Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

Appendix—research
methodologies
Quantitative online service
assessments
We have maintained the foundation of our research—
a quantitative assessment of the quality and maturity
of services for both citizens and businesses available
through national government agencies’ websites.
However, we have included additional services this
year, increasing the total from 201 to 206.
Behaving as citizens and businesses, Accenture
researchers in 22 selected countries used the Internet
in an attempt to fulfill service needs that might typically
be provided by a national government. They
accessed and assessed the websites of national
government agencies to determine the quality and
maturity of services, and the level at which business
can be conducted electronically with government.
The research was carried out during a two-week
period between January 7 and January 23, 2004.
Accenture selected 22 governments for the study:
Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland,
France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia,
Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Singapore,
South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom
and the United States. In total, 206 national
government services across 12 major service sectors
were investigated. The 12 service sectors researched
were agriculture; defense; eDemocracy; education;
human services; immigration, justice and security;
postal; procurement; regulation; participation;
revenue and customs; and transport.
The services surveyed were representative of what
citizens and businesses require from their government
most frequently. The services were traditionally
offered over the counter, by phone or in paper format.
No government surveyed offered all 206 services
at the national level. In most countries, aspects of
many of the services are offered at a lower tier of
government—examples of which include state,
regional, municipal and county. For example, education
services in Canada are the responsibility of the
provinces and are therefore outside the scope of the
study in that country. We confined our search to
central governments to provide a common base for
comparison for the rankings section. In instances
where services are delivered at a state, local or
regional level, these services were removed before
the analysis was undertaken for a country and the
government concerned was in no way penalized.
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