Interoperability and community building for transformational eGovernment
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Author: Sylvia Archmann, Just Castillo Iglesias.
The latest technological progress has unveiled the enormous capacity for ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) to become a leading force in the modernisation of public administration and has raised the appearance of Transformational eGovernment.
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Interoperability and community building for transformational eGovernment
1. Interoperability and community building for
transformational eGovernment
The latest technological progress has unveiled the
enormous capacity for ICT (Information and
Communication Technologies) to become a leading
force in the modernisation of public administration and
has raised the appearance of Transformational
eGovernment. The potential for ICT in public affairs is
constantly increasing. Considering the countless number
of web-based applications – each time increasing in
complexity – that have been developed in the last five or
six years and are now widespread and popular for
private use, one can only think of the possibilities this
can offer to public administration and governments.
Many different initiatives and projects are currently being
carried out across Europe, aiming towards the
promotion of eID and interoperable solutions.
Interoperability is, to this date, perhaps one of the most
challenging issues for the future of eGovernment in
Europe. The development and further implementation of
cross-border solutions, which constitute an essential
pillar to enhancing the mobility of citizens and
businesses in the internal market without encountering
electronic barriers, is strictly dependent on
interoperability; the best way to ensure its success is
through the exchange of experiences and communities
of practice.
Sylvia
Archmann
Just Castillo
Iglesias
European Institute of Public
Administration
Keywords
Interoperability, key
enablers, eID, eIDM,
Transformational
eGovernment, communities
of practice, COP,
identification management,
citizen-centric government
Governments
should put efforts
into inclusion, building
trust in the new
technologies and the
promotion of, at least,
basic eSkills.
European Journal of ePractice · www.epracticejournal.eu 1
Nº 6 · January 2009 · ISSN: 1988-625X
2. 1 Transformational eGovernment
ICT have impregnated many aspects of our everyday lives, having an impact on our ways of communicating,
looking for and sharing information. A myriad of web-based applications have appeared in the last few years,
constituting what is known as ‘the social internet’, providing powerful tools for planning, networking and
communicating. The potential of this technology for its use in government or public administration is
enormous, both in the day-to-day work of policy making – enabling for instance, more direct contact
between politicians or law makers with the centres of expertise – and in the way that public administrations
communicate and provide services to citizens. The adaptability of these internet applications, plus its
availability across multiple platforms, are an important source of inspiration for similar applications in public
services.
The power of eGovernment and ICT to change government and administration has given rise to the concept
of Transformational eGovernment. The idea first appeared in the early 2000s in Belgium’s eGovernment
Strategy, focusing on the use of eGovernment to adapt governmental services to the needs and actions of
citizens. Later on, the idea of “Transformational eGovernment” found its place in an initiative by the UK’s
Cabinet, launched in 2005 under the name “Transformational Government Enabled by Technology” (UK
Government, 2005). This initiative also aimed to improve the delivery of services emphasising the use of ICT,
thus making them fit for the 21st Century. Transformational eGovernment, thus foresees, in the first place,
the delivery of public services through the internet, and the re-design of public services around the citizen,
instead of according to the needs of the administration (citizen-centric); secondly, it encompasses the move
towards a culture of shared services (standardisation and simplification of procedures fomenting the culture
of sharing and collaborating); and thirdly, it aims to strengthen public employees’ professionalism and skills,
thus leading to a knowledge-powered change within the government’s administration.
Besides this, the extension of public service delivery towards ICT seems to be the winning bid for the future
of public administration in Europe. Everyday we are seeing more initiatives, pilots, programmes, etc. aimed at
developing solid bases on which administrations can cooperate and share information in order to achieve
fully functioning cross-border and pan-European1
solutions. Nevertheless, the preconditions for
Transformational eGovernment to become a reality are not only technical (i.e. developing the right software or
systems), but also organisational, social and cultural: spreading ICT skills2
(EIPA, 2005), for instance, has a
very important role to play in making Transformational eGovernment a success. Rethinking public
administration and modernising it in a way that makes the delivery of public services faster, more reliable, and
less burdensome, is, thanks to ICT, something very positive that can increase productivity of the public
sector. Yet at the same time, it depends closely on the fact that citizens have access to computers with
internet connection and they actually know how to use them. Similarly, citizens have to be assured that the
new way of obtaining services from the administration is not only fast, but also secure. Governments should
put efforts into inclusion, building trust in the new technologies and the promotion of, at least, basic eSkills.
2 Key enablers: eIDM
3
& interoperability
The i2010 eGovernment Action Plan of 2006, which aimed to accelerate the benefits of eGovernment for
citizens and businesses whilst ensuring that eGovernment at national level does not create new barriers for
the internal market, established a list of five top priorities to achieve these goals: no citizen is left behind;
making efficiency and effectiveness a reality; implementing high-impact key services; putting key enablers in
place; and strengthening participation and democratic decision making. Among those, the Action Plan paid
special attention to the importance of putting in place the key enablers.
The term key enablers refers to the infrastructure that allows eGovernment services to function properly, for
instance, interoperability is considered a generic key enabler. To put it in the words of the European
Commission, “Key enablers are the glue that binds eGovernment together” (European Commission, 2007).
1
‘Pan-European services’ refers to cross-border services encompassing the whole of the EU.
2
Also commonly referred to as eSkills.
3
Interoperable electronic identification management.
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Nº 6 · January 2009 · ISSN: 1988-625X
3. The key enablers foreseen by the Action Plan are eIDM to access public services, the electronic
authentication of documents (eSignature) and electronic archiving. These key enablers would allow cross-
border projects to have major visibility by putting material tools directly into the hands of citizens. Hence, the
Member States agreed to enable by 2010 secure systems for mutual recognition of national electronic
identifiers for websites and public administration services. In the case of eID as a way to access public
services, interoperability is a crucial pillar; not only at the national level among different authorities or levels of
government, but also across Europe in order to move towards cross-border services.
A popular example of what it intends to achieve is that of a retired Belgian citizen spending the summer
months on the Spanish coast. Thanks to cross-border interoperable solutions, this person should be able,
from the Spanish administration’s internet portal and his Belgian eID card, to access his national services –
depending on the Belgian authorities (i.e. his pension or social security services) – as well as the services
offered by the municipality where he is staying in Spain.
Even though this scenario is not yet completely a reality, several pilot projects are currently being set up
involving various European countries testing the interoperability of systems in order to arrive at
recommendations for the specifications of a common standard. Despite the hopes put on such projects by
the European Commission and the Member States, their great complexity appears to be not only in technical
terms, but also in the semantics (systems belonging to different administrations and different Member States
should understand the same meaning of the data they are processing) and on the different levels of trust that
have a direct impact on the ease by which different instances of government and other relevant stakeholders
cooperate.
By promoting interoperability of systems across Europe – and even with more relevance in the case of cross-
border interoperability – stakeholders need to take into account that different countries understand different
things under the concept of eID, and that the objectives are to help systems to work together, rather than
replacing each country’s own way of organising itself. Under the concept of eID, for instance, some countries
use electronic ID cards, some use passports; for all of them, eSignature is not so closely linked to eID as in
others. Therefore, the exchange of experiences between different stakeholders, whether they belong to the
public or the private sector, and members of research centres and academia should be encouraged in order
to enhance collaboration and better cooperation for interoperability.
There has so far been enormous progress in the promotion of interoperability, both at EU and at the national
levels. Following the publication in 2004 of the first version of the EIF (European Interoperability Framework),
which is currently under revision, many Member States have developed their own initiatives and other sets of
practice guidelines to make their administrative structures fit for collaboration.
The importance of interoperability lies in its potential benefits (Archmann & Kudlacek, 2008). Therefore,
identifying the settings when interoperability becomes indispensable is an important step in helping to work
towards finding common solutions. The MODINIS Study on Interoperability (EIPA et al., 2007), of which EIPA
was one of the authors, identified the following five scenarios in which interoperability is crucial and should,
thus be promoted:
− Firstly, between the different services under the same client, namely the grouping of services (for
example, according to life events or problematic situations) in order to save resources or to improve
the quality of service (one-stop government);
− Secondly, among the different stages of a supply chain that is producing one or more services, for
instance, when a single service cannot be produced entirely by a single agency, there is a need for
interoperability between data workflow and input from other agencies and offices;
− Thirdly, namely among the agencies in different geographical areas, interoperability refers to the
direct transfer of data from the system of one administration to another administration system (mainly
geographical);
− Fourthly, among the directory services or documents, namely interoperability between local
directories, common metadata about services, as well as algorithms to locate the right agency. One
crucial question concerns the common descriptors for services and agencies.
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Nº 6 · January 2009 · ISSN: 1988-625X
4. − Finally, in supplementary services (identity management, digital signature, etc.).
Disclosing these five scenarios in which interoperability has such a prominent role was among the most
relevant results of the MODINIS study – a fact that is further supported by the number of initiatives, pilot
programmes, etc. that have appeared throughout Europe since its publication, and that are focusing on
eliminating the shortcomings that make the development of interoperable solutions more difficult.
According to our compromise with the future of eGovernment in Europe, EIPA has been active throughout
2008 in an initiative called “Connecting Public Services Communities” (EIPA & Politech Institute, 2008). This
initiative was launched in response to a necessity to establish a community of practice on interoperability to
facilitate the networking, dialogue and the exchange of experiences among the most relevant interoperability
and eGovernment stakeholders in Europe, and to help establish a trust scenario where the obstacles to
overcome can be discussed. With “Connecting Public Services Communities” we acknowledge the
importance of sharing experiences among practitioners involved in cross-border services, members of the
academia, and other relevant stakeholders as a means for the success of such services. The initiative was
launched at the Bled eConference (Slovenia) in June 2008, and continued with a second roundtable in Paris
during the World e-Democracy Forum. Furthermore, the most relevant cases and experiences shared during
those two meetings have been published in an especially dedicated edition of Politech Institute’s European
Review of Political Technologies.
During the initiative, efforts on interoperability of different natures have been put on the table: from the
development of the Lithuanian National Interoperability Framework following the European Interoperability
Framework (European Commission, 2005), to currently ongoing pan-European pilot projects, such as the
STORK project (European Commission, 2008b) on interoperable eIDs or the PEPPOL project on
eProcurement (European Commission, 2008a). Among the many lessons learned, the cases seen have
taught us about the utmost importance of those aspects of interoperability that go beyond technology. A
practical totality of the over 20 invited stakeholders have stressed that taking into account the
multidimensionality of interoperability (semantic, technical and organisational), is one of the crucial success
factors for their projects.
Considering this, as Europe moves towards Transformational eGovernment and it advances towards the
creation of more and better interoperable solutions, it is important not to forget that the reason behind all
those changes is the will to make life easier for citizens and businesses, as well as to facilitate and enhance
their mobility across Europe. Thus, interoperable solutions need to be further developed in Europe, whilst
always keeping in mind the concept of Transformational eGovernment. Introducing new services and
innovative ways for citizens and businesses to interact with public administration and to get their public
services delivered is something truly positive. However, it should never create new burdens or difficulties for
them, especially in the short term. Our experience tells us that collaborating and sharing best practices to be
able to learn from them is the right way to go. The exchange of experiences and the creation of communities
of practice such as “Connecting Public Services Communities” can provide some help towards this.
3 Concluding remarks
This article aims to draw practitioners’ attention to the most common trend in European public administration
towards eGovernment: moving towards a culture of citizen-centric government, bidding strongly on the use
of ICT for the delivery of services, and providing a more helpful and more efficient administration. This is
known as Transformational eGovernment and it depends strongly on the success of interoperability in
Europe; acting as a generic key enabler for more advanced services to appear, including cross-border
services that even aim to reach a pan-European scope. In the article we have seen the utmost importance of
those interoperability aspects that go beyond technicalities such as key success factors for advancing in the
creation of interoperable solutions and contributing to making cross-border eGovernment services a reality. It
is only a matter of time until pan-European interoperable eGovernment will become a reality; we will surely
see it in the near future. However, reaching this point involves a long road ahead and plenty of work to do, in
which a huge number of actors are involved, as well as an important number of already existing national or
local enablers who will have to interoperate with each other. Thus, the key factors for success are the
exchange of experiences and promoting common work among the main stakeholders through communities
of practice such as “Connecting Public Services Communities”.
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5. European Journal of ePractice · www.epracticejournal.eu 5
Nº 6 · January 2009 · ISSN: 1988-625X
List of references
Archmann, S. & Kudlacek, I. (2008). Interoperability and the exchange of good practice cases. European Journal of
ePractice, no. 2 Feb. 2008. http://www.epracticejournal.eu/volume/2/document/4338
EIPA (2005). Commissioned by the Luxembourg Presidency of the EU. Study on Organizational Changes, Skills
and the Role of Leadership required by eGovernment. Maastricht. http://www.epractice.eu/document/2935
EIPA et al. (2007). Study on Interoperability at Local and Regional Level. Final Version.
http://www.epractice.eu/document/3652
EIPA & Politech Institute (2008). Connecting Public Services Communities. European Review of Political
Technologies, vol. 7, October 2008. http://www.epractice.eu/document/5184
European Commission (2005). European Interoperability Framework for pan-European eGovernment Services.
http://europa.eu.int/idabc/3761
European Commission (2007). Key Enablers.
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/egovernment/policy/key_enablers/index_en.htm
European Commission (2008a). PEPPOL – Pan European Public Procurement on-line. Press release IP/08/785, 23
May 2008.
European Commission (2008b). Stork Project – Secure identity across borders linked. Press release IP/08/824, 30
May 2008.
UK Government (2005). Transformational Government Enabled by Technology. Cabinet Office. London.
http://www.cio.gov.uk/transformational_government/strategy/
Authors
Sylvia Archmann
Seconded National Expert
EIPA
http://www.epractice.eu/people/11942
Just Castillo Iglesias
Research Assistant
EIPA
j.castillo@eipa.eu
http://www.epractice.eu/people/13591
The European Journal of ePractice is a digital publication on
eTransformation by ePractice.eu, a portal created by the
European Commission to promote the sharing of good practices in
eGovernment, eHealth and eInclusion.
Edited by P.A.U. Education, S.L.
Web: www.epracticejournal.eu
Email: editorial@epractice.eu
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