2020
This project for the European Commission, conducted under the lead of GNKS Consult, identified seven key strategic transformations required for eGovernance by 2020 based on three major policy goals of eGovernment: Efficiency, the search for savings with the constituent as a taxpayer, effectiveness, the search for quality services with the constituent as a consumer, and governance, the search for good governance with the constituent as a citizen and voter.
The strategic transformations have served as input for scenario and gaming exercises, and eventually to the final research report delivered to the European Commission in 2008, preparing for the renewal of the European eGovernment agenda beyond 2010. In “Value for Citizens”, the creation of value of eServices for taxpayers, consumers and citizens are seen as the overarching driver and reason for eGovernance. This value can be of personal or private nature to individuals, be they citizens, communities, groups, localities companies etc. It can also be a participative value, created collaboratively and interactively between two or more individuals, or a public value created by the
governance structure and proactively promoting collective benefits. Public value specifically looks for long term benefit, larger than the sum of more short term and restricted benefits provided by personal and participative value, and requiring a trade- off that normally only the public sector can arbitrate.
4.7.1 Key strategic transformations and trends and drives
The seven key strategic transformations required for eGovernance by 2020 presented below together form a coherent framework for analysing and clustering the main trends and drivers for improved production of public value.
Plural and partnership governance
Plural and partnership governance focuses on the structures, roles and relationships amongst the public, private and civil sectors, as well as constituents, in forming new business models and value chains within the public realm in order to produce value.
Trends and drivers include an integrated and joined-up government, a balance between
centralisation and de-centralisation, a networked governance which is open and porous, and a process of business model and value chain innovation.
Performance governance
Performance governance concerns innovative processes and practices being adopted in the public realm to prioritise adaptive capacity, manage risks, minimise costs, and maximise benefits realisation, in order to produce value.
Trends and drivers include changes in leadership, skills and working practices as well
as public sector innovation and transformation, knowledge management based on intelligent handling and re-use of data, change management and capacity redeployment, especially through rebalancing back and front-offices, and performance management.
Personalised service production
Personalised service production focuses on creating personal or private value through universal personalisation, self-directed services, and fully inclusive constituent empowerment in services.
Trends and drivers include universal personalisation, self-directed services, personal
relations, personalisation through intermediation by combining public, private and civil services through new outlets, and personalisation through inclusion to ensure access to government services for all groups and individuals.
Participative policy-making
Participative policy-making creates participative or collaborative value through open societal decision- and policy-making, whether initiated top-down or bottom-up, and whether or not mediated by political representatives.
Trends and drivers include policy-making initiated by government, empowering
communities and localities, leveraging local resources, know-how and skills, transparency and openness, and accountability in an environment where decision and policy-making are opened up.
Trust, privacy and protection
Trust, privacy and protection is the sine qua non of all other eGovernance transformations, via conformable and negotiable security, greater control by constituents over their own data and own (often) multiple identities, and a focus on trust, resilience and risk management.
Trends and drivers include security and data protection, information assurance,
resilient and robust infrastructures, upheld privacy needs, and the building of trust with constituents based on constituents’ needs.
Production and use of ICT
The production and use of ITC for public sector transformation and innovation, for example through ambient intelligence based on semantic and mobile systems,
intelligent agents, the mass collaboration and crowd-sourcing tools of Web 2.0, the roll out of Web 3.0, governance webs in the computing cloud, large scale ubiquitous networking and grids, as well as increasing technology and device convergence and constituent autonomy and control.
ICT technology perspectives are continuing user-centred and user-friendly services,
ambient intelligence based on semantic and mobile systems, intelligent agents, federated systems for identity management authentication, artificially intelligent databases, search engines and knowledge systems, and maximised production and use of ICT for public sector innovation.
Public value governance
Public value governance creates public goods and society-wide benefits, so distinguishing the public realm from other realms, driven forward by visible value systems and innovative approaches to open source governance.
Trends and drivers include a shift in focus from delivering eServices to the value of
those services to constituents, a paradigm shift in public value and governance, empowering being the next great turning upside down, a change of definitions and drivers of eGovernance itself to more policy-driven innovation, a political landscape of plurality and blurring boundaries and jurisdictions, an increasingly articulated
citizenship, and a public realm that is being turned upside-down through the empowerment paradigm and new balances between top-down and bottom-up.
4.7.2 Conclusions – Vision for 2020