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E-governance and Citizen Information 134 Catalonia in the International Context...8.3. Management of Innovation8.3.1. Promotion and Strategy OrganismsAlong the same lines, in the development of telecommunication infrastructures, we have observedthe tendency to form partnerships between regional and local Governments – Localretin Catalonia, Customer First in Scotland, etc. However, recently the regionalgovernments with fewer direct powers in relation to the citizen (Scotland and Emilia-Romagna)are the ones who are strengthening their coordination and decision-making role.As far as the evolution of e-government strategy is concerned, we could consider that theinitial stage placed an emphasis on the digitisation of services and the promotion of websites.A cost-benefit analysis of this has followed that is in turn leading to a rethink of thestrategy. It could also be said that in those first years of development the incorporation ofICTs was characterised by large concentrations of investments, by the entry of the privatesector in the design and implementation of projects and by a certain fascination with thetransforming power of technology. Currently, there seems to be a tendency to change toprojects which are less ambitious in terms of resources and “innovative” aims, and more orientedto the better management of information and existing resources.In summary, there seems to be an effort – in some cases more clearly than in others – torationalise resources (money, information, and personnel) and obtain tangible results interms of improvements to services. The justification for this strategy could come from:a) The relative failure of new services in terms of users: infrequent use of the administrativeportals by users that leads to a rethink of strategy.b) The need to rationalise economic resources: along the same lines as the previous point,the need to reformulate a strategy that had been aimed at constructing a new relation window,into another approach aimed at developing a global transformation strategy that doesnot just affect the administration's most visible face, but modifies its own organisationalstructure.c) The need to have information: the diagnosis shows that the quantity of information is notthe problem; the problem is finding it and having guarantees that it is up to date. This createsdifficulties for citizens and civil servants alike, since rationalisation would aim in this case tohave shared databases, automatic update procedures (for example, automatically shuttinghttp://www.uoc.edu/in3/pic
E-governance and Citizen Information 135 Catalonia in the International Context...down sites for applications whose deadline has passed) and also organising informationaround simple and comprehensive criteria.d) The perception of the advantages of having short- and medium-term projects: the perceptionthat the world of technology is very dynamic and that the “ultimate project” is costlyand inefficient. Thus it is seen as more productive to develop short- and medium-termprojects, with lower costs and with possibilities to reconvert the information used when thedecision is taken to transform the system again.Also we find differences in the way that the different administrations exert their influence onthe evolution of electronic government policies. Amongst them we can highlight the combinationbetween political change and the burden of bureaucracy. Putting it broadly, there donot appear to have been differences in the plans that would be explicable by reference tothe ideological leanings of the political party in power, even though these did allow an understandingof some of the differences between current strategy in Quebec (Liberal Party)and Scotland (Labour Party).Changes in political parties in the government did, to a great extent, explain strategic changesin cases such as Catalonia. Even so, the type of study carried out does not allow a validationof this hypothesis in the other cases; change of government in Quebec, for example,seems to have accentuated certain policy tendencies, but not a change of strategy, in partbecause of the nature of its bureaucracy – closer to the Anglo-Saxon model – which hasmore power than the bureaucracy in Catalonia. On the other hand, Emilia-Romagna andScotland show similarities in their strategies that could be conditioned by their inter-administrativerelationships: both regional governments, compared to Catalonia and Quebec,have few powers and so they appear to place more emphasis on the development of interadministrativerelationships.8.3.2. The Networks of Public and Private ActorsAs far as this dimension is concerned, we could suggest, on the one hand, that the participationof the private sector is a constant in all the cases, and, on the other, that the greatestchange appears to have taken place in Catalonia. In other words, although in all the casesthe participation of the private sector has grown, in Scotland, Quebec and Emilia-Romagnathere is, from the outset, a greater control and diversity in the participation of outside companies.In Catalonia there has been, in contrast, a great concentration of initiatives in a singlecompany and the strategy has recently been redefined, as we saw earlier.http://www.uoc.edu/in3/pic
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