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Apologies for multiple posting - I hope colleagues find this useful

-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Bellamy, Chris
Sent: 15 October 1998 13:18
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Governance and Public Services in the Information Age


What follows is the text for the new e-conference, following on from the
announcement in the previous message.


Econference on:

GOVERNANCE AND PUBLIC SERVICES IN THE INFORMATION AGE


OPENING CONTRIBUTION
(Professor Chris Bellamy, Nottingham Trent University)

Over the last five years or so - beginning with the American Reinventing
Government programme - many national-level governments have published
ambitious proposals for recasting government with the help of ICTs
(information and communications technologies). Plans for Online
Government have also featured prominently in proposals for the
Information Society drawn up in such international forums as the
European Information Society and the G7 Group of Industrial Nations.

One of the more interesting features of these initiatives is that,
whilst they differ considerably in scope and emphasis, they also reflect
a broad consensus about the possibilities offered by ICTs. They assume
that the growing synergy of information technology and
telecommunications will enable governments to be much more flexible in
the way they capture and exploit information. In turn, new flexibilities
will offer important new opportunities for designing business processes
and configuring organizations, based on vastly expanded possibilities
for human connectivity. In particular, they will reduce the significance
of such factors as time, geography, organizational boundaries and
national jurisdictions in the conduct of human affairs.

New ways of handling and communicating information could allow
governments to escape the (seemingly intractable) dilemma between
cutting costs and increasing quality, creating (as Al Gore once said)
government that 'works better and costs less'. They could also support
new channels of interaction between governments and citizens, enhancing
transparency, increasing accountability and opening government up to new
forms of democratic participation.

Aspirations such as these follow from the belief that the new
informational and communications capabilities associated with ICTs
could:


*  allow a significant reduction of information-handling costs - leading
to the streamlining of bureaucracy within government, as well as to
substantial reductions in compliance costs. In particular, proposals for
information-age government assume that much more data (e.g. dates of
birth or changes of address) will be shared between different
information systems reducing the number of occasions on which it
collected;


* allow direct access to transaction or customer accounts held in
different parts of government, especially from street level public
services. Such facilities would allow individual cases to be processed
more quickly and enable seamless, holistic services to be developed;

*  support the development of more flexible, convenient ways for
citizens to access public services, using equipment as digital TV,
telephone touch pads, PCs and public information kiosks. For example,
governments are developing direct online round-the-clock facilities for
transacting business such as welfare claims, tax assessment, or visa
applications and licence renewals. There is also considerable interest
in the use of smart cards that would allow access to a increasing range
of government services - a kind of electronic one-stop shop;

*  enable governments to harvest more data from operational systems,
thus increasing the quality of feedback to managerial and policy levels.
In these sorts of ways, ICTs could enhance the steering capability of
modern governance;

* allow governments to make more information available to citizens and
support new kinds of online communication between policy-makers, elected
representatives, individual citizens or organized lobbies.

Overall, then, the argument is that imaginatively and sensitively
exploited, the new capabilities associated with ICTs COULD help to:

* simplify government bureaucracy;
* break down barriers between functional domains;
* allow public services to be reoriented to solving problems for
clients;
* open up government, making it more transparent and accountable;
* and develop new forms of citizen participation.

However, in my mind at least, scenarios such as these prompt three basic
questions:

(i) HOW FEASIBLE ARE PROPOSALS FOR INFORMATION-AGE GOVERNMENT CURRENTLY
BEING DEVELOPED?

Do plans for 'information-age government' necessitate radical changes in
the machinery of government?  Or can governments rely on developing
'virtual' business processes?

What strategies are being developed for implementing these plans -
including at local or other sub-state levels? What are likely to be the
main issues in implementing such plans?


(ii) WHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES RAISED BY THESE PROPOSALS, AND
HOW ARE THEY BEING ADDRESSED?

How do ideas about information-age government relate to public service
and democratic values and norms, such as accountability, stewardship,
equality, community, trust, legitimacy and participation? How can these
values be protected and enhanced?


(iii) IN WHAT WAYS WOULD THESE PROPOSALS CHANGE THE NATURE OF GOVERNMENT
AND ITS RELATIONS WITH CITIZENS?

Will the widespread introduction of ICTs bring the outcomes suggested
above? What are the possible downsides? What other kinds of consequences
should be anticipated?


Contributions are particularly invited from members with practical
experience of innovation, as policy-makers, managers, consultants,
researchers or customers. We are particularly interested in hearing
about the use of ICTs for 'joining-up' functions, tiers or departments
in government, and/or for supporting new kinds of interaction between
governments, citizens and communities.

SOURCES ON INFORMATION-AGE GOVERNMENT:

The following are initial suggestions only - we hope that participants
will be able to add to these lists:

1. Academic Texts

Christine Bellamy and John A Taylor, Governing in the Information Age
(Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1998)

I Th. M. Snellen and W. B. H. J. van de Donk (eds), Public
Administration in an Information Age. A Handbook (Amsterdam: IOS Press,
1998)

(ed) W H Dutton, Information and Communication Technologies. Visions and
Realities. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) - see particularly
Chapters
15 and 16


2. Proposals and Plans

(a)UK:

Central IT Unit, government.direct, Green Paper Cm 3438 (London: Cabinet
Office) (available at http://www.open.gov.uk)

Cabinet Office, Better Government, White Paper  (forthcoming, Autumn
1998)

Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) Electronic
Government (POST, 1998)

Central Office of Information (1997) Our Information Age. The
Government's Vision (COI, 1998)

L. Byrne, Information Age Government. Delivering the Blair Revolution
(Fabian Society, 1997)

Perri 6, Holistic Governance (Demos, 1998)

Kable, Citizen Direct (London, Kable, 1998)


(b) Sources of documents relating to other countries
(We particularly hope that participants from non-UK countries will add
to this list)

Australia - http://www.ogit.gov.au/ (the web site of the Commonwealth of
Australia's Office of Governemnt Information Technology)

USA - http://gits.gov/ (for Access America. Reengineering Government
through IT, 1997)

European Union Information Society Initiative - http://ispo.cec.be/

G7 Government Online Project - http://homer.ic.gc.ca/G7/
 and   http://www.open.gov.uk/govoline/


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