A new strategy for ICT in the public sector was presented in February 200319. This strategy states that enhancement of user-orientation, effi-ciency, and simplification must be carried out in the individual sectors and agencies, while the strategy itself deals with the challenges that must be solved centrally.
Infrastructure is the core of the strategy, which argues that proactive IT development must address the need for a functioning infrastructure to enable co-ordination between public IT systems in the various sectors, administrative levels, and geographical locations. This does not mean that user orientation of services, efficiency, and utilisation of IT in democratic processes are less important, but these areas of utilisation should take place at the local level, in sectors, agencies, and municipalities.
HØYKOM is a programme to stimulate public-sector use of broad-band-based services . The programme started in 1999 and has had an overall budget of about 40 MEuro. The Norwegian Parliament recently decided that the programme shall continue in 2005. Stimulating demand by public sector organisations for applications and solutions based on broadband communication is a key element in the policy for market-driven development.
HØYKOM has a special focus on distributed service areas, e.g. educa-tion, health care, and community information services. These areas in-clude projects with applications that need high transmission capacity, such as Internet-based interactive learning, telemedicine, on-line video surveillance, geographic information systems and topographic maps, video and film distribution, and 3D animation over the Internet.
For 2004, HØYKOM has a total budget of MNOK 86.5, or about 10.5 MEuro. The programme presently supports about 70 projects throughout Norway. Since its inception in 1999, the programme has provided grants to 350 projects (from about 830 applicants). The northernmost counties and the most remote areas of the country are slightly over-represented in the project portfolio.
According to a survey by Statskonsult in the summer of 200220, the challenges in the public sector that need to be addressed in coming years are:
19 Ministry of Labour and Government Administration, “Strategy for ICT in the Public Sector”, February 2003
20 Statskonsult, ”IKT i det offentlige 2002”, Statskonsult Notat 2002:4
• User-orientation of information and e- services is underdeveloped and uncoordinated
• Data interchange and communications across agency and sectorial boundaries constitute a problem in many areas
• Security and confidence in electronic transactions must be improved
• The focus on cost-benefit assessments and realisation of gains in working processes and organisation is underdeveloped
• IT is too poorly utilised for exchange of experience, competence building, and innovation
• Strategic managerial competence in the IT area needs to be improved Based on these challenges and the goals of eNorway, the action areas that are considered for eGovernment are:
• Reporting, re-use, and availability of data
• A common infrastructure for digital signatures (PKI)
• Development of broadband facilities
• Electronic services
• Market conditions
• Democratic participation and transparency
• E-business
• Knowledge management
• Benchmarking
The strategy has a time perspective frame to the end of 2005, in accor-dance with the plan for eNorway 2005. To ensure feasibility and achievement of results, some areas have priority. The priority areas and their associated proposed actions are reporting, reuse, and availability of data, a common infrastructure for electronic signatures, and knowledge management. These priorities imply the activities described below.
Electronic reporting
• Co-ordinate reporting routines, including reporting schedules and work processes.
• Eliminate reporting of information which is not used or which can be obtained from other sources.
• Customise and standardise the central governments agencies’ data capture interfaces for reporting.
Re-use of data
• Co-ordinate use of terminology, work routines, and ICT solutions, including areas other than the Register of Reporting Obligations of Enterprises (e.g. the Norwegian Centre for Medical Informatics – KITH).
• Establish a council with expertise in the various fields that can provide independent views on co-ordination of specific terms and work routines.
• Establish criteria for data quality, describe maintenance routines, and appoint agencies to
• be responsible for retrieving, maintaining, and making available public information.
Making information available
• Implement necessary standardisation for retrieval of data from public agencies/registers
• and making them available to others.
• Consider extending the Register of Reporting Obligations of Enterprises with data
• relevant for developing electronic services and re-use, which are currently not included
• in statutory reporting to the register.
• Establish principles for pricing of the provision of public information to the general
• public, business and industry, and public administration to encourage
• co-ordination, re-use, and business development.
• Establish a secretariat function for ICT standardisation in the public sector to
• review relevant needs for standardisation and interface requirements, in relation both to data
• interchange and to ensuring compatibility between the different ICT solutions employed.
Common infrastructure for electronic signatures (PKI)
A co-ordinating body is to be set up according to section 28 of the Regulations relating to electronic communications with and within the public administration, which entered into force on July 1, 2002. Among the co-ordinating body respon-sibilities, are the following:
• Systematising experience, supporting agencies that take development initiatives and implementing the necessary impact assessments.
• Categorising ICT solutions in the public administration according to the need for security and use of electronic signatures and, on this basis, establishing some common security levels for such solutions. This work involves assessing the requirements of the various services and proposing common solutions that include as many services as possible.
• Developing common requirements and guidelines for use of PKI in the public sector. The requirements are to be based on established market standards and pay due consideration to current regulations in the area. The requirements shall moreover safeguard necessary considerations regarding co-ordination with other countries. This may include work on certificate content and profiles, certificate policy and technical requirements. The body will also assess solutions available on the market against the common requirements in order to establish their suitability for use in the public sector.
• Establishing necessary co-operative for public agencies in both central and local government sectors and encouraging co-ordination of different ongoing projects in the public sector.
• Establishing or participating in a suitable arena for dialogue with market players who offer solutions for authentication and electronic signatures.
• The use of common requirement specifications, e.g. in standard agreements, should be considered to promote the desired development in the area, particularly as regards the need for open solutions, re-use, and common requirement specifications.
• Funds should be allocated to support development projects in the public sector that are willing to utilise common solutions in co-operation with each other and with the private sector to ensure the greatest possible increase in the benefit to users.
Knowledge management
Knowledge management is, in this context, defined as identification, develop-ment, and dissemination of knowledge critical for agencies. This should be strengthened by systematically developing the learning and knowledge network both within and across sectors as an instrument for promoting the goals of the modernisation programme. ICT plays an important role in achieving this. A pilot project is therefore proposed for an ICT-based network for knowledge manage-ment. The goal of the project is to extend the scope to embrace other parts of the public sector on the basis of the results. It is proposed that the established work for “reference municipalities” shall be one of the pilot projects. This net-work is a part of the modernisation programme.
Source: “Strategy for ICT in the Public Sector”, Ministry of Labour and Government Administration, February, 2003
A process for co-ordinating IT standardisation in the public sector has started. Currently, several agencies have co-ordinated standardisation and IT architecture. This sectorial work may, however, result in fragmented solutions. Therefore, based on the above strategy for ICT in the public sector, a policy for co-ordinated IT architecture within the public sector has begun (described below).
Progress of eGovernment in Norway
The evaluation of eNorway in June 200321 analyses the development of IT in the public sector. It found numerous examples of good IT initia-tives, although progress has been slower than expected. International rankings show that Norway is no longer at the cutting edge of develop-ment. Most agencies have developed simple interactive services, and many of these can provide more advanced services tailored to individual needs. However, only seven government agencies and three local authori-ties are able to offer fully-integrated electronic services.
21 Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry, “e-Norway, Status Report June 2003”
The degree to which the public sector will be able to reap the benefits from introducing electronic services remains unclear, according to the evaluators, even though the public is largely ready for new services.
The evaluation from early 200322 argues that the public sector has failed to reap the organisational rewards offered by IT. Furthermore, the evaluation continues to state that “Norwegians are among the most active populations when it comes to contacting government services online, but there are reasons for thinking that the services provided by the state are not developing in line with demand”.
Online government services were developing at a slower pace than expected. An EU survey from 2002 showed that Norway fell from third to fifth place among those countries with the most government services online. The survey was based on 20 services provided by the public sec-tor for both individuals and enterprises. In April 2002, Norway was the only country whose development had not progressed since the previous survey (see figure).
Source: e-Norway Status report January 2003
The basis of quality criteria for government websites has been assessed23. A number of 529 government and municipal organisations were assessed
22 Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry, “e-Norway, Status Report January 2003”
23 Vestlandsforsking and Statskonsult, Quality assessment of government websites. 2001
and given points ranging from one to six stars. The assessment indicates that Government sites are consistently better than municipal sites.
Furthermore, the results show wide variations in user-friendliness and accessibility. Very few Government websites fulfil the WAI24 require-ments for accessibility.
Source: e-Norway Status report January 2003
24Web Accessibility Initiative,World Wide Web Consortium.
Within local municipalities, the evaluation found that IT is most wide-spread in administration and technical operations, while it is least used in care and nursing activities. Furthermore, few municipalities collaborate on IT-based tasks. The municipalities mention several obstacles standing in the way of such collaboration. Between 40 percent and 50 percent of the municipalities mention culture, tradition, and physical infrastructure as the main reasons, while 20 percent refer to problems related to costs, data security, and expertise.
A study on the use of ICT in Norwegian municipalities found that 87 percent of all municipalities had their own websites and 44 percent had their own intranet in 2002. In 51 percent of the municipalities, under half of the staff had access to an e-mail address and a PC.
Less than half of the municipalities, 45 percent, indicated that they had worked out an ICT strategy. Among municipalities that had an ICT strategy, 62 percent reported that an “ICT infrastructure” was part of the plan, while 58 percent and 42 percent of the municipalities reported that an “ICT security policy” and “citizen services via the Internet” were part of the strategy.
Services within the municipalities are digitalised to only a limited ex-tent. The most common service available was the option to download and print forms, and 44 percent of the municipalities in the survey offered this service on their websites in 2002. Sending information to the municipal-ity through the website was possible in only 7 percent of the municipali-ties, and only 2 of the 418 municipalities that responded to the survey used digital signatures in communication with citizens or enterprises.
IT is more widespread in administrative systems. Electronic filing sys-tems are used in 95 percent of the municipalities. Use of geographic in-formation systems (GIS) and electronic document handling systems are also widespread, in 85 percent and 72 percent of the municipalities, re-spectively.
The survey asked about important barriers against using ICT in gen-eral. Lack of integration between applications were reported to have “so-me” or “large” significance in 88 percent of the municipalities, while lack of ICT-qualified staff was reported to have “some” or “large” sig-nificance in 81 percent of the municipalities. The municipalities were also asked about the importance of different barriers against serving citizens by the Internet. Difficulties in finding resources for development were reported to have “some” or “large” significance in 87 percent of the mu-nicipalities, while 82 percent of the municipalities reported that difficul-ties to readjust work routines had “some” or “large” importance.
This study corresponds to the ones carried out in Denmark in 2001 and 2002. At the end of 2001, all Danish municipalities had their own websites (the question is not part of the survey for 2002). In 2002, it was possible to download and print forms from 93 percent of the municipali-ties’ websites, and submitting personal data via the website was possible
in 48 percent of the municipalities. In 2002, 59 percent of the Danish municipalities had their own intranet.