The European e-Business Report The European e ... - empirica

The European E-Business Report 2005
The use of local public and private networks and support organisations
It is commonly considered ‘good practice’ to enhance the cost-efficiency and the effectiveness
of a public policy initiative by making use of existing or creating new local networks
for the promotion and delivery of the policy’s services.
All of the assessed policy initiatives applied this practice, even if with different intensities and
at different levels. The most extensive and integrated approach to such collaboration was
noted in the Opportunity Wales initiative and in the Greek Go-Online 100 Training Support
Scheme; these policy initiatives also showed the apparently most effective implementation.
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Relevant factors allowing for efficiency from this perspective were the quality of the
internal communication and the strong relationship between the central management
and the local actors.
Both initiatives were also characterised by the set-up of a solid infrastructure,
combining a decentralisation of the activities with a strong central management, thus
achieving a balanced mix.
The Opportunities Wales initiative consistently invested in the ‘backbone’ to this
structure, i.e. the technology sustaining the back office activities. Stakeholders
stated that this investment turned into a core facilitator for the smooth implementation
of the initiative’s activities.
In the case of SVEA, a broad network of ‘informers’ helped to disseminate
information material and to communicate locally with the projects, thus providing the
‘link’ between these projects and the overall policy initiative.
The creation of public-private partnerships, preserving the credibility and
impartiality of the services
In the assessed policy initiatives, the above-mentioned local networks are all based on
public-private partnerships. The involvement of private partners in the implementation of
public policies is an advantage, because their competence and expertise tends to be more
easily recognised by the beneficiaries (the SMEs).
However, there are also some risks inherent to such partnerships. For example, the involvement
of private sector companies may compromise the ‘neutrality’ of the support providers,
for instance their independence of IT suppliers which is normally considered an important
success factor for policies.
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Neutrality here relates to the criteria adopted by the policy management for the
selection of support providers; these criteria are often determined by the perceived
level of importance of quality to gain credibility.
The neutrality issue becomes especially tricky when the policy support involves IT
equipment or internet connection service providers. In these cases, the assessed
policy initiatives had quite differing approaches. Some chose not to implement a
selection at all but leave the choice of provider entirely up to the SMEs (e.g.
Opportunity Wales, and eAskel). Others ‘imposed’ on the SMEs those private service
providers which they considered most competent for the task (e.g. the Achatville
policy). Arguments can be found to sustain either of these divergent approaches.
The ‘good and shared understanding’ is intrinsically linked to a well-structured policy design
clearly assigning different tasks to the various stakeholders, and to the quality of the
internal communication; an example of such ‘good practice’ can be found in the Achatville
100 The Go-Online initiative, which was one of the five policies assessed in the study, is introduced in Stefanos
Karapetsis' contribution on e-Business in Greece.
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