2) Helsinki, 7 April, 2003 — Finnish Online Government: Progress Report

1. What opportunities are offered by electronic government?

2. How does the Action Programme help to improve service strategies?

3. What is done to help managers to overcome their inferiority complex?

4. What opportunities are opened up by online government to financial sphere and the sectors of social wealth and health care?

5. How is the Action Programme financed?

Electronic government opens up opportunities for more effective procedures, structural reform, higher administrative productivity, and for improving the quality of service. Information and telecommunications technologies provide one of the most important tools for responding to future challenges.

Electronic government opens up opportunities for more effective procedures, structural reform, higher administrative productivity, and for improving the quality of service. Information and telecommunications technologies provide one of the most important tools for responding to future challenges.

Information and telecommunications technologies continue to offer remarkable opportunities for public administration renewal. They also provide one of the most important tools for responding to future challenges. Finland, like other industrialized nations, is faced with a change in society’s age structure that will shift demand for public services toward labour-intensive services while, at the same time, public services will undergo a changeover of its own personnel as a result of retirement.

Electronic government, and the application of IT in general, opens up opportunities for more effective procedures, structural reform, higher administrative productivity, and for improving the quality of service. Procedures can be lightened and resources, thus, freed reallocated to traditional-type personal services required by seniors.

The Programme of Action to Promote Online Government, published in December 2001, has accelerated progress towards electronic government throughout public administration. This action programme for the years 2002–2003 was formulated by a task group established by the Information Society Advisory Board and chaired by the then MP and current Minister of the Environment, Mr Jouni Backman. The programme was accepted by the Ministerial Committee for Administration.

FICOM, Finland’s Cooperation Council for Communication and Information Technologies, an ICT industry body, chose the Action Programme for its title of “Information Society Deed of 2002“. The programme focuses on the bottlenecks in online government and makes concrete proposals for their solution. It also outlines a vision for the role of public administration in the second half of this decade.

Brush up Your Service Strategies

Networked services and the utilization of ICT cannot be separate islands, as they form a crucial part of an agency’s core activities. Merely automating an existing service does not suffice. Service processes have to be re-evaluated. The central proposal of the action Programme is that each agency should formulate an electronic services (ES) strategy that is integrated with its overall functional and service strategy.

Strategy training to support agencies in this work was begun in September 2002. Assistance is given in drawing up a work plan as a basis for agencies to elaborate independently their own ES strategies. Interest in strategy training exceeded expectations, with 48 out of 130 government agencies taking part. ES strategies will become part of the government budget process by including them in the activities and financial planning cycle of each administrative branch.

Municipalities need ES strategies as well. The Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities is preparing a document, “Local e-Government 2002“ in order to provide municipal authorities with guidance in the design of their ES strategies.

Management Training for Online Government

One of the main recommendations of the Action Programme concerns top management training to enable it to take advantage of ICT. The task group that authored the Programme (the group itself was made up of top managers) saw a genuine need for such training.

The provision of online services implies the adoption of new activity and service paradigms. This presents a tough challenge, in particular to management. A generalist manager is likely to feel insecure when faced with the procurement of a new IT system or service. This feeling is reinforced by the special terminology, acronyms, and neologisms in the field.

The training programme is designed to provide the manager with competence to seize the opportunities offered by technology for the development of the services and the overall functioning of his agency.

The aim is to attract about a quarter of the managers in central and municipal government, or about one thousand persons, to attend this training that will start in early 2003.

Banks’ ID Procedures Accepted for Public Services

The secure identification of clients of online services is a topic for continuing debate. Electronic authentication based on the Public Key Infrastructure has not caught on as rapidly as expected, although the Population Register Centre has been providing digital certificates since 1999. New approaches will be available soon as the electronic ID card will be modified to contain health insurance information, thus making the card more widely useful. Work is under way to allow for the attached processor card (SIM card) of a mobile phone to be used for authentication. However, it will take time before PKI-based authentication is in wide use.

The Action Programme suggests that the use of banks’ authentication systems for online banking should be permitted for using public services. These systems are usually not based on digital certificates but on more “light-weight“ methods such as a set of one-time passwords. Over half of adult Finns do online banking and are, thus, familiar with these authentication procedures. In principle, online banking authentication could be adapted for most public services, particularly for those that carry a charge.

In August 2002, the Ministry of Finance followed up on this suggestion with a recommendation that central government online services may offer online banking authentication in addition to or instead of PKI-based authentication.

Challenges Ahead for Welfare and Health

The sectors of Social Welfare and Health are expected to face the severest challenges as the age structure of population changes. Although privacy considerations place limits to the processing of the huge masses and flows of data in health care, the potential benefits of increased ICT application in this area are great, perhaps greater than in any other sector of public administration. So far, this potential has been tapped to a limited extent only.

To support the development of electronic applications and online services, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has established three projects or task groups: -Seamless service chains and supporting IT solutions -Steering group on technology development -Social Welfare and Health Information Systems 2005 overhaul.

Action Under Way

The Action Programme on Online Government has been well received both in and out of public administration. It is seen as a useful device for promoting electronic services in government. The Programme has given new impetus to a number of matters that otherwise would have progressed more slowly or not at all. Although the proposed time schedules are tight, a great majority of the Programme’s sixteen action items have got off to a good start, although some of them have been slightly delayed.

The Action Programme was premised on austerity in that its implementation would not necessarily depend on new money but could be, in most cases, financed by the reallocation of existing budgets. Only three of the proposed projects require separate financing. In spite of the premise and the scarcity of financing, implementation of the Action Programme is off to a flying start.

Now, at the halfway mark of the Programme, it is time to ask, where do we go from here? Finland will hold parliamentary elections in March 2003.

Expectations are directed at the next government and its programme. In its report at the end of 2002, the Information Society Advisory Board recommended that the next government initiate an Information Society Programme under the responsibility of one single minister.

The Information Society Advisory Board was established in 1996 to assist the Finnish Government in formulating and evaluating information society policies. A cabinet minister chairs it and its members are permanent secretaries and other high level civil servants from state and municipal administrations as well as IT industry leaders.

Additional information on the Programme of Action to Promote Online Government at Infosoc www site (Reports in English).

The Programme of Action to Promote Online Government, published in December 2001, has accelerated progress towards electronic government throughout public administration. This action programme for the years 2002–2003 was formulated by a task group established by the Information Society Advisory Board and chaired by the then MP and current Minister of the Environment, Mr Jouni Backman. The programme was accepted by the Ministerial Committee for Administration.

TRANSLATION STUDY

Task 1. Read the following words in groups, close the book and write them from memory and then translate them from English into Russian and from Russian into English respectively.

1) Government, technology, provide, tool, challenges, nation, change, society;

2)opportunities, procedures, efficiency, quality, service, information, technologies;

3)observers, initiatives, service policy, optimization, participation, governance;

4)инициативы, правительство, расширение, услуги, доступ, интерес, информация, изменения;

5)трансформация, рост, возможности, время, увеличение, финансирование, сфера;

6)множество, операция, сеть, доступ, деятельность, товар, граждане.

Task 2. Give Russian equivalents of the word-combinations printed in bold type in the text.

Task 3. Give English equivalents of the following word-combinations:

Придавать большое значение, участие граждан, преодолевать барьеры, проводить обмен, осуществлять операции, приобретать возможность, перерабатывать информацию, предоставлять услуги, сторонники «электронного правительства», метод приобретения (товаров и услуг), информационные технологии, покрывать расходы, закон о доступе к информации, правительственная информация

Task 4. Complete the text by translating the passages in brackets into Russian:

Существует несколько факторов, стимулирующих (G2G e-government intiatives). Один из них – (interest in improved efficiency).

Одна из (expected benefits of information technology investment solutions), на которую часто ссылаются сторонники таких инвестиций, заключается в (cost savings), достигаемом за счет увеличения (the speed of transactions), (reducing the number of personnel), необходимых для осуществления какой-либо задачи, и повышения постоянства получаемых результатов. Одновременно с (efforts to contain the growth of the government budgets) увеличился и интерес к (using information technology solutions) (to streamline procedures and trim costs).

Главный мотивационный фактор, усиливающий интерес к сфере G2B, – это (the growing demand by policymakers for cost cutting and more efficient procurement). Подобно тому, что интерес к (the interest in efficiency) способствует развитию инициатив в сфере G2G, (many G2B initiatives are promoted) обусловлена их потенциалом для рационализации и повышения постоянства операций, (personnel-intensive tasks).

При этом существуют разногласия в вопросе о том, должны ли эти инициативы (help centralize or decentralize procurement by agencies). Одни эксперты считают, что (decentralized procurement) дает (agencies greater control over their own projects), и сокращает временной промежуток (between when a product is ordered and when it is delivered). Напротив, другие эксперты выступают в защиту (centralized procurement) на том основании, что в этом случае (lower costs by aggregating the purchases of similar products by multiple agencies), а также (enhance accountability by limiting the number of people), поскольку уменьшается число людей, (authorized to enter into purchase agreements).

Task 5. Complete the text by translating the passages in brackets into English:

1) (Еще одной выгодой) anticipated by some e-government advocates is (увеличивающееся участие граждан в управлении государством). One way this could occur is by connecting people who live in remote areas of the country so that they can (посылать и получать информацию) more easily. A second way suggested by some observers is through (увеличивающееся участие граждан в управлении государством) by younger adults. Some advocates believe that the generation of citizens about to come of political age, who have grown up with the Internet and (цифровые коммуникационные технологии) in their everyday lives, will be more likely to become participant citizens if the means to do so are (сходны с теми, которые они используют в своей личной и профессиональной деятельности). By extension, (инициативы электронного правительства) could also enhance citizen-to-citizen (C2C) interaction (путем предоставления возможности) for people with similar interests, opinions, and concerns, who may be geographically separated, (взаимодействовать и совместно использовать информацию).

2) All the sites of (органы федерального государственного управления России) are marked with (большая насыщенность информацией). After accepting resolution № 98 of February 12, 2003 «About ensuring (доступ к информации) about the Government of the Russian Federation and federal bodies», the list of (обязательная информация) was significantly extended. (Можно без преувеличения сказать) that in case of (выполнение резолюции) (большая насыщенность информацией) of official sites of (органы исполнительной власти ) оf the Russian Federation will be one of the highest in Europe. The sites of their own have (Президент России, Государственная Дума и Совет Федераций).

Most of the Russian regions also have their own official sites. According to the research made by RosBusinessConsulting company 82 out of 89 Russian regions have official sites, what makes up 92%. It has been also proved that 13% of existing regional sites are marked by(большая насыщенность информацией), 52% - by average and 17% - by low. The undoubted leader is the site of Karelia Republic. For developers of the project “Electronic Government” in Russia as well as in the whole world, the issues of its efficiency are (весьма злободневна).

Task 6. Work in pairs. One student dictates the following sentences and the other interprets them. Take turns.

1. E-government is itself a process, or a means to an end, rather than an end in and of itself. 2) E-government is still in the earliest stages of development. 3) Without strong political leadership, few e-government initiatives will be funded and implemented. 4) The prospect of increased efficiency may focus attention on government information technology, but someone or some group of political leaders has to make the decisions and have the will to carry them out. 5) Observations from transitional democracies and developing countries suggest that the development of e-government depends heavily on political leadership and an integrated vision of information technology.

2. «Электронное правительство», – это возможность повысить качество, разнообразие и доступность услуг. 2) Некоторые исследователи считают, что помимо повышения эффективности может быть улучшено и качество услуг. 3)В этом случае операции будут осуществляться быстрее, чиновники будут нести бóльшую ответственность, а процессы будут усовершенствованы. 4) Развитие «электронного правительства» также создает возможности для предоставления новых услуг. 5) Инициативы в области «электронного правительства» не только позволят комбинировать между собой существующие услуги, но и могут способствовать качественным изменениям в том, как государственные органы осуществляют свою деятельность, и как граждане взаимодействуют с государством и друг с другом.