e-GOVERNMENT IN FINLAND - ePractice.eu

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political leaders to impress upon them the importance of e-government, not as a goal in itself but as a means to realise policy priorities. Many of the Finnish ministries and agencies surveyed expressed concern about insufficient engagement at the political level for driving an e-government agenda forward. 157. In its 2002 report to the government, the Information Society Advisory Board (ISAB) notes an increasing demand for e-government owing to concerns about maintaining national competitiveness. In addition, the ISAB noted that as the current population using electronic services ages, the need for electronic services will also grow. As a result, it calls for refining both the government vision and goals in order to focus on more efficient methods of public services delivery and higher overall productivity. This is needed, in particular, to prevent loss of enthusiasm and disillusionment relating to the implementation of egovernment. 158. Before ISAB’s 2002 Programme of Action to Promote Online Government, Finland had no overall e-government strategy for drawing together decisions and acts relating to e-government so that challenges, problems, dilemmas and contradictions could be identified and specific action to solve them could be proposed. ISAB’s approach was to identify and focus on problems areas to help match the government-wide vision with proposals for action: major improvements in the development, implementation and delivery of online services; service quality and development of demand; accessibility, usability and user qualifications; guidance and co-ordination of the development of online services (see Box 4.1). It is still too early to know if the programme is successful, but ministries and agencies are familiar with it. In addition, the focus on action, clear responsibilities and a short timeline for results all serve to underscore its role as a catalyst for action. Box 4.1. ISAB’s Programme of Action to Promote Online Government, 2002-03 In early 2002, the Information Society Advisory Board submitted a proposed programme of action to the government, which was accepted by the Ministerial Working Group on Administration and Regional Development. The programme focuses on some of the major weaknesses that have characterised government action in the e-government arena, including the level of resources available, fragmentation of initiatives, lack of central leadership, profusion of vision and policies, scarcity of co-ordination at both the technical and administrative levels. According to the ISAB document, understanding the constraints and bottlenecks that inhibit the reform of online public services is a first step towards defining a clear strategy for action. This programme proposes to address some major objectives in 2002-03, including: Reforming administrative activities and processes rather than adding technologies: The MoF should define guidelines for an electronic servicse strategy. Each agency should be responsible for defining, managing and staffing its electronic services strategy and should incorporate its electronic services strategy in its budget plan for the next four years. Ministries and agencies should launch projects for integrating electronic services. The MoF and MoI should co-operate to encourage data sharing activities. Encouraging the supply of and demand for online services: Ministries and agencies should develop public participation by publishing public documents on the Internet, allowing citizen feedback, etc. Ministries and agencies should encourage the channelling of public services through portals. 66
Improving access, usability and end-user competence: The Ministry of Education and related ministries and ag encies should increase the number of public access Internet terminals to one per 1 000 inhabitants. The MoF, the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities (AFLRA, Suomen Kuntaliitto) and the Advisory Committee on Information Management in Public Administration (JUHTA) should co-operate to develop guidelines and recommendations on electronic authentication at the state and municipal levels. The Ministry of Trade and Industry should work to increase the number of services available via the Enterprise- Suomi portal. Ensuring co-ordination: The MoF should be given central authority and additional resources for co-ordinating development work for online government. The MoF and MoI, together with AFLRA, should prepare proposals for the improvement of public administration standards (JHS). The MoF and JUHTA should follow up on implementation. The Ministerial Group on Administration and Regional Development should become more involved in matters of online government. Key Points - 27 x Ministries and agencies continue to demand clearer information and guidelines, not only regarding the content of guidance, frameworks and standards, but also regarding their scope of action and whether actions are mandatory or voluntary. This is seen by some, however, simply as an excuse for not taking action on delivering electronic services. In fact both leadership in ministries and agencies and clear guidance are needed . The ISAB Action Programme takes an important step in bridging vision and action. 4.1.2 Planning at the ministry and agency level 159. The Council of Ministers’ 1995 Resolution on Developing a Finnish Information Society, stated that each ministry should prepare a detailed action plan on how it would implement the information society strategy. While there was no requirement to include e-government planning, the Ministry of Education and Statistics Finland used this as an opportunity to begin planning elements of an e-government strategy. Their 1995 information society plans included organisation-specific plans for e-government. 160. E-government planning at the organisation level, however, was not required until 2001, nor were there guidelines available for agencies who wished to do so. In 2001, as a part of the JUNA project (see Appendix 3, Part 8.3.6), four pilot projects on the public administration’s strategy in the area of the information society were carried out. The projects aimed at helping agencies develop an e-strategy that was integrated into its overall business plan and took into account the need to develop management and personnel skills as part of the implementation of e-government. The pilot projects showed that developing models of strategies suited to different organisational settings presented a difficult challenge. They also 67
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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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Page 18 and 19: OVERALL ASSESSMENT The first phase
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Page 38 and 39: 3 BARRIERS TO E-GOVERNMENT 61. E-go
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Page 84 and 85: Key Points - 35 x The proportion of
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Page 94 and 95: 255. At the end of 2002, the curren
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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 110 and 111: x Horizontal co-ordination: lack of
Page 112 and 113: Figure 4.22. Government-wide leader
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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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