Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

The citizens’ view
Most of governments’ efforts to improve their
online programs are only as useful as the extent
to which people actually use the services. The question
is: What do citizens think of the online services
their governments offer them This year we have
included in our eGovernment Leadership report the
results of our survey of citizens’ attitudes and use
of eGovernment in 12 different countries: Australia,
Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy,
Singapore, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and
the United States. 2
The research was designed to reveal:
• Current usage of eGovernment.
• Triggers and barriers to eGovernment use in
each country.
• Current attitudes toward eGovernment in
each country.
• Future priorities for the development of
eGovernment.
(See the Appendix on page 106 for a full description
of the citizen survey methodology.)
In terms of their cultures and their eGovernment
development, these countries are quite different.
Interestingly, however, there was quite uniform
agreement on many trends. In terms of their attitudes,
perceptions, needs and desires, people speak
with the same voice when it comes to eGovernment.
Overall, we found that users are generally positive
about eGovernment, but that countries across the
board need to do more work to raise awareness
and drive up usage of existing services. We found
that citizens who are using eGovernment today
overwhelmingly do so for informational purposes
rather than transactional ones; that the barriers to
greater take-up tend to be related to ease of use;
and that the triggers for use are related to increased
convenience for simple transactional services.
Our findings within each of the four main areas of
the research—current usage, triggers and barriers,
current attitudes and future priorities—are explained
in greater depth in the sections that follow.
2
The survey respondents included only regular Internet users.
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