Policy Context and Legal Framework

ICT is decentralised in Belgium. Each federal department has its own ICT budget and ICT manager, and the mission of the Fedict department is to develop a global eGovernment strategy.

The Fed-eView tool helps the State Secretary for eGovernment to support ICT and eGovernment development in all federal departments. Up until 2004, no-one had any real insight into what was taking place in the field of ICT; investment, the method of investment, the number and profile of persons involved in ICT, the existing infrastructure, the use of eGovernment institutions, etc.

Such an insight is essential for defining a suitable strategy. Who uses the eGovernment institutions developed by Fedict (Ministry of ICT), and who doesn't use them? Which departments need more support? Which new eGovernment areas should be developed? Are there applications developed by one department that can be reusable by others?

Implementation and Management Approach

The development and the first measurement of the tool cost about 50.000 Euros. The expected economies of scale resulting of the use of it (better use of the eGovernment components) are much higher than the investment price.

Fed-e-View is an internal use for the administration. An efficient and effective management of the public funds will result in a better service for the citizens and enterprises.

46 departments were consulted and almost all took part to the study, which demonstrates a high level of interest in this tool. On average, ICT managers devoted up to one actual working day to it, spread over several days.

The tool, a dashboard, was used for a first measurement in 2004. The analysis of this measurement has lead to a list of specific actions to be undertaken. Progress will be measure by further measurements. It is a continuous improvement process.

Impact

The increasing use of eGovernment elements and the exchange of data between administrations that this tool measures and encourages will allow a better service for the citizens and the enterprises. It reduces the administrative burden on them and increases the quality of the data managed by the government. Through cross-comparison of information in different databases, it can provide the government with an additional investigative tool in identifying fraudulent cases.

By enabling the automation of manual transactions, such as tax filing, resources can be freed up for more valuable tasks such as better enforcement and more frequent inspections. Other benefits are the modernisation of the administration and the development of new innovative services and the reduction of the digital divide by granting rights automatically, based on the status of a citizen/ business, without his intervention. All this avoids developing services at the front office and to, for example, automatically give child allowances based on the status of the mother/father and on the birth registration.

The innovativeness of this tool is that it is not a pure inventory. By using a balanced scorecard approach, it provides a balanced picture (a federal eView, Fed-e-View) of the several perspectives (from strategic to technological) of ICT and eGovernment back-office implementation.

The benefits of this tool are:
- Picture of the progress in eGovernment implementation
- Funding opportunities, based on tangible data
- Economies of scale by using the same eGovernment elements instead of developing own components
- Reusable methodology for dashboard at department level
- Identification of common and cross-departments projects
- Identification of best practices and replicability in other departments.

The documented indicators allow the identification of some reusable applications, like for example, an open-source application developed by one ministry and replicable to others.

The indicators related to people allowed to prove, based on tangible data, the impression that there is a lack of ICT specialists in the federal administration. There are too many open positions and 12% of the ICT specialists are over 50. Many current ICT skills will therefore disappear within approximately 10 years. We now have to take measures in order to retain this knowledge and to attract new ICT people in the public sector.

Track record of sharing

This tool is also reusable by the ICT managers of all ministries and agencies in order to manage their own ICT department.

This is one of the first measurement tools of the development of the back-office. The scoring methodology can be:
- Used by administrations of regional and local level in Belgium,
- Used by administrations in other countries
- Used in European benchmarking in the view of back-office oriented benchmarks

The transferability is twofold: the methodology is reusable and the results of the measurements can be disseminated in order to allow comparison with other countries.

The project team is ready to communicate on this project. Interested people can contact us by email, telephone or by visiting us in Brussels.

The deliverables - list of indicators and scoring methodology - can be provided. They are available in English.

Lessons learnt

The challenge is to realise the actions following the measurement in order to see progress for the next wave.