EU Parliament Monitor - 07/11/08

Innovating for economic growth I (Guest coIumnist: Reino Paasilinna MEP)
"The EU needs to focus on knowledge-intensive products and services as European prices cannot compete with those in emerging markets.

The free movement of knowledge in the EU is a basic right worth fighting for. It means giving citizens access to the best, most up-to-date information and making it possible for researchers, universities and businesses to interact and co-operate freely. That objective is still beset with certain challenges: diverse higher education systems, the immobility of researchers, insufficient funding and questions of intellectual property.
So what role will the new European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) play in this changing field?" [EuropeanVoice]

Innovating for economic growth II (Guest columnist: Jerzy Buzek MEP)
"Innovation is crucial for the EU if it is toenjoy economic success, but growth has to be balanced with social security and protection of the environment.
A fundamental aim of economic development in the free market economy is to achieve competitiveness. But economic growth has to be balanced with social security and protection of the environment. Therefore, the most important challenge is how to achieve competitiveness within this context. And finding the right response to this is vital if the EU is to enjoy economic success in the 21 century." [EuropeanVoice]

EU Events: August and September 2008 Monitoring

Conference on the new services and networks of the information society, internet and media updated 31/08/08
The French Presidency is organising an "i2010" conference in line with the EU strategy to boost the digital economy and information society in Europe.

Industry, Research and Energy Committee 1/9/2008 & 10-11/9/2008

Extraordinary committee meeting in the beginning of September
- When? On 1 September 2008; the meeting will start at 19h30.
- Where? In Strasbourg, in meeting room SDM-S1.
- What is on the agenda? Please consult the link below.

Ordinary committee meeting later in September
- When? On 10-11 September 2008; the meeting will start at 9h00 on 10 September.
- Where? In Brussels, in meeting room PHS 3C050.
- What is on the agenda?.

Innovation and Research: SMEs are the DNA of European economy. How to support them more and better?
Conference "Union européenne, Recherche et PME: l'Innovation en Mouvement" (organised by the French Presidency) Paris, 15 September 2008 [Europa]

Innovation and Research: SMEs are the DNA of European economy. How to support them more and better?
Janez Potočnik, European Commissioner for Science and Research
Conference "Union européenne, Recherche et PME: l'Innovation en Mouvement" (organised by the French Presidency), Paris, 15 September 2008 [Europa]

IPR in ICT standardisation Workshop (19/09/2008)
ICT standardisation is facing an increased impact from the inclusion of "patented" technologies in ICT standards and specifications which raises a number of questions to be addressed. For ICT standardisation to continue its role as a major instrument to support competitiveness, to increase interoperability and to respond to industry expectations and societal needs, an adequate balance has to be found between the need for standardised approaches and the interests of IPR owners. Standards developing organisations should be able to implement effective IPR policies while respecting the requirements of competition law.

The European Commission is therefore organising a one-day workshop on intellectual property rights and ICT standards on 19 November in Brussels. [Europa]

'Cluster Policy and Management: European and regional initiatives for innovation' 22nd - 23rd September 2008, Berlin
Cluster policy and regional cluster management are key tools for regional development and innovation. The European conference 'Cluster Policy and Management - European and regional initiatives for innovation policy' presents latest achievements and new initiatives of cluster development.

European regions need more innovation and economic growth to catch up with the global challenges. National and regional governments have recognised the potential of clusters as a driver in regional development. By taking determined action public authorities improve cluster development. This results in strengthening local economies, creating new jobs and attracting new investors. For this reason many cluster initiatives have recently been launched. The European Commission established a number of programmes supporting research and development and started new initiatives to help national and regional governments to create and develop regional clusters. For national and regional governments it is crucial to receive latest information on European policies and to ensure a good cluster performance in their region. [Europa]

FoCus final conference, Representation of Baden-Württemberg to the EU, Brussels, 29.09.2008, 3:30 - 8:00 p.m.
The FoCus consortium would like to invite to the FoCus final conference where the partners will present the project results. The conference will take place in the Representation of Baden-Württemberg to the EU in Brussels on 29.09.2008. [Europa]

In The Loop: 31/07/08

Higher oil price boosts BP profit

Oil giant BP has announced a 6% rise in profits for the second quarter of 2008, largely thanks to a sharp rise in the price of oil. [BBC]

Climate activists occupy proposed site for coal-fired power station

Climate change activists yesterday occupied the proposed site for Britain's first coal-fired power station in 30 years, claiming the development will cause huge damage to the environment if it goes ahead. [Guardian]

Next prime minister or this one must deal with rising energy prices

Excellent article by Micael White on UK utility companies’ failure to develop modern infrastructure to keep down the price of energy. [Guardian]

Cable calls for social tariff for energy providers

Vince Cable was asked about rising energy prices, the housing market and the profits of Centrica. He called for a social tariff whereby energy providers would feed money back to those most in need.

He said on the issue of home heating that as summer moves to winter, “those high prices will really bite. We have 2.5 million people in fuel poverty.

He said that for the energy providers, “there should be an obligation to provide a real social tariff.” [PoliticsHome]

'Oil from algae' promises climate friendly fuel

A liquid fuel made from plants that is chemically identical to crude oil but which does not contribute to climate change when it is burned or, unlike other biofuels, need agricultural land to produce sounds too good to be true. But a company in San Diego claims to have developed exactly that – a sustainable version of oil it calls "green crude". [Guardian]

Two wheels

Wonderful look by Claire Armitstead on the relationship between cycling and political values. [Guardian]

UK is second in the world at research

UK scientists publish more research than any other country in the world except the United States, the science minister will say today. However, China now publishes almost the same number of studies as the UK – four times as many as it did 10 years ago. [Guardian]

United States economy shrinks for first time since 2001

The US economy shrank at the end of 2007 for the first time in six years, according to official figures, leading analysts to speculate the world's largest economy may be in recession. [Guardian]

House prices suffer record fall

House prices continued to fall in July, recording their largest year-on-year drop since the property market crash of the early 1990s, figures from Nationwide building society showed today. [Guardian]

Nasa discovers giant lake on surface of Saturn moon

Nasa scientists said today they had discovered the first direct evidence that the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has lakes of liquid hydrocarbons - the only object other than Earth to have standing liquids on its surface. [Guardian]

Click here to read more information on Mr Grimsdale, King Heron and Mobius

Are Agencies Electric? Mapping The Development of Cross Stakeholder eGovernment Platforms

Background
There has been a significant ICT investment by the UK Government both nationally and locally to reform the provision, promotion, and usage of public services. eGovernment has been the articulation of many of these projects, helping to exploit the power of information and communications “in order to transform the accessibility, quality and cost-effectiveness of public services.” [1] The Government’s previous policy of putting as much public information online as possible has been successful but belies an unwillingness to face organisational reform. The majority of investments have been directed towards projects that are more piecemeal in nature, adding new features to public sector delivery whilst attempting to work within the existing framework. This ‘silo mentality’ is becoming increasingly outdated, as organisations which fail to build responsive structures that facilitate CRM systems and collaborate between public sector organisations and societal stakeholders are starting to look increasingly outdated when compared to more ICT focused and inclusive organisations.

The bulk of this £6 billion eGovernment strategy[2] has been directed towards raising the quantity and standard of government information online, ensuring public access to the Internet and creating inroads towards more collaborative projects between organisations and communities. In many ways government policy has been successful. For instance, government information is freely accessible online and organised by websites which provide seamless access across departments and regions without the user needing to be conscious of the differences. Also, government initiatives are slowly starting to foster greater cooperation, which helps to improve levels and quality of information and decision-making.

M. Jae Moon,[3] the UK National Audit Office,[4] the UN/ASPA,[5] Rita Santos and Richard Heeks,[6] and Darrel West[7] identify four or five stages of e-government, which distinguish where different government organizations are on the road to transformation:

1. The Billboard Stage: Where information is put online but it is only one way
2. The Partial Delivery Stage: Where information is communicated in two directions
3. The Portal Stage: Where online services reach a technical level to reduce administrative burdens
4. The Seamless Stage: Where government services are seamlessly intertwined
5. The Interactive Democracy Stage: Where web-based political participation tools enable citizens to comment and make political improvements

However, the majority of investments have been directed towards the earlier stages, providing considerable amounts of information but lacking sufficient interactivity and input from users, resulting in many public sector websites being tarred as being too passive. To fully benefit from eGovernment the adaptation of new technological advancements “requires a careful investigation into the philosophy, structure and productive processes of the public organisations participating in eGovernment.”[8]Such a holistic view requires consistently considering public administration “as a socio-technical system and, as such, as a unit of: individual citizens, employees of authorities and governments, groups and society, technical and information systems, norms and laws, social and cultural practices, moral and ethics and natural environmental issues.” [9]

Much of the early reforms required for early stage Internet platforms were painless, merely requiring information to systematically be added online and sufficient marketing to encourage uptake by citizens and businesses. This was partly because the public sector is good at refining and improving existing services, such as through longer opening hours and drop in services. In terms of eGovernment adding a website which contained reports, key information and contact details required little organisational change but was able to provide visible results. This level of modernisation also helped to fulfil the Government’s goals of all information being put online creating too much emphasis on piecemeal upgrades rather than upgrading internal structures based around new ICT possibilities.

These lower level reforms were also easier to sell to the public than more problematic, technical and organisational reforms that provided less tangible results. Joint projects between government departments are very difficult, as any work requires the close cooperation of a large number of actors. There has not been enough development towards creating a framework that encourages this cooperation, with the Government having previously failed to put enough pressure and financial incentives for greater joint projects. However, the Government is finally starting to push through various initiatives that help introduce incentives to create new approaches to improving efficiency and improve the quality of government. These usually take the form of either ‘back office’ reforms or ‘One Stop Shops’.

The author believes that organisational cultures are the greatest obstacles preventing a more modern ICT influenced public sector. The UK’s public administration style should be better equipped to developing an attractive, dynamic and high value Internet framework as a result of it being “more concerned with customer needs than in the EU continental styles based on administrative laws and legal procedures.”[10] However, research by L. Torres, V. Pina and B. Acerete on local governments’ eGovernance revealed some interesting analysis of UK public websites. The report found that although numerous UK cities performed well the emphasis on providing ‘billboard’ information, rather than interactive services highlighted that most local governments were merely concerned with the “image of modernisation and responsiveness rather than with the introduction of real changes in the way in which public administrations interact with citizens.” [11]

The proposed research aims to answer the following, with a view of examining why and how different agencies or stakeholders plan and implement public websites:

• What are the organisational factors that influence how eGovernment projects develop?
• Is there an optimum type of eGovernment culture? And if so, what does it look like?
• What are the key influences that push projects forward and what inhibits them? How do they impact on project success/failure?

Methodology

Possible Methodologies:

• Grid-Group Analysis + Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
• Multiple Perspective Analysis + Action Research

The problem of assessing eGovernment projects is that there will be different competing goals between different stakeholders in the planning and implantation process. Policy alternatives and their outcomes may also be unknown, such that estimates of risk and uncertainty are not possible. As a result the author considers that the problems will be ill-structured and that the methodology will require an analysis that actively defines the problem, taking care not to impose any bias. As a consequence policy analysis will be devoted towards problem structuring as well as problem solving.

Grid Group Analysis + Cost Effectiveness Analysis
The author believes that grid-group cultural theory originating from Mary Douglas [12] and later developed into a public policy tool by Christopher Hood [13] would form a major analysis to aid problem structuring. Its ability to capture the diversity of human preferences and relate differing preferences to different possible styles of organisation, each with its own advantages and disadvantages should help to explain the interactive process of many government websites.

For example, examining the cultural differences between different web portals to the public sector should provide insights into the way organisational behaviour affects structure and results (see ‘One Stop Shops’ analysis below):

• DirectGov.com, a hierarchical style website setup by the government and intended as the first point of access
• DirectionlessGov.com, a individualist rebuke to the site by volunteer computer programmers to highlight the failure of over centralised and over expensive government endorses websites
• YourLondon, an egalitarian portal developed following numerous symposiums of London councils to form collective solutions to their common eGovernment requirements
• Pre ‘One Stop Shop’ key links web pages found within government websites based upon the sites context (fatalism)

Cost-effectiveness analysis is considered a better fit than cost-benefit analysis as the author believes that eGovernment has the possibility to go beyond mere efficiency savings, as increased information would also result in better decision-making. Because of the uniqueness of government these social benefits can be included without the distorting analysis of quantitative measurement.

Multiple Perspective Analysis + Action Research Analysis

Multiple perspective analysis allows for greater insights into problems and potential solutions through applying personal, organizational, and technical perspectives to problem situations. Especially suitable for ill-structured policy problems, the utilisation of technical, organisational, and personal perspectives has been useful at dealing with social technical and challenges such as eGovernment.[14]

Action research would form a useful mode of enquiry, as combining a problem-solving rationale and a research-orientated one simultaneously.[15] The former is preoccupied with the resolution of some organisational problem, via a research based intervention; the latter involves using the intervention as a vehicle for the production of new knowledge of interest to public policy.

Back Office Reforms
‘Back office’ reforms are used to improve the machinery of government processes, such as increasing the amount of high quality, localised data transfer between departments and regions. The introduction of technology and its adoption, such as sharing information through pooling ‘back office’ computing systems between government organisations has the potential to greatly improve the value for money and quality of government services. However, the reforms needed to introduce such strategies are complex and require a significant amount of commitment from all stakeholders involved. Otherwise the myriad number of obstacles to success will result in wasted time, overspending or even project collapse. This is most successful when “technology has entwined with management reform, while addressing the demands of consumers.”[16] As a result, emphasising reforms through the window of e-Government and its possibilities will give as many opportunities for efficiency gains as New Public Management and Deregulation in the 1990s but through increased productivity and not at the expense of services.

One interesting example of multi-agency cooperation was in Lancashire, where a multi-agency data exchange (MADE) system was developed to streamline data transfer between 300 wards in 14 districts. This was done so that organisations and councils could send and receive information to and from one centre, using homogenous software and a common set of standards. This helped to avoid the headaches of organisations having to negotiate common standards and then pool resources many times over and for administrators to not have to constantly query whether or not they are permitted to divulge certain pieces of information or not. One of the conclusions of the report was that ICT was not holding project development back and that the ‘‘real’’ problem was the intellectual inability of many partnership members to recognise the utility of data to support collaborative decision-making, compounded by the low level of human resource available for analytic work.[17]

The benefits of MADE data were significant, for example enabling one town to identify that the top two wards for crime were also the top two for fire and ambulance incidents, with a similar pattern being replicated across all districts. This resulted in a multi agency ‘vulnerability index’ being created using a variety of indicators previously unavailable and permitted a greater understanding of local regions and better informed policymaking decisions.

One major example of Government creating a positive environment for cooperation is the Digital Challenge, involving a £6 million grant for one region and nine £200 thousand grants to the runners up. This was to purposefully create a unique incentive for a region, city or smaller sized area to introduce joined-up technology reforms to meet the needs of their local community and individual citizens. This major investment goes further then fostering best practice for ‘eGovernment champions’, as the structure of the grants should help to encourage the Digital Challenge finalists and the winner to work together and with central government to pool practices in order to tackle social exclusion and be exemplars in their field.

One Stop Shops
‘One-Stop-Shop’ government requires that all public authorities are interconnected and that all groups and individuals are able to access public services at a single point even without the need for users to know which department or local authority they need to answer queries. When successful these platforms can be incredibly useful for helping people navigate public services. However, the weaknesses and unpopularity of many schemes have shown limitations of ‘one stop shops’ against search engine sites and rival forms of communication, such as telephones and digital television.

Online portals such as YourLondon act as a ‘one stop shop’ to unify the websites of London into a cohesive whole. The ease of use offers an effective method of encouraging trust in e-Government, as it reduces the time spent searching for information on London services. This facility needs to be better promoted in order to maximise use and expanded upon its successes. For example, in a section on YourLondon’s website residents can report information on areas such as vandalism or abandoned cars through placing a flag on a map, which would inform the correct borough without the user even being aware of which council the street was in.

Table 1: If there was a website where you could find public services all in one place from car tax to council tax to local school information and congestion charging would you use it? [18]

Research from Tickbox.net (above) has shown that there is a keen interest among many in using one-stop-shops, with 74.6% saying that they would consider using such a service. [19] DirectGov is the Government’s main channel for communication, with already having replaced up to 500 of the 3,000 or so government websites.[20] This one-stop shop helps to direct people effectively to the council or government service that they require. However, it intitially difficult to market, with a £5 million campaign to persuade users to contact their local council via a central government web portal having little effect, according to an independent study. [21] The Connect to Your Council campaign targeted people via radio and press and advised people to visit www.direct.gov.uk. However, despite claims by the DCLG that more than 250 thousand people visited the website in May and that more than 40 percent of respondents thought the campaign would encourage use[22] the consultants, SocITM Insight highlighted that one area of the campaign received only a 1.25 percent increase. [23] Despite referrals from Directgov rising threefold after the campaign, fewer than 1 percent of visitors found their local authority through the site and most relied on a commercial search engine (53 percent), while 16 percent guessed the address. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London felt that the number of referrals from DirectGov had increased sevenfold in a year but that only accounted for 700 out of the 97,000 unique users that its website handled in August. [24]

Public sector ‘one stop shops’ have struggled when competing against highly established search engines such as Google, with users finding it easier to type in some key words to hunt down the required site, rather than using and then navigating through public portals such as DirectGov. This is because the familiarity of Google and its ease of use limits the appeal of users transferring to the other service. In order to justify their existences and attract significant levels of traffic platforms such as DirectGov will not only have to match Google’s utility it will have to exceed it.

The hierarchical nature of sites such as DirectGov has led to critics describing the framework as overbearing in its dictations to other websites and unaccountable to its users. As a consequence grassroots websites such as DirectionlessGov have been launched by collectives such as Democracy.org.uk (also responsible for TheyWorkForYou and UpMyStreet among others), which creates an impartial and voluntarily supported alternative to either the centralised DirectGov approach and the monolithic Google approach.[25]

This was written by Jonathan McHugh in February as part of an unrealised research application

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[1] E-Government Review Greater London Authority: Audit 2004-2005 (Audit Commission) 2005 p. 4

[2] P. Foley, X. Alfonso, et al Connecting People: Tackling Exclusion? An Examination of the impact of the Internet by Socially Excluded Groups in London (Greater London Authority) 2006 p. 24

[3] Moon, M. Jae. 2002. “The Evolution of E-Government among Municipalities:

Rhetoric or Reality?” Public Administration Review 62: 4–12.

[4] United Kingdom National Audit Of.ce. 2002. Government on the Web 11. House of

Commons 2001–2002 Session, HC 764. London: Stationery Office.

[5] United Nations/American Society for Public Administration (UN/ASPA). 2002.

Benchmarking E-Government: A Global Perspective. New York: UN/ASPA.

[6] Santos, Rita, and Richard Heeks. 2003. ICTs and Intra-Governmental Structures at

Local, Regional and Central Levels: Updating Conventional Ideas. Manchester, UK:

IDPM, University of Manchester.

[7] West, Darrel. 2004. “E-government and the Transformation of Service Delivery

and Citizen Attitudes.” Public Administration Review 64: 15–27.

[8] M. Wimmer A European perspective towards online one-stop government: the eGOV project (Electronic Commerce Research and Applications ) 2002 p. 93

[9] M. Wimmer A European perspective towards online one-stop government: the eGOV project (Electronic Commerce Research and Applications ) 2002 p. 95

[10] L. Torres, V. Pina, and B. Acerete E-Governance Developments in European Union Cities: Reshaping Government’s Relationship with Citizens (Blackwell Publishing) 2006 p. 292

[11] L. Torres, V. Pina, and B. Acerete E-Governance Developments in European Union Cities: Reshaping Government’s Relationship with Citizens (Blackwell Publishing) 2006 p. 296

[12] M. Douglas Cultural Bias, from In The Active Voice(Routledge) 1982 p. 183-254

[13] C. Hood The Art Of The State: Culture, Rhetoric, and Public Management (Oxford University Press) 1998 p. 7-12

[14] W. Dunn Public Policy: An Introduction 3rd Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentis Hill) 2007

[15] McKay, J., & Marshall, P. The dual imperatives of action research. Information Technology and

People, (2001). 14, 46–59.

[16] SmartGov: Renewing Electronic Government for Improved Service Delivery Jul 2003 p59

[17] D. Wastell a, P.r Kawalek et al Information systems and partnership in multi-agency networks: an action research project in crime reduction (Information and Organization) 2004 p. 197

[18] DirectGov Internet Thinking (Tickbox.net) 2006

[19] DirectGov Internet Thinking (Tickbox.net) 2006

[20] Quoted in: http://www.idealgovernment.com 18/02/08

[21] £5m e-government awareness campaign flops The Guardian October 12, 2006

[22] Councils Blast Euro RSCG Take-up Campaign (Campaign) June 16, 2006

[23] £5m e-government awareness campaign flops The Guardian October 12, 2006

[24] £5m e-government awareness campaign flops The Guardian October 12, 2006

[25] http://www.directionlessgov.com/about.html