Does E-government Pose a Threat to Public Service Professionals?

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Introduction

The effective and efficient management of human and economic resources is a key requirement for a nation to function effectively and develop in the ever-increasing competitive worldwide economy (Belanger & Hiller 2006). There is a global shift towards forms of governance that are more open and embraces democracy.

As a result of this, governments are faced with the challenge of enhancing the efficiency of their public service delivery (Bellamy 2003).

The discovery of the internet and the increasing need to increase the processing capacity and expand data storage has had significant influences on the way that governments are making of use Information and Communications Technology across the government institutions with the prime objective of increasing efficiency in public service delivery (Bolman & Deal 2008).

The effects of relying on ICT to facilitate governance functions are likely to be a subject of contention, with the pending requirements for implementation exerting intense pressure on the public sector to progress their performances, exploit external opportunities and help in overcoming the challenges imposed by the internal weakness and external threats that may hinder the effective delivery of public service operations to the citizens (Bovaird & Loffler 2000).

This paper attempts to evaluate whether the aspect of e-governance poses a threat to public service professionals.

The concept of e-government

E-government can be broadly used to refer to the use of ICT by the government to deliver its services to the people (Belanger & Hiller 2006).

On a narrower perspective, e-government refers to the deployment of ICTs to support government operations and enhance the delivery of government services to its people through enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the government’s agencies and enhancing service quality (Buelens & Broeck 2007).

Various definitions of the aspect of e-governance have been suggested although the uniform concept across them is related to the strategic use of Information Technology and an emphasis on the effectiveness of the public sector (Carter & Belanger 2005).

In this essay, e-government is defines as the use of ICT by the government in order to facilitate an efficient and cost-effective government that aims at offering convenient services to the public through allowing public access of information and promoting accountability within the public service (Bellamy 2003).

As a result, it is arguably evident that the implementation of e-government imposes some impacts on the professionals within the public sector. The nature of the influences is significantly determined by the manner in which the public service professionals and the larger public make use of the ICT frameworks adopted by the government (Carter & Belanger 2005).

The principal objective of e-government, as discussed in the conceptualization involves enhancing the efficiency of the delivery of public service by the various government agencies (Belanger & Hiller 2006). This implies that e-government offers the framework through which the citizens can interact and obtain services of the central government, local authority and state governments in a manner that is efficient and cost-effective.

With respect to the structural understanding of the application of e-government in the context of the public sector, there are three fundamental applications of e-government. They include government to government, government to business and government to citizens (Curtin & Sommer 2003).

The motivating factors of the Information society towards the use of e-government

The introduction of Information technology frameworks played an integral role in transforming the society into an information society that could facilitate easy methods of accessing and exploiting information associated with the public sector (Deloitte Research 2003).

The current society that is information-based is a prospective turning point that changed the manner in which governments administer their operations and offering new methods that governments can exploit in order to facilitate service delivery to its citizens (Bolman & Deal 2008).

Simply put, it can be argued that ICT is the most significant contributing tool and a powerful tool that can facilitate the realization of the millennium development goals.

In fact, according to the millennium declaration and its associated roadmap calls for the various governments to implement a strategic management approach that has a foundation on the knowledge infrastructure, which is mainly achievable using Information and Communication Technologies (Drucker 2007).

This can be effectively implemented through a collaborative effort with the public sector, implying that the public service professionals should be at the forefront in the implementation and ensuring that there is effective use of ICT in the delivery of government services to the citizens.

In addition, the mainstream of information and communication technology in the context of planning and designing the strategies is vital in the delivery of public services both at the federal and state government level with respect to administrative bodies of the government (Effy 2008).

This means that e-government is an essential Information and communications technology application in the public sector in ensuring that there is development of a better service delivery platform by the public service professionals.

The inference that can be made from this observation is that e-government is an opportunity for the public service professionals to undertake their duties of public service with ease and enhanced productivity (Evans & Yen 2005).

Consequently, the World Summit on the Information Society that was occurred during 2003 and 2005 in Geneva reported that the international community was ready to implement strategies aimed at enhancing the role that Information and Communications Technology plays in socio-economic, cultural and political development numerous countries across the globe (Bellamy 2003).

The best and current practices in Information and Communication Technologies were explored during the Information Society Summit that was aimed at enhancing interaction and communication between the government agencies and the citizens of a country (Gianakis 2004). Basing on this perspective, e-government can be viewed as means to achieving an end, instead of being viewed as an end.

The use of e-government in the delivery of public service is still in infancy phases of development and has promised to transform with the technological advancements and an increase in public acceptance and trust in electronic interactions and communication with the government (Bellamy 2003).

It is, therefore, the role of the public service professionals to cultivate the trust of the citizens in digital communication and acceptance of e-government in order to ensure that public service delivery system is efficient.

The underlying fact is that the concept of e-government is a revolution to the conventional public service delivery system that required the individual engagement of the public service professionals; with e-government, interaction is real-time and does not require their physical engagement with the citizens during the delivery of public service (Hiller & Belanger 2001).

Thus, public service professionals should exploit the concept of e-government in order enhance the overall efficiency of the delivery system, and this can only be achieved if the citizens and the professionals are involved in a collaborative effort aimed at realizing the significance of e-government in the delivery of public service (Silcock 2001).

The structural dimensions of the applications of e-government

Government to Government operations are an important aspect of e-government; this means that different administrative levels of government should ensure that their internal systems, policies and procedures are effective prior to the implementation of electronic transactions with citizens and the business community (Carter & Belanger 2005).

Basically, there are three fundamental levels of initiative strategies that demand the use of the government to government aspect of electronic government. The first level is in relation to the increasing government policies and laws that are emphasizing on the reduction of paperwork with the main objective reducing the information collection efforts and the requirements used for reporting of the government.

In addition, it enhances the effectiveness of government-wide information systems (Hudson & Lowe 2001).

Secondly, the increasing interest to focus an enhanced efficiency, cost reduction strategy through reducing the time for the government transactions, a reduction in the number of personnel required for task completion and ensuring that there is consistency of the outputs play an important role in necessitating a government to government form of e-government (Hutton & Massey 2006).

Thirdly, the need to implement best practices that are analogous with the private sector makes it necessary for Government to Government transactions to be undertaken electronically. As a result, the various administrative levels of government are often regarded as forms of e-government strategies because of the significant role they play in public service delivery to citizens.

Basing on the above models, it is the responsibility of the policy-makers and public service professionals to advocate for the implementation e-government in order to ensure that government to government transactions are executed efficiently (Curtin & Sommer 2003).

With this regard, e-government is always perceived as the best solution towards addressing the challenges that are serving as impediments to effective government to government transactions and ultimately public service delivery (Mann 2006).

An instance of the use of e-government in facilitating government to government transactions is the North East Gang Information System (NEGIS) in the United States (Carter & Belanger 2005). NEGIS is mainly concerned with collecting information relating to gang violence in northeastern states such as New York and Rhode Island.

As a result, it serves to connect the various police departments within the US, which is also helps in transmission of information to other law enforcement agencies at the federal and state level (Perry & Wise 1990).

Therefore, policy-makers and professionals in the public service should ensure effective implementation of e-government in the structural that entails government to government transactions, which turn helps in improving the efficiency of service delivery to citizens.

The implication from this model is that e-government is an opportunity through which public service delivery system can be revolutionized towards an effective system (Perry & Wise 1990).

The second structural dimension regarding the application of e-government in the context of public sector is through enhancing the interaction and transactions between the government and the business community of a country’s economy (Carter & Belanger 2005).

Government to business transactions is an integral element of public service delivery; as such, it requires adequate attention due to a high level of enthusiasm associated with the business sector and the opportunity for cost reduction by ensuring that there is improvement of the procurement practices and imposing an increase in competitions.

This structural dimension of electronic government plays an important role in reflecting information concerning the sale of surplus commodities by the government to the larger public and the procurement of products and services for the purposes of fostering public awareness (Stair & Reynolds 2008).

The main areas of application of e-government in relation to the government to business structural dimension include performance-based contracting, share-in-savings contracts and reverse auctions.

Performance-based contracting is an electronic form of communication whereby government pays the contractors in accordance to actual objectives and the total output of a task done for the government and the corresponding input efforts towards such a job.

Share-in-savings contract is an electronic method of transaction whereby contractors are supposed to pay the prior costs associated with a project that has been tendered by the government (Cherniss 1974). Reverse auction involves the use of the internet by companies on a real-time basis in order undertake government contracts (Taylor & Bellamy 1998).

The underlying rationale behind relying in e-government in the government to business structural dimension is directed towards the business community in the sense that e-government makes it easy for government services such as procurement, sales and tendering for all the state industries.

The second motive towards e-government in this structural dimension is the increasing demand by the policy-makers with respect to effective procurement (Bovaird & Loffler 2000). The fundamental argument is that the government to business strategies is facilitated basing on the opportunity to modernize and advance the reliability of tasks that are personnel-intensive (Tittemore 2003).

For example the processing and renewal of licenses, addressing changes in employee benefits such as in the instance of government of Malaysia towards to the adoption of e-government.

A perfect example of government business appliance of electronic government is the case of Government Services Administration Auctions (GSA), which offers a framework through which the federal surplus property is sold online to the bidders with the highest values (United Nations 2010).

The third structural dimension of e-government that is important to the public delivery system is facilitating the interaction between the governments and their citizens (Carter & Belanger 2005). This is a practical strategy to enhance the interaction between the government and its citizens.

The government is perceived as a public organization that has the duty to meet the needs and demands of its citizens; it can rely on electronic transactions and communication to offer services such as tax submission, license applications and renewal, government loans and other government-related services (Vandenabeele 2007).

The most important rationale for the government to citizens’ structural dimension involves facilitating availability of the public information to the citizens by use of tools such as websites. Simply stated, the government to citizens’ initiative has the main objective of easing the agency-centric and process-burdened nature of government activities and services directed towards the citizens (Cherniss 1974).

Similarly, e-government can be implemented using a single government website through which the citizens can have access and undertake tasks that are related to the diverse government agencies, thereby eliminating the need for the citizens to communicate with the various government institutions individually (Wright 2007).

It is evident from this that the professionals in public service can make use of this opportunity to enhance the efficiency of the public service delivery system, this is mainly because they will be deliberated of the most processes associated with public service, and therefore, they are relieved of the time and they could redirect their productivity efforts to other government functions related to the public sector.

The following section analyses the rationale behind the use of e-government in the public sector (Vandenabeele, 2007).

Rationales for use of E-government

The most significant rationale behind the use of e-government in the public sector is improving efficiency, which can take various forms during the application of e-government. For instance, e-government can help in the reduction of errors and enhance the consistency of the results of various projects initiated with the government by automation of the government tasks (Curtin & Sommer 2003).

Efficiency can also take the form of cost reduction strategy and reduction of the many administrative layers and processes in the public sector. The efficiency imposed by the application of e-government offers the government employees in the public sector adequate opportunities in order to develop new expertise and career advancements (Bovaird & Loffler 2000).

The use of e-government in the delivery of public service offers an opportunity and added benefits associated with enhancing the quality and ease of access of government services to the citizens (Carter & Belanger 2005). Apart from enhancing efficiency, public service quality is enhanced through speedy transactions and accountability during the delivery of public services.

E-government applications can be revolutionized in order to facilitate the provision of new services. Another rationale towards the application of e-government is the contribution towards qualitative change regarding how the various government agencies can undertake business functions and how the government communicates and interacts with its citizens (Belanger & Hiller 2006).

In most cases, managerial reform cannot be effective if it is supported by information and communication technologies to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the management of the public service employees, procurement and other government functions that are directed towards the general public (Carter & Belanger 2005).

The opportunities that e-government has offered has resulted to improved administration, that results to a global convergence that is aims at standard reform model in the public sector.

Generally, ICT based reforms presents various opportunities to the personnel to enhance their productivity during delivery of services. The following section discusses the policy implications concerning the application of e-government basing on the evidence gathered from Asia (Belanger & Hiller 2006).

Policy implications to public service professionals regarding the application of e-government

Positive implications

E-government applications offer support to the government administrative functions associated with payroll and accounts. The implementation of e-government systems can provide significant advantages to the public service professionals because it reduces the handling of information and costs of compliance, which results to speedy undertaking of tasks (Bellamy 2003).

In addition, an integration of all the government administrative functions, processes and departments for all the government assets associated with the public sector plays an important role in meeting the demands of different public service departments within the government (Deloitte Research 2003).

This is an added advantage to the public service professionals through a reduction of the burdens associated with processing the requests of the citizens in their interactions with the government. Additionally, this makes it easier for the public service professionals to undertake their tasks with ease (Bellamy 2003).

An example of this use of e-government is the Computer Crime Investigation established by the Republic of Korea Supreme Prosecutor’s Office and the Seoul District Prosecutor’s Office during 2000 (Deloitte Research 2003). This initiative has facilitated the prosecution of criminal offenses that have been transformed due to technology, making it easier to deal with them (Buelens & Broeck 2007).

The inference that can be made from this is that e-government offers an opportunity through which public service employees can enhance undertake tasks without the technological challenges. ICT systems have been implemented in Pakistan into the whole tax department, which has in turn helped in facilitating communication between the tax collectors and the taxpayers (Bolman & Deal 2008).

According to Bellamy (2003), an example of an effective use of e-government is the case of the financial management systems that were deployed in Sri Lanka as a method of offering a network environment that is attractive. The implemented financial systems in the country offered new opportunities for the public service division to efficiently address the various financial management challenges (Bellamy 2003).

In addition, the newly implemented systems help in ensuring that the financial management, such as treasury cash management and human resource management in the government agencies were undertaken efficiently (Belanger & Hiller 2006).

Prior to the implementation of the new IT systems, they were client-based, the deployment of the new system are mostly internet-based that used a network system, which in turn facilitates the access to government information by every citizens in the country irrespective of the geograogical barriers (Bellamy 2003).

The second positive implication of adopting e-government to the public service professionals are that it facilitates the workflow management concerning inter-organization policy proposition (Bovaird & Loffler 2000). This means the e-government offers opportunity through which public service professionals can manage their workflow.

Workflow in the context of the public sector involves tasks such as moving files and documents within the various workstations. They also include processes such as authorization, entry and editing of data, which are done electronically.

This plays an integral role in removing instances of delay, as in the case of paper-based service delivery and manual delivery (Buelens & Broeck 2007). Workflow systems also involve activities such as claims processing, bids and proposals, which are all facilitated by the application of e-government.

Another positive repercussion associated by electronic government is the capability to offer applications that are helpful in the handling of complaints from the public, acquisition of human resource and awards for scholarship and grants (Belanger & Hiller 2006).

A successful example of this application of e-government is the use of National Tax service Unit deployed in Korea, which has implemented a Tax Integrated System using computer systems that stores and gathers up information associated with taxes (Carter & Belanger 2005).

This has facilitated effective differentiation and selection of the taxpayers in the country, which makes it easy to conduct tax auditing processes by the tax officials. In addition, the tax integrated system has helped reduced cases associated with manual assessment that summed up to approximately 5 million annually.

Carter and Belanger (2005) argues that this has helped to eliminate the need to of conducting physical meetings every now and then between the tax officers and the taxpayers and also helps in the eliminating of cases associated with unfair selection by the taxpayers in order to conduct an audit (Belanger & Hiller 2006).

The second example of application of e-government in this perspective is the case of Philippines Department of Budget and Management (Deloitte Research 2003), which significantly relies on the application of electronic government to facilitate communications associated with budgetary releases to the public and various agencies of the government.

In addition, it relies on electronic government applications to conduct open transactions with the members of the public. The e-government system that is web-based contains relevant data regarding the government accounts that are to be paid and the amounts that have been dispatched by the Department of Budget and Management (United Nations 2010).

This does not only facilitate the checking of genuineness of the public service officials by the private contractors during cases of procurements but also facilitates access to detailed information regarding the accounts payable and the amount that have been dispatched for each agency and the relative amounts that the contractors are supposed to be paid on a monthly basis (United Nations 2010).

The Third positive implication to the public service professionals associated with use of e-government is effective communication that facilitates the interaction between the government and citizens. Simply stated, the use of e-government serves to reduce the communication gap that exists between the government and its citizens; this enhances the working environment for the public service professionals (Bovaird & Loffler 2000).

For instance, in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India, electronic government has been applied suing Computer-Aided Administration of Registration with the main objective enhancing communication between the government and the general public (United Nations 2010). The World Bank reports that since the implementation of CARD, more than 214 public offices have been computerized.

This has eliminated significant constraints associated with the registration of deeds and facilitated the dispatch of services such as encumbrance and the issuance of validation services. The positive aspect being represented here is the application of e-government facilitates the issuance of public services that have traditionally required middlemen to be completed in time, thereby fostering openness (United Nations 2010).

Negative implications

The most significant challenge that stands in the way of effective e-government application in the public sector is the potential disparities regarding access to computer systems. This is a prospective barrier owing to the fact that poor citizens and low-income individuals who do not have internet activity will not benefit from the applications of e-government.

This means that the incapacity of the public sector to offer online services to all citizens in the country is in itself a potential setback to the success of e-government applications.

The threat imposed by the e-government to the public service professionals is that use of computers can be a source of impediments for the less privileged and disabled community. This requires costly hardware in order for such communities to be able to access the internet (Bovaird & Loffler 2000).

Privacy issues are also another potential threat and negative implication that e-government poses to public service professionals with respect to managerial functions.

Public sector employees have the challenge of guaranteeing the privacy of privacy protection to the citizens in order to win the trust of online transactions with the government. Some of the challenges posed by online interaction include the constant transfer of information across the various public sector agencies and private information disclosure (Bellamy 2003).

Computer security is also another potential challenge that has a negative implication for the application of e-government in the public sector. It is important that government agencies protect their databases from malicious potential attacks that may jeopardize the integrity of such information and the data stored in the database.

Some of the computer security threats that may jeopardize the effectiveness of e-government applications in the public sector include security management, control of operating systems, continuity of service delivery, development of software applications and access controls (Bovaird & Loffler 2000).

This implies that the threat towards the effective implementation of e-government by the public service professionals is to cultivate the confidence and trust of the public that their private information is secure (Bellamy 2003).

Conclusion

The paper has revealed that the use of electronic government in the public sector facilitates the access of public services by the people. This means that e-government is an effective approach towards increasing the interaction between different administrative levels of government, government to business and government to business.

The implication of this is that it offers an opportunity for public service professionals to enhance their efficiency of public service delivery through enhancing communication between the public sector employees, the various government agencies, citizens and business (Bellamy 2003).

Despite the challenges and threats associated with the application of e-government, it is arguably evident that e-government offers more opportunities to the public service professionals compared to the threats. Therefore, it can be argued that e-government is not a potential threat to public service professionals.

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