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

In addition to support for the Joint Board, there was also strong support for the way the Digital
Task Force and the IT-Policy Centre work together to bring a balance of public management and
technology perspectives to bear on the e-government programme. It was observed, however, that the
relationship between the two organisations has not always been as collegial and complementary as it is
today; difficulties in alignment and co-ordination have been a problem in the past. However, efforts to
correct this situation, including clarification of their roles and responsibilities, have evidently been
successful, with the two organisations now being widely seen to form a strong partnership at the centre
of the e-government programme.
The Digital Task Force and the IT-Policy Centre are seen as effective leaders, facilitators and
co-ordinators of efforts to achieve e-government. The Digital Task Force has been successful as a
catalyst to bring interested parties together to solve problems of e-government co-ordination and
co-operation across levels of government. It is an unusual organisation for Danish government,
drawing the majority of its staff as secondees from other State and local government organisations.
These individuals bring essential qualities of enthusiasm and understanding of the potential of ICT to
the work of the Task Force. Employment with the Task Force is regarded as recognition of prior good
performance and potential, which helps attract top-quality candidates for Task Force positions.
With the revision of the e-government strategy in 2004, the mandate of the Task Force was
renewed until 2006, at which point it currently expects to be dismantled. This expectation is used by
the Task Force to create internal drive towards the achievement of the Government’s goals, and to
retain clarity about the fact that e-government is regarded as an enabler of good government in
Denmark rather than being an ongoing end in itself.
In line with this time-bound mission, the Task Force has limited its staff numbers in order to
remain focused, and has relied on use of seconded staff or staff recruited from the private sector to
build up e-government expertise across government. Task Force staff return to their own organisations
after working on e-government for, on average, 18 months, helping spread this expertise. The Task
Force is perceived to be an energetic organisation whose broad-based composition enables it to
understand e-government from a wide range of stakeholder perspectives. However, some interviewees
expressed concern that Task Force staff members are relatively young and inexperienced in working at
the top level of government. Regardless, there is a widespread view that either the Digital Task Force
will still be required after its mandate expires in 2006, or that it will need to be replaced by some other
means of providing leadership and co-ordination for e-government.
The role and expertise of the Task Force is complemented by the IT-Policy Centre in the MVTU,
which is seen as playing a very important role in the development of many of the enablers of
e-government (e.g. digital signatures and the enterprise architecture). Under the revised e-government
strategy its work is seen as being more supportive of government organisations, with greater emphasis
on developing concrete solutions to problems they face, while the Digital Task Force retains
responsibilities in strategy development and oversight of all-of-government projects.
The overall strength of these top-level arrangements for leadership and co-ordination of
e-government is indicated by the responses to the OECD survey question that asked organisations
about the strength of potential challenges to their implementation of e-government. Duplication of
actors and unclear institutional responsibilities at this level of e-government can often be significant
problems in OECD countries. In Denmark’s case, however, when presented with a wide range of
potential challenges to their implementation of e-government, less than 1% of survey respondents
identified “duplication” as being “very important” – the lowest response for any challenge (see Figure
6.1). Also, 65% of respondents did not regard this issue as a challenge at all. However, nearly 13% of
respondents reported that duplication was an “important” challenge, and almost 21% said it was
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