Brussels, 03/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - Nearly 50% of public services can be provided online, the European Commission says in its latest survey. Carried out by consultants Capgemini, the 2006 study examined 14,000 web sites in the 25 European Union Member States, plus Norway, Iceland and Switzerland. It reveals that: 1) in 2006 the online sophistication of public service delivery reached an overall score of 75%, while almost 50% of the measured public services are fully available online; 2) the different degrees of sophistication of online public services range from “basic” information provision, over one-way and two-way interaction to “full” electronic handling (fully available online); 3) Austria leads the way in all 20 services measured, followed by Malta (which has made spectacular progress, the Commission notes), Estonian Sweden and Norway. At the other end of the scale, sit Latvia, Switzerland, Slovakia and Poland.
At the start of the decade, Commission e-government initiatives focussed on developing e-services (projects aimed at providing online access to the public services). Today most of these are in place, governments are moving on to the next stage, of developing intelligent, user-oriented e-services, says the Commission. Several billion euro of public money could be saved every year through administrative modernisation across the 25 EU Member States, as outlined in the Commission's e-Government Action Plan. One of the priorities of this plan is “to make efficient and effective e-Government a reality”. The next editions of this study, which is on-going since 2000, will continue to assess the changes in online administration in order to measure this objective.
Plenary session of the European Parliament