Lessons learned and future prospects for egovernment development

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1 United Nations Public Service Day and Awards Ceremony/Forum Barcelona June 2010 Lessons learned and future prospects for egovernment development Jeremy Millard Danish Technological Institute 1

2 Strange times.. The UK is (probably) leading Europe in egovernment: Number 4 in world, highest in Europe (UN 2010) Number 4 in world, 2 nd highest in Europe (Waseda 2009) Joint number 1 in online availability in Europe (EU 2009) Over last 4 years, UK spent $60 million on main government portal: direct.gov.uk acclaimed as worldclass BUT this is used LESS than an unofficial site which cost nothing apart from a day s work by committed volunteers WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON??!! 2

3 Citizens usurp government (1) 3

4 European egovernment service citizen use (Source: Eurostat, 2009) 4

5 European egovernment service citizen use (Source: Eurostat, 2009) 5

6 Citizens usurp government (2) 6

7 Citizens usurp government (3) Ilkeston, Derbys 7

8 The dominance of portal egovernment is over? Portals are important, especially for large scale, top down administrative services (one stop shop concept) BUT citizen usage is low: Why go to a portal first when I am already somewhere else on the web? I want to go direct to the service I need. Everything (services, applications, platforms, infrastructure) is or will be in the cloud anyway, so just use Google or other search engines to find what you need. Do we hang on to grandiose portals because they are a showcase just like an imposing town hall but what do they really do for all that money? 8

9 Next step change: everyday egovernment Everyday, not just 2-3 times a year Public services are potentially all around us and could be used constantly services which are really valuable in people s everyday lives: health, education, care, transport, infrastructures, utilities, clean and safe environments, congestion & pollution watch, culture, amenities, leisure, sports, security, crime watch, weather, participation, engagement, etc. Often very location specific depends where you are and what you are doing Also very personal move from one-size-fits-all to precisely-my-size 9

10 Everyday technologies can deliver this Smart mobile phones + GPS (digital TV) Location-based / place-related Real time, augmented reality Offered appropriate services as walk down the street Location or event creates real time opportunities for content, engagement, participation BUT only very small % of 100,000 iphone apps are for public services 10

11 The USA is leading on the ground Over last 1-2 years, big cities (e.g. New York, San Francisco, Washington) have made public data available for anyone to use The geeks got to work on spreadsheets on train schedules, complaints, potholes, street lamp repairs, city garbage, etc., etc., and created apps for local people to use The local people got involved and started to realise government is us and we have a responsibility too BUT only where local government releases the data small cities have no time or expertise (but now San Francisco is creating a standard for municipal data sets for others to use) For some cities and for some governments I could understand that transition can be a scary thing.but we feel like it makes governments more accountable, and it makes them function better..what I really see is a monumental change for how government works. This is just really the starting point." 11

12 Competitions 12

13 A new business model emerging (1) 1. Start from the needs of the citizen rather than the needs of the government what is needed in their everyday lives citizens themselves plus the groups/organisations closest to them often know best citizens are governments best asset 2. Typically led by non-profit and non-public sector, often though not always at local level, although cooperation with public authorities is needed multi-actor porous governance 3. The re-use of existing public sector information (PSI), much of which is already available but often not easily accessible public data are the fuel that makes this work 4. A bottom-up, rather ad-hoc process which exploits creative talent, initiative and enthusiasm from outside government there is always more relevant talent outside any organisation than inside it ( crowdsourcing!) 13

14 A new business model emerging (2) 5. Inexpensive, much shorter development cycles, many actors, experimental, often fails but easier and cheaper to try and fail than to try to pick success in advance Shirky s publish then filter, rather than filter then publish 6. Leads to much greater transparency, responsibility, innovation, more engaged citizens and better (everyday) services BUT, this complements not replaces existing business models..still need top-down, standard, statutory, administrative services ALTHOUGH these are not enough AND, many citizens, communities or groups that support them cannot do this, so efforts to tackle the digital divide are still 100% necessary 14

15 A bit more on data and public services The internet will also change from the web of documents (html, xml) to the web of data (RDF), i.e. the semantic web based on metadata analysis. This could lead to: PAs make their data available to each other enabling them to compare and identify e.g. similar locations, user groups and/or services through analysing socio-demographics, service use, etc. Enables each PA or group of PAs to take an evolutionary approach to learning and building good practices, what works, what doesn t, policy modelling, etc., so only compare, rank, simulate, etc., between similar contexts and/or similar strategies essentially a bottom-up, do-it-yourself approach by PAs 15

16 At least six policies (probably) needed 1. Release public data they are ours not the government s 16

17 The gold standard four months ago 17

18 At least six policies (probably) needed 1. Release public data they are ours not the government s 2. But open data are not enough, it has to be democratic as well so start to include data from other legitimate sources (e.g. citizens and communities themselves, private sector, technical operations, internet of things, etc.) safeguards and ground rules are needed 3. Make it easy and provide incentives for other actors, including to develop standard building block apps, BUT do not get in the way and regulate only against illegal or mis-use 4. Empower the civil servant! actually, s/he is an even bigger asset for government than citizens as they are there, on the frontline, professional and dedicated 5. Privacy, data protection, very robust conformable security, mitigate mis-use and exploitation 6. Probably need some neutral trusted third parties to hold the ring and protect interests (government is just one actor with own interests), ensure data quality (as well as quantity), data protection, privacy, traceability, provide moderation, etc., etc. 18