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

number of organisations are seeing and seizing the opportunity to use ICT to automate or redefine
their business processes, with the goal of delivering improved services and/or improving the efficiency
of their operations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs exemplifies this type of e-government impact. It
has used ICT to support real-time operations, and is using the Internet to change the way its business is
conducted. According to an interview with Ministry officials, e-government is used to “give diplomats
an edge by providing them with the information they require as quickly as possible, so that they can do
their job better”.
One area where e-government has had a significant impact on organisational change is the
improvement of back-office processes, especially at the all-of-government level. For example,
electronic invoicing of services provided to government, based on the OIOXML standard, has been
mandatory since February 2005. The use of the new eFaktura invoicing system has had a positive
impact in terms of generating savings for both government and businesses (see Chapter 6 for further
information). As another example, an electronic data management system, the FESD electronic
document management project, has been instrumental in achieving greater efficiency and more
effective project management by changing work processes and strengthening internal capacities (see
Chapter 6).
However, the use of ICT to improve the efficiency of business processes has a cost. The pressure
of day-to-day business and the existence of different organisational functions, and competing priorities
and workloads, can make it seem less convenient or desirable to invest new resources in ICT and
e-government in order to improve cross-agency processes. Some commentators, while recognising the
importance of the work being led by the Task Force in this area (for example, in promoting the
introduction of FESD), pointed out that it can be very difficult to achieve such objectives.
Organisations face internal competition for the resources required to participate in such initiatives, and
must continue to meet quality and quantity standards for delivery of both internal and external
processes and services while potentially making changes to those processes. Importantly, these
resources are both financial and non-financial (e.g. project management skills, specialist e-government
skills, experience in integrating ICT, and an understanding of the business of organisations). Such
skills, which are costly, are also in relatively short supply in Denmark.
Impact on organisational values and culture
The use of ICT in government can also have an impact on organisational values and culture,
helping bring about new ideas and working models based on principles such as achieving greater
flexibility in working arrangements, and increasing openness and transparency in government. In
Denmark a majority (62%) of respondents to the OECD survey indicated that e-government has had a
positive impact on transparency.
Despite this, efforts to increase the use of ICT as a tool for effective communication with and
within government have not brought about radical change in the way users deal with government.
Projects and initiatives led by the Digital Task Force (especially eDay) have aimed to promote a
culture of paperless communication across government. However, while progress has been made,
users demonstrate some resistance to changing their habits when dealing with government. As shown
in Figure 5.2 below, while an increasing number of organisations exchange at least 25% of documents
electronically, the large majority of government organisations still exchange less than 25% of
documents in this manner. It is notable that the lowest level of electronic document sharing occurs
within the public sector.
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