Citizen-focused eGovernment

— Published September 29th, 2005  |  by David Moore

DM: What is your job title, and your role?
MR: I am the go-to-market lead for Accenture’s UK Government practice. My role is to grow our practice.

DM:Could you give us a brief overview of the range of Accenture's eGovernment work in the UK?
MR: As a major provider of consulting, technology and outsourcing services to the public sector, we work with a range of government departments and agencies in the UK to help them achieve high performance results. For instance, at the Department of Work and Pensions, we have delivered online pension forecasting allowing citizens to obtain a forecast over the internet — and are currently helping them to determine their channel strategy.

DM: Until this year, the Accenture annual survey of eGovernment provision focused on availability of services, without looking too hard at whether the service was being used, or what quality of service was being delivered. Do you think it was a mistake for governments to pursue service availability so hard?
MR: Not at all. As with anything worth doing, eGovernment has been an iterative process—with valuable lessons along the way. Governments had to take these first, sometimes painful, steps to learn what was worth doing—what would deliver value. As they have approached the limits of what they can achieve in terms of the breadth and even the depth of their online services, however, governments have learned that while eGovernment can deliver dramatic improvements in the reach of services, the ease of interaction and the costs of service delivery, what it cannot do in and of itself is lead to the sweeping transformation of government service that will lead to high performance. EGovernment alone will not deliver the outcomes citizens want and that governments need to deliver. Now, governments are entering a new phase of improving service delivery—and the implications go far beyond eGovernment alone. Undoubtedly, we will see a whole new learning process, but I'm confident the results in time will be very positive for both citizens and governments.

DM: In our experience, there's been too much emphasis on a technology solution to egov problems (such as selling an expensive content management system as a 'silver bullet'), rather than a 'people and process' solution (such as giving people the skills and resources they need to create quality content). Do you agree, and if so, do you see that changing in the future?
MR: Certainly I think one of the areas in which governments have struggled with eGovernment is in developing citizen-centric, rather than government-centric, service delivery. I do think governments initially put a large focus on getting the technology right and not enough focus on actually restructuring the delivery of services themselves so as to make them useful to citizens. Naturally, there is a very large "people and process" component to such a radical shift in thinking.

I do think governments are moving this way, however. In our research, we have seen evidence of a number of new and ambitious initiatives that will go a long way toward transforming customer service in governments around the globe. Some countries are starting to recast their service delivery agendas in ways that acknowledge the all-important "customer perspective," although in the main, I think governments are still just getting underway. In the UK, the publication of the Government's IT Strategy in November will be a significant step forward with its strong emphasis on citizen-centric services.

DM: The current Accenture annual survey focuses much more on delivering quality service. What are the most important challenges facing public sector organisations as they try to improve their service online?
MR: As they try to improve, I think governments need to take stock of how far they have evolved their service delivery, what they want to achieve and what their citizens actually require.

Governments face two pitfalls in the way they typically have developed and delivered services. First, they have built and bundled services based on what they think citizens and businesses want, typically without actually asking them what they value or need. Second, when governments measure services, they tend to focus on one component—satisfaction—a measurement that fails to address the spectrum of issues (from basic access to the nature of the service offering itself) that might be limiting the delivery of value to potential users.

Unfortunately, improving service to match citizen expectations causes challenges that go beyond organisational or infrastructural changes alone. Even with all of the technological and organisational pieces in place, there will still be some barriers to address in terms of public attitudes and acceptance of particular service offerings. Governments must understand, measure and influence service adoption for the optimal mix of delivery across channels and, ultimately, for overall better service and the greatest return on investment. Right now, however, most governments struggle with these measurements.

DM: One analyst we spoke to reflected that most public sector organisations have very little information about their users, and so find it hard to build a site that satisfies their needs. How can such organisations build a better picture of their users?
MR: I’m not sure this is true. Many public sector organisations have fantastically detailed data about their users (for instance HMRC, DWP, DEFRA etc.) and others are busy putting in the infrastructure that will enable it (for instance NHS). But it tends to be just that — data rather than information. As yet there is little user segmentation performed and little insight gained.

One way of building this understanding is by determining what services people use and why through disciplined measurement of adoption. From our survey and from what citizens themselves say, we see that governments' understanding of citizens' preferences and practices is not as good as it could be. Their current measurements of service usage are haphazard and inconsistent across agencies and departments.

DM: Canada is always singled out as a country that's understood eGovernment. What can we learn from their example?
MR: Canada does an excellent job of building the citizen's perspective into its service delivery programme and in being very proactive in communicating its service offerings to citizens. For example, Canada recently articulated a service vision that specifically describes achieving outcomes within a framework defined by citizens' needs and a whole-of-government approach.

Canada expends significant effort in informing and educating citizens about its innovative offerings. The federal government has centralised advertising budgets to develop targeted campaigns around certain Web services to promote adoption. The government has also promoted moving people to the cost-effective Web channel through "hybrid" channels, where people can connect with an information officer online.

DM: Our recent survey of 42 UK and Irish eGovernment sites showed a very wide range of quality. Is there a danger that high profile sites such as DirectGov get the resources and expertise they need, but other sites are still making basic mistakes?
MR: It’s really difficult for me to comment on that, without knowing specifics about the resources directed to different sites and the quality of the sites. That said, I think it makes sense to direct resources to where they are going to deliver the most value—where the best outcomes are achieved for each resource expended. Then, too, I think the whole idea of centralising services and making them available to citizens in a way that makes most sense to them and is most convenient for them is a good one. It's how governments and citizens will get the most value. Sites like DirectGov, which aggregate users and services in a single location with a user interface designed around the customer needs, I believe are the next logical phase of eGovernment.

DM: What does your report say about the state of Government specifically in the UK and what are the key challenges?
MR: The United Kingdom was in the top 10 of our rankings this year, and we think it will be interesting to watch its progress in the coming year, given the recent changes to its eGovernment programme (namely, the reformation of the Office of the eEnvoy into the eGovernment Unit) and significant increases in expenditures on IT. Ian Watmore has said that one of the main objectives now is to transform the delivery of frontline services to support public servants and to develop new channel strategies that offer citizens access to services at their point of need. We think this new emphasis and new leadership are likely to generate profound impact.

Some of the challenges the UK will likely face going forward relate to developing a government-wide approach to the subject of identification and authentication. In my view, without it, joining up services across government to create a single, multi-channel "storefront" for citizens will be impossible.

Another challenge will be simply improving citizens' perception of eGovernment. The UK in the past has suffered from low adoption of and satisfaction with eGovernment. In our citizen survey this year, in fact, 41 percent of UK respondents reported that they have used eGovernment. Only 19 percent, however, consider their government to be doing either a "good" or "excellent" job in this area. Overall, we saw a somewhat tepid enthusiasm for eGovernment in general, indicating that this will still be an area worth focused attention. For example, UK citizens expressed only mild agreement that eGovernment made government more efficient, effective and accountable, saved money, and provided easier access and better service.

Interestingly, the United Kingdom is one of the few countries where we saw explicit reference to increasing the adoption of key services by improving their customer focus as one of the government’s main priorities. We think that’s a positive sign. Also, the UK's flagship electronic service Directgov should help boost adoption of services significantly, by aggregating users and services in a single location with a user interface designed around the customer needs.

DM: Looking ahead, what do you think will be the big issues in eGovernment in the next five years?
MR: What will define the leaders of the future is a broader vision of value-led service delivery as an ingredient of high performance. eGovernment is surely one important component of that, as robust eGovernment offerings will be key to driving efficiencies through greater use of self-service for more routine transactions. However, it is only one piece of leadership in customer service that is marked by proactively communicated, citizen-centred, multi-channel, cross-government service.

Those countries that fared worse in our survey this year tended to be those with an emphasis on solely the eGovernment aspects of their service delivery programmes. A look at eGovernment programmes across the globe shows that continued incremental improvements in this area are unlikely to yield significant boosts to maturity. To advance now, governments will need to focus on a much broader vision.