e-GOVERNMENT IN FINLAND - ePractice.eu

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equired to provide e-government strategic plans, that is has started to receive more detailed information on goals and performance. When asked if there were barriers in the budgeting system to developing IT systems, an MoF official replied that the ministry is trying to make better use of all information regarding costs and expenses. Agencies’ strategic plans will be used for budget planning purposes for the first time in March 2003. 87. The OECD’s The E-government Imperative (2003) points out that another way to fund crossorganisation IT projects is to improve mechanisms for shared spending. Officials from the Government’s Information Management Unit argued that they would be better able to promote further collaboration if ministries could contribute their share of the costs of common systems. The unit’s budget is based on the cost of the previous system and it provides its services free of charge.. While the unit has no reason to charge for basic services such as access to Government systems, it would like to be able to ask ministries to pay their share when they benefit from the shared services it might propose (e.g. a common financial, case management or e-mail system). Key Points - 13 x Central funds have been effectively used for the development of e-enablers such as the Citizen’s Portal. However, the MoF is only now starting to collect the information that it would need in order to better link budgeting and performance and to make informed central budget allocations if it were to create any central funds. x Central funding earmarked for cross-administration projects could also help create incentives for collaboration. However agencies should show how such funding will lead to integrated services rather than services provided by one agency for others. x It may be useful to examine joint funding systems that would allow ministries and agencies to contribute to the costs of a shared IT project. Capital versus operational expenditures 88. The OECD’s The E-government Imperative (2003) calls attention to the risk of inappropriate ICT funding decisions due to difficulties with the treatment of major ICT capital expenditures and with funding requirements over long time periods. As in many other OECD countries, IT spending in Finland is treated as an operating rather than a capital expenditure so that spending is calculated on an annual cash basis. In interviews, however, this was not raised as a major source of difficulty for developing IT systems. To treat IT spending as investment, better information on performance would be needed in order to estimate egovernment benefits. 89. The OECD’s The E-government Imperative (2003) suggest that classifying major ICT projects as capital investment would enable a fairer comparison of such investments with recurrent spending alternatives. In Finland the adequacy of annual budgets and the lack of focus on return on investments could explain the fact that IT spending is integrated with overall operating costs rather than treated as a separate cost category. This fact has actually helped to lessen the danger of competition between spending on ICT and on other substantive programmes and had the added advantage of linking ICT spending to related e-government back office implementation investment (such as change management and/or process re-engineering) that are also crucial to a project’s success. However, few agencies have taken these measures and limited funds are available. 44
Key Points - 14 x In general, budgets to date did not appear to inhibit significantly the development and implementation of e-government. ICT spending estimates, however, do not take into account the cost of related back office reengineering and change management. 3.2.3 Funding at ministry and central agency level Funding e-government activities 90. Funding for IT projects appears to be a real, but secondary, issue for many Finnish public organisations. The MoF asked ministries to indicate in their 2003-2007 budgets if any new IT funds were needed: three ministries replied that some new funds were necessary, but the amounts requested ranged from only 1 to 5% of their annual information management spending. The problem is more one of guidance and exchange of good practices as one of scale. Because of their size, many of the smaller agencies seem to be less interesting to large contractors. Agencies are also looking for efficiencies in order to allow them to finance additional electronic service but the small size of many agencies, prevents efficiencies of scale. 91. Some IT officials interviewed felt that dealing with the millennium bug (Y2K) and the cost of moving to the <strong>eu</strong>ro had absorbed available funds for the past two years, but that existing funds have now been freed up. For example, the defence forces are planning to spend EUR 25 million on new IT investments. 92. As Table 2 indicates, almost all respondents to the OECD survey fund their e-government activities through their own general budget. Given the low and limited level of central funding, it is not surprising that none of the ministries or central agencies fund most of their e-government activities through central funding, and only 26% fund even some of their e-government activities through central funding. Source: OECD Table 3.1. Funding of e-government activities (in percentages) Through your organisation’s general budget Through central government ICT funding Through private funding/business unit Through joint funding with other public organisation 45 Most activities 98 0 2 2 Some activities 93. Within existing budgets, however, there is some variation in how respondents’ e-government activities are financed. As Figure 4 shows, 68% of respondents reported that they reallocated existing funds to fund e-government projects through efficiency gains or by reducing budget items with lower priority. Less than one-third (29%) ranked new funds as the main source for e-government projects, while 44% ranked new funds second. None of the respondents reported charges for e-government activities as the 2 26 2 41
Page 1: OECD e-GOVERNMENT STUDIES e-GOVERNM
Page 4 and 5: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Secretariat wo
Page 6 and 7: 4.2.5 Managing multiple service cha
Page 8 and 9: This report provides a first compre
Page 10 and 11: Finland could reinforce citizen sup
Page 12 and 13: Technical issues have been recognis
Page 14 and 15: The central government, however, la
Page 16 and 17: E-government has helped improve pla
Page 18 and 19: OVERALL ASSESSMENT The first phase
Page 20 and 21: 6. The constitutional independence
Page 22 and 23: 6. As the first OECD report of its
Page 24 and 25: Box 1.1. E-government co-ordination
Page 26 and 27: x The central administration does n
Page 28 and 29: 2 THE CASE FOR E-GOVERNMENT 25. The
Page 30 and 31: Key Points - 4 x Public administrat
Page 32 and 33: 40. As a result of these earlier go
Page 34 and 35: is illustrative. An online transact
Page 36 and 37: Health care 50 29 21 Unemployment 8
Page 38 and 39: 3 BARRIERS TO E-GOVERNMENT 61. E-go
Page 40 and 41: action unclear. In interviews, IT o
Page 42 and 43: 80. As noted in Chapter 2, the Stat
Page 46 and 47: most important way to fund e-govern
Page 48 and 49: obtain (38%), followed by funds for
Page 50 and 51: Figure 3.4. E-government technologi
Page 52 and 53: 113. Not surprisingly, the OECD sur
Page 54 and 55: 3.3.2 Types of barriers 119. Respon
Page 56 and 57: x Technology neutrality in legislat
Page 58 and 59: “backbone” of the government ne
Page 60 and 61: egional authorities is decisive, ev
Page 62 and 63: Box 3.5. The development of mobile
Page 64 and 65: x Improving the public administrati
Page 66 and 67: political leaders to impress upon t
Page 68 and 69: showed that top management commitme
Page 70 and 71: levels of government. In particular
Page 72 and 73: home and school, every business and
Page 74 and 75: E-government Imperative (2003) list
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
Page 82 and 83: of using more efficient electronic
Page 84 and 85: Key Points - 35 x The proportion of
Page 86 and 87: 233. The Finnish Vehicle Administra
Page 88 and 89: citizens’ access to information i
Page 90 and 91: 4.3.2 E-engagement at the ministry
Page 92 and 93: Key Points - 38 x E-engagement init
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255. At the end of 2002, the curren
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Themes portal (e.g. environmental,
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partnerships”). The most signific
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job satisfaction enquiry and models
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Key Points - 42 x Structural impact
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Key Points - 43 x Change management
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Figure 4.17. E-government leadershi
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297. Interviews with ministries and
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x Horizontal co-ordination: lack of
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Figure 4.22. Government-wide leader
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catalyst as well as formal or infor
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operation of the Ministry of Social
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development of Internet service del
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Box 4.7. Adapting E-Procurement for
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strategies but also the ability to
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361. Moreover, the lack of opportun
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372. The OECD report on the Finnish
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x E-government plans are important
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5 NEXT STEPS 385. In May 2003, the
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completely new architecture for gat
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399. Brokers receive revenue from t
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409. In 1998, the government agreed
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Figure 6.3. Finnish electronic citi
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430. For both municipalities and KE
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6.3 Case study 3: The citizen porta
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tourism, immigration and emigration
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Key Points - 60 x The citizen citiz
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7.2 Appendix 2: Reports, strategies
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x Public Management in Finland (200
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ought together government, civil so
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freedom of choice and availability,
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499. The Ministry of the Interior c
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decision requires it to provide net
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522. Contrary to former reports by
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x By comparison, the term Web site
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7.4.2 List of acronyms AFLRA: The A
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7.5 Appendix 5: Methodology 7.5.1 D
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2. Responses are not included in ov
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8 BIBLIOGRAPHY ACCENTURE (2001),
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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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