China's silo-busting CIO

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By Captain Wang | 21 April 2010

It is unlikely that Liu Huijun, the Deputy Secretary General of the Municipal government of Qingdao, and Director of E-Government Affairs, will ever be as famous or win as many awards as Tsingdao, the beer that put the city he has served for 20 years on the map. But within China’s circle of CIOs, Lui is something of a star.

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Named China government CIO of the year, and a regular in China’s top ten ‘government information innovators’, the graduate from the China Oceanography University has spent the last two decades hunting a Northern Chinese international shipping hub into the information age.

A refined, amiable man, Liu’s star qualities lie not in his manner, but in what he has achieved. A big issue facing Chinese cities is a lack of information exchange and sharing of resources between agencies, and Liu’s efforts to break down the silo walls of Qingdao’s administration system have won praise from his peers.

An automated information management system Liu introduced some years ago now handles everything from citizen complaints to parking fines, helping to move the organisation away from a paper-based process culture. This has enabled information sharing between departments, and eased a swelling information burden. Qingdao is a fast growing sub-provincial city with population of eight million and an economy that is expanding by 16 per cent a year. Managing the information growth that comes with a fast expanding city has called for a level of discipline and determination that belies Liu’s mild manner.

The same is true of an updated and improved integrated office information network Liu presided over the construction of in 2000, and an e-government network that followed soon after. Qingdao’s government web site was China’s first local government site, and remains one of the best. It has been named China’s “outstanding” government web site, and has picked up a number of e-government excellence awards.

Next, he came up with the idea to create a “one stop shop, integrated government” service network for the community. Over a four-year implementation period, 30 million yuan (US$4.3 million) would go into equipping all government departments with an e-government framework through which to serve different segments of the community online. Liu estimates that the network saves the Qingdao government five million yuan (US$720,000) in annual operating and maintenance costs.

Liu is quick to deflect credit for his achievements to his colleagues. “Behind every success run many streams of sweat. Yes, Qingdao government has enjoyed recognition at a national level for e-government and how we use IT, but this has come as a result of a collective pull in the right direction.” A heavy workload means that there are often late nights for his team, but Liu has been careful to look after his staff.

They are like family, Liu says, which pulls together for itself and for the city. But all families have their problems. A big one is how to raise awareness of the value of what it does throughout government. Getting recognition at e-government awards is one thing. Getting recognition from other government departments is quite another, he says. “The whole point of building e-services is to use information to serve people better. But this is never achieved overnight. It takes time. Only once solid foundations have been laid, and we know what works and what doesn’t from the citizen’s perspective, will a service come into its own.”

Qingdao’s e-government unit is positioned as a service provider not merely an IT department. “So we must win the trust and support of other departments by providing good services that make the business of government easier,” says Liu. “If we can’t do that, and we create services manufacturers to ensure that the solution is “a practical, workable fit” for the problem at hand.

Arguably a bigger problem for Liu is one that haunts all sectors in China: finding and keep talent. The salaries he pays his IT staff are no match for those offered by the that are designed to only make money, and restrict the way people work and control what they do, then we, and services, will fail.”

Just as Liu needs his department to be relied upon by others, so Liu needs to be able to rely on vendors. Which can be a problem. As e-government has played a bigger role in Qingdao’s development, so the relationship with vendors has grown in importance. But projects are not always completed as quickly or as efficiently as Liu would like. He has learned through experience that vendors should be able to prove themselves to have a solid track record for successful project implementation as well as a glittering array of new technologies. Above all, Liu insists that city governments should, as far as is feasible, jointly develop software with private sector, so all Liu has to rely on are “their enthusiasm and sense of responsibility”.

That said, as one of the most respected local government authorities in China, getting good people is easier than it is for many cities. For its relatively small size, Qingdao punches above its weight as a trailblazer e-government in China, and like Dalian is a role model for others to follow.

Even so, Liu knows that, as in other cities, there is a long way to go for Qingdao to improve its government services. “Now is not the time to relax. We are only at the beginning of the intermediate stage of e-government service delivery. We need to take a prudent, sober look at where we’ve come from and ensure that we stay on a steady path to progress.”