Trends and development of the e-government services in Dolj county.

Constantinescu, Adina

Introduction

Nowadays there is an increasing demand on governments all over the world, spurred by the new aspirations of citizens in the developing economical and technological environment. These increasing demands and needs of the population have lead to reforms of the public sector in many conuntries. The people nowadays have the same atributes as clients, measuring the performance of their government leaders in terms of benefits, efficiency, public trust and accountability. The governments need to keep up with the changing needs and wants of their constituents, namely, the private sector, citizens and communities, who expect improved services and results. In contrast to traditional government processes, e-Government is characterized by (1) extensive use of communication technology, (2) the impersonal nature of the online environment, (3) the ease of information can be collected (data-mining), processed and used by multiple parties (Warkentin, Gefen, Pavlou, & Rose, 2002). [1]

The impact of ICT on governmental services is essential, and not integrating and efficiently implementing the ICTs in the public administration means poorly servicing the people one the one hand, and inefficiently managing operations on the other hand. The communication process with the citizens needs to be updated to the realities of the Digital Era, where people are accustomed to have full and immediate online access to relevant information, to solve their problems online, efficiently managing their time. Therefore, ICT play an essential role in creating an enabling environment for social and economic growth, making the public administration more efficient, proactive, transparent and especially, more service oriented. Public administrations need to be revitalized, to innovate their organizational structure, practices, capacities and the way they mobilize, deploy and utilize the human capital and information, technological and financial resources E-government is defined as the use of technology, particularly the Internet, as a means to deliver services to citizens, businesses, and other entities. [2] Various policy instruments support and shape the e-government concept. In brief, they seek to promote the use of new IT by government entities with a view to improving the efficiency and economy of government operations. In addition, they seek to ensure the proper management of these technologies and the systems they serve, their protection from physical harm, and the security and privacy of their information. [3]

E-government can significantly improve the cost-efficiency of operations and improve the communication flow and respectively the workflow between different governmental authorities, organizations and even at department level. It can lead to a leaner government by streamlining processes, lowering costs, improving research capabilities and improving documentation and recordkeeping. However, the real benefit of e-government lies not in the use of technology per se, but in its application to processes of transformation.

The objective of the present research is to understand the current situation of the online services provided by the public institutions in Dolj, Romania to the citizens, in order to assess the development stage in the e-government model. In order to conduct this analysis the Four Stages Model of Online Service Development, proposed by the United Nations, will be used as primary research instrument. However, the model needs to be adapted to the specific characteristics of the local public institutions' online presence. The initial model will be presented in the following sections, as well as the adapted model which will be used as research instrument.

1. Evolution and trends in online public services

1.1 Worldwide trends in e-government services

The Digital Era is characterized by the quick and full access of people to online information, as well as by the worldwide reach of the users to services, products, information and facilities. This new reality needs to be taken into account by governments also, in their communication processes with the people, as well as in the ICT implementation process in the internal operations. E-government can be an engine of development for the people. In delivering e-government for the people, public services should be designed to be responsive, citizen-centric and socially inclusive. Governments in developed countries also engage citizens through participatory service delivery processes, the latest research showing an increasing number of countries which offer the citizens the opportunity of being both users and co-producers of public services.

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High-tech devices such as smart-phones, interactive voice response systems, digital television, and self-service terminals create opportunities for governments to offer new ways of interaction with citizens, as well as forms of their integral participation with the governmental process. The increasing use of high tech interactive devices enables the governments to offer the citizens multiple channels of communication. Such initiatives encourage citizens to envision new forms of interaction with the desire that service providers public and private--be as accessible and responsive as modern technology allows.

Despite the fact that all governments are aware of this trend, only developed countries have taken advantage of the new technologies in order to implement the e-government framework, while only few developing countries are exploiting the full potential of multichannel service delivery to serve their constituents.

Multichannel service delivery is the provision of public services by various means in an integrated and coordinated way. Citizens can make selections according to their needs and circumstances and receive consistent information and services across channels resulting in an increase in their satisfaction and trust in government. [3]

With the growth of the internet and related technologies, governments around the world have been moving toward online service delivery in what is commonly called e-government. High hopes for transforming the administration and organization of public services surround e-government. Indeed, international organizations such as the OECD and UN, as well as politicians, government officials, and researchers, have suggested that a range of advantages will result from e-government development [4]. These include that:

1. E-government will be a tool of greater efficiency and better management.

2. E-government improves government coordination and collaboration.

3. E-government will enhance public participation in the affairs of government and the democratic process and bring people and government closer together.

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* Online service index

To arrive at a set of online service index values, the researchers assessed each country's national website, including the national central portal, e-services portal and e-participation portal, as well as the websites of the related ministries of education, labor, social services, health, finance, and environment as applicable. In addition to being assessed for content and features, the national sites were tested for a minimal level of web content accessibility as described in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium.

* Telecommunications and infrastructure index

The telecommunication infrastructure index is an arithmetic average composite of five indicators: estimated internet users per 100 inhabitants, number of main fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants, number of mobile subscribers per 100 inhabitants, number of fixed internet subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, and number of fixed broadband facilities per 100 inhabitants.

* The human capital index

The human capital index is a weighted average composite of two indicators: adult literacy rate and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrolment ratio, with two thirds weights assigned to adult literacy rate and one third weight assigned to the gross enrolment ratio

* The E-participation index

A country's e-participation index value reflects how useful these features are and how well they have been deployed by the government compared to all other countries. The purpose of this measure is not to prescribe any particular practice, but rather to offer insight into how different countries are using online tools to promote interaction between citizen and government, as well as among citizens, for the benefit of all.

* The E-government Development Index

Mathematically, the EGDI is a weighted average of three normalized scores on the most important dimensions of e-government, namely: scope and quality of online services, development status of telecommunication infrastructure, and inherent human capital. Each of these sets of indexes is itself a composite measure that can be extracted and analyzed independently.

* EGDI = (1/3 * online service index) + (1/3 * telecommunication index) + (1/3 * human capital index)

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2. Research on the stage of online public service development in Dolj County, Romania

The objective of the present research is to present the trends and evolution of the Romanian EGovernment policy, as well as to establish the current situation of the online service development of the Public Institutions in Dolj County, Romania.

2.1 Research Instrument

The provision of government services, or e-services, is the ultimate goal of e-government. This can be achieved through an evolutionary process. Layne and Lee [5] have identified four stages in the evolution of e-government:

* Cataloguing: Government creates a static Web site to gain online presence. Information is catalogued for presentation to citizens and usually organized into departments. Functionality primarily consists of a search facility to answer user queries.

* Transaction: Online interfaces for the purpose of conducting transactions. It is typically characterized by direct connections to live databases that require minimal interaction from government staff.

* Vertical integration: Seamless link between local and national databases that share a common information source, thus reducing redundancies and inconsistencies in the information stored about individual citizens. This must be accompanied by organizational and process change.

* Horizontal integration (across functions): This type of system integration means that a transaction in one agency can lead to checks against data in other functional agencies. This stage of integration will support true done stop shopping.

Another model, The "Four Stages of online service development Model" proposed by the United Nations in their 2012 Survey has been used as the primary instrument for conducting the research on the development stage of the online services provided by the public institutions in Dolj.

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Stage 1:

Emerging information services: is considered to be the first stage in the evolution of egovernment. This stage is characterized by the provision of information on public policy, governance, laws, regulations, relevant documentation and types of government services provided. Usually the websites of the public institutions provide useful links to ministries, departments and other branches of government.

Citizens have easy access to information on what is new in the national government and ministries or in the respective public institution and can follow links to archived information. Stage 2:

Enhanced information services: The public institutions websites deliver enhanced one-way or simple two-way e-communication between government and citizen, such as downloadable forms for government services and applications. A specific characteristic for this stage of development is also the presence of audio and video capabilities as well as the multi-lingual versions of the website, among others. Stage 3:

Transactional services: The websites of the public institutions engage in two-way communication with their citizens, including requesting and receiving inputs on government policies, programs, regulations, etc. The exchange can be completed only after a form of authentication of the citizen's identity. The websites provide online services such as processing non-financial transactions, such as e-voting, downloading and uploading forms, filing taxes online or applying for certificates, licenses and permits. They also handle financial transactions where money is transferred on a secure network to government. Stage 4:

Connected services: The public institutions that have reached this stage have changed the way they communicate with their citizens. They encourage the citizens to express their opinions towards the activity of the respective institutions and to actively participate in the decision-making process. The websites use Web 2.0 and other interactive tools and e-services and e-solutions cut across the departments and ministries in a seamless manner. This stage of development is characterized by the use of integrated applications in order to transfer the information, data and knowledge from government agencies. Governments that have reached this stage have moved from a government-centric to a citizen-centric approach, where e-services are targeted to citizens through life cycle events and segmented groups to provide tailor-made services.

The previously described model has been adapted according to the specific characteristics of the e-government policy in Romania, and more specifically in Dolj. In the model another stage has been introduced, which is referred to as "Stage 0". This stage is characterized by the online presence of the respective Public Institutions only on other official websites, as they do not have their own website yet. Also this stage is characterized by the availability of the contact information of the institutions, such as address, e-mail, telephone. We will name Stage 0: "No online presence". Also, we will introduce another intermediary stage in the previously described model, "Stage We will call this stage "Intermediary", and besides the characteristic features of the first stage of online service development previously described it also includes the possibility to download useful documents and forms from the public institutions' websites, but it does not provide other specific features like multilingual versions or audio-video capabilities.

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2.2 Data Collection

The current research started by identifying and analyzing the official governmental website of Romania, www. e-guvernare.ro. On this website we have selected all the registered Romanian governmental institutions listed in Dolj County. The institutions listed on the website include

Educational Institutions (Kindergartens, Schools, High schools, Colleges, Universities), City-halls, Customs Offices, Cultural Centers, Regional Agencies, Hospitals, and other local Public Institutions. The online presence of all 272 listed institutions was analyzed, using as reference the Adapted Four Stage Online service model, presented previously.

2.2 Analysis of the Public Instutions' websites in Dolj County, Romania

The main results are summarized in Table 1, where is presented the distribution of the audited Institutions in the six stages of the model.

The distribution of the Public Institutions of Dolj according the Six Stages model is presented in Figure 7. It can be observed that the stages that we introduced in the model are important in the understanding of the actual situation in Dolj: in fact 83% of the analyzed Public Institutions are these stages. 209 Institutions do not have their own website yet. They have online presence only on other official websites which provide the contact information of the institutions (address, e-mail, telephone), but no relevant and actual information about them. For this reason they are not in the "Emerging" stage.

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The websites of 12 Institutions provide e-services characteristic to the "Emerging" stage, but also include the possibility to download useful documents and forms from the public institutions' websites. However, they can not be considered in the "Enhanced" stage because some specific facilities (audio and video capabilities, multi-lingual versions of the website) are missing.

2.2.1 Analysis on the Cityhalls' websites:

In Dolj County there are 112 localities having City Hall: the municipality of Craiova (310 000 habitants, the county capital), six towns (Bailesti, Calafat, Bechet, Dabuleni, Filiasi, Segarcea having between 8500 and 20 000 habitants) and 105 communes (less than 8000 habitants). On the site http://www.prefecturadolj.ro/prefectura/index.aspx basic contact information is provided (telefon number and address) for all City Halls. The site www.ghidulprimariilor.ro, designed by a private company (Millenium Managent SRL) offers more detailed information (contact address of the City Hall, geografical position, number of habitants, touristic and bussiness oportunities) about 96 localities. On the official site www.e-guvernare.ro only 54 localities are registered and were analyzed in the perspective of Six Stages Model. The results are presented in Table 1, first column. There are no web-sites in the stage "connected". ln the stage.. Transactional" we find only the website of the City Hall of Craiova. Four web sites (two towns and two cummunes) are in the stage ... Intermediary" In the stage ... Emerging" there are seven web sites: four towns and three communes). The remaining 41 communes are in the stage "No online presence" because they do not have their own web-site and basic information can be found on some official or bussiness oriented web-sites. We can conclude that all the important comunities in Dolj, with a significant number of inhabitants and with educational infrastructure (at least one highschool in each comunity) are present in the online environment. The complexity of the website increases proportionaly with the education level of the target audience: in the big cities the internet is frequently used as a means to increase the efficiency of current activities, while in the smaller establishments the direct contact with public servants is a more current approach in dealing with regular administrative issues. However, we can notice some exceptions, in localities where the City Halls have advanced websites, even if the response of the local population might not differ greatly comparing to other similarly developed localities. The initiative of the official representatives in the local public institutions is crucial for the development of their online presence, understanding the importance of an efficient online interaction with the citizens, being the key for the succesful implementation of e-government at local level. Given the fact that no formal actions have been taken at national level to encourage the logistic and financial support for the local institutions, their advanced online presence is only accidental. However, we must aknowledge the progress of the local institutions in this respect in the last years.

2.2.4 Analysis of the other Public Institutions' websites

In this category we included Customs Offices, Cultural Centers, Regional Agencies, Hospitals, etc. On www.e-guvernare.ro are registered 85 websites of Public Institutions situated in Dolj County. From the 85 websites which were analyzed only 3 of them reach the second stage, which we have named "Enhanced online presence". The three websites deliver enhanced one-way or simple two-way e-communication between government and citizen, such as downloadable forms for government services and applications. The three website also differentiate themselves from the rest of the websites through the presence of audio and video capabilities as well as the multi-lingual versions of the website, among others.

Our current research shows that none of the Public Institutions offer more advanced websites, with connected or transactional services.

The majority of the public institutions in Dolj County, listed on the official e-government website in Romania do not even have a website; therefore they have been included in Stage 0 of the E-Government Model. 24 of the public institutions analyzed have been included in the first stage of the E-Government Model. The websites provide information on public policy, governance, laws, regulations, relevant documentation and types of government services provided. Some of the websites also provide useful links to ministries, departments and other branches of government. Citizens have easy access to information on what is new in the respective public institution and can follow links to archived information

Seven of the websites analyzed have additional characteristics compared to the previously described 24 websites, such as the possibility to download useful documents and forms from the public institutions' websites, but they do not provide other specific features like multilingual versions or audio-video capabilities, which are characteristics of the Second Stage in the E-Government Model. These websites have been included in the "Stage which is specific to the E-Government Model we propose.

2.2.2 Analysis of the Educational Institutions' websites

Schools: The situation with the online presence of schools is critical, as, for the 108 schools listed on the website www.e-guvernare.ro in Dolj County, 93 of them did not even have a website. Citizens did not have access to any online information regarding the respective schools, not even directions or contact information. The rest of the schools investigated had a website, but none of them had elements specific to the stages of Transactional Services or Connected Services, described in the 6 Stage E-Government Model. Only 4 of the websites have been included in the second integration stage, "Enhanced Services", as they offer downloadable forms for government services and applications. The four website also provide the users with audio and video capabilities as well as multi-lingual versions of the website, among others. Eleven websites have been included in the first stage of E-Government integration, offering only a one-way communication process, where the information is static, and with no possibility of the user to easily interact with the governmental representatives.

* Kindergartens:

From the 25 public kindergartens listed in Dolj County, only one had a website, which only offered one-way communication with the users, being included in the first stage in the E-Government Integration Model.

2. Results and discussions

The results of the empirical research show that the Public Institutions in Romania, and especially in Dolj County are lagging far behind the EU average in integrating ICT in their communication processes and in managing their internal operations. Great efforts need to be undertaken in order to reach the service level that citizens expect, to reach the effectiveness of the public sector processes and to have a two way, interactive communication with the citizens, to integrate them in the governmental processes.

The priority in the better integration process of ICT, is to support all the public institutions in creating and managing a website, at least with basic, one-way information, such as contact information -address, telephone number, email, contact person-, directions and opening hours, etc.

The second strategic direction is to offer all the public institutions in Dolj the necessary support (trainings for specialized personnel, or centralized IT services) to improve their online presence with facilities such as delivering enhanced two-way e-communication between government and citizen, such as downloadable forms for government services and applications. Also the presence of audio and video capabilities as well as the multi-lingual versions of the website is especially relevant among others.

After achieving these important goals, of having 100% online presence for all the public institutions in Dolj County, and reaching the characteristics of the second Stage in the E-Government Model, the public institutions need to focus on characteristics such as: authentication of the citizen's identity, two-way communication with their citizens, -including requesting and receiving inputs on government policies, programs, regulations-, processing non-financial transactions -such as evoting, downloading and uploading forms, filing taxes online or applying for certificates, licenses and permits-. as well as processing financial transactions where money is transferred on a secure network to government. These characteristics would offer additional value to the public services and would ease the public administration processes, while, at the same time increasing the satisfaction of citizens with the governmental services.

The main objective of the public institutions with regard to the E-Government process should be integrating the characteristics specific to the last stage in the E-Government Model, Connected services. The public institutions should focus on objectives such as: changing the communication process with citizens by encouraging them to express their opinions towards the activity of the respective institutions and to actively participate in the decision-making process. The websites of the institutions should integrate Web 2.0 and other interactive tools, while e-services and e-solutions should be designed to cut across the departments and ministries in a seamless manner. The Romanian Government should move from a government-centric to a citizen-centric approach, where e-services are targeted to citizens through life cycle events and segmented groups to provide tailor-made services.

Aknowledgement:,, This work was partially supported by the strategic grant POSDRU/CPP107/DMI1.5/S/78421, Project ID 78421 (2010), co-financed by the European Social Fund--Investing in People, within the Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development 2007--2013."

References

[1.] Warkentin, M., Gefen, D., Pavlou, P. A., & Rose, M. G. (2002). Encouraging citizen adoption of e-government by building trust. 12 (3) 157-162 (retrieved from http://www. electronicmarkets. org).

[2.] Tambouris. (2001). European cities platform for online transaction services. Proceedings of the European Conference on E-Government.

[3.] Dennis Linders, From e-government to we-government: Defining a typology for citizen reproduction in the age of social media, Government Information Quarterly 29 (2012) 446-454, journal homepage: www. elsevier. com/locate/govinf

[4.] E-Government for the People, 2012 Global E-Government Survey

[5.] Layne, K., & Lee, J. (2001). Developing fully functional e-government: A four-stage model. Government Information Quartery, 18(2), 122-136.

[6.] Harold C. Relyea*, E-gov: Introduction and overview, Government Information Quarterly 19 (2002) 9-35

[7.] Robin Gauld, Andrew Gray, Sasha McComb, How responsive is E-Government? Evidence from Australia and New Zealand, Government Information Quarterly 26 (2009) 69-74

[8.] Silvia Pavel, Advertising Communication during Crisis, Analele Universitatii din Craiova, Seria Stiinte Economice, Vol. 3, 2010, 1223-365 X, http://ideas. repec. org/s/aio/aucsse. html

[9.] Silviu Dorin Georgescu, The Romanian Market of Postal and Courier Services--Monitorization and Control, Revista de Stiinte Politice. Revue des Sciences Politiques, No. 35/2012, Editura Universitaria, Craiova.

Adina CONSTANTINESCU, University of Craiova, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration E-mail: adina_con@yahoo. com ORIGINAL PAPER

Table 1 The distribution of the Public Institutions of Dolj County
according the Six Stages Model; source: results of the empirical
research

                City halls   Other Public   Education
                             Institutions   Institutions

No online       41           51             93
presence

Emerging        7            24             10

Intermediary    4            7              1

Enhanced        1            3              4

Transactional   1
Connected

Total           54           85             108

                Kindergartens   Total

No online       24               209
presence

Emerging        1                42

Intermediary                     12

Enhanced                          8

Transactional                     1
Connected

Total           25               272