e-GOVERNMENT IN FINLAND - ePractice.eu

Key Points - 32
x Basic online information, or stage 1 services, are the type most commonly provided by central
ministries and agencies.
x Respondents which reported a greater demand for electronic services coming from the business
sector reported providing stage 1 services to both citizens and businesses. This was not
necessarily the case for respondents with less of a business orientation (i.e. those that reported a
greater demand from citizens).
4.2.2 Stage 2 online services: Interactive information
210. While Stage 1 information tends to be static, developing services to Stage 2 allows users to
access an agency’s database for publicly available information and to interact with the information in order
to carry out electronic searches and calculations based on their own criteria.
211. Both Stage 1 and Stage 2 services focus on providing information to users, but Stage 2 services
necessitate a greater investment in thinking about how citizens and businesses will use that information,
the rules for making certain information public and accessible, the target audience and the types of tools
that can add value to the user’s experience, making it easier to find what he or she is looking for and/or
tailoring information searches. For example, in interviews with the OECD, the Agrifood Research Agency
indicated its intention to provide more personalised services on its Agronet Web site. It has just entered
into an agreement with a private contractor for obtaining portal tools that will allow it to provide
information based on the type of user. They are also developing an enterprise portal for researchers and
administration officials.
Some examples of Stage 2 services in Finland include:
- Finlex, a searchable database of legislation, case law and international treaties run by the Ministry of
Justice. 36
- The StatFin service on Statistics Finland’s Web site which allows users to define variables in order to
query data. 37
- Agronet, the Agrifood Research Agency Web site, which provides information with some limited
interactivity, for example, allowing users to find out information about their particular area of the
country. 38
212. Since Stage 2 services may mean allowing users some access to organisations’ databases, it is
necessary to set rules on access and improve security. For example, the Consumer Agency is in the process
of transferring its intranet to an XML-based system to make it easier to access and to allow certain users
(i.e. municipal counsellors) to query the internal database. They are also looking at making some
information available on their external Web site. This requires establishing a hierarchy for access to
different levels of information (Figure 13).
36 www.finlex.fi/english/index.html
37 www.stat.fi/index_en.html
38 www.agronet.fi/
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