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E-governance and Citizen Information 142 Conclusionsthat also makes the redesign of processes and procedures difficult in an environment increasinglydominated by digital transactions and communications.The result is a complex situation in which procedures, projects and structures belonging tothe two models coexist in a more or less tense fashion. This often creates a climate of disorientationand lack of references at the heart of the Administration itself. A problem that makesthe internal communication processes we have been talking about all the morenecessary. This state of uncertainty is, moreover, aggravated by a recent past full of not verysuccessful grand projects, seriously hampered, deliberately abandoned or simply starved todeath. Electronic Administration projects are often born – despite the enthusiasm or strongleadership that accompany them – under suspicion: so far initial expectations have rarelybeen met. A situation that is corroborated on the international scene.A positive consequence of this stormy past is, however, that the Administration – and alsothe specialists and scientists analysing it – are starting to gain a certain experience, basedon which they can take better decisions or carry out more appropriate evaluations of newprojects. As a result of this process of knowledge acquisition – almost by trial and error – itis possible to see a change in the types of aims, designs and actions that in recent yearshave marked, in our opinion, a new stage in the development of electronic Administration– a question that we will deal with later on.In any case, more important than giving a generic, more or less positive, response to our basicquestion, is to explain in a more detailed way the elements that, according to our analysis, allowus to clarify and characterise this process of transformation in more depth.The first point to emphasise is the absence of significant structural changes in the PublicAdministration – an extreme that is also supported in our international comparative study. Inother words, that despite the fact that the need to link the incorporation of ICTs to a profoundrestructuring of the organisations has often been insisted upon in order to achieve cleargains in effectiveness and efficiency in the context of the Administration, administrative reformsin the strict and general sense are not being carried out.Nonetheless, changes are happening at the margin of the immovability of the existing legaland organisational framework, which are worth emphasising. On the one hand, part of thespaces and mechanisms of cooperation and transversal collaboration are getting smaller, inthe heart of an administration itself, with respect to the high positions. At the same time,however, the spaces of interdepartamental cooperation that exist are more efficient and operativein terms of collaboration since more actors are participating. In other words, we findourselves in a situation where more actors can be found with whom to cooperate, but thehttp://www.uoc.edu/in3/pic
E-governance and Citizen Information 143 Conclusionsspaces where they are found are smaller. Moreover, in terms of cooperation, a certain processof homogenisation has been taking place between the actors. This means that less differenceexists between the extremes: there is not as great a distance between thoseparticipating more and those participating less as there was before.On the other hand, and also with respect to the general structure of the Administration, therelationships are more hierarchical: the departments that we might consider to be at the nucleusof the Generalitat (the Presidential Department, the departments of the Economy andFinance, and Governance) carry more weight than before in the network of links. In otherwords, that their protagonism and their relative power is emphasised.In parallel with this, the area related to ICTs and information society policies are gaining a morecentral role, with greater proximity to the three core areas – it is worth recalling that in the lastgovernment reorganisation, the Department for the Information Society moved to the PresidentialDepartment. This supposes a recognition of the transversality of the areas over which it hasresponsibility and, at the same time, a possibility for more effective actions.At the intermediate and lower levels of the Administration the situation is less equal with respectto the level of horizontal integration. The current variations are explained, fundamentally,by reference to the Citizen Information channels. With regard to face-to-face CitizenInformation it is still possible to talk of strongly bureaucratised structures, where the organisationaldispersion is mirrored in the territorial distribution of the offices and in the lack ofresults-evaluation processes. With the Internet channel, despite an initial situation in whichthere was great dispersal and diversification between websites, there is a highly transformationalplan on the table – even though its implementation to date has been quite patchy. Ina way, we have seen a transition from a very ambitious initial plan to a more realistic andnot so radical one. By contrast, the telephone channel represents the clearest example oftransformation towards an integrated and unified model – a process strongly supported withWeb-based information systems. Within the international comparative study there was not,however, as we have explained, a similar situation between the different channels with respectto the four administrations analysed. In particular, the case of the telephone channelconstitutes a priority focus for attention and innovation only in Catalonia.Regarding decision-making, we have observed an increase of mechanisms and control andtheir centralisation in coordinating organisms. At the same time, however, there has been arise in the level of interdepartamental internal communication. This has led to a growth inthe knowledge level of the actors involved in projects and, consequently, in their desire tocooperate.http://www.uoc.edu/in3/pic
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