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E-governance and Citizen Information 88 Structure and Organisationremaining departments only offered information relating specifically to those departments'own area of responsibility. This has clear costs in terms of economic and human resources.The compartmentalisation of the Administration in this case is not only explicit in the duplicationof the organisational division across the territory (above all in the various major cities),but also, as has been observed, when there are attempts at unification, the departments arereluctant even to share the information about citizens they have at their disposal (P14).There is, nevertheless, a plan for future implementation that would break the logic that hasdominated until now. Thus, for the integration of this communication channel, “what is wantedis to bring together the Generalitat's existing offices and convert them into general officesor ones that at least offer this general information as well” (P75). The departments still carrya lot of weight in this, since, as the same interviewee commented, “it still remains to be seenwhat the departments will have to say about it” (P75).b) The Internet ChannelWith regard to the Internet, at the beginning of 2004 there were a total of 267 websites linkeddirectly to the Generalitat of Catalonia. The websites, moreover, showed a high level of heterogeneitywith respect to their design, presentation, contents and level of development.The use indices of the large majority of the websites were low, a fact that highlights problemslike the high dispersal of information and resources used (creation and maintenance ofthese websites). Despite having made an effort at homogenisation with the approval of astylebook for all the units and the structuring of part of the contents using a so-called “vitalstatistics” organisation, in many cases these directives were not followed. Because therewere actions that had not been “agreed with the departments, they did not feel involved”(P27).Therefore the Generalitat's Internet presence was structured along the lines of bureaucraticcompartmentalisation. In other words, by associating the majority of the contents with thevarious existing administrative units, without homogeneity “either at the design or the technicallevel” (P15).The plan to redesign and revamp the portal sought to overcome this situation with a thematicorganisation of all the information available and a new style guide. At the same timeit pointed to the possibility of closing some of the websites according to rationalisation(economic, information, etc.) criteria. Finally, a new portal was launched with a new wayof organising information and which, moreover, adopted a single domain name for all thehttp://www.uoc.edu/in3/pic
E-governance and Citizen Information 89 Structure and Organisationwebsites. In parallel with this, it should also be pointed out that the hiring of a manager ofcorporate content has helped to deal with the existing dispersion, at the same time as itwill help the publication tasks of the different units.Nevertheless, in the process of implementation some difficulties arose that forced a rethinkof objectives such as the process of reducing the number of websites. Similarly, managementof the majority of the websites remained, in the end, in the hands of the departmentsand their units, despite the fact that a common strategic and conceptual framework for webinitiatives that gives minor discretion to the departments has been created.To sum up, with respect to the Internet, from the position of leadership taken on the part of theCitizen Information Department and the Telecommunications and Information TechnologyCentre, we can conclude that, although not all the initial objectives aimed at confronting compartmentalisationhave been achieved, a significant change has taken place in the adoption ofcommon and transversal initiatives.c) The Telephone ChannelLastly, the telephone channel occupies a more significant position than we had initially expectedwith respect to the organisational transformations that have taken place. Thus, theGeneralitat's corporate telephone channel shows a tendency to change according to the actorstaking part in the production of information and the centralisation of this information.The process of unifying the Generalitat's telephone advice lines (where a high degree ofcompartmentalisation also existed) was globally successful. Its operation was unified, forexample, around the information source consulted (based mainly on the internal CitizenInformation Service, SAC). The process of outsourcing extended the schedules and thetasks of the information-givers, and became more user-oriented through the growing importanceof evaluation mechanisms. We have observed how over the last few years thisprocess of unifying the telephone service has been looked into deeply. In addition, at thesame time as increasing internal evaluation processes, it also highlights the creation of acommon tool for the Generalitat's information-givers (although principally aimed at the 012number workers): the information-giver's portal. In short, as we have pointed out, the telephonehas experienced a process parallel to the unification of management and centralisationof relevant information that is in direct contrast to the Administration's inertia andtendency towards compartmentalisation.In summary, we can say that a process of general but unequal transformation has beenstarted: a coexistence between two stages characteristic of a period of transition hashttp://www.uoc.edu/in3/pic
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PROJECT INTERNET CATALONIA (PIC)E-G
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Chapter 11 Introduction
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