General e-Procurement case studies. E-Government - e-Government Case Studies. Mountain to climb before government goes digital by default. A survey by Pitney Bowes (a supplier of postal franking machines) finds 74% of UK citizens fear that important email messages to them could be automatically filed as junk or fail to be noticed and 84% believe important government issues are best communicated by post. The research indicates there is a mountain to climb if the government is to achieve its digital dreams. The survey of 1,000 people also found that half of respondents (50%) prefer to respond to communications through the post and a third (33%) opt for email when replying.
In third place came web-based responses with 8% of the vote, followed by phone (7%) and text (1%). Face-to-face interaction is still the most favoured method for dealing with police/law and order issues or anything to do with healthcare. When it comes to communicating with the government and local authorities in general, 95% of respondents agreed that a choice of channels was the key to success. E-petitions: the people's voice. E-government is not a financial cure-all | Michael Cross. When all else fails, reach for the "e".
In the past week, both the prime minister and the chancellor of the exchequer have cited e-government to explain how they are going to cut the cost of public services, but not their quality. The current buzzword is "smarter government", but the basic concept has been policy for a decade, since Tony Blair's first e-envoy, Alex Allan, unveiled the national e-government strategy in April 2000. The basic alchemy, borrowed from bookstores, banks and airlines, is to slash costs by persuading citizens to transact with the state online, rather than on paper or by turning up in person at a government office. Such transactions are massively cheaper to process – a fraction of a penny, compared with tens of pounds for a face-to-face visit. With a crisis looming in public spending, it's easy to see why the prime minister emphasised the promise of e-government in his digital futures speech last week.
On the surface, there's little new. Use the Internet to Make Government More Accessible, Efficient & Transparent.