1 Executive summary
There is no doubt that a great many
governments around the world have
embraced the vision of how the
Internet can make for a more
productive relationship between
government and citizen. President
Clinton put it well in 2000 when he
stated that, 'The Internet has the
potential to strengthen our democracy
and to make government more open,
efficient, and user-friendly.'
However, numerous studies show that
practical government uptake of the
Internet has been slower than
expected. Even countries that are
leading the way in Internet
development, such as the United
States and the UK, still have much
work to do. A major study of American
government websites found that the
'egovernment revolution has fallen
short of its potential.' A report on
British government websites found
that many of them failed the test.
A reason that governments are not
making more practical use of the
Internet, this report believes, is
because they are focusing too much on
large, time-consuming, and expensive
ecommerce initiatives, and not getting
the basics right. On the Web, the
basics involve being a good publisher
of content. It means delivering to a
reader (citizen) the content they
require (health, business, education,
etc.) that will make them more
knowledgeable and productive.
This report firmly believes that one of
the most critical problems facing
government and society today is
information overload. People are facing
increasing quantities of content every
day. They are finding it more difficult
to find the content they need in the
time they need it. The only way to
approach solving information overload
is to implement comprehensive
publishing processes and standards.
The initial success of the Internet was
based on common standards. Its
future success depends on the
evolution of these standards.
Government can and should play a
critical role in this area.
An information society is fueled by
information. Publishing is the art of
getting the right content to the right
person at the right time. Government
is a central source of critical content
and it needs to embrace the Web so as
to fuel the growth of the information
society and economy.
2 Government is changing
It makes a lot of sense for government
to embrace the Internet. After all, both
the Internet and the World Wide Web
were invented by government-funded
institutes and nurtured within
government educational organizations.
So, the Internet is a natural domain
for government because the Internet is
about communication and
communication is a primary job of
government.
2.1 Egovernment takes off
In 2000, President Clinton stated that,
'The Internet has the potential to
strengthen our democracy and to
make government more open,
efficient, and user-friendly.' That year
saw the launch of firstgov.gov in the
United States. FirstGov is a
government portal that gives the
reader more effective access to half a
billion documents.
A survey on the future of electronic
government in the US, published in
October 2000 by the
Intergovernmental Technology
Leadership Consortium, found that 56
Egovernment: Epublisher February 2001
Copyright © 2001 Nua Ltd. All rights reserved 3
percent of the general public and 67
percent of Internet users believe that
egovernment will bring positive
benefits. The two most important
benefits that respondents saw from
egovernment were greater
accountability and greater access to
information.
According to a 2000 poll from ICR of
Media, Pa., nearly 33 percent of the
US public planned to file their tax
returns online in 2000, up from the 25
percent in 1999. A Gartner Group
report in 2000 predicted that all 50 US
states will offer some form of
electronic voting by the presidential
election in 2004.
In April 2000, the UK government
announced that all government
services will be available on the
Internet by 2005, three years earlier
than had been originally planned. The
motives: lower administrative costs
and faster service delivery. A key
component of the European
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