E-awareness purpose

The purpose of E-awareness is to:

• present an informed picture of e-initiatives across government
• identify the common barriers and challenges that agencies are encountering when implementing e-initiatives
• raise awareness of e-initiatives
• inform agencies about the e-initiatives that other agencies are working on
• assess progress of the E-government Strategy.

All Public Service and non-Public Service departments were asked to complete the E-awareness 2005 survey during the months of March and May. Three Local Authorities also contributed information.

The questions in the survey were designed to gauge the extent to which agencies are working towards the June 2007 goal of the E-government Strategy - that "Networks and Internet technologies are integral to the delivery of government information, services and processes".

Challenges in delivering e-government

Agencies are facing similar challenges in achieving the goals of the E-government Strategy. The challenges identified by agencies can be grouped into the following categories:

• channel suitability
• resources (people availability with appropriate skills)
• cost
• project complexity
• online authentication

In addition, the wide-range of technologies used to exchange data between agencies, combined with the irregularity of exchanges suggests that almost all exchanges are point-to-point solutions.

The Government Shared Network and the Online Authentication Project will help address some of the challenges currently being encountered.