e-GOVERNMENT IN FINLAND - ePractice.eu

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361. Moreover, the lack of opportunities for training, mentoring and coaching regarding e-government skills represents an important constraint, especially for agencies. The OECD survey shows that 54% of respondents found the lack of training opportunities in the field of IT to be an important challenge. 362. Agencies complain in fact that ministries pay insufficient attention to training and technical assistance. Ministries respond that they lack the resources to develop IT training opportunities. One respondent noted, for example, that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry only has two IT staff. Ministries feel that their main tasks vis-à-vis the agencies are to help in licensing software and to establish general policies for procurement. 363. The Ministry of Finance has taken a lead in trying to develop IT project management skills. It tries to familiarise agencies with approaches to and requirements of planning and to spread best practices though seminars (for example, by organising a part-time seminar on open-source software). Co-operation has also been enhanced by VATI, the inter-ministerial co-ordinating group composed of IT directors, which gives guidance to the IT unit and secures common decisions from all ministries. 364. Successful e-government requires both a mastery of enabling technologies and the ability to anticipate and address the concerns that arise from new developments. Creating commitment is important at all levels. Noted one agency, “Selling this to personnel will also be difficult – this will change the way we work and people are afraid.” 365. According to the Finnish Programme of Action to Promote Online Government, it is up to each ministry to provide management and staff with appropriate skills for developing electronic services. This implies, at the central level, the need for better co-ordination of resources, more effective central steering and enhancement of collaboration between personnel at different administrative levels. Key Points - 54 x Developing IT literacy and training staff are two issues that cannot be handled without the co-operation of personnel at all organisational levels and co-ordinated information sharing within central government. 366. The OECD survey included a section on challenges to skills development. It found that the three major challenges were: x Problems of attracting and retaining a qualified, highly skilled work force. x Insufficient opportunities for training, mentoring and coaching. x Personnel’s resistance to change. 367. Figure 34 shows the relative importance of these three challenges in Finland. 124
Problems with attracting and retaining qualified, highly skilled ICT workforce Insufficient opportunities for training, mentoring, coaching regarding e- government skills Personnel’s resistance to change Source: OECD Figure 4.25. Challenges to skill development 368. When asked to indicate which factors related to skills were a challenge or a constraint when implementing e-government, respondents seemed to see recruitment of skilled workers as a greater challenge than developing these skills within the administration: 69 % identified “problems with attracting and retaining a qualified, highly skilled ICT work force” as an important or very important challenge, while 52% considered insufficient opportunities for training and coaching to be an important or very important challenge. 369. Changing internal business processes to adapt to new technologies is costly. According to the OECD survey responses, however, the resistance of personnel to change in the Finnish administration was ranked a lesser challenge to skill development: 38.1% thought this was an important or very important challenge. Awareness of the need to improve working habits and a cultural propensity to innovate contributed to fostering the implementation of e-government. 370. Respondents providing electronic services at Stages 3 or 4 tend to rank change management skills as a greater challenge than respondents that reported providing electronic services only at Stages 1 or 2. Service provision at advanced stages requires not only a major commitment to change among personnel, but also the development of specific change management skills within the organisation (ability to adapt to new work practices and procedures, learning and teaching activities). 4.6 Monitoring and evaluation of e-government 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Very important challenge Important challenge Challenge of little importance Not an important challenge 371. As pointed out in the OECD’s The E-government Imperative (2003) monitoring and evaluation activities are crucial elements of the e-government policy cycle. They make it possible to assess the overall impact of electronic services delivery, estimate progress and supervise ongoing initiatives. The up-front process of building measures and indicators into e-government planning also serves to clarify objectives and to make goals more realistic. 125
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OECD e-GOVERNMENT STUDIES e-GOVERNM
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Secretariat wo
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4.2.5 Managing multiple service cha
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This report provides a first compre
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Finland could reinforce citizen sup
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Technical issues have been recognis
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The central government, however, la
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E-government has helped improve pla
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OVERALL ASSESSMENT The first phase
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6. The constitutional independence
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6. As the first OECD report of its
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Box 1.1. E-government co-ordination
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x The central administration does n
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2 THE CASE FOR E-GOVERNMENT 25. The
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Key Points - 4 x Public administrat
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40. As a result of these earlier go
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is illustrative. An online transact
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Health care 50 29 21 Unemployment 8
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3 BARRIERS TO E-GOVERNMENT 61. E-go
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action unclear. In interviews, IT o
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80. As noted in Chapter 2, the Stat
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equired to provide e-government str
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most important way to fund e-govern
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obtain (38%), followed by funds for
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Figure 3.4. E-government technologi
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113. Not surprisingly, the OECD sur
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3.3.2 Types of barriers 119. Respon
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x Technology neutrality in legislat
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“backbone” of the government ne
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egional authorities is decisive, ev
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Box 3.5. The development of mobile
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x Improving the public administrati
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political leaders to impress upon t
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showed that top management commitme
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levels of government. In particular
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home and school, every business and
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Page 76 and 77: Key Points - 31 x The proportion of
Page 78 and 79: Key Points - 32 x Basic online info
Page 80 and 81: Key Points - 33 x Interactive infor
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Page 84 and 85: Key Points - 35 x The proportion of
Page 86 and 87: 233. The Finnish Vehicle Administra
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Page 90 and 91: 4.3.2 E-engagement at the ministry
Page 92 and 93: Key Points - 38 x E-engagement init
Page 94 and 95: 255. At the end of 2002, the curren
Page 96 and 97: Themes portal (e.g. environmental,
Page 98 and 99: partnerships”). The most signific
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Page 102 and 103: Key Points - 42 x Structural impact
Page 104 and 105: Key Points - 43 x Change management
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Page 108 and 109: 297. Interviews with ministries and
Page 110 and 111: x Horizontal co-ordination: lack of
Page 112 and 113: Figure 4.22. Government-wide leader
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Page 116 and 117: operation of the Ministry of Social
Page 118 and 119: development of Internet service del
Page 120 and 121: Box 4.7. Adapting E-Procurement for
Page 122 and 123: strategies but also the ability to
Page 126 and 127: 372. The OECD report on the Finnish
Page 128 and 129: x E-government plans are important
Page 130 and 131: 5 NEXT STEPS 385. In May 2003, the
Page 132 and 133: completely new architecture for gat
Page 134 and 135: 399. Brokers receive revenue from t
Page 136 and 137: 409. In 1998, the government agreed
Page 138 and 139: Figure 6.3. Finnish electronic citi
Page 140 and 141: 430. For both municipalities and KE
Page 142 and 143: 6.3 Case study 3: The citizen porta
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Page 146 and 147: Key Points - 60 x The citizen citiz
Page 148 and 149: 7.2 Appendix 2: Reports, strategies
Page 150 and 151: x Public Management in Finland (200
Page 152 and 153: ought together government, civil so
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Page 156 and 157: 499. The Ministry of the Interior c
Page 158 and 159: decision requires it to provide net
Page 160 and 161: 522. Contrary to former reports by
Page 162 and 163: x By comparison, the term Web site
Page 164 and 165: 7.4.2 List of acronyms AFLRA: The A
Page 166 and 167: 7.5 Appendix 5: Methodology 7.5.1 D
Page 168 and 169: 2. Responses are not included in ov
Page 170 and 171: 8 BIBLIOGRAPHY ACCENTURE (2001),
Page 172 and 173: JUSSILAINEN, M. (2003), “Knowledg
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OECD (1992), “ICCP Reviews of Inf
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“GOVERNMENT RESOLUTION ON HIGH-QU
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VISTI, S. (1998), “Electronic Ide
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