Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study
Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study
Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study
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state and local <strong>government</strong>s and then rolled out<br />
across the country. This approach stresses the<br />
importance of synergies for eGovernment in a federal<br />
state. There are more than 7,000 <strong>government</strong><br />
portals and sites in Germany across all layers of<br />
the federal system, as well as hundreds of different<br />
software solutions for the various online services.<br />
To avoid duplicating effort and to save costs,<br />
Deutschland-Online wants to capitalize on the<br />
experience of the BundOnline 2005 initiative.<br />
The BundOnline 2005 program itself has been<br />
refreshed through a new action plan, Masterplan<br />
for Information Society 2006, which was released in<br />
December 2003. The specific near-term eGovernment<br />
goals include implementing at least 50 percent<br />
of all Deutschland-Online goals, implementing<br />
e-procurement for all federal bids by 2005 and<br />
implementing an online form management system<br />
in 2004 and 2005.<br />
Despite Germany’s slow advance in 2003, selected<br />
German services made noticeable improvements. For<br />
example, the Federal Insurance Office receives insurance<br />
companies’ applications for federal subsidies<br />
to private pension plans online and processes them<br />
in an integrated electronic workflow. To protect the<br />
sensitive personal information within the transactions,<br />
data is encrypted and access is restricted to<br />
registered users.<br />
The eGovernment discussion in Germany is often<br />
dominated by the call for security, legal certainty,<br />
and data privacy, which are largely believed to be<br />
achievable only through the use of smart card–based<br />
digital certificates. If more pragmatic approaches<br />
are not feasible, such smart cards will be key to the<br />
availability of transactional eGovernment services<br />
in Germany. Within the <strong>government</strong> program<br />
Information Society 2006, smart cards will play a<br />
central role going forward. The <strong>government</strong> plans<br />
to give job cards containing employee data to<br />
40 million employees in 2004. A total of 70 million<br />
health cards is expected to be distributed by 2006<br />
and a digital passport is planned for 2008. All of<br />
these cards incorporate a digital signature for<br />
security. Their rollout to the public may have the<br />
potential to push Germany back into the front line<br />
of eGovernment innovators.<br />
Germany has strong foundations in eGovernment,<br />
but for the past two years has done little to build<br />
upon them. Additionally, while the country has<br />
improved its focus on customer relationship management<br />
(a historically weak area), it still has more<br />
room for improvement in its customer focus. The<br />
development of the Deutschland-Online program<br />
may lead to a greater level of integration and interoperability<br />
across all levels of <strong>government</strong> that<br />
reignites the country’s momentum toward greater<br />
eGovernment maturity.<br />
Germany continues to measure progress primarily<br />
by the number of services put online. The secretary<br />
of state, Gottrik Wewer, stated that at the end of the<br />
calendar year 2003, 268 services would be available<br />
online. As of October 2003, 232 out of 440 federal<br />
services were available. Major effort has been put<br />
into improving the online information available to<br />
the public, while in many cases the challenge of<br />
moving complex transactions online is being left to<br />
the last phase of the BundOnline 2005 program. In<br />
addition to measuring progress by comparing action<br />
against plan, citizen surveys asking about service<br />
usability and user friendliness have been implemented<br />
on the Bund portal, www.bund.de.<br />
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