the Internet (40 percent) as the major issues.³ As a whole, Brazilian citizens express only mild confidence in using technology, with only just over half (52 percent) expressing confidence in using the Internet.

There are some notable digital divide programs, nevertheless. A project to connect all schools to the Internet by 2006, which had been making slow progress due to budget and procurement issues, may get some renewed momentum as the government has recently announced its plan to expend approximately US$113 million on installing 2,300 computer school labs for the majority of the Brazilian municipalities, with all of the computers to be loaded with open-source software.

Greater governmental effort to increase access will be critical, and Brazilian citizens are hungry for it. Of all countries surveyed, Brazilians were overwhelmingly the most eager for both greater use of other outlets (such as post offices and banks) to distribute information and for provision of selfservice kiosks in department stores, grocery stores and other convenient locations. More than 96 and 92 percent respectively expressed that these two options would be useful to them.

While Brazil does not have a government- wide, multi-channel strategy, some initiatives in this regard have begun to gain traction. Citizens are taking advantage of online tax payment options—40 million contributors (business and citizens) filed tax returns through the Internet in 2005. Other examples, such as the vehicles license payments and reporting criminal occurrences via the Web have received attention from other countries.

On the other hand, efforts to broaden cross-government services seem to have stalled. For example, several departments and agencies provide their services via telephone, but there is no plan or strategy to consolidate the many call centers into one. Past plans to have a unique number to handle all citizen inquiries were not implemented, partly due to lack of interest from agencies that already had a call center in place.

In terms of offering more convenient access to government services, Brazil’s state governments seem to be primarily leading the way. Some local states provide a range of citizen services through Integrated Service Centres.

First created by the Bahia State Government in 1995, with the name of Serviço de Atendimento ao Cidadão (SAC), these centers offer several kinds of services in the same location, bringing together services of federal, state and local agencies. In the state of Bahia, there are now 25 SAC branches, eight of which are in Salvador (the state capital and largest city). In addition, two mobile units visit small communities that do not have a regular office. In recognition of the Integrated Service Centers’ impact on improving service to its citizens, The United Nations granted the Public Service Award to the Government of Bahia in June of last year.

Following the success of Bahia’s SAC, other states have followed suit. For example, the state of Minas Gerais has a citizen service center called PSIU (Integrated Services Office), the state of São Paulo has “Poupa Tempo” (“Time Saver”), and the State of Rio de Janeiro has “Rio Fácil” (“Easy Rio”). At a federal level, digital certification is the primary initiative to enable future cross-government collaboration. Certificates will be issued by SERPRO, the main federal government IT service provider, and will be a foundation of e-PING, the common government electronic platform for communication. As Brazil looks to its future of customer service, it needs to reinvigorate both its strategy and its approach. While it has demonstrated leadership in pockets, it lacks a determined and sustained effort to drive the country to the next level. Without it, the country risks falling increasingly behind others that have already begun moving toward delivering the next level of service value to their citizens.

Canada

Canada’s political landscape changed significantly during the past year.
In January 2006, a new minority conservative government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper was elected. That this administration change will affect the sweeping vision of service transformation that the government set out in 2005 is unlikely. Canada’s service transformation program is a key part of the Government of Canada’s broad agenda to modernize management in the public sector. On the other hand, how the administration change will affect the implementation of the vision is less clear; for now, the main change seems to be a reorganization of existing structures. Most notably, the departments of Human Resources and Skills Development and Social Development have been consolidated into one Department of Human Resources and Social Development, under which Service Canada now operates.

Service Canada is the citizen-facing component of Canada’s service transformation program. Through Service Canada, the government plans to provide one-stop service for federal government services and eventually (through an evolving network of partnerships), for relevant provincial and territorial government services as well. These services will all be accessible through easy-to-use integrated service channels, including telephone (1-800-O-Canada), Internet (servicecanada.gc.ca), mail and in-person (Service Canada Centres across the country).

Service Canada is considered to be one of the largest single reforms ever in federal operations. In fact, plans call for all Government of Canada services to individuals to be accessible through Service Canada by 2008-2009. Since Service Canada launched in 2005, it has been slowly building momentum, with a number of services from different departments (including Passport Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency, among others) introduced. One notable development was the introduction of an Office of Client Satisfaction, for citizens and partners to present suggestions, compliments or complaints and to spur Service Canada to continuous improvement.

Canada Business is the business-facing complement to Service Canada, and another important part of the government’s overall service transformation agenda. Industry Canada established “Canada Business” more than a decade ago to provide a one-stop shop for businesses. It integrates multijurisdictional services to businesses, providing them through a national website, central hub locations in every province and territory, 13 Canada Business call/service centers and 435 network partner sites. Canada Business also provides a platform for introducing new initiatives such as BizPal, a one-stop, single-window service for permits and licenses for all three levels of government. Like Service Canada, Canada Business has laid important foundations, but now needs to move at a pace that matches client expectations in terms of extending its services and promoting their take-up.

The other major aspect of Canada’s service transformation program is the Shared Corporate, Administrative and Information Technology Services initiative to make the government’s internal operations more efficient and effective. Initially, the shared services focus will be on human resources, financial and materiel management services, and distributed computing/desktop and data center services.

These initiatives are manifestations of the “whole-of-government” approach to customer service that Canada has genuinely embraced. Building on its success with its Government On-Line program, the Canadian government is Canada’s political landscape changed significantly during the past year. In January 2006, a new minority conservative government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper was elected. That this administration change will affect the sweeping vision of service transformation that the government set out in 2005 is unlikely. Canada’s service transformation program is a key part of the Government of Canada’s broad agenda to modernize management in the public sector.

On the other hand, how the administration change will affect the implementation of the vision is less clear; for now, the main change seems to be a reorganization of existing structures. Most notably, the departments of Human Resources and Skills Development and Social Development have been consolidated into one Department of Human Resources and Social Development, under which Service Canada now operates. Service Canada is the citizen-facing component of Canada’s service transformation program. Through Service Canada, the government plans to provide one-stop service for federal government services and eventually (through an evolving network of partnerships), for relevant provincial and territorial government services as well.

These services will all be accessible through easy-to-use integrated service channels, including telephone (1-800-O-Canada), Internet (servicecanada.gc.ca), mail and in-person (Service Canada Centres across the country). Service Canada is considered to be one of the largest single reforms ever in federal operations. In fact, plans call for all Government of Canada services to individuals to be accessible through Service Canada by 2008-2009. Since Service Canada launched in 2005, it has been slowly building momentum, with a number of services from different departments (including Passport Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency, among others) introduced. One notable development was the introduction of an Office of Client Satisfaction, for citizens and partners to present suggestions, compliments or complaints and to spur Service Canada to continuous improvement. Canada Business is the business-facing complement to Service Canada, and another important part of the government’s overall service transformation agenda. Industry Canada established “Canada Business” more than a decade ago to provide a one-stop shop for businesses.

It integrates multijurisdictional services to businesses, providing them through a national website, central hub locations in every province and territory, 13 Canada Business call/service centers and 435 network partner sites. Canada Business also provides a platform for introducing new initiatives such as BizPal, a one-stop, single-window service for permits and licenses for all three levels of government. Like Service Canada, Canada Business has laid important foundations, but now needs to move at a pace that matches client expectations in terms of extending its services and promoting their take-up. The other major aspect of Canada’s service transformation program is the Shared Corporate, Administrative and Information Technology Services initiative to make the government’s internal operations more efficient and effective. Initially, the shared services focus will be on human resources, financial and materiel management services, and distributed computing/desktop and data center services. These initiatives are manifestations of the “whole-of-government” approach to customer service that Canada has genuinely embraced.

Denmark
 
The Danish government is determined to continue to improve the public sector — to develop a coherent, efficient and service-minded public sector that provides the citizens with “more quality for money.”
To that end, “The Structural Reform” is one of the biggest and most important reforms of the public sector in Denmark in many years and it will likely dominate the service environment in Denmark until 2007.

The goals of the Structural Reform are to make government more coherent, user-focused and efficient (all of which are congruent with the goals of the current Danish eGovernment strategy). While the reform will impact both national- and local-level government, it will affect local government the most, as fewer municipalities will deliver an increased share of public functions and services. Through mergers, the current 271 municipalities will be reduced to 98 and 14 counties will become 5 regions.

The Structural Reform points out that citizens should have a public sector that is accessible when they need advice, guidance and service. In most cases, citizens should be able to go to one place regardless of which public authority or administration has the final responsibility. In order to achieve this goal, a few principles, covering both online and offline channels, have been adopted. These include: that digital self-service solutions will be developed for all citizen-related services, that the most important citizen services for the regions and the state will be concentrated in the municipalities (which will establish service centers to handle these tasks) and existing barriers to coherent service delivery will be removed.

In conjunction with the Structural Reform, the Danish government enacted a “Service Center Act” that establishes the rules for the service centers’ authority regarding the provision of services on behalf of other public authorities, including rules for exchange of personal data.

While Denmark is a multi-tier government, the country is at an advantage in that the national and local levels are not as disconnected as in other countries. This has allowed the country to develop some truly innovative cross government services. Some of these services we have described in past reports, including the health portal, “sundhed.dk.” While sundhed.dk is not a new initiative, the government constantly develops more services and functionalities on the portal. For example, in September 2005, it became possible for Danish citizens to access their medical records online via sundhed.dk by use of a digital signature. The service has created much interest, and during the first days of its launch, 12,000 people ordered a digital signature from the website.

Another innovative initiative is e-Faktura. Since February 1, 2005, all government organizations have been required to accept only electronic invoices from suppliers. After some start-up problems, the new system was in place by mid-2005, and is now handling approximately 70 percent of the invoicing transactions that it is eventually expected to facilitate. The arguably radical decision to close down the offline channel was supported by a strong business case showing significant benefits for both business and government. Some estimates put the potential savings from electronic invoicing as high as €120 to €150 million per year for government, and about􀃴€ 50 million for business.

The Danish government’s intentions are clearly multi-channel, and the Structural Reform references both online and offline channels. There is, however, no clear government-wide strategy focused explicitly on service delivery through online channels, and no strategy linking the use of on- and offline channels. In addition, the government’s modernization program acknowledges the importance of eGovernment as an enabler. However, even where the relationship between eGovernment and modernization is understood, eGovernment is not being applied equally or evenly within all agencies.

To combat the challenge of providing consistent service across channels, the Local Government Denmark’s (LGDK) website supports municipalities by providing examples, inspirational papers and guides on how to establish both online and offline services for citizens. The LGDK has also established a number of working groups on different aspects of citizen services and is involved in organizing workshops and conferences on the topic.

As we have seen in many countries, one of the most successful examples of both multi-channel and crossgovernment service comes from Denmark’s tax agency. In fact, the Danish Tax Agency is the first authority to be reorganized as part of the Structural Reform. The state tax agency has merged with local government tax agencies into one authority with 30 tax centers, which handle all customer and tax tasks. Citizens can manage their tax issues online, by phone or in person, and in most cases, the task will be processed and executed instantly, no matter the method of contact.

In mid-March 2006 it was announced that two of the major public portals: “Netborger.dk” and “Danmark.dk” will merge into one portal called “Borger.dk” on January 1, 2007 (the same day as the Structural Reform will go into effect). This initiative by LGDK and the Ministry of Science can be seen as another important step toward increased cooperation between authorities because of the Structural Reform.

Last year, we described Denmark as facing something of an uphill battle in improving citizen perceptions of its online offerings. Since then, the government clearly has made a concerted effort to influence the public’s point of view. In September, October and November 2005, the Danish government conducted a national marketing campaign for eGovernment services. More than 800 TV commercials advertised eight different digital services for citizens and businesses. These services were also marketed through newspaper advertisements, Internet banners and radio spots. The campaign is considered a success. For example, just before the start of the campaign, citizens were equally divided on their preference for contacting the government via telephone and Internet (at 42 percent each). At the end of the campaign, preference had clearly shifted in favor of the Internet (46 percent preferring Internet versus 38 percent preferring the phone).

Denmark is at an important juncture in its service delivery agenda; certainly, it will take time for the effects of the Structural Reform to be felt and understood. The country’s alreadyclose relationship between levels of government should prove to be an advantage, smoothing the path for the Structural Reform. Still it remains to be seen whether the Danish authorities will seize the opportunity for realizing the potential value of the reform. Adequate governing mechanisms will be crucial in order to meet the challenge of developing secure, coherent, value-creating services with the citizen in the center.

Finland

Finland’s Government Programme details the Finnish government’s targets and planned actions for delivering better service to citizens.
Through it, the government intends to mitigate disparities in development potential due to population variances. It also wants to ensure that adequate and equal services are delivered nationwide. Horizontal and vertical cooperation of government agencies will be key to the government’s success in this regard, and we saw some important moves in that direction.

Finland’s service approach emphasizes increased efficiency—perhaps even more than improving the citizen facing aspects of service delivery. The Productivity Programme, led by the Ministry of Finance, is seen as one driver for changes in public-service delivery in Finland. In it, all administrative branches are obliged to develop and implement productivity plans—through service center initiatives, improving government’s procurement, streamlining processes and putting online the services requiring most resources.

Much of the customer service activity we saw in Finland during the past year relates to the government putting in place enablers of future progress. For example, in January the government announced it would begin work during 2006 on a new national information society strategy. Likewise, in the spring of 2005, the Finnish government developed a Local and Regional Service Strategy to guide its actions through 2010. This common service strategy is anchored in customer-centricity: it emphasizes making use of the existing infrastructure of the country’s 213 Citizen’s Offices (service points where citizens can obtain public services produced by at least two authorities) by increasing the number of authorities in the Offices and the number of services they provide. Other strategy points call for unified action in service provision and for synchronizing service processes, although the strategy seems to stop short of any program to provide a unified contact center for all of the government.

Work toward a more centralized IT governance has also started. Leena Honka became the central government’s IT Director (CIO) in March 2005 and the government founded and organized a new central IT Management Unit. Goals include gaining economies of scale and cutting down IT costs, as well as improving IT capabilities to enable better customer service and productivity. A separate shared IT service delivery organization is expected to be launched in 2006. Likewise, a KuntaIT unit (municipal IT unit) to coordinate cooperation in information management at a municipal level (and across the whole public sector, when applicable) should begin operations in September 2006. Initiatives like these are important for Finland to continue to drive costs out of its back-end processes and redirect resources to support its highly valued social programs, where human intervention on the front end simply cannot be replaced with automation. The question now is whether these initiatives are being implemented on a scale that will deliver the desired benefits.

The Finnish government has announced or launched a number of innovative services over the past year. Among these are pre-completed, pre-populated tax return forms for individual taxpayers, which will have their first national rollout in April 2006. The pre-populated information draws on required information from banks, insurance companies and other sources. All individuals need to do is verify the pre-populated information. The taxpayer must correct and return the form if there are errors or additional information that needs to be filled in, but if all information is correct, the taxpayer needs to do nothing. VETUMA is an online identification and payment solution for citizens. It was launched in 2004 by the communities of the Helsinki region, but quickly developed into a common venture for all public administration. Now, the first municipal and central government identification services using VETUMA will begin in 2006, with the target that as many government service providers as possible will use the technology. A national solution for identification and online payment should provide significant boost to eGovernment across all public administration.

While Finnish citizens seem neutral or even positive about the concept of a unique identifier for government interactions, the cards’ security is more of an issue. For example, some press coverage has been critical of the current strong role banks play in identification—both on the issue of whether banks are as trustworthy as the government, and also on whether the commonly used identification by online banking codes is strong enough. (The other side of the argument is that using existing online banking codes will drive increased adoption of eGovernment services requiring identification.) Slow adoption of the mobile PKI certificate launched jointly by the Population Register Center (PRC) and TeliaSonera has also been discussed, with the reason said to be a lack of services where the certificate can be used. However, the HST Group (formed by some of the banks, operators and the state) estimates that the certificates included in the Subscriber Identity Model (SIM) cards and EMV chips of bank and credit cards will increase the number of Citizen’s Certificates (a PKI-level certificate issued by the PRC) to approximately 1.7 million in the next few years.

The Finnish government continues to make good progress in developing its service offerings, and we see no evidence of complacency. Certainly, the government is aggressively pursuing a service agenda that will not only benefit citizens, but improve the country’s future competitiveness as well. Looking to the future, developing consistency across channels should be a point of continued consideration. While Finland continues to be the country where citizens are most likely to have tried eGovernment (73 percent of respondents in our citizen survey) and has the highest percentage of citizens who prefer the eGovernment channel over other channels (43 percent), only 13 percent expected to get the best service through eGovernment. In comparison, 48 percent expect best service from walk-in centers or offices and 40 percent expect best service via landline or mobile phone.

For Finland to get to the next level of customer service, in which the highest number of services possible are delivered through the most efficient channels, the government needs to analyze not only which services citizens prefer on which channels, but also how the processes both in customer service and in the back end need to changed. Looking to the future, the government should continue to push the line of what services can be automated—not only by implementing technology, but also by proving to citizens the consistent quality of services delivered through these efficient channels over time. In addition, to continue its progress toward high performance, the government needs to be ready and willing to change legislation to support new service models, and to make the necessary investments on a large enough scale to enable the real benefits possible from these new models.

France
 
In May 2005, Dominique de Villepin replaced Jean Pierre Raffarin as France’s Prime Minister.
Since then, there has been a governmental reorganization, which in turn affects the structures in charge of state modernization.

A new division of the Ministry of Finance, the Direction générale de la modernisation de l’Etat (DGME), is a single agency charged with state modernization, including the development of eGovernment. The DGME was formed by merging four former agencies: Delegation for Users and Administrative Simplification (DUSA), Delegation for Modernization of Public Administration and the Structures of the State (DMGPSE), Agency for the Development of eGovernment (ADAE) and Directorate for Budgetary Reform (DRB). Frank Mordacq, formerly the head of the DRB, now leads DGME.

Given that the DGME is newly formed and operational only since January 2006, no strategy or action plan for it has yet been published. However, the current eGovernment strategy, called ADELE (for Administration ELEctronique), is unlikely to change significantly, given it was expected only to run until 2007. The larger question is whether the creation of a new agency in charge of eGovernment will accelerate ADELE’s implementation or indeed, slow down the government’s ambitions. Major remaining initiatives under ADELE, apart from continuing to make more services available online or via telephone, are implementation of the “mon service-public” portal, which aims at offering citizens personalized, customizable content linked to eGovernment services (2006 time frame) and moves toward interoperability and greater collaboration (2007).

Many multi-channel services are now offered to citizens and businesses, such as “Allô service public - 3939” (call center for administrative questions), “Impôt service” (call center/help desk for tax questions) and online/help desk channels provided by social institutions (AMELI for health and CAF or PAJEMPLOI for family care). Nevertheless, services offered online and via the telephone channel often remain limited, and it is not clear to what extent the various channels are seamlessly integrated. A genuine government-wide, multi-channel strategy is still to be defined. Cross-government collaboration is being driven centrally by DGME, although adoption and implementation is the responsibility of individual ministries. France has several examples of successful collaboration. For example, since mid-2005, citizens can submit online an address change to several administrations (tax, social security, family and unemployment allocations). In another cross-government service example, since the beginning of 2006, citizens have been able to request birth certificates online, which was a service historically provided by approximately 36,000 French city offices. The website now provides a national platform, which enables citizens to request their certificate online, no matter where their local city halls are located and which online services the local website offers. The French government plans to develop a biometric ID card to verify identity generally, and also to access eGovernment services.

The project, called “Identité nationale électronique sécurisée” (INES), will be deployed in 2008. Should INES come to fruition, it will be a critical foundation to greater cross-government collaboration. However, 2005 saw considerable public concern over INES, mainly due to issues around collecting and storing biometric data and the concept of creating a national population database. In response, the Ministry of Internal Affairs made some notable modifications to the plans for INES, including the fact that the biometric ID will not be compulsory and that two different databases would be used for ID data and biometric data. Thus, a single unique identifier for France remains highly unlikely for the foreseeable future.

France seems to be doing a good job of promoting its eGovernment services, using a variety of means. France tends to measure awareness, take-up and satisfaction with eGovernment on a national level. Results from this annual “Online Administration Barometer” are encouraging, despite still relatively low Internet penetration. For example, of those citizens who responded they had used eGovernment (25 percent), 93 percent were satisfied with the services. Our own research bears these positive findings out. In fact, according to our own citizen survey, French citizens were the most likely to say they expected the best level of service from either the Internet or e-mail (32 percent). French citizens were also overwhelmingly the most enthusiastic about eGovernment, in terms of expressing a preference for it as a channel. Fully 69 percent of the French citizens we surveyed said that Internet or e-mail would be their preferred channel for contacting the government.

This number contrasts dramatically with the second highest percentage (in Finland, where 46 percent preferred eGovernment channels) and with other world eGovernment leaders (including Canada and the United States, where only 26 percent and 27 percent, respectively, preferred eGovernment). France has also made progress in measuring the return on investment, setting a new methodology (presented to all ministries in July 2005) to determine which projects to implement and also to collect tangible evidence of performance. As France looks to its future of service to citizens and businesses, it does so with an equal mix of challenge and opportunity. Citizen access to multiple channels is still a considerable issue for the government; at the same time, French citizens seem extremely enthusiastic about what their government has to offer.

As it develops a new vision under DGME for modernization beyond 2007, the French government must expend at least equal energy on developing the connected and knowledgeable populace that will be able to make most efficient and effective use of its services a reality.

Germany

2005 saw significant changes in Germany’s national government, with early elections in September and a new Chancellor, Angela Merkel, installed to lead a new, “grand coalition” government.
In addition, a new Secretary of State and IT Director, Dr. Hans Bernhard Beus, is now responsible for the German government’s eGovernment agenda. The net effect of these changes is not yet apparent. While a new “eGovernment” strategy is in formulation and expected to be released soon, whether this strategy will encompass broader leadership in customer service principles is unclear. For now, however, the government is moving ahead with existing plans. EGovernment does not seem to be at the top of the agenda.

The major focus of the current strategy is to integrate the BundOnline initiative into Deutschland Online (Germany Online). Deutschland Online seeks to build on the federated structure of Germany’s government, with the federal government as well as Länder governments and municipalities agreeing on projects and different national or regional authorities taking the lead on specific initiatives. Progress continues, and major upcoming milestones include having all Deutschland Online projects that were decided upon in 2003 available on the Internet by the end of 2006; public authorities able to communicate with each other electronically by the end of 2007; and all appropriate administrative procedures in Germany available online by the end of 2008.

The approach of Deutschland Online is symptomatic of a collaborative orientation that could lead to strong cross-government initiatives, if given enough push. In fact, there are already some notable cross-government examples at the local level. The concept of “Bürgerbüros,” or single-contact citizen service centers, has been a leading practice among German municipalities for some years (albeit with different levels of service and maturity). These Bürgerbüros usually bundle high volume yet low-complexity citizen services. The centers are often used to improve, or at least maintain, service hours and number of physical access points across a city.

Although we found no evidence of a government-wide, multi-channel strategy, we saw numerous multichannel applications at the Länder and municipal level. The Call Center Northrhine Westphalia is a multichannel offering that integrates physical, online and phone access to various state services, as well as numerous municipal ones. The state of Bavaria offers something similar— it has a central service portal that crosses municipal and Länder services alike and an integrated phone/online channel. The city-state of Hamburg has a central public call center under “040 Hamburg” that answers 12,000 calls per day. It is a one-stop shop, with 80 percent of all queries resolved on the phone.

From our citizen survey, we found that of the Germans who reported making contact with the government in the past year, 61 percent said they had used a walk-in center and 52 percent said they had used the telephone. Those numbers compare to only 13 percent saying they had used the Internet and/or other mobile channels.

From the government’s perspective, numbers such as these could be viewed either as a testament to the strength of the local service centers or as a call-to-action to build the viability of other channel offerings by strengthening security and fostering citizen awareness. German citizens’ strong and persistent concerns relating to data protection have prevented Germany from capitalizing on the benefits of multi-channel usage to date.

One interesting development to watch in this regard will be Germany’s next generation e-health card, slated for 2006. The new smart card, a replacement of an earlier version that carried only a citizen’s name, address and insurance number, will now store prescription information as well. One of its potential uses is as the standard card for digital signatures. If the card evolves in this fashion, it could unlock a vast number of potential new government service offerings through the online channel. Last year we referenced Germany’s relatively poor showing in the areas of proactive communication and education and the corresponding lukewarm enthusiasm among Germans for conducting business with the government online.

Despite relatively high usage of the Internet in general (71 percent of the Germans we surveyed are fairly regular Internet users), only 44 percent said they ever used eGovernment, and of those that had, 40 percent reported doing so only rarely. The gap between citizens’ perceptions of the quality of eBusiness versus eGovernment is also significant in Germany. While only 17 percent of Germans rated eGovernment services as good or excellent, 37 percent gave a good or excellent rating to business.

While marketing of services is certainly a point under discussion, it is still unclear whether a marketing strategy will be part of the government online strategy going forward. Regardless, marketing will likely remain a challenge area for Germany for some time to come. The German government has not had a history of using incentives for online usage; for example, even though a citizen can submit an income tax declaration online, there is no tangible benefit associated with it (such as an extended submission deadline or faster processing). Instead of incentives to promote voluntary online usage, we saw a few examples of government making the online channel mandatory for certain transactions. For example, as of January 2006, federal VAT tax declarations need to be done online. Of course, this is a strategy only feasible for a limited number of services, and Germany needs to exercise other options (including strong marketing) if it truly wants the benefits of a robust multi-channel service approach. Germany’s future leadership in customer service is uncertain. The country’s service program seems to be languishing of late, but a new government and an expected new service strategy could signal a needed new approach and reinvigorated commitment to leadership in customer service.

Ireland

The Public Service Modernisation Division of the Department of the Taoiseach, in cooperation with the Department of Finance, manages the Public Service Modernisation Program, which is charged with providing better customer service in Ireland.
While the previous service strategy has not been re-stated in the past year, there appears to be an increased emphasis on the government’s commitment to quality customer service. Individual departments must have strategy statements outlining their goals and strategies in relation to all aspects of the department’s remit, including customer service, and departments must report annually on their progress against their stated goals.

To enable multi-channel, cross government service, the Irish government has adopted the model of a Public Service Broker to deliver all public services electronically. This framework provides for access through a single point of contact, delivered through multiple channels and providing protection for personal and business data. The Public Service Broker is a highly ambitious undertaking, built with the intention of providing 24/7 access to all public services through the Internet and over the phone, while maintaining existing face-to-face operations.

Reach is an agency established in 1999 by the Government of Ireland to develop a strategy for integrating public services and developing and implementing the framework for eGovernment. Since May 2000, Reach has been defining the architectures and principles underlying the operation of the Public Service Broker. Departments and agencies are required to cooperate with the Reach agency and to make adjustments to their procedures and systems to facilitate the Broker. Progress has been slow: as we have seen in so many countries over the past year, moving from vision into implementation has been a considerable challenge. As an independent report commissioned by the Reach Agency stated, “While government’s vision for public service modernisation enabled by the Public Services Broker has received much international acclaim, translating the vision into tangible change has proved more challenging with many obstacles along the way.” One significant milestone will be the implementation of the online PAYE service this year, which is a joint project between Reach and the Revenue Commissioners.

A new government portal for public services, Reach services, which provides access to a number of interdepartmental agencies and services, was launched in 2005. Reach services is the first phase of the Public Services Broker system to be deployed, and is thus a highly significant milestone for the government. Reach services uses the Personal Public Service (PPS) numbers database to authenticate users.

Single walk-in offices have already been put in place for a specific set of services under Comhairle, the national agency responsible for supporting the provision of information, advice and advocacy on a wide range of social and civil services. These Citizens Information Centres provide comprehensive information on all aspects of entitlements in about 100 locations around Ireland. Also through Comhairle, the Citizens Information Phone Service (CIPS) provides easy access to information and advice by telephone and e-mail. One of its main objectives is to provide a service that is accessible for people living in isolated areas and for those with mobility problems. The service is not free, but all calls within Ireland are charged at local rates.

Comhairle also sponsors the complementary On-line Access to Services, Information and Support (Oasis) website, which gives frontline information on public services for use by the general public from the point of view of the user. Oasis has a service finder that points citizens to service points nearest to a particular location. Currently, the service finder displays the address and any other available contact information (e-mail, Web address, opening hours and so on) of the nearest schools, Citizens Information Centres, Garda stations, government departments and local government offices, health centers, social welfare offices, legal aid centers, post offices and libraries, among others. Ireland’s flagship eGovernment projects have received notable international recognition. The Revenue On-Line Service (ROS) was selected as one of four European Union eGovernment awards from a list of 250 entries in November 2005. In addition, four other entries were invited to exhibit at the event in Manchester: Reach, eCabinet (Department of Taoiseach), moBhaile (Local Government Computer Services Board) and Meath County Council. eCabinet is an interesting service—it transforms the way in which Cabinet business is prepared and processed, and supports a quicker pace of conducting government business by enabling government departments to electronically manage all stages of the process of preparing, refining and circulating Cabinet documentation.

Marketing of public services in Ireland continues to be done at an agency level, with some notable success. In 2005, for example, ROS had a strong advertising campaign in both the national newspapers and on radio and television to encourage online filing. In 2005, 65 percent of timely filers used the electronic route, as compared with 53 percent in 2004 and 40 percent and 9 percent in the respective preceding years. The Reach Agency also published a tender in July 2005 for proposals related to a promotional and marketing campaign to promote awareness, understanding and use of the Reach services portal.

As early as 2003, Ireland recognized that supporting and maximizing the benefits of e-enabled service delivery would require streamlined and consolidated back-office functions and a major re-structuring of the way government operates. The possibility of using the shared services model to provide back-office functions across departments is now under active discussion among various government departments, and we saw isolated examples of some progress in this area. For example, the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform established a shared services center to provide financial services to the Department, the Courts Service, the Prisons Service and An Garda Síochána. This center recently expanded to provide financial services for the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, demonstrating the potential of shared services on a broader level beyond related departments and agencies. Irish citizens typically have a number of different and unrelated identifiers for interacting with government, but Ireland has a number of initiatives in the works to continue to move toward a single unique identifier.

The Personal Public Service Number (PPSN) remains the closest approximation, although the limitations of PPSN that were outlined in last year’s report still remain. A project known as the Standard Authentication Framework Environment (SAFE) is under way to define a coherent pan-public service approach to the delivery of card-based services. Ireland has the benefit of a population familiar and comfortable with multiple technologies. Our citizen survey revealed that 68 percent of Irish citizens felt it was easy to use eGovernment.

The Irish were also the third most likely to express confidence using a whole range of technologies for service delivery, with 51 percent of all respondents expressing confidence. Ireland now needs to tie all the pieces together. The country has seemed poised on the edge of a new era of service for some years. A new look at what citizens truly value from government, how the country’s existing strengths can be used to deliver that value and a concerted push toward other enablers, including back-office consolidation and implementation of a unique identifier will all be necessary to propel Ireland forward in the years ahead.

Italy

There has been no major change in Italy’s overall government customer service strategy over the past year; rather the government continues to make slow, steady progress on its existing eGovernment plans, especially at the local level.
Every year since 2002, the Minister for Innovation and Technologies has published revised guidelines regarding the implementation of Italy’s eGovernment program, outlining progress to date, current initiatives and targets. The most recent guidelines in 2005 heralded the beginning of the “second phase” of the country’s eGovernment program. This second phase furthers a critical goal: a strong reduction in public spending on information technology (IT), as called for in the Financial Act of 2006.

Two key initiatives recently undertaken by the Italian government to foster digitalization of the local and central government concern the legislation framework and the infrastructure system. On the legislation side, Italy approved the eGovernment Code, which establishes conditions for a more efficient government. This code came into force at the start of 2006, replacing outdated regulations to promote the use of new technologies within the Italian government and in its relationships with citizens and enterprises, as well as among private citizens themselves.

On the infrastructure side, Italy has prioritized the interconnection between all central and local government offices. This represents a major step toward fostering innovation in government and developing an increasingly federal state. There are two key infrastructure programs: the “Public Connectivity System” (PCS), which is a sort of digital superhighway that uses broadband links to connect central and local government offices, and the “International Public Administration Network,” which is a network of all Italian diplomatic and public offices worldwide. These infrastructures will form the common ground for electronic communication among public offices all over the country, on the basis of shared technology, organizational and security standards. In addition, the Department for Innovation and Technology is funding eGovernment initiatives at both the regional and local level, and has prioritized requests for funding from projects that involve a large number of organizations, and in particular, organizations from different levels of government.

The Italian government has continued its major reform of the tax service through the “Fisco Telematico” project and it has continued to promote e-procurement and e-payment systems to achieve savings and more efficiencies. Related to these efforts are two significant projects, the “National Services Card” and the “Electronic Identity Card,” aimed at improving the usability of online services. These two projects have encountered some challenges concerning funding, stakeholder involvement and conflict between responsible ministers; for now, the government does not seem to have defined the available services network.

Italy is currently encouraging greater cross-government collaboration, as service delivery in the country becomes increasingly local. However, cross government collaboration from a national-level perspective seems largely a principle and desired outcome, rather than an actuality. Despite the increasingly decentralized structure of the Italian government, with municipalities and regions taking greater responsibility for administrative services for citizens and businesses, there is no nationwide strategy toward consolidating services.

Clearly, the Italian government is looking for ways to encourage various national, regional and local authorities to share ideas, technologies and business models to move services online, and to ensure the coherent development of eGovernment policies and services across the whole country. However, while the approach (based on sharing experiences and reusing best practices) leads to tangible benefits related to innovation, it also faces strong challenges whenever these practices are extended to a context that differs from the original one. In general the government does not seem to have yet moved to the next level: actually offering joined up services in a seamless way.

At a more local level, however, we did see some evidence of regions and municipalities taking the lead in cross government initiatives. The challenge is to broaden success from islands of good practice into all areas of public administration— to realize the widespread benefits that eGovernment was originally expected to deliver to citizens, business and the public administration.

Currently, Italy does not have a cohesive multi-channel strategy, despite the tremendous impact such a strategy would have on public-sector service delivery in the future. Historically, Italy has registered low Internet penetration as well as eGovernment usage; our citizen survey this year showed that less than half of the surveyed citizens (49 percent) had ever used eGovernment. Likewise, Italians are the least confident of all 21 countries in using the computer (47 percent are confident), the Internet (46 percent are confident) and e-mail (41 percent are confident), underscoring the continuous need to provide alternative connections to a population that does not seem enthusiastic in adopting the e-channel.

The Italian government is trying to bridge the digital divide, which has mainly resulted from a lack of education about and familiarity with the online channel. One of the most important initiatives is the development of information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure in schools, by increasing the number of PCs and by bringing broadband connections to school buildings. Also notable is the “PC for public employees” project, which facilitates payment conditions for PCs for public employees.

In October 2005, Lucio Stanca, Minister for Innovation, issued a directive on the quality of eGovernment services and measurement of the satisfaction of customers. The directive aims to provide guidelines for improving quality and promoting the use of eGovernment services through a detailed, effective analysis of user’s needs. Given the current eGovernment environment in Italy, however, the government would do well to also investigate potential alternative channels and gauge what citizens would actually value from government in terms of service content and larger outcomes, beyond just a measure of their “point-in-time” satisfaction with available offerings.

With regard to alternate channels, there is growing government interest in experimenting with new technologies, such as mobile/wireless, Voice Over Internet Protocol, and digital television (“Televisione Digitale Terrestre”) to provide higher value customer service. These technologies may soon redefine the relationship between administrations and citizens, by making a wide range of new services widespread and easily accessible. Investments in these areas may also increase public administration efficiency. 

Overall, it seems that much of the Italian government’s recent energies have been focused on establishing the fundamental legislative and infrastructural conditions necessary for eGovernment (and multi-channel government) to become widespread and integrated. Italy clearly faces some tough challenges ahead in areas such as cross government collaboration, data integration and services personalization. It is likely that eGovernment will only make a real difference in modernizing government customer service if it is part of a wider service delivery agenda that is focused on radical customer-and outcome-based changes. Moderate progress has been the pattern for some years, and the government needs to light a charge under its program or risk falling behind in the future.

Future digital development in Italy will be based on improving eGovernment services and strongly linked to effective governance at both the national and local levels. Strong governance is needed to define the innovation agenda, manage the investment portfolio and design market rules with the dual aim of promoting big public projects and offering quality services. It is time for Italy to balance today’s needs of decreasing IT expenditure to meet public budget constraints, with the future challenge of implementing innovative technologies to boost growth and competitiveness. With 2006 an election year in Italy, it remains to be seen whether the aforementioned governance will move to the forefront of the governmental agenda.

Japan

2005 was a significant year for Japan’s service delivery agenda.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi won a landslide victory in Parliamentary elections in September 2005, giving Koizumi’s LDP and coalition partner control of two-thirds of the seats in Parliament, and greater power to continue and accelerate reforms. Chief among these is achieving “small government,” which includes privatizing Japan Post, consolidating and streamlining government financial institutions, human resources policy reform, market testing, and aggressively pursuing the new u-Japan initiative.

In 2005, Japan’s eGovernment Committee accomplished its mission as laid out in the e-Japan strategy (including, among other goals, making most services available online 24/7). A new government IT strategy, the “ubiquitous,” or u-Japan, initiative has since been adopted and the eGovernment Committee changed its name to the u-Government Committee.

The u-Japan strategy has several goals. It aims to use IT to improve society through disaster prevention, accident prevention and robot technology to assist the elderly. It seeks to create a high-value and efficient eGovernment program by facilitating user-friendly online transactions, setting up a Government Program Management Office to manage cross-government IT programs and re-structuring legacy systems. And it intends to create a world-leading ubiquitous society, by building a ubiquitous network infrastructure, enhancing IT-based management among corporations and promoting research and development in ubiquitous technology.

The strategy includes not only enhancing government websites and online services, but also creating one-stop shop access and, importantly, promoting the use of eGovernment services. This emphasis on eGovernment will be a critical factor to u-Japan’s future success. Last year, we described how adoption of eGovernment services was a key issue in Japan, due to low citizen enthusiasm for and low satisfaction with their government’s provision of online services. In this year’s citizen survey, too, we saw little change in citizens’ attitudes. Of those citizens who had contacted government in the past year, only 4 percent had used the eGovernment channels. Therefore, Japan’s priority has shifted from putting government services online to encouraging actual use of online services by citizens and businesses. On an encouraging note, the number of Japanese citizens who felt their government was doing a good to excellent job developing eGovernment increased by 7 percent to 27 percent. Likewise, the Internet is the eGovernment channel Japanese citizens feel should be the highest priority for investment, with 29 percent citing it as the top priority.

For Japan, the most important factor in improving take-up will be improving the citizens’ experience. Of the nine countries we identified as leaders last year, Japan scored the lowest in terms of citizens’ perceptions about how easy eGovernment is to use, with under half (43 percent) describing it as fairly easy or very easy. (This score compares to 55 percent in France and 60 percent or above in the remaining seven leading countries.)

Historically, Japanese citizens have had to deal with multiple ministries and agencies and obtain multiple documents for even relatively straightforward transactions (such as obtaining a business license). To compound this issue, users of the online services have had to obtain separate IDs, passwords and even special software for interacting with particular agencies.

To this end, many ministries and agencies are trying to improve their websites for better communication with the public. One of the current Japanese priorities is to enhance its “e-Gov” central portal as a one-stop access point to all the ministries and agencies. In addition, the government plans to offer additional incentives, such as reduced fees and shorter processing times for the online channel. In one notable example, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, National Police Agency and Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications came together to provide one-stop service for car registrations. Previously, car registrations required visits to the police for a parking certificate, the prefectural tax office to pay the related taxes and to the local transport bureau for an application. Now in some places, including Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefecture, users can conduct all related transactions from their personal computers, and the goal is to make these online applications available across the country during 2007.

Other customer service improvement initiatives target the telephone channel. For example, at a local level, Sapporo City established a centralized call center in which customer interactions are now recorded and integrated with its knowledge database. Sapporo City call center staff can quickly provide more accurate, relevant information, and have improved their resolution rates and overall efficiency. In fact, first-call resolutions have reached 95 percent, with high customer satisfaction.

Japanese citizens’ current lack of enthusiasm for and slow take-up of eGovernment services has been due in part to concerns over security and privacy of personal data. For example, the implementation three years ago of a residents’ registration system using an electronic network (“Juki Net”) has been met mostly with indifference, although the strong opposition of some individuals and local governments sparked a number of court battles. In June 2005, the Kanazawa District Court endorsed citizens’ right to control their personal data.

The government is very keen to address citizen’s privacy concerns. In April 2005, the government established the National Information Security Center within the Cabinet Secretariat, tasked with dealing with security problems such as information breaches and hacking. In the same month, the Japanese government passed a law concerning the protection of personal information. The government stated that it would make efforts to raise awareness of the law and how it is being enforced, and to “promote the efficient handling of complaints in accordance with the Guidelines for the Protection of Personal Information.” It also declared that all local public agencies must formulate an information security policy, and has promoted the introduction of information security audits.

Japan’s new vision and its increased attention on the citizens’ perspective (improving their service experience and addressing their privacy concerns) are vital components for Japan’s continued success. The government should continue down this path, proactively seeking to build stronger insights into its citizens’ values and formulating the action plans that will continue to build citizens’ trust in and far greater satisfaction with their governmental interactions.

Malaysia

The 9th Malaysia Plan, covering the period from 2006 to 2010, charts the next steps the country has to take to achieve its “Vision 2020” (becoming a united and fully developed nation, “in its own mold,” by the year 2020).
The 9th Malaysia Plan is expected to be formally presented in the Malaysian Parliament in March 2006. Also as part of Malaysia’s Vision 2020, the “ICT Strategic Plan for the Public Sector” maps out what the government needs to do to provide efficient and effective electronic services, to make use of ICT to improve productivity, to share resources among government and to become, overall, more citizens centric. The Malaysian Administration and Modernization Planning Unit continue to spearhead all eGovernment initiatives and is responsible for monitoring and evaluating any cross-agency opportunities.

Among the most notable accomplishments of the government in 2005 was the launch of the latest iteration of the Public Service Portal (or, my Government Portal), in February 2005, with all core portal modules completed and “live” in May 2005. My Government is the single gateway to information and services provided by Malaysian Government agencies on the Internet. To date, my Government links 900 websites across federal, state and local authorities and the Malaysian Civil Service Link. The portal will continue to grow in scope and reach as departments and agencies continue to make more services online. Other important planned enhancements include an online payment gateway, ubiquitous access through various mobile channels and single sign-on capability.

Aside from the my Government portal, the Malaysian government made a number of other important moves to consolidate services for a more citizen-centric approach. For example, Malaysia has established 13 Government Service Centres in the country, which act as front-line, one-stop service centers for all Government Multipurpose Card, or “MyKad”-related transactions. Services available include application, renewal and replacement of MyKads, payments of fines, renewals of drivers’ licenses and updates of passport information.

The government also plans to consolidate call center operations. One of the pilot initiatives is the Electronic Government (EG) Help Desk Centre, which provides Putrajaya Campus Network and eGovernment application users with a single point of contact to report incidents, problems and requests. In practice, the EG Help Desk manages users’ ICT requests, tracks incidents and provides relevant information to users and other parties from different government agencies. It is also responsible for quality assurance.

The government has established a performance measurement framework for the EG Help Desk, complete with metrics on calls received and issues resolved. One of the more interesting developments is Malaysia’s emerging E-Services initiative. E-Services is an application that enables citizens and businesses to conduct transactions with government agencies and utility companies through a one-stop, multichannel service window, including kiosk, Interactive Voice Response / telephone and Internet services through Web TV and the personal computer.  As of this writing, only five agencies have implemented E-Services, but the potential is intriguing.

Our citizen survey shows that Malaysia still has a fairly low percentage of regular Internet users (44 percent), although its users seem enthusiastic about eGovernment services. Citizens are equally positive about eGovernment as they are with eBusiness. In fact, only Singapore had a population more favorably impressed with the government’s online performance in comparison to the private sector. The enthusiasm for eGovernment translates into a desire for additional ways to access it: 80 percent of Malaysian citizens cited provision of self-service electronic kiosks as one of the most useful ways the government could make government services more accessible. Future plans include implementing kiosk service in various agencies beyond the piloted ones, and promoting these services among the public.

The Malaysian government has also begun to provide financial discounts to increase the use of its E-Services. For example, those who use the E-Services website www.eservices.com.my to pay their Road Transportation Department (JPJ) summons receive a 10 percent discount. Proposals to extend these discounts to other areas (for example, for settling police summons) are under consideration, although they have yet to be approved and enforced.

Last year we described Malaysia as being in a stage of formulation— building enabling pieces and priming its public for a future of enhanced government-citizen interactions. Malaysia is ahead of many countries in terms of already having a single unique identifier for citizen interactions with the government. The MyKad national identity card is mandatory for Malaysians above the age of 12, and beginning in 2000, has been issued to all newborns. With MyKad, the government has overcome an enormous hurdle impeding many countries’ plans for cohesive service and has shown its ability to innovate.

However, the government cannot afford to be complacent. Looking to the future, the Malaysian government will be faced with ever-greater challenges caused by globalization. It will need to enhance the competitiveness of the economy, strengthen its economic resilience and improve its productivity. While the government has been making steady progress, its Vision 2020 has been in place for 15 years. From a customer service perspective, the desire to create itself “in its own mold” is the right principle for any country; however, it is time for the Malaysian government to reassess its vision and ensure that it is, indeed, building an environment where government delivers beyond the requirements of simple metrics to create value for those it serves.

The Netherlands

The Netherlands’ Actieprogramma Andere Overheid (Action Program for a Better Government) saw a leadership change last year, when Alexander Pechtold assumed stewardship of the program following the resignation of Minister of Government Reform and Deputy Prime Minister Thom de Graaf in March 2005.
Despite the leadership change, however, little movement has been noted to centralize the governance. Responsibilities for different programs still lie across several ministries, although we did see a number of initiatives aimed at integrating contact channels and improving the efficiency of processing questions and transactions.

Overall, we saw no significant change to the service strategy itself. The Actieprogramma Andere Overheid (launched in 2004) should be completed by the end of the current parliament (likely 2007). The “Beter presteren met ICT. Vervolg rijksbrede ICT agenda 2005-2006” (Better performance with ICT. Sequel to Nationwide ICT agenda) is simply the latest incarnation of the annually renewed national information and communications technology (ICT) plan and does not materially differ from the previous version.

The government lacks a coherent government- wide, multi-channel strategy. Currently, for both citizens and businesses, there are multiple multi-channel initiatives (in different stages) that target the same audience. In fact, the government has only recently begun discussions about integrating channels and allowing citizens to choose their preferred channel.

Despite the lack of a national strategy, the issue certainly is gaining greater prominence. Minister Pechtold has publicly expressed support for the multi-channel approach, stating in May 2005 that “The strong staking of eGovernment doesn’t mean that other ways are not important...Fine-tuning between the different channels is crucial to deliver good service to the Dutch society.” And we did see some notable examples of multi-channel initiatives already beginning to take hold. In the last quarter of 2005 into 2006, for example, we saw a number of portals integrated with contact centers, including the Basis Bedrijven Register (Basic Business Register, or BBR), which registers all companies established in the Netherlands.

What already exists at a national level is “Postbus 51,” which is the Dutch government’s center for public service information (information communication only). It is part of the Ministry of General Affairs’ Government Information Service, and manages the toll-free calls, letters and websites of most ministries. Aside from its connection to government departments, the site also links through to relevant third parties that can offer additional trusted advice and support.

There are new plans also for a “national initiated” contact center. “National initiated” means that all public service phone numbers—even across different levels of government— will start with a specific number. For example, all cities (or bigger municipalities) will then connect to this number, appended with their own area code. Amsterdam is the first city starting with this public service, followed by Rotterdam and Utrecht. The service will start on a national level in 2007.

In 2005, we noted that the Dutch government could improve upon its cross-government collaboration and service delivery, and for now, central government agencies continue to provide the lion’s share of eGovernment services. We did, however, see some important moves over the past year in the cross-government direction.

The Andere Overheid action program does, in fact, emphasize sharing ICT infrastructure, and the eventual move toward a shared service model for ICT, which should lead to more integrated infrastructure that will enable cross government. One of the most visible results is the Dutch DigiD (“Digital Identity”) online identification system (introduced in January 2005). The Dutch DigiD is set to become the prime authentication mechanism for central and local government e-services in the Netherlands and will be a critical enabler of cross-government service delivery, as well as boosting adoption of the more efficient e-channel. Thirteen new municipalities (of about 400) have joined the DigiD platform since its launch. Next to that, the Dutch Social Insurance Bank and the tax authority have both adopted DigiD as their authentication system, which means that Dutch citizens are able to log on to a secure environment using a single username and password. Given the size of the customer bases of both organizations, the use of DigiD by citizens should dramatically increase.

The next big step in identity policy is the Citizen Service Number that will be issued by local authorities beginning in 2006. It will be based on the existing tax and social security (“SoFi”) number that all people living and working in the Netherlands already have. Having a single identification number such as this for multiple government services enables cross-government service delivery. There are privacy concerns, though, and the required legislation has not yet been signed.

To further promote cross-government consistency, the Dutch government has adopted a metadata standard for public-sector websites, called “Overheid.nl web metadata,” and based on the Dublin Core metadata standard. This is a critical development, as currently more than 1,200 Dutch government websites exist. A national metadata standard should help public sector agencies make it easier for users to find and access government information wherever it exists, as well as improve the interoperability of information and services at different government sites.

Moves like this are critical to continue to encourage increasing numbers of the Netherlands’ tech-savvy population onto the efficient online channels. In our citizen survey this year, 81 percent of Dutch respondents reported being regular Internet users. And Dutch citizens were among the most likely of all the countries we surveyed to have tried eGovernment; 67 percent of our survey respondents reported using eGovernment at some point during the past year, a significant increase of 11 percent over our previous year’s survey results.

However, they were still nearly twice as likely to use the phone (56 percent) to contact the government than they were to use the online channels, such as Internet/e-mail/SMS/text (31 percent). These results may indicate citizens’ uncertainty about the responsiveness of these channels.

Connecting policy to implementation and building organizational structures that foster collaboration are key issues for the Netherlands. According to our survey results, right now, only 25 percent of Dutch citizens consider the government to be effective at working together—no improvement over last year’s number. In a time of economic recession for the Netherlands, it may prove challenging to fight for eGovernment and governmental reform. However, it is these very items that will have such a tremendous impact on the country—delivering a higher level of governmental performance, both in consistent quality and in the number of possible channels—and translate into opportunities for improving citizen welfare and promoting overall progress.

Norway 

The election of September 2005 resulted in a change of leading party in Norway.
While the new majority left-wing coalition government is expected to follow the plans of eNorway 2009, the impact of the party change on priorities and timelines is, for now, unclear.

The most recent strategy for providing better services for the citizens was launched in June 2005 by the Ministry of Modernization (now Ministry of Government Administration and Reform). The title is “Modernization for Welfare–The Government’s Action Plan for Modernization 2005-2009.” The eNorway 2009 plan prioritizes the government’s use of information technology. eNorway 2009 summarizes the government’s position as: “Norway’s advanced use of technology shall simplify the daily lives of the population and business and industry, and contribute to promoting value creation and thereby ensure prosperity and welfare for future generations.” 

Currently, the government considers itself to be in a phase of expansion and change, driven by IT. The eNorway 2009 plan has three areas of focus: one, the individual in digital Norway (ensuring everyone can participate in the digital society); two, innovation and growth in Norwegian business and industry (maintaining a competitive edge and safeguarding prosperity by promoting IT-enabled value creation); and three, a coordinated and user adapted public sector (making government interactions easier and freeing resources to strengthen the welfare state). The eNorway 2009 plan presents a list of priority initiatives, complete with target deadlines and responsible ministries, that should be completed by the 2007 milestone.

The plan focuses on services provided at the state level. While the municipalities are independent, they are encouraged to participate and cooperate and are given guidelines to do so. In fact, the municipalities have published their own digital strategies that correspond with the national eNorway 2009 strategy. With this decentralized responsibility for the development of digital public services, however, the Norwegian government faces something of a challenge in turning citizen-centric into a meaningful principle. The effects of this approach can be seen in citizens’ current perceptions; from our citizen survey this year, only 28 percent of Norwegian citizens think the Norwegian government is effective at working together.

One of the most eagerly anticipated manifestations of cross-government collaboration for citizen-centric government is My Page. Part of the Norge.no website, My Page is an online electronic public service office that will allow the general public to access services electronically, based on a personal Web page with secure log-on. Last year we noted that this portal would likely have a decidedly positive effect on Norway’s ability to deliver citizen-centered, cross-government services. In fact, the government intends to make all relevant government, municipal and regional population services available through My Page by 2009. This portal, which has been called the most ambitious of its kind, was expected to be launched in 2005. Launch of this portal was delayed, however, and as of this writing, had yet to happen.

With so much riding on its digital services, Norway has considerable work to do in building more positive perceptions of these services. Our citizen survey this year revealed that Norwegians were the least likely to expect best government service to come via the Internet/e-mail. Only 7 percent of citizens surveyed expected best service via this channel, compared to 59 percent (the highest percentage among all countries) who expected best service via walk-in centers. Not surprisingly then, despite Norway’s high Internet penetration of 79 percent, only 26 percent of Norwegian citizens we surveyed preferred using modern, technology-enabled channels (Internet/e-mail/mobile text/SMS scores combined) to deal with the government. In contrast, 39 percent prefer the telephone.

Building the right services in the right way will be critical to changing the way citizens connect with their government in the future. And in fact, we did see evidence over the past year of the government making some important moves in this regard. For example, the government launched a Security Portal in December 2005, to make it easier for government agencies that wish to offer digital services to solve the identification and signature problem for citizens and businesses. Users’ eIDs allow them access to public electronic services and the security portal works behind the scenes, with neither the general public nor the authorities aware that an authentication process has taken place. Use of the portal is mandatory for government agencies and recommended for municipalities.

With the launch of the Security Portal, Norway became one of the first countries in the world to implement a common security solution for the public sector. Likewise, AltInn, Norway’s portal for electronic services to businesses (which has been described in our past few reports) continues to impress. More and more authorities are delivering services via AltInn and take-up of the services offered is high.

The Norwegian government has no formal, clearly articulated multichannel strategy. However, both the former and the current government have stressed the need for different access points to government. Moreover, the drive toward multi-channel access clearly encompasses more than just in-person, telephone and Internet services. The Norwegian government is also looking to even more modern alternatives, including mobile phone, SMS and digital television. It is important to note, however, that the extent to which multi-channel access becomes a reality will again be determined at an individual organizational level; each authority is to a large extent free to decide which access points it will use.

Looking to the future, Norway’s challenges are clear. First, the government needs to develop a more central view of planning and building infrastructure. While the local delivery approach fosters strong connections with the citizen, local governments will never have the funding to build the deep services that deliver greatest value. This approach needs to move beyond the tactical (building broadband, for example) to the more strategic, with the national government finding commonalities among sectors and areas and then building the infrastructure that will glean value from the skills and resources that are available at a local level.

Portugal

Elections in February 2005 led to a change in Portugal’s political direction.
In conjunction with this change, the Portuguese government has also changed its plans around technology in administration. The government’s Technological Plan for Growth Towards a Knowledge Society is the cornerstone of its economic policy. It provides the direction to convert Portugal into a dynamic player within the global economy. Its measures are structured around three axes of action: to qualify the Portuguese for the knowledge society, to overcome the scientific and technological gap, and to boost innovation.

The “Connecting Portugal” plan, also launched in July 2005, is designed to enact part of the objectives set out in the Technological Plan. The main focus of Connecting Portugal is connectivity and accessibility: “To connect the Portuguese, whether at home, or in public spaces, is crucial to ensure that everyone can take full advantage of the opportunities arising from the use of the new technologies.” The accessibility focus is critical, as Portugal has a low and slow-growing Internet penetration. From our citizen survey, only 46 percent of Portuguese citizens we interviewed identified themselves as regular Internet users—an increase of only 3 percent over last year’s numbers. This year, Portugal had far and away the largest number of respondents answer they did not know whether it was easy or difficult to contact government via Internet or e-mail; 29 percent of Portuguese citizens responded this way—twice as high as the second highest number of “do not know” respondents, in Malaysia. Of those citizens who said it was not easy for them to contact government, the majority said it was because they didn’t know how to use the Internet or e-mail (35 percent), suggesting a strong need for greater technology education in Portugal. Not surprisingly, Portuguese were among the least likely to express confidence using the Internet and e-mail. Only 53 percent and 48 percent, respectively, expressed confidence with the technologies.

The government has taken some steps to close its existing digital divide. It provided all public schools with a broadband DSL connection to the Science Technology and Society Network and plans to double the more than 260 Public Internet Spaces throughout the country by 2010. Of particular focus is opening new Public Internet Spaces in more densely populated areas and preparing some of them for the needs of specific groups, such as the elderly and immigrants. The Portuguese Administration is continuing its commitment to converging services towards a Balcão Único (Single Point of Contact). It has created a new agency, the Agency for Coordination of Public Services Modernization (UCMA), which works toward eliminating fragmentations and furthering this end.

In fact, we saw increasing evidence of cross-agency collaboration to provide the one-stop-shop experience. “Empresa na Hora,” (or roughly, “Business While-you-Wait”), is a onestop- shop for setting up businesses that has been made possible through the collaboration of the various agencies that are involved in the processes of setting up a new business, as well as agencies that have helped establish the legal and technical architecture for the service. By January 2006, more than 2,800 new companies (roughly 40 percent of the total) had been set up using this new service, taking an average of only 55 minutes to complete the process.

The Portuguese government’s commitment to its 2005/2006 strategy for the “National Citizen’s Portal” is underscored by the introduction of some new services. Launched in the first quarter of 2004, the Citizen’s Portal now offers more than 700 citizen-oriented 24/7 services (56 percent informational, 26 percent interactive, 18 percent transactional), provided by 118 public administration bodies. Beginning in February 2005, the site has also offered multi-channel access, with some services supported by SMS, and access through WAP protocol by mobile phones and PDAs.

While Portuguese law prohibits attributing a single identifying national number to citizens, it is possible to create individual citizen cards that aggregate several agency cards while still maintaining a number for each public service. The Portuguese Government has announced a project for the Citizen Card (Cartão do Cidadão) that will gather and replace the major existing public services cards, such as citizens’ identity, electoral, social security, tax and health care cards. This card will assume the double function of a physical document that the citizen can present for visual identification, as well as a digital document with high security that allows a citizen to identify and authenticate himself electronically in his actions. The proof of concept for this card was presented in March 2006.

Portugal has struggled for some years in its journey toward leadership in customer service. It has some considerable challenges to overcome — not least among these are the basic digital access barriers that impede faster progress toward more efficient and effective customer service. While Portugal still has work to do in establishing the fundamentals, it is clear the right spirit is there. However, the necessary collaboration is only just beginning, and it is not yet apparent whether the government will reengineer its structures and processes to ensure long-term success. 

Singapore

Public Service 21 (PS21), Singapore’s government-wide strategy to address the issue of better services to citizens, began in 1995.
Since that time, Singapore has made bold and rapid advances toward its vision of “engaging citizens in policy formulation and delighting customers in the governments’ service delivery.”

The Singaporean government’s intent is to move people to electronic channels as much as possible—not only because it results in time savings and convenience for customers and businesses and cost savings for the government, but also because the government believes that an information and communications technology (ICT)-literate population represents a national competitive advantage.

This strategy undoubtedly is already working well for Singapore. In our citizen survey, Singapore was the only country in which its citizens rated how well the government was developing online services better than the job private-sector businesses were doing. Sixty-one percent rated the government as good or excellent compared to 50 percent who rated businesses that way. In addition, Singaporeans were the most likely to have used an online channel for their interactions with government (with 73 percent of those who interacted with the government over the past year having used the Internet/e-mail/ SMS/mobile text to do so).

To continue to push online channel usage, the government’s customer service strategy has been shaped along three lines: instilling confidence in e-services, improving the online experience and providing multiple channels and multiple access points. Among the most notable manifestations of this strategy was the launch of five Citizen Connect public service centers in October 2005 under a one-year pilot program. These centers provide convenient access to public services on the Internet; assistance to those who need help in using them; and help obtaining information from relevant government agencies when necessary. Feedback to date has been positive and the government plans both to fine-tune the operations of the existing centers and study the feasibility of establishing a broader network of such centers.

Other innovative initiatives to enhance citizen access include self-service Internet terminals at physical government offices. These self-service Internet terminals are supported by staff who provide assistance in their use. Currently, about 1,000 self-service terminals have been installed at 36 agencies, allowing walk-in customers to transact online via the self-service terminals and avoid long queues. Like many other leading countries, Singapore is also currently exploring the feasibility of a single contact center for the entire government, which would act as a single-number hotline for any citizen queries to government.

For businesses, the government has developed its BizCARE program to help businesses get online with a minimum of hassle. The government provides affordable access to PCs that are installed with quick links to relevant e-services, technical support for set-up and maintenance, affordable broadband connections and training programs.

Singapore’s vision for service delivery extends beyond government’s borders. The principle of “3P Integration” (3PI) envisions service delivery in which customers do not have to deal separately with the public, private and people sectors to have their needs fully met. The government views 3PI as key to generating new synergies in customer service—by harnessing the potential beyond what the government can do on its own.

In fact, the government is already putting the 3PI principle into practice: for example, the eCitizen Helper program involves citizen volunteers who help other citizens use the government’s online services. For businesses, the Biz Helper program partners the government with business intermediaries, such as secretarial and payroll firms, to make it easier for businesses to transact with government at those locations. For example, the Accounting and Regulatory Authority has successfully partnered to enable business registrations to be done electronically at DP Bureau, a one-stop business advisory center for entrepreneurs and business owners.

As part of its service strategy, the Singaporean government focuses on providing multiple electronic channels, as well as multiple access points. For Singapore, the mobile channel will likely play an increasingly important role in service delivery in the future. Singapore’s mobile phone penetration rate has reached a remarkable high of 96 percent. Not surprisingly, in our citizen survey more than 90 percent of Singaporeans expressed confidence using the mobile phone and more than 80 percent expressed confidence using text/SMS. These numbers point to the very real opportunities for the government to reach an even wider customer base.

To that end, the government has developed a broad mobile government (“m-government”) strategy, and we saw a number of innovative examples of sophisticated mobile services already in operation in Singapore. Most have already reached a level where services are personalized to deliver information and services specific to the user and allow the customer to complete the entire transaction over the mobile channel. For example, the Easi-ERP service allows motorists to pay their outstanding Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) charges and administrative fee via their monthly mobile bill. Motorists who subscribe to Easi-ERP get both convenience and lower administrative fees.

A guiding principle for Singapore has been to leverage ICT as the strategic enabler for public-sector operations to act as “Many Agencies, One Government.” In this regard, Singapore has shown continued progress and innovation. For example, to facilitate cross-agency (and cross-sector) collaboration, Singapore established a central Government Web Services Exchange (GWS-X) in October 2005. The GWS-X facilitates the publishing and consumption of Web services within government and with the private sector. Agencies can now access real-time information from each other, eliminating the need for customers to input the same information multiple times when dealing with different agencies. The exchange has made it easy for agencies to share data and processes real-time, without having to worry about the compatibility of systems and security considerations.

From an internal efficiency perspective, the Singaporean government mirrors many other leading countries in using technology to develop shared services capabilities. The government’s “VITAL.org-Centre for Shared Services,” which was set up in April 2006, is expected to begin delivering common corporate (initially, human resources and finance processing) services to government agencies in mid-May 2006. The VITAL.org-Centre for Shared Services should bring about greater cost-efficiency through economies of scale, standardization and streamlining of procedures.

Looking to the future, Singapore seems poised for continued leadership in customer service. The government’s view of excellent service delivery as an integral component of its economic competitiveness has meant that the country continues to drive for worldleading innovations. Many of these are expected to come to fruition in 2006. The remaining question for Singapore, then, is whether the government can match its vision with its ability to implement, and propel the country toward the next level of service trust with its citizens.

South Africa

Last year we noted that the South African government was in its initial steps toward leadership in customer service, with clear room for growth — beginning with eGovernment and moving eventually into broader customer service principles.
Batho Pele (a Sotho translation for “People First”), is the South African’s government initiative to train public servants to be service oriented, to strive for excellence in service delivery and to commit to continuous service delivery improvement. Phase One of the Batho Pele Strategy—namely, the release of the Batho Pele Gateway (and publishing information regarding available government services)—has already been achieved, as we discussed in last year’s report. This year, however, we were unable to find further information regarding Phase Two, which deals with making government services available online.

While the government does have a multi-channel strategy, it is not truly coordinated. The South African Centre for Public Services Innovation’s (CPSI) focus is on multi-channel access and eGovernment services. Other agencies, however, need to be involved as well. For example, for now, only a limited number of departments are involved with the Batho Pele Gateway Call Centre, which had been intended to act as a single point of access to the government.

One of the key initiatives to foster a consistent multi-channel experience for citizens is the Home Affairs National Identification System, or HANIS. HANIS will encompass an Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), the ID card (smart card) itself and the system integration that will begin to tie government applications together. The goal is to have four million smart ID cards issued to pensioners between March and June 2006 before issuing the cards to the entire population.

The South African government has laid some important organizational foundations for true citizen-centric, cross-government service delivery. The national government already has begun delivering services through clusters; various departments work on initiatives together in six clusters, including crime prevention and integrated justice, international affairs, investment and employment, and social services, among others.

The South African government has also been developing Multi-Purpose Community Centers (MPCCs) in response to a lack of services that reach the majority of citizens— focusing especially on under-serviced and rural areas. These MPCCs are intended to become a hub of activity and development in the area, allowing communities to start playing a significant role in their own development. As of this writing, 80 Multi- Purpose Community Centers had been launched, with plans for hundreds more. By the end of about 10 years’ time, all municipalities should have a one-stop government hub.

South Africa’s “Reducing Red Tape Initiative” also encourages cross-agency and cross-government collaboration, but it will likely take a few years before this initiative has enough traction to work efficiently. Finally, the CPSI is working to foster cross-agency and cross-government collaboration through the eGovernment Knowledge Exchange (eGov KnowEx). The intention of the eGov KnowEx is to provide key players in the eGovernment sphere (including Government Information Technology Officers, line managers, the private sector and the research and academic community) with an integrated, multichannel knowledge sharing and learning system that will build capacity and enhance eGovernment strategy. Likewise, the government has developed a Framework for Intergovernmental Relations (IGR), with eight provinces already having formally launched IGR structures and District Forums.

These initiatives all show the government’s thinking is in the right direction. In practice, however, most cross-agency and cross-government collaboration is still very much done on an ad hoc basis and this is hampering the government’s move toward truly citizen-centric government.

Evidence suggests that mobile technologies could be key to addressing government’s slow response rates to citizen requests and to poor citizen access to services, particularly in under-serviced rural areas without the infrastructure for traditional eGovernment. Capitalizing on the proliferation of cell phones among citizens without regular Internet access, the CPSI has implemented four pilot projects using mobile and wireless technologies. Pilots such as these will be critical to continuing to connect citizens to their government; our citizen survey showed that 90 percent of South African respondents felt confident using mobile phones and that they were among the most comfortable in the world with text/SMS (84 percent reported confidence).

The South African government, despite a clear desire for service performance improvements, has significant hurdles ahead. Its service vision is rather basic and the government seems to lack a cohesive approach and rigorous plans for moving it forward. Lack of access remains a fundamental hindrance to true leadership in customer service, and the government would do well to consider additional programs in the mold of its mobile/SMS pilots, as such service programs build on the country’s inherent strengths.

Spain

Since our 2005 report, the Spanish government has launched or announced a number of initiatives that indicate strong progress toward truly value-led customer service.
Most notably, the government announced a series of new far-reaching strategies. A new three-year action plan, Plan Moderniza, announced in December of 2005, will integrate and extend the existing Plan Conecta (Spain’s pure eGovernment strategy) initiatives. Also in development is the Plan Avanza, for the development of the Information Society and the convergence with Europe. This plan is structured along five major axes, including home and citizen, enterprise, e-Administration, education and digital context/environment. Plan Avanza was approved in November 2005.

Plan Moderniza has three prongs: improvement of the relationship with the citizen (through transparency, simplification of procedures and always-on access); improvement of the organization (through quality programs and internal reforms); and improvement of the civil service (through hiring process modernization, among other plans). The plan consists of 16 measures to be implemented from early 2006 until the end of 2008. Among the most notable, an “eAdministration draft law will establish citizens’ rights to electronic access to all public administration services and their right to submit electronic documents and eSignatures for official purposes. Other initiatives include the plan to distribute eID cards from April 2006, the online availability of 800 new administrative forms, the conversion of 100 services to cyberspace and a progressive introduction of ePayment of public fees and royalties. The government will also create an integrated network of information points and a single ‘one-stop-shop’ Web portal service for citizens, which will replace more than 500 different websites across Spain.”⁴

In addition to the Moderniza initiatives, Spain has plans to build an ambitious integrated network system for citizens. When fully implemented, this “060” system will be truly multi-channel and cross-government: offering citizens access to all public administration transactions using the nearest offices to the citizen and with the most accessible channels (“Office Network 060,” a unique telephone number, #060, and an Internet portal, www.060.es5). The Unified Phone Number 060 launched in February 2006, unifying some 1,000 telephone numbers currently in operation for the central government only. Minister Jordi Sevilla has said that the 060 physical branches will be open “soon” and the website in the “near future.”

Currently, the Spanish administration’s information and communications technology (ICT) is highly fragmented, which has historically caused difficulties for different government entities trying to work together in providing services for citizens and businesses. To improve the situation, the government has laid out a technological architecture and guidelines calling for the use of standards, heavy reliance on open source software, a citizen-driven, one-stop approach to development and the use of multilateral (rather than bilateral) solutions among public entities.

To enable the communication among agencies that the Plan Moderniza implies, Spain has also announced the new Sistema de Aplicaciones y Redes para las Administraciones (SARA, or System of Applications and Networks for the Administrations). SARA, which also launched in February 2006, will allow regional governments to exchange data among themselves and with the central government. Six regional governments have already enrolled in the system (Andalucía, Cataluña, Asturias, Madrid, Castilla- La Mancha and País Vasco), with all remaining regional governments expected to enroll by summer of this year. Over time, the “060” agencies that result will be the “front office” of the public administration, although they won’t replace existing agencies.

All of these initiatives will be underscored by the launch of a national electronic ID card, which will contain holders’ personal data in electronic format, a certified digital signature, and two biometric identifiers (facial image and fingerprint scans). Additional anti-forgery features will include security ink and a security thread. This card, which is expected to foster the development of both eGovernment and eBusiness services, will be launched in pilot form in March 2006. A full-scale launch is expected in late 2007 or early 2008 and complete implementation is expected by 2010. The main challenge facing the eID card is not the currently planned data for inclusion, but rather, what future data (for example, health data, driver’s license data, academic data) will be added and how it will be used. As the Spanish government makes plans to reengineer service delivery, it is undertaking significant reengineering of its internal structures as well. For example, the “Relación de Puestos de Trabajo” (“List of Job Positions”) system’s main objective is to reengineer civil servants’ jobs based on the creation of new channels; for example, retraining civil servants from face-toface interaction to call center interaction. All of these plans are being driven by a desire for greater citizen-centricity, greater effectiveness and more valueadded services. In conjunction with Spain’s new plans, a new agency (the State Agency for Evaluating the Quality of Public Services and Policies) is also being developed, which should help the government continuously improve.

The Spanish government’s ambitious strategies coincide with its citizens’ blossoming interest in and use of the online channel. From our citizen survey, we saw a nearly 10 percent increase over last year of citizens who described themselves as regular Internet users (60 percent versus 51 percent). And while walk-in service continues to be the favored method for contacting government (66 percent have used walk-in service, versus 44 percent who have used electronic channels such as the Internet and e-mail), Spaniards think as much attention should be paid to the development of online channels as to in-person ones (each channel was rated as a development priority by 36 percent of Spaniards).

Last year we described proactive communication and education as an area where the Spanish government should focus some additional attention. This will continue to be an important area for the government. A plurality of Spanish citizens (32 percent) rated a lack of knowledge of how to use the Internet and e-mail as their biggest barrier to greater use of eGovernment. Only 61 percent of Spaniards expressed confidence using the Internet, one of the lowest percentages of all countries. Building the citizens’ ability to make use of all the options available to them will be just as important a foundational element of success as the many innovative technologies and organizational arrangements the government currently has in the works. 

Sweden

In the year since our last report, Sweden has put some new organizational structures in place to promote its customer service agenda.
Verva (the Swedish Administrative Development Agency), a new Swedish agency whose main task is to work for a connected and more efficient public administration, began operations in January 2006. Verva’s mandate is to become an expert in the development of modern public administration (closely monitoring national and international developments), to drive and support the development of the Swedish public administration (by developing principles and methods and by taking over responsibility for centralized IT procurement from Statskontoret) and to educate key personnel about agency development. Verva now incorporates most of Sweden’s eGovernment initiatives, establishing common standards and guidelines for electronic information exchange within government and stimulating increased cooperation between different levels of government agencies and between public and private organizations. Verva has no mandate to force agencies to collaborate, but rather, can only facilitate collaboration by offering help in the form of guidelines, templates and so on. Sweden’s Department for Public Administration (within the Ministry of Finance), meanwhile, has a high-level focus and develops proposals for new legislation in the area of public administration. In theory, this department could employ mechanisms to force agencies to collaborate, but in reality, it mainly emphasizes the importance of collaboration and also produces guidelines. In July 2005, the Swedish government presented its proposal for a new information and communications technology (ICT) policy, aimed at enabling the country to claim a position as a global Information Society leader. The proposal has been criticized by some for lacking clear objectives and concrete measures, and it is uncertain what impact it will have on the government’s agenda. Similarly, the government has declared a target of having a connected public administration in place by 2010. How the government plans to achieve this goal, though, is unclear from our review. While the government does not have a single government-wide, multichannel strategy, the issue has been under consideration for some years. One interesting recent development in the area of multi-channel delivery is that Statskontoret (the Swedish Agency for Public Management) has started to investigate the use of multichannel strategies among Swedish government agencies and is promoting a wider usage of such strategies. Statskontoret carried out workshops and interviews with representatives from 11 central government agencies in April-May 2005 to find out to what extent these agencies used multichannel strategies. The survey revealed that very few had used such strategies at all and those that did only had implemented full-scale, multi-channel capability for single services. Further, the government agencies surveyed said they would like to see centrally distributed models that the agencies could use if choosing to create multichannel services, but at the same time, did not want to see any central guidelines or recommendations.

Despite Sweden’s traditionally decentralized approach to service delivery, the government has experimented with a more consolidated approach. VISAM6 was an agency-collaboration project, in which Statskontoret worked with six agencies to develop, test and establish common channels for contact between citizens/businesses and the public administration.

The VISAM project tested the concepts of consolidated call centers, including a government-wide call center (possibly under one number), and consolidated walk-in offices. As a direct result of the VISAM-project, the agencies involved in the project have agreed to increase their collaboration to continue to develop joint services. In addition, one of the main conclusions of the project was that some central intervention would be necessary for inter-agency collaboration to be successful.

The VISAM report suggests that the government should force agencies to cooperate through its performance management approach, and that “status quo is not an option.” Should that approach be adopted, it will represent a significant shift from Sweden’s long-standing tradition of agencies collaborating “behind the scenes”: a strategy that has yielded some notable successes. For example, Min Pension (My Pension) is an electronic service that allows citizens to get a forecast of their future pension. The service is an example, not only of intra–agency collaboration, but also of collaboration between government agencies and private insurance companies. Increased collaboration, whether mandated or voluntary, will be important to improving Swedish citizens’ perceptions of their government’s effectiveness at working together.

This year Sweden scored second lowest in our citizen survey on this measure, with only 22 percent of Swedes thinking their government was effective in this regard. The Swedish government has chosen not to issue a unique identifier for all eGovernment services. Instead it has chosen a solution where citizens can obtain an eID from their private Internet bank. All public electronic services can be used, independent of which type of eID the citizen has obtained. However, this solution has not been without issues. Namely, the value of eIDs is materializing slower than anticipated. Because agencies have to pay the banks that supply the eID solution for each transaction citizens make, the cost of new services is difficult to discern; this in turn deters many agencies from developing advanced electronic services.

To try to reduce that obstacle, Statskontoret struck a deal in November 2005 with a number of private vendors to supply verification services at a fixed cost. However, even now this deal covers only the largest agencies and regions, meaning the hundreds of agencies and municipalities not included in the deal still have to pay per transaction. Time will show whether the Swedish government has to take more actions to further facilitate the development of advanced electronic services. Swedish citizens are among the most familiar with eGovernment of any citizens in the world. Among all countries surveyed, Swedes were the most likely to have used eGovernment during the past year (73 percent). Yet they are also among the least enthusiastic; only 18 percent expressed eGovernment as their preferred channel. General guidelines from the Swedish government state that anything that can be distributed electronically should be distributed in that way. However, what that means precisely is unclear. No central strategies to encourage citizens to access government services through specific channels exist. Forcing citizens onto exclusively online channels is a highly contentious concept.

For now, encouragement and incentives from individual agencies is the general course of the Swedish government. For example, the Customs Office removed the charges on all electronic services in October 2005 while simultaneously increasing the price on some paper-based services. The result was a quick increase of 5-6 percentage points (to 95–96 percent) for online services. In another example, the National Tax Board announced that citizens who file their national income tax forms electronically (through online, phone or SMS channels) would receive any refunds earlier than those who use traditional channels. This announcement has not sparked any debate; in fact, it helped the National Tax Board realize a more than 100 percent increase in electronic filing over the previous year. For the Swedish government as a whole, impressive results such as these indicate that incentives, rather than mandates, will be the appropriate course for encouraging take-up of cost-effective e-channels in the future.

The United Kingdom

2005 was an election year for Britain, bringing Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour party its third consecutive term.
Mr. Blair has announced that he will step down before the next general election, and that announcement has lent some urgency to continuing public-sector reform.

In November 2005, the British government launched a wholly new strategy titled “Transformational Government—Enabled by Technology.” The new strategy focuses on delivering a citizen (or business)-centric service via modern, coordinated channels; maximizing the use of shared services; and improving government’s professionalism in terms of the planning, delivery, management, skills and governance of IT-enabled change. A detailed action plan containing specific targets and timelines is expected by April 2006. However, the strategy already sets out some detail around how the vision will be achieved, providing a broad outline of priorities over the next two years, five years and beyond.

For example, the government plans some important structural/governance changes, including appointing “Customer Group Directors” to take responsibility for transforming services to particular customer groups (such as “parents” or “senior citizens”) by cutting across organizational boundaries. These Customer Group Directors will be charged with bringing together all the parties — from central and local government and the voluntary sector—that are involved with the particular groups within their responsibility. During the past year, the government has also set up a Service Transformation Board (STB), under the leadership of the Service Transformation Director, to coordinate the work of Customer Group Directors and others. The STB has “a remit to own and champion the cross-government, business focused, end-to-end service design and delivery vision.”

The Transformational Government strategy makes clear that government agencies should offer a choice of delivery channels, with particular attention given to Internet, telephone and mobile technologies. It also suggests how the channels could be used more efficiently, including a reduction in the number of central government call centers (currently 130 major call centers exist in central government alone) and a rationalization of the 2,500 existing websites. The UK government recently has come under a great deal of scrutiny regarding the number of call centers it operates; a House of Commons’ Public Administration Select Committee report on “Choice, Voice and Public Services” published in March 2005 highlighted the problem and called for the introduction of a single call center to answer citizen’s administrative queries (similar to France’s “Allô, Service Public”).

Currently the United Kingdom is driving to develop shared services for both front-office delivery functions (customer service centers), as well as the back-office “business” functions (human resources, finance, IT). This move toward shared services underscores the UK government’s current Efficiency Agenda, which aims to reduce duplication, reduce costs to serve and, just as important, redeploy resources to the frontline. It also reflects the Transformational Government strategy’s emphasis on a common IT infrastructure for public-sector organizations, to enable joined-up services. To support the tremendous push for shared services, the British government has appointed a Shared Services Director, David Myers. His Shared Services Team is currently supporting a number of “Pathfinder projects,” which serve as pilots and opportunities to explore a range of issues related to implementing shared services.

While the Pathfinder projects are not the only examples of shared services initiatives at the central government level, we found more examples at the local government level, and local authorities seem to be leading the way in this regard. For example, in the largest shared services project in the UK local government sector, the Suffolk County Council and Mid- Suffolk District Council are sharing services related to human resources, finance, IT, revenue and benefits, as well as sharing customer and administrative support for 15 front-office council services. The partnership has already begun providing services to additional organizations, with plans to expand to more.

On the customer-facing side of service delivery, take-up of online services continues to be a real challenge for the United Kingdom. While the country has relatively high Internet penetration, we noted last year that a relatively small percentage of the population has ever used eGovernment. In our citizen survey this year, the percentage remained essentially unchanged from last year, at 38 percent. Likewise, the United Kingdom is second only to Ireland in the percentage of citizens using a landline telephone as the most common method of contacting the government (77 percent). Most notably, the United Kingdom has the highest percentage of citizens using the post/mail (46 percent) to contact government.

The UK government has stated that one early priority of the Transformational Government Strategy will be to increase e-services usage by citizens and businesses. For example, although 1.6 million people filed tax returns electronically in 2005, that number represents only 20 percent of taxpayers. Take-up is a particular issue at the local government level; local authorities deliver most frontline public services. In response, some local authorities have begun to promote their Web services through a range of media (such as local radio ads, supermarket register receipts and even free promotional gifts). In November 2005, the Local eGovernment Minister (Jim Fitzpatrick) announced details of a national campaign to increase public awareness and take-up of e-services provided by local councils. The “Lose the Queues” campaign should begin in 2006 and will focus on the benefits of accessing council services online, such as improved access to information, flexibility and convenience.

The national channel strategy campaign has included a campaign that specifically addresses social exclusion for disadvantaged groups. A key element of this campaign over the past few years has been the network of 6,000 UK Online centers. As a recent report on social exclusion points out, over a third of users have said that attending the centers have helped them improve their IT skills “significantly.”

The UK government appears, then, to be slowly chipping away at the gap between service provision and value to citizens. In last year’s report, we highlighted Directgov, the government’s “flagship electronic service,” as one vehicle that should help boost adoption of online services tremendously. And in fact since then, Directgov has continued to make excellent progress in terms of service and information offerings and customer growth. Directgov now attracts more than 1.3 million visits per month on the Web and is also available via three separate interactive digital TV services and on more than 3,100 public kiosks nationwide.

In December 2005, the government also began work on a new initiative called Local Directgov Programme. This is an ambitious eGovernment program, which aims to increase citizen take-up of local authority online services and extend their reach. The program is an extension to the Directgov service and is expected to provide an important link between central government and local services. The United Kingdom has made a number of bold moves toward improving its position as a world leader in public-sector service. Its Transformational Government strategy articulates the far-reaching vision that will be essential for delivering service that matters to citizens while acknowledging the significant structural changes that necessarily will result. For now, however, Transformational Government is a strategy alone— clearly ambitious, but needing the thoughtful and detailed action plan that will bring it to fruition. Whether the resulting 2006 action plan will be up to the task is a question that will likely be answered in the very near future.

The United States
 
During the past year, a number of significant events have affected the federal government in the United States, although it is unlikely that any will actually alter the direction of the government’s overall service agenda.
The potential impact of these factors (including the ongoing war in Iraq, recent debate over the Patriot Act and electronic surveillance without warrants) would most likely be felt through ongoing budget pressure and heightened sensitivity to issues of privacy. In general, eGovernment is seen as supporting a focus on greater government efficiency, which was first outlined in 2002 in the President’s Management Agenda.

From an internal efficiency perspective, the US federal government is turning increasing attention to developing its Lines of Business (LoB) program. Beginning in 2004, the Bush administration asked agencies with the skills and capabilities to function as government-wide service providers to submit business cases as part of the FY 2006 budget process. The government set up five initial LoBs (financial, human resources, grants, health and case management systems) and just recently announced a sixth related to IT security.

The government also continues work toward the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA)—its blueprint to guide government’s use of technology to reduce redundancies, facilitate cross governmental (both horizontal and vertical) information sharing and support citizen-centered, customer focused government. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) E-Government and Information.

Technology Office, with the support of the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council, completed several FEA deliverables this year. These deliverables include: a governance process for modification of FEA models; profiles for security, privacy and records management; and frameworks for Internet Protocol Version 6 transitions and Earned Value Management (EVM) policy.

The United States appears to be making reasonable progress in the areas of citizen-centric, multi-channel, cross government service. Progress to date can largely be credited to the strong central role of OMB. In particular, in an effort to achieve greater consistency and improve quality of government websites, OMB issued a memorandum outlining its expectations that all agencies would be fully compliant with its policy requirements by December 31, 2005, and that they would be monitored for ongoing compliance. This “stick” approach has proven a powerful motivator for agencies to strive for continuous improvement.

In fact, we found a number of notable service delivery innovations from the United States over the past year. For example, the next generation of Regulations.gov (launched in September 2005) now enables the public to access entire rulemaking dockets, including Federal Register notices, supporting analyses and public comments. On the back end, the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) allows agencies to distribute workload across staff, track docket management performance and collaboratively develop joint rulemakings. These two “E-Rulemaking” initiatives promote a key principle of eDemocracy and ultimately, building trust with citizens—by using information technology to enable all citizens to more effectively participate in their government.  The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) enhanced its Free File service for the 2006 tax season. Through public private partnerships with a consortium of 22 tax preparation software companies, the government provides free tax software and electronic filing, targeted to low- and middle-income filers. The consortium members are providing additional tax forms this year, such as for automatic extensions of time to file. In addition, on their websites they display whether they perform state online tax preparation and filing services (and their associated fees, if any). More than 70 percent of the nation’s taxpayers qualify for Free File in 2006.

The USA Services initiative, one of the 24 priority initiatives of the President’s Management Agenda, has primary responsibility for the US government’s multi-channel strategy. As part of its efforts, USA Services regularly convenes a 35-member Citizen Service Level Interagency Committee (C-SLIC) to identify ways to make the federal government more citizen-centric across five channels—telephone, e-mail, walk-in, future technologies and cross channel contacts. USA Services is base-lining current service, researching citizens’ expectations and undertaking a six-step “Strategy for Improving Agency Citizen Services,” as well as establishing government-wide citizen service standards. Actual take-up of USA Services seems slow, however. During the last year, USA Services reported 242 million public contacts through its national contact center (1-800-FED-INFO), the Firstgov.gov portal and its Federal Citizen Information Center (publications distribution); that number of contacts is up by only one million over the previous year.

To determine US citizens’ service preferences, the government relies primarily on outside research, as privacy laws prevent the federal government from collecting demographic information on its website users. The recent Mitre / GSA report, Citizens’ Service-Level Expectations, Final Report (November 2005), found that preference for using the Internet to contact the government is increasing. A December 2005 report from the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index also found that satisfaction with government websites had improved by 2.5 percent over the course of the year.

The United States still has some challenges in connecting with its citizens, however. Our citizen survey showed that actual usage of eGovernment by American citizens remained steady over the past year (62 percent in both 2005 and 2006). Citizens are still about 20 percent more likely to contact the government via the telephone (73 percent) than through the Internet/e-mail/SMS/mobile text channels combined (60 percent). Perhaps even more telling, despite their clear comfort with the Internet channel, citizens are more than twice as likely to say they expect to receive the best service from walk-in centers (41 percent) than they are to say they expect best service from the online channels (18 percent). In addition, only 38 percent of US citizens think their government is doing a good or excellent job developing online services—which contrasts strongly with the fact that 65 percent think businesses are doing a good or excellent job.

All of these findings point to the fact that while tech-savvy US citizens recognize that online services will figure ever-more prominently into their dealing with government, there is room for improvement in generating real enthusiasm for the eGovernment channel. Awareness continues to be key. According to our survey, the number one reason citizens feel eGovernment is not an easy channel is because citizens do not know the right contact details. In addition, US citizens were most likely to rate provision of additional information on currently available services and how to access them as the most useful way to facilitate their interactions with government. Clearly, the United States has many excellent eGovernment assets and services, about which it now needs to better educate the public.

As the United States looks to the future of leadership in customer service, it needs to take stock of its current agenda and evaluate whether its current approach, which is still heavily focused on meeting service delivery metrics formulated when eGovernment was a relatively new concept, will meet the future challenges of building service trust. The US eGovernment program has been very successful. Now, as other governments aggressively pursue ambitious new service strategies for both competitive advantage and redefined relationships with their citizens, the United States needs to sustain a high level of commitment to maintain its leadership position.

Accenture gratefully acknowledges the contributions of all those who participated in our Leadership in Customer Service research this year.

For more information regarding this report, and to find out how Accenture can help your government achieve high performance both today and tomorrow, please contact us.

Global Managing Director,
Government Sales and Innovation
David E. Wilkins
david.e.wilkins@accenture.com

Managing Directors, Government
Asia Pacific
Shane B. Ryan
shane.b.ryan@accenture.com

Atlantic & Europe
Peter Holmes
peter.holmes@accenture.com

United States
Lisa M. Mascolo
lisa.m.mascolo@accenture.com

Country Contacts

Australia
Jack E. Percy
jack.e.percy@accenture.com

Belgium
Jos Vranken
jos.i.vranken@accenture.com

Brazil
Antonio C. M. Ramos
antonio.c.m.ramos@accenture.com

Canada
Alden Cuddihey
alden.cuddihey@accenture.com

Denmark
Jakob H. Kraglund
jakob.h.kraglund@accenture.com

Finland
Elina Piispanen
elina.piispanen@accenture.com

France
Antoine Brugidou
antoine.brugidou@accenture.com

Germany
Holger Bill
holger.bill@accenture.com

Ireland
Ger Daly
ger.daly@accenture.com

Italy
Angelo Italiano
angelo.italiano@accenture.com

Japan
Ushio Usami
ushio.usami@accenture.com

Malaysia
Ching Yew Chye
yew.chye.ching@accenture.com

The Netherlands
Michel van Rosendaal
michel.van.rosendaal@accenture.com

Norway
Roy Gronli
roy.gronli@accenture.com

Portugal
Joao Antonio Tavares
joao.antonio.tavares@accenture.com

Singapore
Chin Siong Seah
chin.siong.seah@accenture.com

South Africa
Pierre L. Dalton
pierre.l.dalton@accenture.com

Spain
Alberto Bardaji
alberto.bardaji@accenture.com

Sweden
Annika Thunberg
annika.thunberg@accenture.com

United Kingdom
Jeremy Oates
jeremy.oates@accenture.com

United States
Lisa M. Mascolo
lisa.m.mascolo@accenture.com

Accenture Institute for Public Sector Value
Greg Parston
greg.parston@accenture.com

Notes:

¹ We also conducted two interviews in the United Kingdom and Ireland, two countries whose past performance piqued our interest—Ireland, for the unique service challenge it faces, posed by very high levels of new foreign workers, and the United Kingdom for the dramatic internal structural shifts we saw the government making to its service program.

² Countries were selected based on the location of Accenture’s government practice worldwide. This approach resulted in the exclusion of Mexico, which had been surveyed in past years, from our 2006 study.

³ For our citizen survey, leading international practices for conducting research were used to get a polling sample. In Brazil, our sample was representative of higher income groups with a home phone in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Therefore, given these demographics, we expect our results are a conservative indication of the access challenge in Brazil.

⁴ http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/5265/343 5 The www.060.es portal will take the place of ciudadano.es, an earlier portal planned under Plan Conecta that never launched.