Mission Report of Brunei Darussalam 12 17 July 2010 Richard Kerby Senior Inter-regional Adviser e-government and Knowledge Management e-government Branch Division for Public Administration and Development Management
Index 1. Background 2. Meeting with the Brunei National e-government Team 3. Meetings with Ministries 4. Workshop on the UN Survey Methodology 5. METER Workshop 6. Way Forward 7. Follow-up Activities
1. Background The Government of Brunei Darussalam requested the Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM) to undertake a one-week advisory mission to support the e-government activities within the country. The advisory mission reviewed the current National e-government Strategy, the Institution Framework that is currently managing e-government activities, e-content and e-services and looked for ways to improve interaction with the citizens of Brunei Darussalam. 2. Meeting with the Brunei National e-government Team UNDESA reviewed the current national e-strategy of the government and look at the current institutional framework to identify ways to streamline the process of implementing e-government services. The following recommendations were made: Brunei Darussalam may benefit from a change in e-government organisational structure, currently the responsibility for e-government activities fall within the mandate of a number of institutions. Thus the following structure was recommended to bring all the e-government actors into one organization under the direction of the Government Chief Information Officer (CIO) The e-government Leadership Forum (EGLF) and the Brunei Information Council (BIT Council) should have distinct and non-overlapping responsibilities to ensure a clear vision and direction. In addition, there should be a consolidation of the functions undertaken by the e-government National Centre (EGNC), e-government Technical Authority Body (EGTAB) and IT Protective Security Services (ITPSS) that would reduce confusion and overlap. The three options identified below: OPTION 1: EGTAB to be absorbed under EGNC together with Security Governance C BIT il EGLF AITI GCIO EGOV AUTHORITY EGNC + EGTAB + Security EGNC CORP Services &
Option one would group all the e-government entities into one new department. That department would be led by the Chief Information Officer reporting directly to the Prime Minister. This would ensure a clear and forceful vision under the leader of the Prime Minister and provide e-government with the stature to lead and implement the national e-strategy. OPTION 2: EGNC, EGTAB and security governance to be taken under Authority for Infocommunications Technology Industry (AITI) Option 2 would strengthen the Authority for Infocommunications Technology Industry (AITI). It would also create a greater bond with the country s private sector firms. However, it would dilute the power and the effectiveness of the Overall CIO. OPTION 3: Maintain status quo BIT Council EGLF AITI EGTAB GCIO EGNC CIOs
Option 3 is the current situation in Brunei Darussalam with the e-government responsibilities essentially divided between AITI and the e-government Leadership Forum (EGLF) Option 1 was recommended by the UNDESA Adviser. In addition, the following advice was provided: 1. Centralisation of common services first: a. Brunei Darussalam is small and will benefit from this initially. b. It helps build up capability c. It will reduce cost of operations and initial capital outlay 2. There is a strong correlation between e-government delivery success and the priority level of the government. Therefore, the CIO should be under a high-level entity to ensure vertical and horizontal integration of e-government policies and services. 3. The rollout of a new email should be faster than 2 years, currently planned. The faster the roll-out the less the project risk. 4. It is important to develop data reference models. Common data should be shared within government to facilitate ease of transactions. 5. The government is urged to make critical changes to improve the service that it provides to its citizens. The following recommendations were made: a. Convert all current PDF application forms to online transactional forms. These should have some form of storage into a database or table which will be shared with the respective government agencies. Acknowledgement must be given to the applicant. b. Focus on e-participation especially using social networking tools (Facebook), blogs and forum to solicit feedback and ideas from citizens. c. Marketing is important! Make sure citizens are awareness of new e- services and policies d. Update the statistics at the UN (UNESCO and ITU) especially the telecommunications and broadband statistics. e. Update the Human Capital: Gross enrolment statistic. It seems illogical to have a 95% adult literacy rate and a 77% gross enrolment, especially in a country where universal enrolment is mandatory. f. Improve broadband penetration rate in the country g. Ministry should be the portal or single window for all services under the Ministries and the departments under it. These should be readily easy to access and see fro the main page. Make sure the links are there and working. They should feed into the national portal, which will be the overall gateway for Brunei. h. Since mobile penetration is high, make effort to introduce some mobile services. i. Concentrate on citizen-centred services; j. Collect web statistics such as visits, duration of visits, etc;
k. Choose two major services to launch (e.g. e-payment for Electrical bills and Vehicle licence) immediately 6. Since Brunei Darussalam does not collect income tax, the relevancy of Ministry of Finance becomes insignificant in terms of citizen-centred services. It may be possible to change one of these Ministry (specifically Ministry of Finance) with another that is more relevant such as Ministry of Culture Youth and Sports (welfare services to public), 7. Applying for jobs online should be included in websites. 8. The following issues need to be clarify when implementing facebook and blogs: a. Enough resources need to be in place to manage the blogs and facebook page to effectively respond to citizens. b. Who will administer these forums or blogs? c. Some citizen may use the forum or blogs to criticise government rather than provide constructive feedback, this should be embraces as signs of an open society. 3. Meetings with Ministries All the ministries that UNDESA visited which were in charge of: Health, Education, Finance, Social Services, and Labour; had the same issues. The sites were full of e- information, but limited to non-existent e-services. None of the sites had any e- participation tools in place and the ministries had no effective outlet to communicate and receive feed back from the citizens. All the ministries embraced the idea of citizen-centred government and thus are in the process of improving their respective e-services and are looking for way to improve citizen engagement and the use of social networking tools, albeit at different speed. 4. Workshop on the UN Survey Methodology UNDESA held a half-day workshop for approximately 80 members of the Brunei Government from ministries and institutions that dealt with e-government services and solutions in the country. In this workshop, the UNDESA s methodology was explained and the e-government survey template was provided which indicated the features of the survey and characteristics that the researchers reviewed. The scores and ranking of the six web sites that were surveyed were reviewed. The group was also informed about a questionnaire that we sent out to all the Member States requesting that they update the URL of the sites that the 2010 survey would review. This is especially critical for the Government of Brunei, since the Ministry of Finance has little interaction with citizens, since the country has no personal tax system in place. The Ministry of Finance deals mainly with government to government interactions. Many of the activities performed by the Ministry of Finance in other countries are done by the Ministry of the Interior.
The participants to the workshop debated the need to improve the e-services that each ministry or institution provides to the citizens and the need for greater e- participation as a whole. In addition, there were many issues raised on the use of current statistics in the evaluation process. 5. METER Workshop Testing of METER 2.5 Platform UNDESA with the support of the Government of Brunei Darussalam tested the METER 2.5 platform, an online interactive tool to assist governments to further identify strengths and gaps in e-government programmes. METER 2.5 was launched in a day and halfday workshop that was attended by 50 senior members of the Brunei e-government team. The participants went through the entire package and responded to all the statements that were part of METER 2.5. The results of METER 2.5 were produced in a bar graph format which led to in-depth discussions on a number of issues that were raised. As a result of METER, the Government of Brunei had a greater understanding of the e- government progress of each participant s ministry or department, which led to the key decision-makers having in-depth knowledge of the e-government situation at the national and ministerial levels. Each participant received a UNDESA METER certificate upon completing the workshop. 6. Way Forward The Government of Brunei wants to develop a long-term project to assist them in improving e-services and e-participation for their citizens. UNDESA has been requested to prepare a draft project document for one-year which will focus on e-government capacity building. The Government of Brunei would like UNDESA to assign one focal point who will manage the project. The Government of Brunei will fully fund the project. The project will the following activities: a national e-government workshop that will bring experts from the Americas, Europe and the Middle East to tackle the following issues: e- strategy, e-content, customer satisfaction, social networking tools, marketing of e- services, developing e/m services, developing citizen-driven policies, and e- participation tools. The project will also assist the Government of Brunei to develop specific policies to improve internal communication between government entities, restructure its e- government institutional framework, development of legal frameworks. UNDESA will recruit expertises that are not currently available internally to support the above request.
Activity Obtain written commitment from the Government of Brunei for a one-year project Draft project Document that will support e-government activities such as: content development, development of e/m services, revamping the current national e- strategy, develop citizen-centred policies Prepare National e-government Workshop that will tackle issues of developing e-participation tools, social networking tools, integrated e/m services, redesign national and ministerial portals and web sites that will better respond to the needs of the citizen, implement customer satisfaction tools, and modify current e-government policies Working with the Government of Brunei plan three Future Advisory Missions to Brunei in the next calendar year to maintain DPADM support Proposed Estimated Cost Focal Deadline Point August 2010 None VA September 2010 None RK VA October/Nove mber 2010 September 2010 $100,000 (includes travel and food for three working days for 10 International Resource People ) One-man month $17,500 cost of UN Advisory Service VA RK RC RK
List of Government of Brunei Darussalam Members Mr. Abdul Mutalib Yusof (CIO) Prime Minister s Office mutalib.yusof@jpm.gov.bn Mr. Sairul Rhymin Mohamed Director Prime Minister s Office rhymin.mohamed@aiti.gov.bn Mr. Azhar Ahmad Director of IT Authority for Infocommunications Technology Industry (AITI) azhar.ahmad@egc.gov.bn Mr. Rahim Derus Acting Director/ CIO Department of Information and Communication Technology Ministry of Education Rahim.derus@moe.edu.bn Mr. Poh Seng Chong Senior System Analyst e-government National Centre (EGNC) sengchong.poh@egc.gov.bn Mr. Edwin Lim Assistant Chief Executive E-Government Technical Authority Body (EGTAB) Edwin.lim@aiti.gov.bn Dr. Junaidi Rahman Deputy Permanent Secretary Ministry of Education Junaidi.rahman@moe.edu.bn