The economic perspective refers to economic benefits which can be obtained at the public administration. According to this point of view, the e-government service marketplace al- lows for:
• Enriched.public.service: The concept of e-government service marketplace provides an open environment where commercial activities can coexist with government services. This way the marketplace represents a common access point to “enriched governmental services.” For instance if a citizen needs a driving license document, the eGovSM provides not only the “getting your driving license” service (public service) but also the service “driving school subscription” (private service).
Mugelln, Pettenat, & Abou Khaled
• Improved.public-private.partnership: Public-private integration can improve e- government by direct provision to end users of government services. This integration can add value for both parties. Integration with nongovernment activity complements seamless government services. Public-private partnerships can help integrate and im- prove the delivery of government services both to benefit customers and to increase efficiency. So public-private partnerships can be, and have to be seen as, a means not only to share risk and investment, to bypass budgetary constraints, or to access specialized skills (for instance, for software development) but also to provide better services to citizens, thus maximizing benefits of e-government.
• Reduced.cost: The automation of service delivery process and the use of electronic communication with citizens can lead to significant cost savings. The use of ICT enables the public sector to increase its services processing and delivery capabilities, while requiring less time and fewer personnel. This way a rebalancing from tedious and repetitive tasks towards more customer-oriented activities of civil servant work can be possible. Moreover according to the concept of e-government marketplace each agency is not obliged to implement an instance of the system with clear economic advantages and cost savings.
• Decreased.budgetary.barriers: Budgetary constraints can work against e-government seamless service delivery implementation especially for small agencies where the costs for a system development can be prohibitive. The concept of e-government service marketplace, as it does not require each administration to develop and implement an instance of the system architecture, represents a suitable solution for different-budget contexts.
• Reduced.process.time: The digitalization of public services can also significantly reduce the time it takes to process and deliver a service (process time), therefore saving precious time for public administration officials. Because data can be submit- ted electronically by customers and shared between different organizations, service information can be reviewed online in real time, allowing a greater responsiveness on the part of the administration.
• Improved. quality. of. information. and. information. supply: The direct input of data in electronic format by public service users reduces the number of errors, thus decreasing the number of citizen enquires or complaints, and makes it possible to build quality management information systems. Furthermore, the shared use of information and databases, made possible by electronic networks can also improve the quality of information and data supply.
• Increased efficiency: Improved information supply and service delivery contribute to increase the efficiency (i.e., the capability to convert resources and inputs into ef- fects and impacts) of public service delivery. Tasks and costs can be more efficiently distributed, both within and between public sector agencies.
• Increased.economic.competitiveness: Seamless service delivery can provide a major contribution to increasing economic competitiveness at local, regional, national, or international levels. By streamlining bureaucratic procedures and increasing public sector efficiency, it plays a significant role in raising the productivity levels in the economy as a whole (IDABC eGovernment Observatory, 2005).
Seamless, Ctzen-Orented Servce Delvery
The Technical Perspective
The technical perspective refers to benefits the information and communication technolo- gies bring to the public administration. The main advantages the concept of e-government service marketplace carries can be expressed in terms of:
• Improved.cooperation: The concept of e-government service marketplace facilitates the cooperation at the technical level between agencies allowing seamless service delivery based on a shared service operating model. The e-government marketplace concept has the potential to improve collaboration across agencies and organizations but there are a number of regulatory barriers to pass beyond (for instance, accountability rules, designed to ensure responsible use of public resources by clearly identifying who does what, can impede collaboration as it may be unclear who is accountable for shared service delivery).
• Shareable.infrastructure: A lack of compatible infrastructure between agencies can impede interagency collaboration, but the expense of implementing modern infra- structure can be a major barrier to the implementation of e-government initiatives. A shared infrastructure among agencies is one way of overcoming this problem.
• Improved.interoperability: The concept of e-government service marketplace facili- tates the interoperability between agencies according to two different aspects: integra- tion of legacy systems and flexibility and independence from a specific technology.
• Reuse.of.information: Information is not duplicated multiple times and collected at different locations but it is reused when needed, thus avoiding useless replication of data and promoting decentralization of information.
• Integration.of.legacy.system: The use of a service oriented paradigm allows inte- grating heterogeneous legacy systems. Distributed and independent administrations participate to the marketplace activity by exchanging services that provide a complete abstraction of the legacy systems.
• Reduced.process.time: The availability of electronic data makes it possible to auto- mate and “e-enable” key steps of the decision-making and service delivery process.
• Increased efficiency and flexibility: On the one hand according to the marketplace concept each administration can participate and join the system according to differ- ent levels of integration and interoperability. This way allows creating a network of collaboration between different administrations while respecting their technical and political capabilities. Clearly the administration that evolves and improves its services has the ability to strengthen its participation to the e-government service marketplace by increasing its level of cooperation. On the other hand the concept of e-government service marketplace modeled in a technology independent way allows the develop- ment of different, yet interoperable, systems. Moreover its generality makes possible its development and utilization in different countries.
• Evolution. over. time. and. scalability: The concept of e-government marketplace allows a gradual participation and integration of each administration. The multiple subscription profiles it provides make possible for each administration to join the marketplace according to its technical and political capabilities.
Mugelln, Pettenat, & Abou Khaled
Future.Trends.and.Open.Issues
As the field of seamless service delivery continues to grow and develop, much research should be done to fully take advantage of innovative approaches and technologies for e- service provision. Several pending or emerging issues that should be better investigated include the following:
• Investigate.emerging.paradigm: For distributed and shared collaboration. Given the high speed at which services are growing and changing continuously, shared and seamless service delivery is at the basis of grid service concept. According to the definition of grid, within a virtual organization it is possible to use in a flexible and shared manner distributed and heterogeneous resources all over the world in order to provide seamless, yet very complex, services. The concept of e-government service marketplace can be extended and enriched to make it more efficient in a distributed and heterogeneous world has the public sector is. The integration of grid concept can bring several advantages by making the discovery of services more dynamic, efficient, flexible, and distributed on a world-scale basis.
• Measure.performance: Several performance measures should be used to evaluate efficacy and success of shared infrastructure for seamless e-service provision. For instance the amount of staff time to develop and set up such an infrastructure, the number of accesses on the site, the number of downloads, the number of problems resolved should be carefully measured and analyzed (Pavlichev & David Garson, 2004).
• Provide.legislative.support.for.seamless.service: As previously stated collaboration between agencies for seamless service delivery is not only a technical issue; in order to promote and support interadministration data exchange, service sharing, and account- ability, an adequate and accurate legislative support is required. For instance digital signature mechanism for the future development of seamless service delivery needs to be adopted and integrated in present systems. The evolution of the law, in order to remove regulatory barriers to the development of seamless and shared services, is a fundamental component of the e-government development process. The development of seamless service delivery should be supported by a special legislation on shared and integrated services.
• Measures.improvement.in.citizen.life: It is crucial to research the effects of seam- less e-service delivery and what differences it is making in the citizens’ lives. It is fundamental to understand whether citizens find it too difficult to use or whether they do not experience lower costs or more effective government. Improvement in citizen life could be measured in terms of increased level of citizen satisfaction with government and government services, increased level of citizen trust in government, or costs saved by seamless service provision (in terms of money and time).
• Account.for.privacy.issues: Further efforts to continue to develop policies and techni- cal solutions around the key areas of security, authentication, and data storage in order to preserve and protect privacy of individual citizens’ data are needed. In fact, if not
Seamless, Ctzen-Orented Servce Delvery handled correctly, this issue, more than any other, has the potential to undermine the support and development of e-government and seamless government initiatives.
Conclusion.
Seamless delivery of public service is a fundamental challenge e-government has to deal with. As public services are very complex ones, in order to provide seamless service at the transaction level, different and multiple requirements, from both citizen and public admin- istration point of view, have to be satisfied. The emerging concept of e-government service marketplace proposes a general functional model for shared and interoperable services enabling integration between agencies both at horizontal and vertical levels. This chapter has reviewed the requirements for seamless service delivery from both citizen and public administration points of view. It has presented a general functional model for seamless, citizen-oriented service delivery (eGovSM), and its main functionalities. The impact and advantages of this concept on the three main axes (social, economic, and technical) have been discussed as well. The chapter ends providing some insights on future trends and open issues about seamless services delivery and enabling systems.
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