The Italian Strategy for E-government Renzo Turatto

It is ten years from when E-gov entered as a priority in the Italian government program From then, four different government administrations succeeded and E-gov still represents one of the objectives in the political agenda Moreover, in spite of the different governments, most of the unleashed policy actions in this fields can be listed as part of the same unvarying E-gov strategy

1.Why E-gov? 2.How far from the target? 3.Which policy to adopt?

a)Using the web technologies P.A. be more efficient – similarly to what happens in all information sectors, new technologies give the opportunity to change the PA production function – The effects: less resources for the same services (less paper, less mail services, less employees for the front office, the info services, etc)

b)Using the web technologies P.A. can offer new services, more suited to the citizen preferences – In the last years, in the information sector, the consumers choices fueled a new fast growing demand for online services – There exists an unexpressed demand of e-gov to discover and fulfill

c)Thanks to the web technologies transparency in P.A. choices and management turns into a fact – Often “open government” principles have been neglected even as a consequence of high costs and lack of organization – This argument doesn't apply anymore: today Internet and the WEB give the opportunity to fulfill the transparency principles easily and cheaply

d)To use Internet for providing new public services urges the P.A. to standardize its processes and rethink its organization – Today most of the P.A. IT solutions are based on old stand- alone architectures – The new cloud (web-based) architectures encourage the emerging of a dominant software capable to became a standard for all the P.A. engaged in the same functions

United nations Figure 1.1 Emerging leaders in e-government development EGDI Austria Iceland Spain Belgium Slovenia Monaco Russian Federation United Arab Emirates Lithuania Croatia Hungary Italy Portugal Ireland Malta Bahrain Greece Kazakhstan Chile Malaysia Saudi Arabia Latvia Colombia Barbados Cyprus Table 1.1 World e-govern- ment development leaders 2012 E-government RankCountrydevelopment index 1 Republic of Korea Netherlands United Kingdom Denmark United States France Sweden Norway Finland Singapore Canada Australia New Zealand Liechtenstein Switzerland Israel Germany Japan Luxembourg Estonia0.7987

European Union Figure 1.3: Full Online availability ranking, 2009‐2010 (in %) Full online availability 2009Full online availability 2010 EU27+ average 2009EU27+ average 2010 Figure 1.2: Services’ sophistication ranking, 2009‐2010 (in %) Sophistication 2009Sophistication 2010 EU27+ average 2009EU27+ average 2010 IE MT AT PT SE DE IT ES UK SI EE NL FI DK LV FR BE NO TR* PL LU CH CZ LT SK HU IS HR BG RO CY EL IE IT MT PT SE UK ES SI FI DK DE NL EE LV NO TR* FR BE PL CZ LU LT BG CH HU HR SK RO IS CY EL

European Union

International benchmarking results: – The Italian E-gov supply is more or less in line with most of the European countries – What is unquestionable is the lack on the demand side

More problems arise if you look beyond the national (average) data Huge discrepancies between administration with: – more E-gov services available for the firms; less E-services for the citizen – In general, more E-gov solutions provided by the central administration; less E-services from the small/local administration (even if some suggestions contradict this a as rule)

In the last decade the government intervention focused over three main intervention areas: 1.E-government regulation 2.E-gov Infrastructures 3.Implementation of Key national projects ad-hoc Financial support to the P.A. for developing new E- gov solutions

1.E-government regulation – E-services are asynchronous and not contextual, while in providing its services the “analogic” P.A. is with the beneficiary  IDENTITY – E-services rely on E-document, while “analogic” P.A. services are on paper  DOCUMENT COPY - DOCUMENT SIGNATURE – DOCUMENT BACKUP – E-services use , while “analogic” P.A. is based on certified mail  CERTIFIED – CAD - Decreto Legislativo 7 marzo 2005, n. 82

2.E-government Infrastructures for: – IDENTITY – SIGNATURE – BACKUP – CERFIFIED – Trust and security – System interoperability and cloud solutions for local P.A. (key issues to promote E-gov usability)

3.Key national projects – The new National civil registry – Health (electronic prescriptions - electronic health records) – Justice (Civil and criminal court Document Management System) – School and Education (broadband - digital book - digital whiteboard - national content repository - school social network)

Renzo Turatto National School of Public Administration Via dei Robilant, ROMA ITALY