The Network Society - University of Massachusetts Amherst

Canada has probably gone furthest in the deliberate targeting of
user satisfaction with services, addressing the 5 main drivers of satisfaction
(timeliness, knowledge, extra mile/smile, fairness, and outcomes)
and showing a steady improvement between 1998 and 2002 at
every level.
These evolutions of service delivery models raise some difficult
issues. One is that each further state of evolution requires some shared
data systems across organisational boundaries, and some common
protocols. Some countries have felt able to adopt unique identifiers as
in Finland; but in many others there is insufficient trust in the state to
allow this. Another is that integration of services across boundaries
may be easier for non-state organisations given the nature of bureaucratic
and professional interests: those states most willing to allow
porousness across boundaries may reap gains fastest. A third is that
these all enable more networked organisational structures with greater
decentralisation of operational decision making in ways that are likely
to threaten the power of middle tiers.
All are in part about altering the mix of channels to maximise public
value—which implies automating some services and intensifying
the personal nature of others.
Trust
Reshaping the State and its Relationship with Citizens 231
The most difficult area of public value has always been the third—
trust. Here, the development of e government is bound up with the
broader opening up of the state to scrutiny, and the changing nature
of the conversation held between states and the public. The picture is
complex. Most citizens relationships with states are abrupt, unsatisfying
and disjointed—voting in an election, serving on a jury, receiving
schooling, being paid pensions and so on. 3
There have been some common moves to reframe the environment
for trust, including:
• Greater use of pre-legislative scrutiny, with legislation online
prior to its agreement
3 See Touching the State, Design Council, London, 2004