Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

e-services; advertisements on radio, public transport,
newspapers, magazines and posters; and handbooks,
flyers and other marketing collateral.
Interestingly, our citizen survey showed that of
the countries we surveyed in both 2003 and 2004,
Canada and Singapore recorded the strongest growth
in eGovernment transactional use. For example, the
percentage of regular Internet users who filed their
taxes online jumped from 21 percent to 33 percent
in Canada and from 33 percent to 55 percent in
Singapore in just one year.
The United Kingdom took steps to promote usage
of the Internet (and potentially increase take-up of
eGovernment services) last year. In 2003 it ran a
campaign to drive people online that the government
estimates produced a five-fold return on its
initial investment of UK£1million. Our citizen surveys
show that their efforts seem to be paying off as
well. From 2003 to 2004 we saw the number of
UK Internet users who said they had never visited
a government site drop from 65 percent to 37 percent.
Along with increased usage has come increased
satisfaction. The number of regular Internet users
in the United Kingdom who rated their country’s
eGovernment performance as fair or better jumped
from 48 percent to 65 percent.
Other countries would do well to take note of these
successes. Germany, for example, has estimated that
the potential savings from eGovernment at the federal
level could be as high as €400 million, given a
usage of 10 percent to 30 percent. This is in addition
to any savings at the state and municipal levels.
However, among the countries we surveyed as part
of our citizen research, Germany had the highest
percentage (54 percent) of regular Internet users
who had never even visited a government site.
“The challenge really is the
concerted effort to move citizens
and businesses to take-up the
online services and, in effect,
to migrate.”
—Michelle d’Auray, Government of Canada CIO
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