From: Dan Jellinek [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, June 08, 2001 2:46 PM
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Subject: E-Government Bulletin - June 2001
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[Issue starts]
E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN
The Email Newsletter On Electronic Government,
UK And Worldwide.
ISSUE 100, JUNE 2001
IN THIS ISSUE:
Section One: News:
- Ministers missing opportunities of free software
- MoD strikes pretty good deal - MoD set to adopt PGP
- Councils win best practice clarification - BVPI-157 rethink
- Research bid to collate European best practice
- Democratic fatigue sets in - Consultation Fatigue in Northern Ireland
- Commission to measure online services - Effort to quantify EU e-government
- E-Government bulletin is 100 - Rolling back the years
- News in brief: Bipartisan move; E-democracy forum; Future Government
Report
Section Two: Special Feature
- UK out of step with European freedom march - UK authorities lag behind
European counterparts in the adoption of open source software
Section Three: Teledemocracy
- E-politics: democracy or marketing? - UK election campaign missed the
point
of e-politics, says Stephen Coleman
Section Four: Conference report
- A force for transparency in a chaotic world - outside the developed world,
technology is strengthening democracy
[End of contents]
NEWS:
MINISTERS MISSING OPPORTUNITIES OF FREE SOFTWARE
A lack of knowledge among UK government ministers about the qualities and
strengths of free and open source software compared with expensive
proprietary
software could lead to unnecessary expense to the taxpayer and less
transparent
and secure e-government services for the citizen, according to a new
investigation by E-Government Bulletin.
The report, which begins in this issue and will continue next month, finds
that
many European governments are encouraging the take-up of free software like
the operating system GNU/Linux across all public bodies, while UK
policymakers are more wary, largely through a lack of knowledge.
The news comes at a time when the UK government is facing renewed
accusations of getting too close to a single commercial supplier, Microsoft.
The government's 'e-Envoy' Andrew Pinder is to appear at a forthcoming
Microsoft 'Digital Leaders' conference, just a few months after an
appearance
alongside Bill Gates at a US conference sparked fears that the Microsoft-
developed government Gateway system might be sold on to other countries (see
E-Government Bulletin, issue 98).
The debate further intensified when various commentators pointed out last
month
that the government's new web portal UKOnline (http://www.ukonline.gov.uk)
cannot be viewed properly using non-Microsoft software. The government says
it
will open the site up further over the course of the year, but Tony Blair
did not
help when he attended a Microsoft software demonstration at its UK head
office
during the election campaign.
* See 'UK out of step with European freedom march', section two, this issue.
MoD STRIKES PRETTY GOOD DEAL
The Ministry of Defence is "highly likely" to adopt 'Pretty Good Privacy'
(PGP)
email encryption for sending documents to external organisations securely
over
the Internet, E-Government Bulletin has learned.
'PGP HMG', as the system is known, is a customised version of PGP Security,
a
product developed by Network Associates (http://www.nai.com) based on an
algorithm put into the public domain 10 years ago by Phillip Zimmerman. PGP
became hugely popular and gained controversy when it was temporarily banned
for export by the US military.
"We are not talking about James Bond stuff here," said Ray Lepore of the
software's UK distributor Connect Open Systems (http://www.cos.uk.com),
explaining the system will be used only to send only 'restricted' items, the
lowest
security classification.
The software became the first to gain official endorsement as a way to
transmit
restricted documents when it was approved in May by the Communications-
Electronics Security Group (CE-SG) of the UK security services
(http://www.cesg.gov.uk).
Other government departments said to be thinking of taking up the software
are
the Scottish Health Service, the NHS and the Inland Revenue.
Lepore said the adoption of PGP would result in a better and more secure
flow of
information between government departments and outside agencies. He added
that it would also be cheaper than fax and traditional mail, the methods
currently
approved for restricted communications.
COUNCILS WIN BEST PRACTICE CLARIFICATION
A group of local government representative bodies has successfully lobbied
for
revisions to the government's Best Value Performance Indicator guidelines
(BVPI-157) on the electronic delivery of local government services.
The Society of IT Managers (SOCITM), which pushed for clarification
alongside
the Local Government Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) and the
Local Government Association, said the original guidelines published in
January
this year led to confusion. According to SOCITM the guidelines did not
contain
adequate definitions of electronic services and types of interaction between
authority and citizen.
Under the new interpretation local authorities need to pay attention to six
key
areas: information provision; applications; booking services; payments in;
payments out; and feedback. The guidance will be supported by a series of
briefings; see http://www.socitm.gov.uk for details.
BID TO COLLATE EUROPEAN BEST PRACTICE
A research consortium called KEELAN (Key Elements for Electronic Local
Authorities' Networks) has submitted a bid for European research funding to
identify best practices in local e-government across the continent.
The researchers intend to generate a list of 50 best practices based on a
survey of
400 local government web sites in each of the 15 EU member states.
KEELAN is headed by the Council of European Municipalities and Regions
(http://www.ccre.org) and the Local Government Computer Services Board in
Ireland (http://www.lgcsb.ie).
The proposal for funding was submitted to the European Information Society
Technologies Programme, a 3.6 million Euro research funding body. See:
http://www.cordis.lu/ist
DEMOCRATIC FATIGUE SETS IN
The latest modern malaise to follow Sick Building Syndrome, Repetitive
Strain
Injury and email overload is a condition symptomised by increased apathy and
ennui among democratic communities too often in consultation with local and
regional policy-makers: Consultation Fatigue.
In Northern Ireland, the devolved regional government is legally obliged to
stage
hundreds of public consultations in any one year. According to David Newman
of Queens University, Belfast, since devolution the region is suffering from
a bad
case of CF.
Dr Newman is conducting research to find out if technologies can help bring
people together from public, voluntary and private sectors and improve
consultations by conducting parts of them electronically.
The key is to find out which of the issues are important to citizens first
by getting
feedback from community groups that can then be addressed by civil servants,
which Newman says is easier to do using a combination of electronic and
traditional forms of consultation.
"Electronic consultation processes have been found to illicit responses from
people who would be unlikely to respond to 20 page consultation documents -
it's
a means of reaching people who do not respond to traditional methods and
getting to those directly affected - particularly young people. It also
saves a lot
of work as not so much typing is needed".
In a region as politically sensitive as Northern Ireland the neutral zone
the
Internet provides is a useful consensus building and mediating tool. For
details of
a 25 June workshop in Belfast see http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/e/consult/
COMMISSION TO MEASURE ONLINE SERVICES
The European Commission will announce in July the winner of a year-long
contract to quantify the percentage of government services delivered online
in the
fifteen EU member states plus Norway and Iceland.
By assessing the extent to which 20 basic public services are available on
the
web at national and regional level the project hopes to say what percentage
of
government services are online in each territory.
A presentation of preliminary results will take place at a Brussels
conference in
November.
The indicator is one of three measures adopted by the European Council of
Ministers on 30 November 2000 to track the development of e-government in EU
member states. The two others are the percentage of government procurement
that can be done online and a survey of usage levels of the use of
e-government
services. See:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/information_society/eeurope/index_en.htm
E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN IS 100
E-Government Bulletin is 100 today - 100 issues stretching back over five
and a
half years from its launch in January 1996.
Headlines from our early issues included 'Government web activity increases
six-
fold' (a story covering growth in server traffic between 1995-96);
'Government
intranet connected' (written when the Government Secure Intranet was first
switched on in 1997); and 'BBC launches online news' (also in 1997).
Our readership has grown steadily and currently stands at around 5,500
people
from across the e-government community in the UK and worldwide.
Thanks to all readers, past and present, and please do continue to recommend
the
bulletin to your colleagues if you find it valuable - we pledge to maintain
our
strong independent standards and continue to provide the service for free
for
another 100 issues and beyond.
NEWS IN BRIEF:
BIPARTISAN MOVE: US Senators Joe Lieberman (Democrat) and Conrad
Burns (Republican) have introduced an E-Government Act to improve citizen
access to government information and services:
http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/050101_press-outline.htm
E-DEMOCRACY FORUM: The International Institute for Democracy and
Electoral Assistance has opened an online discussion in advance of its
annual
democracy forum in Stockholm:
http://www.idea.int/2001_forum/discussions.htm
FUTURE GOVERNMENT REPORT: The report of the recent online debate on
e-government organised by the bulletin's publishers Headstar with
sponsorship
from BT is due to launched on 20 June:
http://www.futuregovernment.org
[Section one ends]
[Sponsored notice begins]
KEY EVENT: WEBSITE IMPROVEMENTS FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT
- Central London, 12 July
Major conference covering how local government can successfully use the web
at strategic and operational levels locally and regionally. Speakers
(including
MORI, SOCITM and council representatives) will consider benefits, pitfalls
and
costs of Internet and Intranets. Senior local government, webmasters, IT
and
communications professionals should attend. Contact Jenni Pannell, Capita on
020 7960 7731 or [log in to unmask]
Or visit www.capita.co.uk/training
[Sponsored notice ends]
SECTION TWO: SPECIAL REPORT
- FREE SOFTWARE
UK OUT OF STEP WITH EUROPEAN FREEDOM MARCH
The French tax authority does it; the German national railways do it; even
the
Queen does it. Or to be more accurate, they don't do it - pay for their web
software.
The issue of whether government departments and other public sector bodies
should be using free software like the operating system GNU/Linux or
FreeBSD,
instead of proprietary software like Solaris or Microsoft NT, is now being
debated at the highest level across Europe. As well as potential cost
savings,
advocates of free software say it is more flexible, more transparent, more
compatible with a range of systems, and even more secure - all desirable
qualities
for public service systems.
Free software is often referred to generically as 'open source' software,
but there
are key differences. Free software, as championed by the 'GNU' Project
founded
by Richard Stallman, means much more than software that costs nothing - it
can
also be freely modified and redistributed. The foundation has created its
own
'copyleft' rules known as the GNU General Public License (GPL) - for full
details
see http://www.gnu.org
Open source software - where the 'source code' detailing how the programme
works is made freely available - is championed by the Open Source Initiative
(http://www.opensource.org), set up to promote the image of open source
software by a group of leading creators. It sets standards for open source
software, which can include codes which are not as free as the GNU licensing
model.
The distinction can be a little confusing, and many people don't bother
drawing a
distinction, but the differences are considered extremely important to the
free
software community in particular. For more background see 'untangling the
open
source/free software debate' by Thomas Scoville at:
http://opensource.oreilly.com/news/scoville_0399.html
Free software has been around since computers were invented and there are
GNU
GPL solutions for all the basics tasks needed to run Internet servers, of
which the
best-known is the operating system GNU/Linux.
Accordingly, governments across Europe are beginning to wonder why they
should pay high fees to tie themselves into proprietary software system to
run
online public services which are supposed to be predicated on fundamental
principles of efficiency and openness.
The Information Technology Advisory Agency of the German Interior Ministry,
for example, has recently proposed that German government offices adopt open
source software standards. The proposal cites interoperability as one factor
and
interestingly, on the issue of security, concludes that, "the fundamental
precondition for evaluating the security of software is for its source code
to be
made open."
Meanwhile three French MPs have proposed a law requiring open software
standards for all government systems. Some of the largest French government
departments have already switched to GNU/Linux including the Culture
Ministry
and the tax authority Direction Ginirale des Impots. The French Parliament
has
also proposed establishing an agency to promote the use of free software
across
government.
In Italy, a group of public official and academics posted an open letter
onto the
Internet last October attacking the 'Information technology dependency of
the
Italian state on Microsoft'. An appeal for signatories by the online
newsletter
Interlex saw 2,045 people add their names in a month (see
http://www.interlex.it/pa/letterap.htm for the Italian language site).
The Italian protestors said a switch to open source software could save
their
inefficient state administration significant sums.
The theme has now been picked up by the European Commission, whose
'Interchange of Data between Administrations' (IDA) project hosted a
Brussels
symposium in April to debate the issue.
The symposium concluded "certain requirements of public administrations
(independence, transparency, reliability) may best be met by applications
based
on open source. In public procurement for IT services, greater importance
should
be attached to the respect of open standards, and public administrations
should be
better informed about the availability of open source solutions."
To help get the ball rolling the commission pledged to help set up a forum
for the
exchange of best practice and a central open source software pool.
However, it noted that additional work is needed to measure costs and
benefits,
and that public bodies have to consider carefully the legal questions, in
particular
regarding competition law, copyright and liability.
And so the UK government, which has a somewhat mixed record.
The old 'open.gov.uk' central web gateway to public services was a GNU/Linux
site, but the new 'UKOnline' gateway has caused controversy by being
designed
so it only operates properly when viewed by Microsoft browsers. The
government's e-Envoy's office is now attempting to broaden the site's
accessibility (see news, this issue) but its image has been tarnished.
Elsewhere, the pattern is similar, and servers running proprietary solutions
are
most common in the conservative world of Whitehall. However, some official
sites do use free software servers, of which the most famous is royal.gov.uk
- the
web site of the British Monarchy.
In an interview with the online magazine Slashdot ('News for Nerds')
(http://slashdot.org/interviews/99/11/04/1716225.shtml) Mick Morgan of the
former government computing agency CCTA (billed as 'Queen Elizabeth II's
webmaster') said: "the priority of the heavily visited royal web site is
accessibility, balanced of course by reliability and security. These are the
important issues, rather than the nature of the server operating system." He
added: "The Queen's interest in Internet matters is non-technical."
Some might be surprised free software can provide more reliable, more secure
and even better supported solutions than software created by huge
corporations
with vast research budgets and high levels of customer support.
But the free and open source software communities form a network of global,
collaborative workgroups and support groups which mean free solutions can
often be more flexible and robust. This is not always realised by
politicians,
however. One UK government webmaster told E-Government Bulletin: "Lots of
ministers are not clear what open source means - they think it is
unsupported, so
there is a lack of enthusiasm. There is a lack of information about it among
ministers, who have little technical knowledge." With giants of proprietary
software like Bill Gates bending the ear of the Prime Minister, there is
perhaps a
little misinformation being spread about as well.
In our next issue, we look in more detail at the possible benefits for
democracy of
government using free and open source software, and some interesting
solutions
already in development for democratic debate and even voting.
[Section two ends]
SECTION THREE: TELEDEMOCRACY
- ELECTION SPECIAL
E-POLITICS: DEMOCRACY OR MARKETING?
By Stephen Coleman [log in to unmask]
This election has seen some brave attempts to put the Internet at the
cutting edge
of campaigning, but precious little in the way of using the net to enrich
the
texture of democracy. Lots of digital photos of candidates; not much online
policy debate of any quality or manifest purpose.
When journalists ask - as they often do - how the net is contributing to
this
election, they are usually looking for stories of magical marketing ploys,
enabled
by somewhat mystical technologies. In fact, as with e-commerce in general,
online political marketing innovations are scarce, less than spectacular and
rarely
more than ways of using the net to do what is already being done offline.
As in the US last year, the e-campaigning hype has far exceeded any real
political effects. In the US much excitement surrounded the McCain online
fundraising story - until it transpired that it was indeed a story: most of
the
money raised resulted from conventional phone canvassing and
over-enthusiastic
e-strategists then put the donors' names up on the McCain web site to make
the e-
campaign look more successful than it was.
This is not to suggest that either in US 2000 or UK 2001 there have been no
online campaign innovations; there have been a few, as one would expect when
a
new medium makes its first major appearance in an election. But the Internet
will
never realise its political value as a mere marketing tool.
The great promise of the Internet has long resided in its capacity to
invigorate
democracy by opening up the political communication process to the voices of
the many rather than the few. The tedium of endless professional
commentaries,
staged interviews, mediated pseudo-events, banal soundbites and virtual
deliberation (where the elite speaks for the silent, passive onlookers) has
led to
massive alienation and disenchantment. Political junkies thrive on the
incestuous,
dated drama of 'current affairs' , while the majority with lives watch
'reality TV'
and wait for policy debate that resonates with their experience.
The inherent interactivity of the Internet promised to open the political
conversation to voices that had never been heard before - people talking to
each
other, to those who want to represent them and to representative
institutions.
Engagement, inclusion, public deliberation and civic reconnection are the e-
democratic opportunities presented by the digital technologies.
Using the net to sell policies is fundamentally different from using it to
enhance
democratic engagement. Political campaigning is necessarily a low-risk
activity.
It is all very well for commentators to complain that parties' and
candidates' web
sites lack discussion forums or chat rooms, but do they really counsel vote-
hungry politicians to place themselves as hostages to fortune by opening
their
shop windows to anyone wishing to badmouth their policies? Election
campaigning is about winning votes, not having chats.
But democracy is about discussion. Mature and healthy representative
democracy
calls for openness and connectivity between representatives and represented
which can be facilitated by the interactivity of the net. Such e-democracy
has not
been a conspicuous feature of this election campaign, but could be one of
the
outcomes of the election: a Parliament, Government and local authorities
that
move towards a more e-democratic approach to governance.
The real question for e-politics watchers is not whether party A's web site
is
slicker, snazzier or more e-machiavellian than party B's, but whether, after
the
election, there will be a return to 'politics as normal', with agendas
managed by
the political elite; the language of politics reverting to the cosy
clubbishness of
public school tribalism; further descent into the culture of apathy,
disenchantment and civic sullenness - or whether e-democracy will enable a
more mature, engaged, inclusive and deliberative democracy to take root.
*Stephen Coleman is director of the e-democracy programme at the Hansard
Society (http://www.hansard-society.org.uk/eDemocracy.htm). This article
originally featured on VoxPolitics (http://www.voxpolitics.com), a site
tracking
the online election.
[Section three ends]
SECTION FOUR: CONFERENCE REPORT
- GLOBAL PICTURE
A FORCE FOR TRANSPARENCY IN A CHAOTIC WORLD
Doug Forbes [log in to unmask]
Across the world, and particularly in developing countries, e-government
means
more than the simple boosting of administrative efficiency: it can be the
difference between economic success or exclusion and between totalitarianism
and free democracy.
This message was delivered to a recent international gathering of government
representatives London organised by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Delegates hailed from countries as far-flung as Brazil, Cuba, Kenya, India
and
Malaysia.
Among those who attended was Senator Victoria Garchitorena, chief of
presidential management staff in the Philippines, who described how mobile
text
messaging played a significant part in the recent overthrow of the country's
former President Joseph Estrada.
In a country with high levels of cell-phone use, SMS messages had been
instrumental in mobilising vast crowds of people to take part in street
protests
[for a fascinating analysis of these events by Professor Vicente Rafael at
the
University of California, see
http://communication.ucsd.edu/people/f_rafael.cellphone.html].
Sergei Kambalov from the United Nations' EcoSoc unit said the UN was
committed to supporting the development of e-government across the world. He
admitted that some governments did not think 'e-Enabling' of their citizens
was a
priority, but said e-government should be viewed a means to provide basic
social
needs.
The point was illustrated by Victor Lysytskyi, government secretary to the
Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers, who said the Internet was being used to help
his
government move away from totalitarianism.
Other delegates testified how the web has been used to root out corruption
in
India; and in an example from closer to home Mike Mannin from Liverpool's
John Moores University said the Scottish Parliament was pioneering e-
democracy by designing its administrative procedures around transparency and
access provided by the internet.
The challenges of e-government for administrations worldwide are steep, and
the
economic stakes are high. Increasingly many companies, will locate and
invest
only in countries which have the new infrastructure.
Governments of all kinds need to provide clear leadership, guidance,
resources,
public relations and risk management. They also need to encourage their
citizens
to gain access to the web, remove any barriers to admission and treat
citizens as
equal partners.
As Andrew Puddephat, director of human rights organisation Article 19,
summarised: e-government can't make bad government good, but it is a force
to
improve transparency and openness in a world of chaos and risk."
* Doug Forbes is Director of the Centre For e-Government (http://www.centre-
for-egovernment.com)
[Section four ends]
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Copyright 2001 Headstar Ltd
The Bulletin may be reproduced in full as long as all parts including this
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PERSONNEL:
Editor - Dan Jellinek [log in to unmask]
Deputy Editor - Phil Cain [log in to unmask]
Reporter - Tamara Fletcher [log in to unmask]
A searchable archive of our back-issues can be found on our web site.
[Issue ends]
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