6th International Research Symposium on Public Management

University of Edinburgh, 8-10 April, 2002

E-GOVERNMENT AND MANAGERIALISM: A SECOND REVOLUTION IN PUBLIC

MANAGEMENT

AUTHORS’ CONTACT DETAILS

J. Ignacio Criado
Ph. D. Student
Department of Political Science and Public Administration II
Faculty of Political Science and Sociology
Complutense University
Campus de Somosaguas s/n
28223, Madrid, Spain
Phone: +0034 605569344/916716780
Fax: +0034 913942620
Email: i.criado@wanadoo.es

Professor Owen Hughes

Department of Management
Monash University
Clayton, Victoria
Australia 3800
Phone: +613 9903 2673
Facsimile: +613 9903 1201
Email: Owen.Hughes@buseco.monash.edu.au

Professor Julian Teicher

Department of Management
Monash University
Clayton, Victoria
Australia, 3800
Phone: +613 9905 9130
Facsimile: +613 9905 1201
Email: Julian.Teicher@buseco.monash.edu.au
Abstract

Narrowly defined, e-government refers to the application of internet-based

technologies to the commercial and non-commercial activities of government. More
broadly, and correctly in our view, it refers to the adoption of information and
communication technologies (ICT) by government to improve access to services.
These include older, well established technologies such as, video-conferencing, CD-
ROMs, touch-tone data entry, the internet and private Intranets, (OECD PUMA
1998), as well as the newer ones such as interactive TV and internet access via
mobile phones and personal digital assistants.

The terms ‘new public management’ (NPM) and ‘managerialism’ are commonplace in
the public management literature (Hood, 1991; Osborne and Gaebler 1992; Hughes,
1998) for describing the adoption of a private sector management model which
emphasises the accountability of managers and has a results orientation.

E-government could be described as the second revolution (following managerialism)

transforming the public sector across both developed and developing nations and,
combined with NPM, may transform the management of the public sector. It is
argued that, rather than e-government leading to NPM in a kind of technological
determinism, or NPM leading to e-government, the two movements are mutually
reinforcing. The NPM reforms occur prior to the technological changes, but anticipate
them; e-government reforms promise a way of implementing the theoretical changes
of new public management. The aim of this paper is to try to gauge the importance of
e-government for public management. We consider the major trends in e-government
and explore their implications for the ongoing implementation of managerialist
reforms. In doing so we draw on the experience of a range of OECD nations and
developing countries.

Key words

E-government, information and telecommunication

technologies, new public management, theoretical development

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1. Introduction

During the last decade information and communications technologies have

dramatically affected the way in which societies function (Abbate, 1999, Negroponte,
1995; Himanen, 2001). These technologies have already had their effects on the
operations of government and it is likely that further effects will occur as the use of
such technology becomes more widely accepted. While public organizations have
never been averse to using technology, the changes now underway have the
potential to change the operations of government in ways that are difficult to predict.
The governments of many countries now use, promote and deliver internet based
information and services to address the needs of business (G2B), citizens (G2C) and
government agencies (G2G) (Holmes, 2001). The interest in the internet within the
public sector has been extended from control and regulation to use and service
provision (G-7, 1997; OECD, 1998).

E-government is becoming a familiar term in the management literature, where it is

one of the emerging issues (Jackson and Curthoys, 2001). At the same time as
public services have been drastically changed through new public management
(NPM) reforms, governments are coming to terms with the potential for changing
their operations through information and communication technology. These two
movements are linked. As Bellamy and Taylor argue
The patterns of organizational change which are so commonly associated
with the information age are remarkably consistent with the patterns
associated with current forms of managerialism in public administration
(1998: 37).

Obviously technological changes have had an impact on NPM; is there a

technological determinant to NPM, or is it the case that e-government merely
reinforces the change to new forms of managing which were already occurring?

The aim of this paper is to try to gauge the importance of e-government for public
management. We consider the major trends in e-government and explore their
implications for the ongoing implementation of managerialist reforms. In doing so we
draw on the experience of a range of OECD nations and developing countries. E-
government could be described as the second revolution (following managerialism)
transforming the public sector across both developed and developing nations and
which combined with NPM, may transform the management of the public sector. It is
argued that, rather than e-government fostering the achievement of the goals of NPM
in a kind of technological determinism, or NPM leading to e-government, the two
movements are mutually reinforcing. The NPM reforms occur prior to the
technological changes, but anticipate them; e-government reforms promise a way of
implementing the theoretical changes of new public management.

2. The development of E-Government

That e-government is a major change is not in dispute as noted in a special survey

by The Economist which argued:

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 Within the next five years the internet will transform not only the way in
which most public services are delivered, but also the fundamental
relationship between government and citizen. After e-commerce and e-
business, the next internet revolution will be e-government (Symonds;
2000).

This prediction is already being realized. A number of studies and projects, which
address the importance of technologies within the public sector, point to ICT as an
emergent object of study following from the spread of the internet due to the
exponential growth of the world wide web.

Originally, e-government was formulated as ‘digital government’, and was introduced

by the US based National Science Foundation (NSF). Starting in 1997, and following
the earlier report Toward a Digital Government in the 21st Century, the NSF invited
reflection of, inter alia, the US federal government’s use of internet technology to
enhance service provision. Digital government initially constituted an overall
approach to government that utilised the emerging technology to improve services.
(Jackson & Curthoys, 2001). Narrowly defined, e-government refers to the
application of internet-based technologies to the commercial and non-commercial
activities of government. Other definitions include the use of technologies which
range from on-line connection to PDAs to instant messaging services like SMS or
IRC (Silcock, 2001). More broadly, and correctly in our view, e-government refers to
the adoption of information and communication technologies by government, which
parallel and draw on the experiences of e-business and e-commerce. The
technologies include video conferencing, touch-tone data entry, CD-ROMs, the
internet and private intranets (OECD PUMA 1998), as well as other technologies
such as interactive TV and internet access via mobile phone and personal digital
assistants. What all these have in common is their ability to integrate all previous
technologies via the internet in a way that has not been experienced previously.

Adoption by governments

Governments are going on-line at a very rapid rate. In 1997 there were 1,915
national level government agencies world wide with web sites. In 2000-2001 this
increased five-fold to 9,363 Web sites (CyPRG, 2001), http://www.arizona.edu/cyprg)
(CyPRG has collected data since 1995 and has a very useful website.) In terms of
number of agencies on-line, the US leads with 403, but this is to say nothing about
the quality of these sites. Other pioneering countries are shown in Table 1.

Spending on e-government is now large and increasing. There are no reliable

figures, but one estimate is that up to US$500 billion per year is being spent world
wide on ICT-based information systems in the public sector (Heeks, 2001). The
United States Department of Health and Human Services is spending $15 billion over
10 years for ICT integration and outsourcing support services. The Navy and Marine
Corps are spending $6.9 billions over five years on an intranet with secure voice,
video, and data networking, as well as other services for more than 400,000
computer users (Holmes, 2001).

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 Table 1: Number of agencies on-line
No. of
Agencies
Country On-line
US 403
France 321
Brazil 312
Portugal 236
Denmark 221
Belgium 199
Canada 168
Italy 168
Norway 168
Australia 154
Finland 137
Israel 128
Japan 125

Stages of development

In general, it is accepted that there are four different stages of development for e-
government. These stages are determined by the level of interaction between
government agencies and public or private agents (Criado & Ramilo, 2001; CAP
Gemini-Ernst & Young, 2001; Holmes, 2001; Symonds; 2000):

First Stage: Information In this stage departments and agencies use the world wide
web to post information about themselves for the benefit of external users. The
information is easily accessible with relatively few clicks of the mouse, but the site is
passive and does not provide a service as such. Often these web sites are not well
managed, are specific to a department and have no technical staff responsible for
updating them. They are also often poorly designed with unclear definitions, making it
difficult to access relevant information. Thousands of such ‘one way’ communication
sites are already up and running.

Second Stage: Interaction This stage introduces a degree of interactivity. Second

stage sites allow two way communication via e-mail or box files giving citizens the
facility to provide information about themselves by completing forms on-line (e.g.
change of address). It is also possible to download PDF documents such as forms
and complete them off-line. Presentation of information is much improved with
content files making access to information about services easier and more flexible.
However, feedback is limited and there is no integration of content across
departments. Navigation can still be difficult for users. There are many second stage
sites in existence, many of them dependant on the relatively low technology of e-
mail.

Third Stage: Processing. Automation of many of the tasks previously carried out by
public servants occurs in this stage. Requests for service can be submitted on-line
and subjected to basic editing and validation before being stored for off-line
processing. Transactions which involve a fixed price, for example renewing a license,
paying a fine or enrolling for an education course, can be completed on-line.

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Information and service provision is more citizen-centric, focussing on the function
rather than the department or agency providing the service. The promotion of
feedback and the use of various tools, links, and updated pages has made managers
more accessible to citizens. Finally, the design of systems is more coherent,
incorporating logic tools, presenting information in a manner which reflects the
institutional view, and catering for different languages and disabilities such as
blindness and deafness. There are several hundred such sites, mostly operating at
the state or local, rather than central, government level.

Fourth Stage: Transaction. This final stage is much more than a simple web site.
Rather, it is a collection of web sites accessible via a portal that integrates the
complete range of government services and provides citizens with seamless access
to more than one agency. Different dimensions (information, content, management,
style, update, etc.) are integrated providing a global view of a new virtual parallel
organization. The focus is strategic design, addressing citizen and business needs by
offering a complete range of services on-line, while seeking to extend services as a
consequence of improved technical and human resources. This stage allows
customers to interact fully with government, and provides aggregated and
customized information and services in subject areas. It is a complex, growing
system, rich in data, transactions and multimedia.

It is this fourth, interactive, stage which will have the most impact on service delivery
both in terms of greatly enhanced access and functionality for citizens, and
restructuring of government departments. Some of the most interesting and complete
technological innovations for addressing e-government have been developed by the
local level of government. This is because local government is closer to citizens and
some of its managers and politicians are able to influence local organizations to
adapt to new managerial culture and social demands (Criado & Ramilo, 2001). In
federal systems, modernization usually starts at the state level. The Australian state
government of Victoria was at the vanguard of using multi-channel technology to
deliver services through a portal when its maxi system went live in December, 1997.
Maxi allowed “residents to conduct monetary and non-monetary transactions with
different levels of government via the internet, kiosks and IVR (integrated voice
recognition)” (Deloitte Consulting and Deloitte Touche, 2000). The service was
further enhanced in 2001 when the new Multi-service Express (ME) portal went on-
line. This offers more than 300 services which can be accessed in one of three ways:
by service type, by department, or by life event. The portal is connected to the maxi
network. An interesting aspect of the ME portal is the stipulation that as a pre-
condition for inclusion in the portal
Services must be of a "doing/transactional nature", for example
transactions that include filling out and submitting forms on-line, ordering
publications on-line, paying bills on-line, booking a service on-line and
searching a database to retrieve information. (GO Vic web page)

Government portals are being developed as the first interface with all of government.
In the United States, for example, a site such as www.firstgov.gov, tries to provide a
single gateway for users to all government websites, and is organised around the
information the user is seeking, as opposed to the name of the agency, its services,

6
or the tier of government responsible for that service. Others are www.canada.gc.ca,
and australia.gov.au. According to one report,
the leaders in eGovernment will be those countries that fully exploit the
portal model. The power of this model is its potential to truly connect
governments with their citizens and businesses, drive up the levels of
customer service which governments can offer, and also to build public-
private partnerships to deliver integrated services to citizens (Accenture,
2001).

Singapore’s e-Citizen Center portal is perhaps the closest there is to this stage of
integrated on-line services. The e-Citizen Center began in 1997 as a pilot to
demonstrate to government ministers what was meant by ‘integrated’ and ‘citizen-
centric’ digital services. From a single education services package, the portal grew
gradually and now includes more than 50 life events and 150 transactions. (Holmes,
2001)

The introduction of e-government inevitably leads to organisational change. Even at

the early information and interaction stages, where the focus is the provision of
information to citizens, some reorganization of work and re-conceptualization of the
role of the agency may be needed. Much more change is engendered by the third
and fourth stages. The establishment of portals and information/service provision as
focal points for e-government indicates a managerialist emphasis and is likely to
require substantial reor ganization. The reforms enshrined within NPM provide the
closest link to what is happening with e-government

3. E-government operations

The most interesting aspect of the increasing attention to e-government will be how
such technological transformations affect the theoretical changes within public
management. An examination of the possible linkages – government-to-citizen
(G2C), government-to-business (G2B) and government-to-government (G2G)
reveals the potential for service delivery improvements.

Government to citizens (G2C)

The full impact of G2C will not be felt until a larger percentage of citizens are both
connected to the internet and using it to access government information and
services. In Australia, although by November 2000 56 percent of households had
access to a computer at home, only 37 percent had internet access and a very small
12 percent of Australian adults used the internet to access government services in
the 12 months to November 2000. (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001) However,
these numbers will increase over time because internet use is most prevalent in the
younger age groups where74 percent of adults aged 18 to 24, were internet users. In
the meantime there are a number of ways in which e-government can strengthen the
link between government and citizens, both young and old. Chief among these is
making the access of relevant information and services less complex. One solution to
this problem is to group services around ‘life events’, so that, for example, many of
the compliance tasks involved in foreign travel (passports, visas, health warnings and

7
vaccinations) can be linked with each other on the same website. The advantage of
this approach is that all services related to a particular life event are grouped together
and the customer does not need to know which department or agency is involved.
Victoria’s ME portal and Singapore’s e-Citizen portal use just such an approach. The
life events on the ME portal are Getting Married, Going to School, Having a Baby,
Moving Home, Retiring and Turning 18.

One of the great promises of e-government is what is known as 24x7 availability,

meaning that government services are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The
internet makes this possible and many government sites have delivered on this
promise, at least as far as the availability of information is concerned. Even if this is
essentially one-way communication, there is much more information available and
more easily accessible than was ever the case under the traditional model of
administration. In that model, information was held centrally and released only
grudgingly, usually as printed reports that were difficult to get and did not encompass
much of the inner workings of government. It is now much more common for
information of all kinds to be released as it is completed, in downloadable form. This
affords citizens the opportunity to be better informed and has implications for
government accountability.

Providing services more conveniently reinforces the view of the citizen as customer.
For many services this is an appropriate perspective. There is potential in the
increasing use of tools such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software
to further the customer view within public management. It is possible to tailor
offerings, to reduce the duplication of information gathering, and to profile customer
behaviour to predict likely future requirements. Customer relationship management
techniques allow a closer relationship with citizens – for good or ill - by making better
use of information already collected through techniques such as data warehousing
and data mining, and developing one-to-one relationships with citizens. There are
however, problems of perceived loss of privacy and intrusion by the state when
government is effective in storing extant information.

Government to Business links (G2B)

E-commerce in the sense of electronic exchanges involving commercial and fee-for-

service transactions is a rapidly growing sector of the economy across a range of
countries. In manufacturing, large companies such as Ford and General Motors use
the internet to source parts and have required their suppliers to adapt their internal
workings to comply. Public organisations, too, are placing significant resources into
delivery and proc urement systems for their interactions with business. In this sense
e-government is similar to e-commerce. If business is using the internet to simplify its
transactions with other businesses, it would prefer to follow the same arrangements
with government.

For most public sector organisations, the first step to on-line procurement is to send
out tenders and receive bids for government contracts electronically and to set up on-
line shopping malls for regular purchases. Many governments have already done this
with savings from reduced transaction costs, with the US Department of Agriculture
reducing transaction costs for purchases from $77 per order to $32 per order and the
latter to fall further to $17 with an even better on-line system (Holmes, 2001: 39).

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Investments in information technology have resulted in less worker time spent in
processing routine work. The US Department of Defense, in converting its medical
records to electronic files, believes that ‘it will ultimately save one billion dollars a
year in unproductive time previously spent searching for lost paper medical records’
(Kamensky, 1998: 83).

A survey of agencies in Australia found that two thirds of agencies paid more than 50
percent of the value of their payments electronically in 2001, with the main reported
barrier to achieving the target of 100 per cent of suppliers being paid electronically
being the continued lack of readiness or willingness of the suppliers themselves to be
paid in this way (Taylor, Nelson, and Sofres, 2001). Larger suppliers are more likely
to be paid electronically than are smaller suppliers.

The Australian government and some US states have encouraged e-commerce

practices within public agencies by charging a fee to companies that submit paper
proposals. It is also possible to have on-line reverse auctions where suppliers can
compete with each other for the lowest price and with the possibility of making more
than one bid in the time allowed. The shift to on-line procurement represents a more
technically efficient solution to procurement but the process is not fundamentally
different to that under public administration.

Government-to-government relationships

There is scope for further developing links between government agencies in order to
improve service delivery and e-government can assist in this. Other parts of the
same government, other levels of government, even the governments of other
nations may benefit by electronic exchange of information. For example booking
foreign travel or requesting a passport or visa can trigger a set of government-to-
government information flows, ranging from immigration or customs checks to
security concerns. There are already sophisticated exchanges of data between
governments and these can be enhanced by e-government, even between national
governments.

An example of this is Centrelink in Australia, an agency created for the purpose of

integrating the services delivered through several largely independent government
agencies such as the Department of Family and Community Services, Department of
Employment and Workplace Relations, Department of Education, and Department of
Health and Aging. Centrelink provides a single system for transacting with
government but is supported by a series of separate processing systems. Services to
the elderly, for example, cross the boundaries of several departments. Linking these
departments via the internet greatly reduces the complexity of accessing services by
making departmental boundaries and industrial-age organizational structures
transparent to both the customer and public servants. E-government can allow
government agencies to work together more effectively, but these boundaries do not
disappear and it is important to ensure that there is accountability and that privacy
and security are safeguarded.

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4. E-government and new public management

It can be argued that e-government is the final instalment in public sector reform for
the foreseeable future; the conclusion, perhaps, of new public management. Though
this is a serious research challenge, it now seems that e-government is an
autonomous driving force for reforms in the public sector aimed at achieving specific
targets and objectives on service delivery. What is beyond doubt is that e-
government will have an effect on public sector management and it would seem to fit
better within the rubric of NPM than within traditional public administration.

It is the case that e-government forms a powerful combination with NPM. It offers a
way of operationalizing the theoretical changes in managerialism, while the way e-
government is to work – the focus on service delivery, involvement of the private
sector through contracts and more recently partnerships - is itself following the
precepts of NPM. In this way, NPM and e-government can be seen as separate
movements, but ones which are mutually reinforcing. It would be conceivable for a
more hierarchical, bureaucratic organization to implement the new technologies, but
without the subsequent organizational changes, it is unlikely to work very well.

This does not mean that the changes will necessarily happen. Bellamy and Taylor
argue, for example, that rather than leading to the revolutionary reinvention of
government, the use of ICTs is more likely to lead to an evolutionary change. In the
conclusion to their book they argue:
The heady images which are so often associated with ICTs, together with
the technologically determinist expectations that they will transform the
nature of relationships in and around governance, are balanced by the
relative insusceptibility to change of the normative and assumptive worlds
which suffuse political institutions. The information polity is, in
consequence, an arena which will display the same kinds of political
compromises and policy confusions that characterize other important
arenas of society. For all these reasons, the intoxicating visions of
government in the information age should be allowed to dissipate in the
thin air from whence they came (Bellamy & Taylor, 1998: 170).

Bellamy and Taylor issue a warning here but it is one with some problems of its own.
Of course any movement will be modified by its implementation and it is the case that
the institutional inertia within government bureaucracy makes it even harder to
implement change in that setting. But it is a sclerotic society or organization that
allows for no change at all on the grounds that it is all a bit too hard to implement.
Also, other jurisdictions than the UK, which is Bellamy and Taylor’s frame of
reference, have implemented various successful technologically-driven changes. In
the UK the movement to e-government is gaining pace at both the local and national
levels. In any case the NPM is not driven by technology alone and, while the
technological changes may make it easier to achieve and measure objectives, the
theoretical change occurs earlier and is more significant than the technology which
helps to bring it about.

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5. E-government and organisational change

New management skills may be required to cope with new organizations and
networks. The impact of such a development is unclear, however, the issue has lead
to a polarized debate (Allcorn, 1997; Weare, Musso & Hale, 1999). The utopians, or
optimists consider that technologies have the potential to transform the nature of
political and institutional realities, what governments do and how they do it.
Moreover, they predict that the responsibility and accountability of public servants will
be enhanced and that individual citizens will be empowered. The sceptics or
pessimists, on the other hand, ar gue that ICT will not necessarily stimulate change
within public organizations, but will create a lot of administrative problems for
governments. Technology will facilitate government intrusion into, and control of,
citizen’s lives, making a ‘1984’ or ‘big brother’ scenario a reality. Furthermore, with
the world wide web there is the danger of increasing the digital divide between the
information haves and have-nots. No matter which side of the debate one may
support, it is inconceivable that there will be no organizational change.

Technology and management

Any management system, including that of bureaucracy, relies on the technology in

existence at that time. This was a nineteenth century theory, dependent on
nineteenth century inventions. As Fountain (1999: 42) argues:

Organizational forms developed by state and industry . . . were rendered

possible by technological achievements that underlay the Industrial
Revolution. The steam engine, telegraph, telephone, and early adding
machines all made possible bureaucracy as well as the interorganizational
forms underlying business and government using vertical integration and
spatially dispersed headquarters and field organizations. Technological
developments did not determine these forms in an inevitable fashion, but
they made them possible and, in some cases, completely logical.

The traditional model of public administration grew and thrived with the technology of
the quill pen and later the typewriter for written communication. In both of these there
is essentially one piece of paper or one document with copies made laboriously if at
all. A strictly hierarchical system fits this kind of technology perfectly. That paper is
passed up and down the hierarchy gaining approvals or providing information and the
organisation is designed to reflect this. An example is the flow of paper in a typing
pool. A group of (usually) women possessed a skill not widely held and procedures
were devised to queue the work of typing in a way which mirrored the organisation as
a whole. The product was one document, with perhaps a copy or two. There was little
scope to make alterations and that piece of paper would then begin its journey
through the organisation and an important piece might require a number of
signatures with subsequent delay.

For many years the system worked very well, helped perhaps by the relative absence
of major technological changes at least until late in the twentieth century. The
photocopier was a major advance over the carbon copy, as were such instruments

11
as conference telephone calls. Such could be incorporated into the agency with little
change to power structures and the way the office was organised.

Even the early use of computers had little impact, as they were introduced in ways
that reinforced existing boundaries:

Here, in these early days of government computing, was affirmation by

machine of the centralized forms of bureaucratic organization which
prevailed at the time. The mainframe computer was being used to process
data which had central, corporate functionality. It offered no challenge to
the hierarchical and centralized structures by which it was surrounded.
Indeed, its effect was to sustain and even to reinforce those features of
large-scale bureaucracy. Its reason for being was simple automation; the
accomplishment of large-scale data processing tasks at lower costs than
hitherto (Bellamy & Taylor, 1998: 11).

Information technology, particularly but not exclusively the use of computers,

changes management; and the very hierarchy itself. Managers do not need to wait
until an item makes its way through the hierarchy, since copies appear on their own
computer screens. Information is shared and is able to be collated instantaneously
into a form usable by senior management. Increasingly, records are kept
electronically so that they are accessible from many different locations at the same
time, public communications are also electronic and some public workers can use
their computers from home instead of going to an office. The hierarchy can be made
flatter as there is less need for middle management to process and pass on
information. Alternatively, controls on access can concentrate knowledge and control
at particular levels or in parts of the organisation.

Only when technology became distributed, with personal computers on every desk,
as is common within government, combined with intranets and access to the internet,
was there any serious impact on organizational structures. At this time, ‘unlike the
first main era of business computing, the “micro revolution” permits challenges to be
mounted to the very organization of government’ (Bellamy & Taylor, 1998: 12). This
is not to assume that the technologies themselves have any inherently deterministic
qualities which lead automatically to particular outcomes (Castells, 2001; Criado &
Ramilo, 2001; Heeks, 2001; Pratchett, 1999). It is open for any society or
government to organize itself in whatever way it chooses.

Changes to bureaucracy

E-government allows for organization to be based on information flow rather than

hierarchy. It allows for streamlined operations and less need for lower or middle level
operatives. For example, a number of countries including the UK, US, Canada and
Australia allow for on-line lodgement of taxation returns, usually through tax agents.
The effect of this is a reduction of the time taken to process returns, and a large
reduction in the staff needed to process paper forms including the data entry of
details. Much of the data needed would be automatically placed into the relevant
parts of the database, meaning that it can be processed directly instead of waiting for
data entry clerks to get the data ready. There is less need to hire casual staff, as was

12
common, to process forms after the due date for submission of tax returns. Tax office
staff are able to spend more time on other aspects of taxation administration, e.g.
education and enforcement.

Governmental clients or ‘customers’ are not necessarily aware of the precise

boundaries between what one agency does and another, most particularly with
regard to service delivery. As Fountain argues, ‘One of the chief effects of advances
in information technology on bureaucratic organisation has been the ability to
structure information using information systems rather than through strict delineation
of role and organisational subunit’ (1999: 136). Services to clients can be grouped
together, such as the variety of contacts made with the elderly. To start with, a
website could be constructed to provide information and contact across a number of
agencies; later the agencies themselves could be altered to conform with the
information flow.

Having computers on every desk, combined with powerful database software,

enables higher level tasks to be done by lower level staff.

Knowledge workers and knowledge work have replaced simple, repetitive,

clerical tasks required in paper-based bureaucracy. Case workers, whose
desktop computing capacity provides access to several databases and
powerful analytic tools, perform work previously disaggregated into several
positions. In some cases, automated tools allow relatively simple
employees to make sophisticated evaluations. Task integration due to
information technology has resulted in a collapse in the number of job
categories and simplification of the position classification system in the
federal bureaucracy (Fountain, 1999: 139)

Bureaucracy in the power relation sense remains in place but does not need so many
levels. In principle, supervision and performance management are simplified by the
use of computerised information systems which track employee output making the
detection of underperformance and excellence a simple matter. This frees up
hierarchical authority to concentrate on higher level management tasks such as
setting direction, keeping abreast of changes and ensuring the availability of the
technological and human resources necessary to achieve organisational goals.
(Fountain, 1999)

E-government is very different from Max Weber’s conception of bureaucratic

organization. It could be argued that it promotes a working environment that moves
away from existing jurisdictional areas; an organization structure which is flatter, and
less hierarchical. At the same time there is a potential intensification of control.
Whether this refers to generalised or detailed control remains unclear.

There are, then, several points relating to personnel and career structures; there will
be less need for base grade staff, greater capability of lower level staff, fewer middle
managers and, perhaps, greater scope for higher level staff. As a result of these
changes, there are flow-on effects for the career structures of public servants.
Potentially there will be fewer base grade staff required and more lateral recruitment
of those with experience, though this depends on the degree of agency specificity of

13
processing and other skills. Secondary effects include ‘modifications to supervisory
roles, transformation of hierarchical relations, and, at a deep cultural level,
modernisation of the nature of authority structures and systems’ (Fountain, 1999:
139). Knowledge workers are more likely to take advantage of flexible arrangements,
as consultants, contractors, and to earn high salaries without necessarily being
career public servants.

The ‘office’ in the Weberian sense also changes. With remote access technology
there is no necessity for staff to proceed to a central point to avail themselves of its
equipment. Staff may be able to work just as effectively from their home and staff of
welfare agencies who carry out, for instance, home visits need not be out of contact.
Parttime work is facilitated by communications technology. Already, virtual team
working across disparate locations and home based working are well established in
some governments, but whether remote interac tion is as effective as face to face
contact is unclear.

The bureaucratic organisation may change dramatically as the result of e-

government. What remains will still be a bureaucracy but one that is quite different.
It is certain that a solid core of hierarchy and functional specialisation will
remain in information-based organisations. But the control apparatus that
required multiple layers in the chain of command has been greatly
simplified, with gains in accountability, through information technology.
With information systems that render employee behavior largely
transparent, hierarchical authority is relieved of the task of physically
observing employees. In a transparent system shirking is obvious, as is
greater output. Hierarchical authority takes on the more important task of
direction setting in turbulent environments, keeping officials current with
environmental changes and ensuring the alignment of task, technology,
human resources and goals (Fountain, 1999: 146).

The governmental working environment would be very different if all these changes
to the system of bureaucracy occur. There will be opportunities for some but threats
in such major change for others. There is likely to be more intellectually challenging
work to do, but on the other hand the ever-present electronic monitoring of
performance would be likely to cause some unease. Staff need to be convinced that
working in the information age is more than a new place to work in the same old way,
and the way ‘we have always done it’ is no longer the way to do it. Some public
organizations are starting to reward group performance and success sharing by
paying team bonuses or by linking pay, bonuses, and other rewards to performance
or efficiency improvements. However, it should be noted that, consistent with the
dictates of NPM, these changes pre-dated, or at least occurred in parallel with, the
implementation of e-government.

E-government needs strong leadership, at both the political and the managerial level.
In political terms, lack of minis terial involvement in e-government initiatives indicates
that the political leadership has no appreciation or understanding of the advantages
offered by ICT. On the other hand, those senior managers that understand the
importance of current and future technology platforms and embrace e-government
can position their organization to take advantage of new technology to greatly

14
improve services. Above all, the main challenges facing e-government are not of a
technological nature, but rather questions of politic al will, leadership and priorities.

6. Problems of e-government

E-government has the potential to be a new phase in the government reform process
that started in the early 1990s. There are also some potential problems with it, as
with any reforms.

First, there is the problem of a digital divide. While the numbers of people connected
to the internet shows remarkable growth, there are still many in society who are not
connected and never will be. There is the potential of such citizens being bypassed
or left behind by their more adept neighbours. This is not as much of a problem for e-
business as for e-government. The private sector does not presume to cater to
everyone – a product or a service on offer does not have to be purchased by
everyone, but governments must make their services available to everyone and on
similar terms regardless of the level of technology its clients may possess. Even if
most tax returns are submitted electronically there still needs to be ways of
submitting them by ordinary mail. The digital divide can refer to divisions between
those with access and information within societies and between societies.

Secondly, there are major and unresolved issues of privacy and security. The
advances in information and communication technologies do offer much for
governments as well as offering enhanced service delivery for its clients. However,
‘the problem is, though, that these capabilities have the potential for ‘surveillance and
control’ (Bellamy & Taylor, 1998: 86). Safeguarding privacy and security are
important aspects of e-government. While files are technically able to be shared
between agencies for efficiency reasons, they may also impose problems of privacy
invasion. Computer security is currently inadequate as well. The systems for the
electronic use of credit cards are insufficient and there would need to be some form
of digital signatures implemented and other safeguards implemented before the
payment of accounts over the internet becomes more widely accepted.

The ability to link computer files held by different agencies could lead also to an
enhanced surveillance capability of the citizens in a society. Internet or email usage
is recorded and able to be traced far easier than the mail or telephone calls; both
leave traces and can be stored in an easily accessible form. All emails can be
searched for key words of interest to police or intelligence agencies where
intercepting telephone calls or mail in the traditional way is much more labour
intensive and usually confined to a few suspects. The FBI in the US, for example,
has a web tapping programme named Carnivore which can collect data and read the
email of criminal suspects (Holmes, 2001). The police in the UK have even stronger
powers with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act passed in 2000 under which
internet service providers may have to install interception devices on email and
internet activity and relay it back to a government monitoring centre (Holmes, 2001).

A further issue with privacy and security is that of ownership and usage of
information especially with the widespread contracting-out of information technology.

15
Through data mining and in combination with modern marketing techniques
government information could be used to target particular groups for certain kinds of
products. Without safeguards it would be possible for an agency involved in the
delivery of health care services to on-sell its data to insurance companies who could
then use patient records to determine risk. It could be argued that governments could
use such information for commercial purposes themselves, but there is likely to be
more concern over privacy in government if the information is controlled by a
contractor. There will be a continued need for ethical standards but they will need to
be very tightly specified to stop the private sector using government information in
this way.

Finally, there are major problems involved in implementation. One is cost, in that
government information technology strategies have tended to be very expensive,
exacerbated by a tendency to buy systems badly, and to lock in to short lived
technologies. A related problem is that of standards, whether or not they should be
open or proprietary and the continued difficulties of communication across different
platforms. This may be addressed by the emergence of Extensible Markup Language
(XML) as a standard adopted to overcome the problem of proprietary software.

There are difficulties in the training of public employees, in development and

maintenance of web sites and portals, and there are costs involved in being the first
to do something within the public sector. There are also the usual problems of
evaluation of something new. It is therefore necessary to learn from others and to
introduce proportion in projects.

A more systemic implementation problem is the distance between hype and reality.
As Bellamy and Taylor (1998: 169) argue in conclusion to their book:
The information polity is, in consequence, an arena which will display the
same kinds of political comprom ises and policy confusions that
characterise other important arenas of society. For all these reasons, the
intoxicating visions of government in the information age should be
allowed to dissipate in the thin air from whence they came’ (1998, p.. 170).
They also argue that making change is all the more difficult ‘once we
understand how deeply embedded into government are the information
domains associated with the ‘old’ public administration’ and the ‘resulting
inflexibility of information flows has meant that, to date, government
organisations have found it difficult to escape from domination by
functional, producer-driven bureaucracies.

Their scenario of an absence of change is possible but has some problems of its
own. Of course any movement, any reform, will be modified by its implementation.
The institutional inertia within government bureaucracy makes it even harder to
implement change in that setting. But it is a sclerotic society or organisation that
allows for no change at all on the grounds that it is all a bit too hard to implement.
Also, other jurisdictions than the United Kingdom, which is Bellamy and Taylor’s
frame of reference, have implemented various successful technologically-driven
changes.

16
Finally, there may be problems involved in e-democracy. There are potential
problems with electronic democracy. Even if the articulate and informed always
receive disproportionate attention in politics, relying on electronic responses to
political issues would disenfranchise large numbers of voters. The result could be a
kind of populism and, as has been shown in a number of countries, the use of the
Internet makes it easier for extremists to organise and gain attention. As Bellamy &
Taylor warn (1998: 117) representative democracy may become a form of consumer
democracy.

5. Conclusion

.E-government can be considered a second managerial reform, another stage in the

public management reforms that commenced in the late 1980s. It does present a
further challenge to the traditional model of public administration and depending on
how it is implemented it will transform the way public services are organised and
delivered By placing e-government as a reform similar to the NPM yet with its own
dynamic, and notable for being driven by a flexible network of e-champions at a high
level of responsibility, there is a germ of a distinct theory of e-government.

The public management reforms that have occurred under the appellation of new
public management can be considered, above all other characterisations, as
changes in theory, from a public interest model of administration to a management
model based on economics and private management. The greatest potential of the e-
government reforms is in operationalising the theoretical changes set up earlier by
the new public management. Contracting-out requires sophisticated monitoring
systems; new budgeting and accounting systems require good information
technologies, as does performance management. E-government can assist in
bringing into reality the theoretical changes of the public management reforms.

In its special survey on e-government, The Economist argued ‘reinventing

government, a fashionable but premature idea a decade ago, is at last being made
possible by the Internet’ (Symonds; 2000). There is much in this. By whatever name
it is called ‘reinventing government’ or ‘managerialism’ or ‘new public management’,
there was much theoretical change which in some cases foundered on the difficulties
of implementation. E-government does provide the opportunity to bring about the
changes that were foreshadowed in the early days of public management reform.
The use of information and communications technology in government is proceeding
apace and is likely to lead to even more change to the operations of government than
has been seen thus far in the reform process.

17
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