e-GOVERNMENT IN FINLAND - ePractice.eu

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home and school, every business and administration, into the digital age and online; creating a digitally literate Europe, supported by an entrepren<strong>eu</strong>rial culture ready to finance and develop new ideas; ensuring that the whole process is socially inclusive, builds consumer trust and strengthens social cohesion”. 28 186. To achieve these goals, the eEurope programme has defined priority actions and set targets for providing IT training to young people, providing cheap and fast access to the Internet, accelerating ecommerce, developing safe authentication systems for citizens (smart cards), enhancing e-participation for the disabled, improving health-care online and strengthening e-government. As in other areas, specific targets for e-government have been set on electronic information and service provision (i.e. simplify online public information), and indicators have been developed to measure countries’ efforts to achieve these goals. 187. A recent report, Finland in eEurope, commissioned by the Ministry of Transport and Communication, assesses Finland’s efforts to achieve eEurope objectives. The purpose of the research was to assess how the eEurope project of the Commission has progressed in Finland from the perspective of the administration, enterprises and organisations. The report focuses also on analysing how the eEurope project supports Finnish national objectives and provides an evaluation of information society policy and organisation of the State administration. According to the programme indicators, Finland has performed well in ensuring cheaper and faster Internet access, especially for researchers and students, but it lags behind other EU countries in the use of secure networks and smart cards as well as in developing electronic access to public services (see Figure 4.1). Finland is also perceived to be weak in providing equal opportunities to those who participate in the knowledge-based economy and in accelerating the take-up of e-commerce. 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Ireland Sweden Figure 4.1. eEurope ranking of the availability of online services Finland Denmark Source: European Commission United Kingdom France Spain Portugal Greece 72 Italy October-01 April-02 Austria Germany Belgium Netherlands Luxemburg 188. Even though it ranks relatively well according to the eEurope indicators, the Finnish government has expressed strong disagreement with the indicators, as they do not take into account the quality and effectiveness of the electronic services measured. In fact, the ISAB explicitly states, “these [eEurope] 28 See E-Europe, An Information Society for All, Communication on a Commission Initiative for the Special European Council of Lisbon, 23-24 March 2000.
indicators miss most of the services provided by Finnish municipalities while they include processes that are not relevant for Finland as they have already been automated in other ways” 29 . Moreover, the Finns note that the current eEurope indicators look only at availability and not at the volume of use of services. 189. Although Finland has successfully taken the first steps to develop the information society and egovernment, according to the Finland in eEurope report, some crucial areas have to be addressed in the future. The report recommends that Finland set clear targets, strengthen co-ordination within the administration and promote joint action programmes in order to ensure that the resources of the information society are appropriately used and shared by all. Moreover, on a project level, the eEurope Action Plan calls for increased efforts to provide electronic access to public services, simplify online procedures for business, develop an action programme for customer management and set up citizen and business portals. 190. International benchmarking can be a very powerful tool for capturing the attention of ministers and generating political commitment to achieving certain national goals. 30 Finding common measures across countries, however, is a very difficult task, especially if, as in Finland, the country has taken a different approach to electronic service provision. Finding effective and comparable measures is also more difficult when dealing with complex variables such as “quality” versus the more simple quantity of services online. 191. Looking at the eEurope indicators, it is difficult to tell where genuine progress in electronic service delivery still needs to be made in Finland and where innovation as part of overall service delivery has simply not been captured by overly simple measures. Still, as the eEurope initiative enters into its second phase, it is working towards recognising quality measures as well as the diversity of national approaches. Key Points - 30 x The eEurope electronic services goals have been useful for encouraging action, but, as in any benchmarking exercise, it has run into the difficulty of comparing different types of systems and approaches. x Focusing on the number of services provided does not take into account the quality, appropriateness or take-up of those services. In addition, electronic services of local and regional government have not been taken into account. x The eEurope indicators have put pressure on Finland to advance, but possibly not in the direction that best suits its national approach and needs. 4.2 Electronic services 192. Given the diversity of public services provided by ministries and central agencies, it is extremely difficult to measure the implementation of electronic services, in Finland as elsewhere. The OECD’s The 29 Public Service in the New Millennium: Proposal for a Programme of Action to Promote Online Government (English summary), 2002. 30 The Global Information Technology Report of the World Economic Forum shows a high position for Finland not only in the networked society and economy (e-government, information infrastructure and ICT policies rank high in the special classification of the organisation), but also in the global competitiveness report (first position in the global competitiveness rank). See the related Web pages at www.weforum.org. 73
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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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Page 28 and 29: 2 THE CASE FOR E-GOVERNMENT 25. The
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Page 38 and 39: 3 BARRIERS TO E-GOVERNMENT 61. E-go
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Page 42 and 43: 80. As noted in Chapter 2, the Stat
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Page 46 and 47: most important way to fund e-govern
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Page 78 and 79: Key Points - 32 x Basic online info
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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 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
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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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