Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

2004 key findings
Promoting take-up is
taking hold, but the
challenge remains
In last year’s report, we discussed how increasing
take-up of online services was directly related to
the value gained from an eGovernment program
in terms of improved service, greater efficiency
and cost savings. Clearly, the full benefits of
eGovernment will be realized only if citizens and
businesses use it, but most governments still find
themselves confronted with the challenge of low
usage and the need for innovative methods to
drive take-up. In fact, our citizen survey this year
showed that even among the most mature countries,
take-up is less than optimal. In Canada, 41 percent
of regular Internet users rarely or never have visited
a government website. In the United States, that
number is 48 percent.
An example from the United Kingdom illustrates
the significant value in moving users from offline
to online services. A recent report from the UK
National Audit Office revealed that 20 percent of
postal applications to the UK’s Cattle Tracing System
were inaccurate. The result has been that the UK
Department for the Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs has paid UK£9 million each year since 2000
in extra staffing costs to rectify the errors. In contrast,
the National Audit Office found that only
1 percent of electronic requests was inaccurate.
As a result, the Department for the Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs has called for more electronic
applications to reduce mistakes, cut the number
of extra staff required to correct errors and avoid
potential EU fines.
While there are serious implications for driving up
value for countries that do not address take-up, we
find evidence that many are expending more effort
in this area than in the past. A number of governments
are using mechanisms for driving take-up,
including promoting the use of intermediaries,
providing incentives and marketing existing services.
For example, in May 2003 the United Kingdom published
a framework to encourage the use of privateand
voluntary-sector intermediaries in eGovernment
service delivery. The government’s goal is to ensure
that all UK departments involve intermediaries as
part of their overall eGovernment strategy. Likewise,
the South African government’s stated intention is
to pursue partnerships with intermediaries such as
the post office network, the banking sector, community-based
organizations and other private-sector
organizations in all feasible situations.
Some countries are providing incentives to drive
usage. We saw this trend particularly among revenue
services. For example, several countries, including
France, Ireland and Singapore, offer an extended filing
period for users of online tax filing services. In
the United States, the Free File website (www.irs.gov/
efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html) allows most taxpayers
to prepare and file their taxes online for free
and get their refunds in half the time it would take
to process their paper returns.
For the past two years, our survey of citizens’ perceptions
and usage of eGovernment revealed that
the biggest factors for driving citizens to greater
eGovernment usage are saving time and money.
Numerous examples show how eGovernment services
are already doing this. In Singapore, online
applications for telecommunications dealer class
licenses cost 20 percent less than nonelectronic
applications. In Finland, a new service for domain
registration (https://domain.ficora.fi) reduced
application processing time from a week to a few
minutes. Take-up of the service surged, with 23,000
new domain applications submitted during just the
first week of service.
Yet, citizens and businesses will only use advantageous
services if they know about them. Some leading
countries thoroughly understand this point, and are
making concerted efforts in marketing with some
excellent results.
For example, to promote www.canada.gc.ca, the
Canadian government used a number of traditional
marketing techniques, including a television and
radio campaign, advertisements in airline magazines
and newspapers and media kits available through
the Canada website and gateways. Similarly, the
Singaporean government introduced a number of
publicity and promotional programs to improve low
take-up, such as coverage by broadcast and print
media; road shows and exhibitions to showcase
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