Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

eports that electronic filing of returns has resulted
in an additional NKr1 billion in income being reported
for an additional NKr400 million in tax payments.
The department realized additional savings because it
was able to reduce the number of full-time employees
handling tax returns by 200, thanks to the automation
of some manual processing.
Ireland’s Revenue Online Service, www.ros.ie, reports
equally impressive savings due to a number of different
factors related to online filing. Based on last
year’s numbers, the Revenue Commissioners predicts
that just through online filing of income tax for
self-employed individuals the government will save
approximately 33 percent of all relevant manual
processing costs this year. Through the elimination
of hundreds of thousands of paper forms, receipts,
statements of account and so on, the agency estimates
it has already saved €600,000 in postage
costs alone. Revenue Online Service also realizes
savings through the use of its online Customer
Information Service, which allows customers and tax
agents to access their customer data held in revenue
files. Estimates of savings from this one service are
approximately 30 person-years in 2003 alone—the
result of about 800,000 queries being handled
through self-service instead of phone or letter.
In the United States, more than 2.4 million taxpayers
filed online last year. If numbers like these
continue, Internal Revenue Service officials believe
the agency could close a returns facility and consolidate
other administrative work. Consequently,
the agency estimates that it may free up enough
resources to hire as many as 2,200 investigators—
shifting resources to enforcement without
compromising customer service.
Other countries show evidence of seeking the best
balance between service outcomes and cost savings
for maximum eGovernment value. For many, their
old strategies and action plans, which focused on
simple availability online, did not align with their
new understanding of the importance of demonstrable
value. We now see a decided trend of countries taking
more judicious approaches to their eGovernment
initiatives, whereby the value of the outcomes of
eGovernment to businesses and citizens is taken into
account with other factors, such as cost savings for
government.
For example, Australia published a study on the
benefits of eGovernment in 2003, and is now
developing demand and value assessment methodologies
to measure both the social and financial
cost/benefit ratio of eGovernment services. In its
2003 to 2006 action plan, Singapore has adopted
three outcomes for eGovernment: “delighted
customers, connected citizens and networked government.”
Singapore plans to review its current suite
of online services against the needs of the public to
identify opportunities for service innovation that
will yield greater value. Targets have been set for the
administration to track the country’s eGovernment
performance in terms of the value it brings to its
customers. The government’s plan hinges on capitalizing
on existing information and communications
technology investments in the public sector, rather
than new developments.
Denmark’s eGovernment strategy (www.e.gov.dk)
is quite explicit in its shift in emphasis to savings
realization: “Surveys indicate that public-sector digitalization
projects have thus far tended to focus on
supplying better service to citizens and businesses,
for example via the development of a number of
information portals. If digitalization is to contribute
to the release of significant resources, however,
there is a need to focus on how the developed
infrastructure can be utilized to reduce the public
sector’s administrative costs, as well as how the
requisite savings may be made and by whom.”
In some cases, the more balanced viewpoint of some
of the new eGovernment action plans are not currently
supported by an all-encompassing approach
to measuring value or progress; however, in many
cases such a measurement framework is planned.
For example, Mexico is developing a new project
management system for eGovernment that will
include metrics, key performance indicators and
a scorecard to facilitate evaluating its e-Mexico
initiative. Finally, the European Union, through its
Interchange of Data between Administrations initiative,
provides a suggested framework for its member
countries to assess the value of investment of all
major IT initiatives. The methods in the framework
are suggested for both evaluating and calculating
costs and benefits from new initiatives, as well as
for following up on previous investments.
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