EU ministers agree e-government aims
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European ministers have signed a declaration outlining policies to deliver 'smarter' online public services by 2015.
At the fifth Ministerial eGovernment Conference in Malmö in Sweden on 19 and 20 November 2009, EU ministers agreed measures to make e-government more accessible, interactive and customised.
The aims over the next five years are:
- to empower businesses and citizens through e-government services designed around users' needs, better access to information and their active involvement in the policy making process;
- to facilitate mobility in the single market by seamless e-government services for setting up business, studying, working, residing and retiring in Europe;
- to enhance government services by reducing the administrative burden, improving organisational processes and using ICT to improve energy efficiency in public administrations.
The declaration was welcomed by the European Commission, which is working with member states to set targets for the European e-government agenda.
It will launch an action plan in the second half of 2010 setting out how the objectives in the ministerial declaration can be achieved.
Figures from a report prepared for the European Commission and released on 19 November show that 71 per cent of the public services measured are fully available online through portals or websites, against only 59 per cent in 2007.
According to the report the UK, Austria, Malta, Portugal, Sweden and Slovenia are leading in the availability of services. Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia are making important progress, but differences across Europe remain significant.
The report also looked at the availability of e-procurement, which is now at about 60 per cent across the EU, still far from the 100 per cent target for 2010 set by the i2010 eGovernment action plan.
This article was originally published at Kable.
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COMMENTS
Open governmentment, Cannock-style
eGovernment? Facilitate mobility? Enhanced services? Accessible? Interactive? Customised? Wait a minute, this is Project STORK, the subject of John Oates's article the other day, Brussels agrees pan-European ID standard, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/11/europeanwide_id_plan/
That's the Project STORK that has nothing to do with the National Identity Service, although James Hall, Chief Executive of the Identity & Passport Service, Registrar General of England and Wales, and Home Office Director General of Identity Services does happen to be in charge of measuring and promoting the interoperability of all this enhanced eMobility.
But that's just a coincidence.
And just as well, because isn't it the Government Gateway that Project STORK relies on at the UK end? And wasn't it the Government Gateway that had to be shut down when a USB stick with all the logon IDs and all the source code was lost in a pub in Cannock?
Yes, since you ask, it was, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/02/uk_eu_data_menace/
As the present five-year plan, i2010, http://dematerialisedid.com/BCSL/Festival.html, draws to a close and the curtain rises on the next one, how confident, you may also ask, do individuals, civil servants and businesses all over Europe feel about having their data shared via the Government Gateway?
If they've got any sense, not very.
For was it not our very own Prime Minister and Database Administrator Gordon Brown who said:
"It is important to recognise we cannot promise that every single item of information will always be safe because mistakes are made by human beings. Mistakes are made in the transportation, if you like in the communication, of information."
Yes, it was, http://dematerialisedid.com/BCSL/Hall.html
And of course
To expand the cross border data sharing and surveillance of EU citizens and subjects in the interests of National Security (whose definition is ever shifting).
Anticipating they will use the very latest Web 2.0 tech in the misguided belief that will work.
So SMRT!
Bets on how these improvements will ``naturally'' require everyone to have exactly one goverment issued RFIDed biometric (fingerprints, irisscans, AND DNA, obviously) ID to make sure it's you and not someone else that's looking at all those ``openly available'' government documents? And do anything else online, for that matter. All for your own safety, of course.
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