by European Commission Information Society and Media
Stakeholders of eGovernment in Europe had the opportunity to let their voice be heard on future eGovernment policy through an online consultation run from the 4th October to the 7th December 2005, at the website “Your Voice in Europe”.
Executive summary
From October to December 2005 an online public consultation was held via Your Voice (http://europa.eu.int/yourvoice/) on future eGovernment policy towards 2010. In total, 403 respondents (citizens, public administrations and businesses covering all the European Union Member States and a number of countries from outside of the EU) answered questions about:
- inclusive eGovernment
- citizen involvement, participation and democracy
- high impact services
- efficient & effective eGovernment
- key enablers.
About 92% of the respondents agreed with the suggested approach to focus eGovernment policy on a small number of priorities with high impact.
The responses to the questionnaire strongly support objective-setting as formulated in the Ministerial Declaration adopted at the Manchester Ministerial Conference on 24 November 2005.
Priority focuses for inclusive eGovernment policy towards 2010 were: the increase of the access and the use of public services by active promotion and more accessible solutions; the design of public policies and services by eGovernment in such a way, that no citizen and businesses risks being excluded; and a better access to market, tenders and business opportunities in the public sector to SMEs. The most significant main barriers to progress mentioned were: lack of interoperability; organisational barriers and the lack of ease of use. The preferred priority actions, according to the respondents include: proactive approach to be used by public administrations; training of public administrations, and exchange of good practices on inclusivity strategies and solutions at EU level.
Concerning citizen involvement, participation and democracy, there is in general the opinion (64%), that eParticipation and eVoting can help or most likely help closing the democratic deficit. As main barriers are mentioned: lack of trust and security, insufficient access to information and communication technologies and lack of leadership. Main actions should be providing of solutions for eParticipation by a choice of channels (e.g. TV, cell-phone…), exchange of experiences and solutions as well as the creation of awareness.
Citizens mobility and social security, citizens mobility in work and public eProcurement are the main high impact services on which eGovernment policy should focus by 2010. The respondents have seen as main barriers again the lack of interoperability, organisational barriers followed by national legislation. They recommended as main actions the exchanging of experience on technical and non-technical aspects, support by the structural funds and CIP and provision of incentives to share in developments of solutions.
In electronic public procurement, 50-99% public procurement take-up was mentioned most frequently as target by 2010. Main actions in this area should be harmonised electronic signatures to enable the replacement of paper documents and changes in national legislation.
In efficient & effectiveeGovernment, the most important objectives to be achieved by 2010 are stated to be improving the quality of services, based on user satisfaction and reducing the administrative burden for businesses and citizens. As main barriers, lack of interoperability,organisational barriers and insufficient skills of the administration were identified. As main actions, good practice sharing, development of innovative and transformative eGovernment solutions at EU level as well as activities for stimulating the use of open standards and pooling software were recommended.
The European eGovernment policy should focus on electronic identification and authentication, good practice and solutions sharing and organisational change as key enablers. 88% of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the use of national electronic identification schemes in secure and trustworthy transactions with eGovernment services in other Member States should be enabled. As main barriers in realising electronic identification & authentication for public services across borders were seen the lack of interoperability, national legislation and lack of awareness of benefits. The main actions should be: mutual recognition of electronic identities provided by Member States, a federated, multilevel e-Identity model, and a framework for interoperable electronic documents.
Changes in EU legislation do not play a strong role in the proposed actions in each of the areas.
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