OECD Peer Review of E-Government in Denmark - ePractice.eu

Once in operation, the service centres will function in a way similar to an Internet portal. Given
the strong dependence of the service centres upon e-government, along with concerns about the
potentially negative effect of the large number of existing Internet portals, it is interesting that the
Government has not yet considered developing an overall approach to user-focused service delivery
that explicitly links on- and offline modes of delivery.
Enabling participation in government
Participants in the OECD survey for this review indicated low levels of user-demand in areas of
e-government involving consultation or participation. This does not mean that the Government has no
goals in the broad area of “e-engagement of its citizens or that government organisations have not
taken steps in this direction. However, it is not a very prominent element of the Danish e-government
programme, and may be an area that the Government wishes to pay more attention to in the future.
Proposals for action
19. The Danish Government is clearly committed to increasing the delivery of user-focused services, and
to generally making government more citizen-centric. However, in the area of e-government it appears that more
understanding of this goal is required, and that a more committed and proactive approach to its achievement
could be taken, both at the whole-of-government and individual organisation levels. Measures that the
Government should consider adopting include:
• Implementing an ongoing programme of research into user needs, priorities and experiences of
e-government.
• Supporting improvement of individual organisations’ ability to assess e-government needs and demands –
possibly through developing common frameworks or tools to assist them.
• Requiring that all government organisations make basic information about themselves (function, contact
details, etc.) available online, following agreed-upon data fields.
20. Denmark’s commitment to delivery of user-focused government services covers both on- and offline
channels. There is, however, no clear government-wide strategy focused explicitly on service delivery through
online channels, and no strategy linking the use of on- and offline channels. The absence of such a strategy may
be diminishing the results of both the e-government programme and other initiatives to make government more
user-focused, and hindering improvements in both efficiency and effectiveness. To address this, the Government
should consider:
• Building on the Top of the Web initiative by developing a common “design manual” for all government
organisations to follow in developing Web sites and portals, possibly including a best practice approach to
designing and delivering user-focused e-government services. As a first step, the Government could
undertake a review of current public sector Web sites and portals to see how many exist and what functions
they support, and to evaluate how well they are designed from their users’ perspective.
• Development of a single portal for citizens, perhaps as part of a national strategy for government portals.
• Development of a government-wide multi-channel service delivery strategy, building on the potential
improvements to user-focus that will be achieved by the Local Service Centre initiative.
21. E-government in Denmark has so far been heavily focused on issues of service delivery and
improvement in public sector efficiency and effectiveness. There has been much less attention paid to the
question of how, within a national culture characterised by consensus and a context of generally positive attitudes
towards government, e-government can influence peoples’ participation in government. As part of a possible
wider examination of the future direction of its e-government programme, the Government could look closely at
the opportunities, costs and benefits of taking more concrete steps in this area of e-government.
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