Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

Finland
2004 Rank: 4 (joint)
2003 Rank: 6
2002 Rank: 7
Vision introduced: 2003
Vision title:
Information Society
Programme
Vision summary: The aim of the program is to
boost competitiveness and productivity, to promote
social and regional equality and to improve
citizens’ well-being and quality of life through
effective utilization of information and communications
technologies. The Information Society
Policy Programme aims to maintain Finland’s status
as a leading producer and user of information
and communications technology.
Regular Internet users (percent of population):
81.56 percent
Finland
Finland continues to make steady progress toward
the top of the eGovernment rankings. This year, it
improved its position by two places—moving into
the top five rankings. Overall maturity improved by
5 percent and the country showed modest improvement
in all areas. Its strong existing eGovernment
foundation means that even slight increases are
enough to keep the country ahead of challengers
with a considerable gap to close.
Finland has had a new cabinet since the summer of
2003, and part of the cabinet’s responsibilities is the
new Information Society Policy Programme. The newly
appointed prime minister, Matti Vanhanen, is the
head of this program, which includes eGovernment.
He is assisted by the program director, Ms. Katrina
Harjuhahto-Madetoja, who came to the newly
created position with a background as a chief
information officer in the private sector.
Along with the change in eGovernment leadership
came a change in the eGovernment vision. The new
vision does not seem materially different from the
previous one; rather, it is more a restatement of
core eGovernment values—most especially, a focus
on the citizen. A new eGovernment action plan was
also released in September 2003, with an emphasis
on improving access to, and customer-friendliness
of, online services and improving interoperability
across levels of government. Specific projects are
mentioned, including defining and introducing network
services in public administration, further
developing the Finnish portal, www.suomi.fi, and
marketing it more effectively, and supporting
regional information society pilot projects.
As the Information Society Programme is new, no
progress measurements are yet available. However,
the program will be monitored annually by the
government using metrics drawn up nationally and
by the European Union. It is expected that new performance
measures under the Information Society
Programme will make some of the measures used
in the past obsolete.
While each government office is responsible for
developing its own online services, the Ministry of
Finance has set up a project to define the quality
criteria for eGovernment services. The expected
completion date is April 2004. The project’s purpose
is to determine areas for evaluation and to define
scoring. The end goal is to use the evaluation
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