Cold comfort for the e-enthusiasts

8 May 03
Few finance managers feel able to express strongly positive views on the success of e-government plans Last week's local election results will have given comfort to e-government enthusiasts but not much. The average turnout in the 17 author

09 May 2003

Few finance managers feel able to express strongly positive views on the success of e-government plans

Last week's local election results will have given comfort to e-government enthusiasts – but not much. The average turnout in the 17 authorities that piloted e-voting was just over 37%. That was a bit higher than the 33% average national turnout but not enough to fulfil claims that e-voting will reinvigorate democracy.

Indeed, in the 33 all-postal-voting pilot areas – where electors were able to resort to the decidedly low-tech method of putting a ballot paper in an envelope and posting it – the average turnout was, at nearly 50%, a lot more impressive.

E-government in general has taken a bit of a knocking recently. When prime minister Tony Blair launched his target for all services to get on-line by 2005, it was seen as the 'great white hope' for public sector service-delivery.

But 18 months short of that deadline, the e-envoy, Andrew Pinder, has been downgraded to 'e-champion', and the 2005 deadline is now officially described as merely 'aspirational'.

This month's Public Inquiry, conducted in association with Reed Accountancy Personnel, asked public sector finance managers if they thought the e-government drive had lost its momentum and, if so, why.

An overall 54% of respondents think the initiative has to some extent lost its way, and that the government is now more concerned about other areas of service improvement. Managers in education (70%) and central government (67%) are among the most critical.

More than half of respondents agree that the government has 'misjudged the public's interest in e-government and the desire to access services on-line'. As many as 90% of finance managers in education agree 'strongly' or 'slightly' that this is the case.

More positively, an overall 41% of respondents agree to some extent that e-government has been 'a major catalyst to improving services across the public sector'. But there is a big discrepancy between sectors, with 67% of central government managers answering positively, compared with only 20% in education.

One central government manager says that although service improvements would have been on the agenda anyway, e-government targets have 'provided an impetus to examine all aspects of our service and look towards improvements'.

This rosy view is not shared by everyone. One health care manager thinks e-government targets have been 'set without consideration for local issues and accessibility to various sectors of the public'. A local authority respondent describes the initiative as 'another example of central government setting targets and then not providing the resources/direction to help deliver'.

When asked if e-government targets have proved a distraction from delivering public services, several respondents note the frequency with which e-government initiatives – and czars – have changed over the years. One goes so far as to say that 'all targets are a distraction'.

As for e-democracy, only 43% of respondents agree to any extent that e-voting pilots have engaged younger voters and helped to improve turnouts in local elections.

But managers in central government and education take a more optimistic view, with 67% and 50% respectively agreeing 'slightly' that e-voting has been beneficial.

Overall, only 19% of respondents believe e-voting has had no positive effect on engaging young voters or improving turnouts.

On e-government as a whole, although many think the initiative has lost its way, a majority are simply impatient for results.

One local government manager says: 'It's not that the government has lost its momentum, more that there is so much red tape it takes forever to implement things.'

PFmay2003

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