The beginning

By the mid-1990s most New Zealand government departments had established a web presence: in 1996, only 13 of the 38 core public service departments did not have a website. The benefits promised by ICT were being enthusiastically embraced and e-government was being ushered into the country.

This early development of online services was not centrally driven or coordinated: individual departments and agencies developed their own online initiatives. There was no overall strategy and no single point of entry for government services online. The beginning of a more coordinated approach came in 1995, when the Ministry of Commerce (now the Ministry of Economic Development) launched the first online government directory. In 1997 this directory was merged with the Department of Internal Affairs' online Blue Pages project, becoming the New Zealand Government Online website, the precursor to www.govt.nz, the current all-of-government web portal.

Recognising the need for a more strategic approach to the government's online presence, the State Services Commission established an IT Policy Taskforce in 1997. The taskforce, working with the Chief Executives' Group on Information Management and Technology, advised the Government to develop a guiding vision for online services and initiate the development of a sector-wide strategy. The taskforce subsequently issued a number of significant policy documents, culminating with a Vision Statement in May 2000 outlining a strategic direction for e-government in New Zealand and addressing some of the issues around its implementation.

In retrospect, this document was of signal importance for several reasons: it established the founding strategic principles for the programme of e-government; it provided a platform for critically needed leadership; and, perhaps most importantly, it acted as the lodestone for the needle of the e-government compass, enabling the Government and Public Service departments to coordinate their previously disparate efforts to advance public services online.

Three pillars

The founding strategic principles in the Vision Statement were: a methodical, graduated approach; cross-government collaboration; a commitment to using ICT in ways that would increase rather than limit opportunities for participation; and a determination to ensure that the technology was only an instrument for an improved public sector, not an end in itself.

The emphasis on planned, systematic implementation of e-government reflected an awareness of problems in other countries with haphazard and uncoordinated growth. The authors of the statement were at pains to stress the importance of a coherent approach:

"The Government's approach to implementing e-government in the interests of improved participation and services will be well planned. There will be no overnight and dramatic developments, but rather a more staged approach with developments building on those that have gone before."

The Vision Statement recognised that work in a multi-agency environment requires a correspondingly pluralistic perspective in the early stages of planning. The project teams that worked on e-government initiatives were made up of public servants from a cross-section of government departments. This ensured that the users in each agency remained a key focus throughout the development process. This approach continues today, with an E-government Unit Advisory Board, Steering Groups and governing bodies of e-government projects all comprised of representatives of the government departments who will use, or are using the technologies.

The third important element in the Vision Statement was its focus on people, not technology. Maintaining a citizen-centric and outcome-driven perspective was reiterated throughout the early papers produced by the State Services Commission. The aim was to ensure that the promise of technology was grounded in the business needs of the government and the service needs of the public.

Together, these three concepts continue to function as the philosophical pillars of policy decisions about e-government.