This is the full text of her speech:
My key messages today are the following. First, progress is being made but much remains to be done to realise the full benefits of eGovernment for all.
Second, the Manchester Ministerial Conference of two weeks ago was a major success and an important milestone.
And third, I much welcome the Ministerial Declaration as a landmark reference for the eGovernment Action Plan that I will propose in Spring 2006. Let me address each of these points.
We all recognise that making eGovernment a reality remains a significant challenge. At the same time, much progress has been made.
All EU Member States now have an eGovernment strategy for modernising their administrations. Over 90% of public services providers are online. The great majority of citizens who are using these online services are positive about them.
Usage is also growing. According to a recent Eurostat survey in 2004 over half of businesses and citizens used the Internet to access public authorities’ websites. This is quite encouraging, especially since the percentage of citizens making these visits doubled from 2003 to 2004.
Many citizens have submitted their tax declarations electronically this year, even in overwhelming numbers in this country. Together they saved millions of hours. In some countries electronic public service cards are starting to appear so that citizens can obtain official documents at a click.
Across Europe many companies are already regularly reporting via the Internet on social security or value-added tax. Hours saved by them means real money saved. But most of the present users are highly-educated and relatively young. Websites are also not always easy to use. Clearly, future eGovernment should take care to exclude no-one.
In the near future citizens will expect online public services to be as good as private sector websites. Indeed, the focus has to be “citizens first”. This may require profound changes across departments within the administrations.
We should not underestimate the effort needed. Otherwise the risks are big costs overruns or disappointed citizens.
But if innovative ICT, professional skills, organisational, and, if needed institutional change go hand-in-hand both user satisfaction and cost-efficiency are the pay-off. Bold eGovernment reformers are now starting to reap the benefits from their ambitious plans and targets. By mandating that invoicing be electronic, Denmark will save €200 million per year. If such a measure was applied across Europe we could save €15 billion per year.
3. Member States engagement
Two weeks ago in Manchester, eGovernment Ministers have set the direction in a Ministerial Declaration.
I share the views expressed in the key messages of the Declaration namely: - it is now the time to move beyond putting services online; - we now have to deliver tangible and substantial benefits for all businesses and citizens in Europe, leaving no one behind, and - eGovernment should also be made to work across the EU for citizens and businesses to enjoy their full freedoms in the single market. The Ministerial Declaration strongly engages Member States, focusing on four themes.
The first is inclusive eGovernment. In other words eGovernment should ensure that “no citizen is left behind”.
Indeed, socially excluded people are often the most in need of public services. eGovernment should be designed right from the beginning to meet their needs. At EU level we can share such approaches and jointly explore how technology can deliver services on multiple channels, such as PC, TV, phone and kiosks can reach everyone.
The second theme is “making efficient and effective government a reality”.
Efficiency means saving time, money for citizens and businesses, and reducing costs inside the administrations. Future eGovernment will have to prove to be costeffective. Effectiveness means that services make more sense, create new value for citizens and businesses.
This means services that are personalised, open to be combined with other services, thereby solving the citizens’ problems rather than dealing with symptoms. Here EU Information Society Technology research and the eTEN deployment projects provide leading examples of integrated information, interconnected departments, and personalised interaction.
For example, the project entitled “MAP” enables civil servants to give faster and more to the point replies. Through real-time analysis of the conversation with the citizen it can reduce response times by 30%. A key European technology with direct benefits for citizens. MAP started in the research programme and was validated in eTEN. The third theme is about “making a difference with high impact services” such as electronic public procurement or services for citizen mobility across the EU. We need such flagships. They bring sizable benefits and are thus highly motivating and increase visibility. Take public procurement. Governments spend 1600 billion euro per year on procurement. Electronic procurement could reduce costs by many billions.
Such flagships will also address pan-European technical, legal or organisational interoperability.
The fourth theme is enabling wide-spread eGovernment through key underpinning services and infrastructures. Foremost is interoperable electronic identification and authentication for online public services.
4. i2010 eGovernment Action Plan
The Ministerial Declaration is a source of inspiration for our eGovernment Action Plan in i2010 which I will propose next spring.
Clearly, most of the activities to make eGovernment a reality must take place at Member States level and below. I especially want to underline that eGovernment is to be for the benefit of citizens. I have therefore also great expectations of the local and regional level as they are often closest to the people.
This goes together perfectly with cooperation at the European level. Europe can be a world-wide example of saving money by mutual learning and reducing fragmentation while respecting each other’s specificities.
The eGovernment Action Plan is part of the i2010 agenda. i2010 has been warmly welcomed throughout Europe, but we also need to make it work.
We will support research and development in critical areas, through the EU’s IST programme. As you know, innovation and research is one of the pillars of i2010. We need to learn more from real-life cases. Over 50 were present at the Ministerial Conference and many are at today’s Forum. The Good Practice Framework and eTEN projects are amongst the means for testing out research results and making sure that we share the lessons of our many experiences with on line government. Building up experience in this way is essential, and this is what we have proposed to do under the Information and Communication Policy Support package of the new Competitiveness and Innovation Programme, which the Commission has proposed as part of the new Financial Perspectives. It is essential that this work can continue, it is very cost effective because it means we learn faster and more efficiently from each other. I ask directly therefore that all you make sure this important new programme gets the full support of EU Member States in the discussions on the EU budget that are still to come.
5. Conclusion The future of eGovernment is about delivering tangible benefits and putting the weight of public administrations fully on track to support growth and jobs in Europe. We need the support of all for the Commission’s future Action Plan. The willingness of Member States to work together on a common agenda is impressive. I also welcome open partnerships between private and public sector. Let’s jointly make “eGovernment 2010” a reality!
Quelle: Publictechnology, 14.12.2005
