e-GOVERNMENT IN FINLAND - ePractice.eu

Figure 4.2. Electronic service provision in the Finnish central government by stage of service (2002)
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Source: OECD
Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4
E-service provision
197. In the OECD survey, to allow for adaptation to the Finnish context, ministries and central
agencies were asked to redefine Stage 4 if the definition did not apply well to their service delivery. While
this makes benchmarking against other countries more difficult, the OECD is also seeking to refine its
service delivery model to reflect as accurately as possible the status of service delivery in member
countries.
198. A useful classification should also avoid conveying the impression that the only – or even the
most important – objective of all e-government projects should be the development and enhancement of
stage 3 and 4 services. The different e-government objectives and ICT development paths chosen by
OECD countries means that there will necessarily be different models of online service development and
different means of deriving value from the exploitation of ICT. The difficulty of developing a model that
can capture the diversity and constant evolution of electronic services in different countries, let alone their
ideal distribution, tends to call into question the utility of benchmarking the most advanced stages of egovernment
service.
199. In order to reveal the span, breadth and depth of electronic services, the OECD survey also asked
ministries and agencies to distinguish between electronic services to citizens, businesses and others, such
as NGOs and civil society organisations as well as other parts and levels of government,, and also to list up
to three electronic services in each customer category.
200. The survey results show that the vast majority of respondents offer Stage 1 information and many
offer interactive information and downloadable forms at Stage 2. At the more advanced stages, however,
progress is much more modest: 30% propose Stage 3 transactions, while only 5% engage in data sharing
with other agencies to produce services for citizens and businesses in addition to the services and
information in the preceding stages (Figure 11).
75