When was the last time you asked the question, “How well is e-government in New Zealand doing?”
If you are the average Bill or Moana who is not a public servant, maybe you never have. You would most likely remember government only when you have some form of direct contact with agencies—for immigration, health or the myriad of other services that government silently provides. You may not even know what “e-government” is, exactly.
Although this is a question that only, usually, public sector pundits would pose, it is actually an important question. The answer to this question helps to inform expert panels that rank New Zealand with other countries on the international e-government billboards. Furthermore, the answer to this question proves valuable when it seeps into and oils the infrastructure of this invisible support system—from public toilets to the ability to e-petition the Council on cycling policies—that sustains our day-to-day lives in quite subtle ways.
This question is important primarily because, in a quotidian sense, “progress” comes down to what it means to those who use government services. This means pretty much everyone of us.
That includes those of us who do not apparently care unless something trips us up by surprise, like rude customer service or crude webpage design. When government services improve in overall quality, their benefits accrue to all. Measuring how far we have achieved what we have set out to do helps evolve the quality of service provision across the board even more effectively than before, which is why we are doing this progress update since the first report in 2004.
To know how well e-government is doing is to know how people like Bill and Moana feel about the quality of government services at present.
It is also to know, given where e-government is at, what stakeholders think needs to be done in the future. Of course, it is essential to know how government agencies have improved upon themselves. One way to think about the progress of e-government is to frame it in terms of these multiple and yet equally valid perspectives.
We wanted to reflect the importance of these different perspectives in this progress report. The research for Progress Toward Transformation was designed to consider what agencies have done to become more integrated, efficient and customer-centric in the context of experiences from actual end-users such as Bill and Moana; together with contributions from 15 individuals in different sectors on what they think needs to be done for the future of e-government.
A story of progress is incomplete if it stays mired in the victories and failures of the past, without shedding light on where the lessons of history could be leading us to in the future. This report has tried to some extent to do this, by considering views of the future from stakeholders external to government. However, the preparation of this report has made us deeply aware of the complexity and range of issues we are likely to face in the offing, and we know that we will need to start and nurture quite a few conversations on these topics as part of our forthcoming work.
And that is the main reason why we are posting this announcement here: it is the ensuing feedback from people—readers of this blog such as yourself—that would help us identify the really great ideas from the good ideas.
You can download the full report here (but be warned that it is about 120 pages long). Or, you can traipse through any of the three relatively bite-sized sections, whichever piques your interest most:
- Real People, Real Stories for accounts from six individual users of their experiences with a range of government services. There are also accompanying A3-sized illustrations for each story if you just want a big picture view of their particular experience,
- Delivering e-government for some of what we think are the key achievements and initiatives by agencies, and
- Towards Transformation to see what our 15 contributors imagine for the future of e-government. The contributors come from a variety of sectors in government and business, both locally and internationally, and includes academics and students.
If you do take a look, help us evaluate the ideas you come across by sharing your thoughts on them here on the blog. If you prefer the old-school approach to feedback, you are most welcome to email me at yenping.yeo@ssc.govt.nz as well. Whatever your preferred mode of contact, we want to hear from you.
Because the progress of e-government does come down to what it means to you.
4 Comments
Comments on the progress of NZ eGovernment
Location, Location, Location!
A quick skim and keyword search indicates that the report has almost entirely neglected one of the most important aspects of information, and that it location - its spatial component. It is not surprising then that the Government is struggling with how to handle spatial information. Some of the most important aspects of community anywhere are distance and connectivity. However with Government doing a poor job in making spatial information available to the citizen, it is no wonder that individuals are struggling to find out about consents from two properties over.
Even more of a shame is the fact that Government has failed to deliver on a project to produce an authoritative National Address Register of addresses, roads and placenames. This dataset is one of the most fundamental to being able to place information in space under truly understand its context. eGovernment will never take off under the core location issues are worked out. Whilst the recent release of significant amounts of Statistics New Zealand information is a great step, the true benefits and insights contained in the released census data is being held back by the lack of an authoritative National Address Register.
Organisational Inertia and Champion Individuals
Government organisations themselves are often hesitant to change or try something new. This is not to say it doesn’t happen, and there have been some excellent examples recently of organisations stepping up and trying something new - such as using wikis for consultation and engagement. I am fairly certain that most of these projects will have been championed internally by a small group of individuals, and I’ll bet they had quite a struggle to see their project through. Here’s hoping that these recent projects are the catalyst for more risk taking, and acceptance of exciting IT projects within Government.
Not enough Champions
As a consultant that has worked a lot within Government agencies, much of the information projects I’ve seen successfully delivered have been almost solely on the back of one or two key individuals. The agencies themselves have often been more of a hindrance to delivery of exciting new initiatives, and the Champions have had to fight an uphill battle against their own organisations, and other Government agencies when ‘engaging stakeholders’. Even worse, a number of these Champions actually run up so many brick walls in their organisation, and within Government, that they end up choosing to leave in frustration, or even worse are forced out by unenlightened superiors. In some circumstances they make their way to an organisation that is supportive, but that fate does not appear to wait all Champions. You need some way to support and encourage these key individuals that lie within Government agencies - there may only be one or two, but they are your key instrument of change from within.
Start Small, Release Early, Upgrade Often
Despite the fact that the National Address Register is such a necessary component of eGovernment. I don’t believe that the project as tendered should have gone ahead - not for something where tender prices ranged between $9 and $48 million. The project would have been so large and complex that it would likely have not been delivered on time, would have been over budget, and would have lacked the desired capabilities.
I think Government has to learn to try the small and simple things first and work up.
Surely, for the price of one or two Geospatial Professionals and supporting hardware, the New Zealand Government should be capable of aggregating all roading information from the 74 Road Control Authorities and Transit New Zealand, and publishing it as a single national roading dataset under permissive licensing. This should be able to be done now for a couple of hundred thousand dollars. But just produce a dataset and get it out there. Get feedback about how it is used, and look at improving the process, and accepting feedback. If you don’t, then the New Zealand Government is going to look pretty ridiculous when volunteers have created their own national roading dataset using OpenStreetMap because Government wasn’t capable.
Here are some simple actions that Government can undertake to encourage more exciting use of Government information.
Find data. Release it under permissive licensing. Release it in formats that make it readily accessible to manipulation in software (e.g. don’t release maps only as pdfs, make the underlying spatial data available). Announce it through a simple clearing house - nothing flash, it only needs to be Wordpress blog pointing to the relevant source. It won’t be until this happens that the more exciting concepts such as entirely unexpected but useful mashups occur.
And that is when things will get really interesting. At that point, we will have citizens building mashups and services about ‘Our Place In Space’ - and they won’t be constrained by the organisational inertia inherent in most Government agencies that are tied back by accountability and liability that makes them hesitant to take bold steps.
Remember eGovernment is not just about Government developing systems and solutions. It does include citizens, communities and organisations building systems to meet their own needs.
Thanks Gavin for your comments. I enjoyed reading your suggestions on how Government can facilitate more exciting uses of geospatial information. I am aware of the issues you are raising, but am not nearly close enough to the NAR developments to be able to address your specific comments satisfactorily – which will have to wait til my colleagues have had a chance to read your comment. However, I can shed some light on the research process for this report, with respect to the coverage of geospatial information.
We certainly have considered geospatial information as part of this research – it would be a grave omission given its importance to information management (among other things), as I am sure you will agree. As a high level evaluation across the board - inclusive of all sectors in Government (ranging from Justice, Health, Cultural heritage, etc) - rather than an in-depth report on geospatial information in particular, our approach to evaluating the work agencies have done was to slice through all sectors and pick out what we felt were the transformational exemplars that had an All-of-Government focus (e.g. if they enhanced collaboration across diverse bodies, created value for money by leveraging on shared resources, etc). For geospatial information, we elected to highlight the work of GeoNet - for its innovative use of open source technology to enhance cross-agency and international collaboration, its responsiveness to its user community, such as making its data sets freely available to researchers, and so on. This page in the report discusses GeoNet specifically.
To understand your perspective better, I went over to your blog and read your earlier posts on the NAR. Your ideas there resonate with a strong sentiment that is reflected in the “Towards Transformation” section of this research, where we asked stakeholders to talk about what they think the future of e-government will look like. Increased engagement with stakeholders and government facilitation of user-driven innovation (e.g. freeing data for mashing) are all themes that have emerged from their pieces.
Two are of particular note. In his piece on the future of e-democracy, Andy Williamson said that, “By 2010 we are expected to see the internet bring about significant changes in democratic process and a changing relationship between government and civil society. [my note: this is the 2010 milestone articulated in the E-government Strategy] What is missing from this vision is how this might occur and, perhaps more importantly, whose role it is to lead such a transformation. It should not be assumed that government alone can or should.” Stephen Blyth, on the other hand, talks about the role of Government in relation to sustainability, in a similar way to your call to action to the geospatial community in your blog post, “Governments alone cannot take responsibility for tackling climate changes and reducing our ecological footprint. All of us need to respond in concert whether this is as individuals, members of neighbourhoods or associations, or at work.”
What this points to for the future is the changing nature of trust and accountability – and I highly recommend Chris Lipscombe’s piece on the importance of individual accountability, if we are to imagine a world in which citizens, rather than government, owned data. In my view, champions of any cause, anywhere, are simply people who are willing to stand up for and be accountable for certain results.
What you are really interested in is the state of the geospatial data, and for good reason – I wonder how we can draw other passionate individuals working in this space (such as yourself) into such a conversation and extend it?
Champions! Champions! Champions!
Hi Yen Ping,
I enjoyed reading the 15 think pieces and can see collectively a shared vision or theme of more active participation and involvement of citizens in government, mediated by internet technologies. It is encouraging to see the diversity of ideas within these thought pieces and I learnt something valuable from each.
Some of the why and how comments made me reflect on an MBA class I taught last week where I introduced students to an article by Clifford Stoll entitled “The Internet? Bah! Hype alert: Why cyberspace isn’t, and will never be, nirvana” (http://www.newsweek.com/id/106554). The article appeared in Newsweek in 1995 and essentially trashes the possibilities of an internet-enabled future. The article includes some favourite quotes like:
“Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms…and the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.” Followed by the words “Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense?”
“…no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.”
I encouraged the students to reflect on a future that hasn’t been invented yet and think about what kinds of skills and capabilities they may need in their future careers as managers in organisations.
There is a more participative possibility emerging in our collective understanding of government and this report takes us one step closed towards that unfolding future and I commend you and your team and those contributors involved in exploring our shared path together.
Best regards,
Stephen
Thank you Stephen. I have also come across similar views of the Internet akin to those expressed in the Newsweek article. However, last week I heard one online collaboration specialist say, “The Internet is the biggest invention in the history of mankind. Second only (or was it equal) to the printing press.” This statement has some girth indeed, but the impact of the Internet is hard to deny.
As Gavin pointed out, agencies have been testing the use of wikis to engage with their stakeholders. A topic extensively investigated in this research is the remarkable number of agencies who have been experimenting with so-called “2.0” technologies. These efforts represent an appreciation of, a first sighting of a glimmer of that participative possibility, and a willingness to make the first step to test that possibility. Will this work? Will this help us do what we do better?
These initiatives are all in their exploratory stages – through the research, we saw some of these links flicker and die. Does this mean that these efforts are only ephemeral, and that we should perhaps dismiss them as fruitless?
We don’t know yet. This is data we do not have, but we do know that we are at the beginning of the era of this “biggest invention in the history of mankind” in the e-government domain. If the specialist is correct, this makes the prospect of e-government quite exciting - even if he turns out to be only half-right, even if it isn’t nirvana in the end.
If your MBA students have an opportunity to read the think pieces or any part of the report, please encourage them to bring their debates here, or somewhere where we can hear them.
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