1. Key Lessons - Europe

From the material that is available via the web, countries appear to be thinking of service delivery channels in one of two ways: either for improving the quality of existing services or as a mechanism for transforming the way that government thinks of, and delivers, services to the public.

1. Improving the quality of government services to the public

Even where countries are still at an early stage in the development of e-government, the strategies they articulate are consistent with the incremental maturity model [Windley, Phillip J.eGovernment Maturity, Office of the Governor, State of Utah, 2002.] whereby the first stage of putting government information online is followed by a push to improve both the range and quality of services available to the public. Examples of this are provided below.

Greece

The Greek e-government strategy advocates that electronic services (e-services) should be characterized by ubiquity, uniqueness of reference (i.e. single point of service), de-materialisation, quality and cost-effectiveness. E-services are seen as essential business infrastructures that should only be planned and deployed as such. The Greek government set out essential methodological steps for developing and implementing e-services that included:

• identifying critical areas of service
• determining business priorities and critical success factors
• identifying business partners and building consensus
• determining the scope of a pilot application.

The Greek TAXISnet (Taxation Information System) initiative is a key example of the type of e-services the Greece government has been successful in deploying. TAXIS is an initiative which has "... provided IT support to the central tax authorities, located in Athens, as well as to local tax agencies, located all over Greece, for carrying out tax filing, calculation and payment transactions with citizens and businesses". [Gouscos, Mentzas & Georgiadis, Planning and Implementing e-Government Service Delivery: Achievements and Learnings from On-Line Taxation in Greece, Presented at the Workshop on e-Government, 8th Panhellenic Conference on Informatics, Nicosia, Cyprus, November 8 - 10, 2001] The main comparative advantages over traditional channels include:

• the elimination of paperwork and physical transport
• continuous service availability
• reduced response time, and
• a substantial decrease in errors.

The range of other transactional services available across the Greek State sector was unclear from the material reviewed.

Lebanon

Improvement of government services in the Lebanese e-government strategy sits within a package of priority projects for managing e-government development. These include the incremental development of legal, technical, and 'services' frameworks. It also involves capacity building, active promotion through targeted marketing, and operations packages.

The Services Framework identifies areas where government services will benefit from digitalisation either in terms of efficiency and quality of service, and/or making services more accessible to citizens. The priority areas are to make the following services available online:

• Utilities subscription and billing services
• Civil and criminal records
• Customs system to handle all custom formalities at all ports of entry into the country
• Residence and working permits for foreigners
• Passport and visa petitions and issuances
• Vehicle registration, and
• Vehicle excise tax payment.

It should be noted that Lebanon currently has only 7% Internet usage (2003) by the public with a target of 25% by 2009. The Lebanese e-government strategy has a target to reduce paper-based government services and information by 7-12% p.a. with the intention of only having 25% of such services and information still in existence by the end of 2009. There was no information available on how much progress has been made in achieving these goals.

Malta

The principles of the Malta e-government programme include that universality of access shall be ensured by the delivery of e-government service through multiple channels, which shall not exclude conventional channels.

However, the intention is to provide electronic channels that are clearly superior to conventional channels of service delivery in that they will be faster, more efficient and effective, more consistent in content, and of a higher quality than conventional channels. They will also be more economic and cost-effective thereby ensuring more efficient use of taxpayer's money.

The Malta Government is working to offer a (limited) set of services via multiple service channels including telephone, call centers, public Internet access points and front offices. E-government services will be available on digital TV. The Central Information Management Unit is responsible for the design of technical standards to support adaptable channels. A crucial component in the implementation and take-up of electronic government services is a first-class communications programme.