Ireland has slipped out of the leading group of countries implementing e-government, according to a study undertaken by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young on behalf of the European Commission.
The report looked at the progress that Europe is making in providing online services at both the citizen and business level across the 15 EU member countries plus Norway, Iceland and Switzerland. The latest findings show that although the adoption of e-government continues to grow across the continent, the pace of this growth slowed between 2002 and 2003. Overall, the level of online sophistication grew to 67 per cent, up from 60 per cent in 2002 and 45 per cent in 2001.
In 2002 only Denmark, Sweden, Ireland and Finland showed progress towards two-way interaction. However today, almost all the countries measured have improved the average level of online sophistication of their public services beyond one-way interaction from the government to the users, towards two-way interaction with Denmark, Austria and Sweden leading the way. Austria has made the most progress of any one country in the 12-month period.
Overall, Ireland came joint second in the rankings in terms of online sophistication with a score of 86 per cent. This is an increase of just one per cent on last year and 18 per cent on 2001 when Ireland came first in the list. With regard to the percentage of services that are fully available online, Ireland ranked fifth at 56 per cent, up from 50 per cent last year. Denmark topped the list with a score of 72 per cent.
In 2003 progress has been such that research could focus on the number of public services that are truly fully transactional online. Taking this indicator to look at Europe’s progress overall shows that only 45 per cent of services are fully available online.
Services for businesses reach an overall score of 79 per cent for online sophistication and 63 per cent for being fully available online. The services for citizens stay at the level of 58 per cent for online sophistication, and only 32 per cent for being fully available online.
But for both citizens and business, services that require significant input from users, especially tax-collection services like Revenue Online Services (ROS), are more sophisticated than those where the onus is on the government to provide information to the recipient. The report authors suggest that a higher level of online development of those services will enhance the adoption of eGovernment services by users.
Vice president for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young’s e-government practice, Graham Colclough says that the findings indicate that putting e-government into practice can be less cumbersome for smaller nations. ‘The survey results show that technology is an intriguing leveller with countries like Denmark and other smaller nations finding it easier to make progress because of their modest size,’ he claimed.
Colclough argues that Ireland is still holding its own when compared to other European nations and that the country’s slowed growth merely reflects what is happening elsewhere on the continent.
‘Progress across Europe is increasing but slowing down,’ he said. ‘This is because a lot of the relatively easy work and information-only type approaches have been fulfilled. Ireland has succeeded in moving forward quite rapidly in the last few years and the Reach programme in particular attracted a great deal of international attention. There was also a great deal of advancement on the infrastructure side. This has slowed up in recent times but is now back on track again. This will enable Ireland to deliver a richer, more sophisticated service.’
17/05/04
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