Sunday, 5 February 2012
About | Contact Us | Careers | Feed
RESOURCE CENTRE
Tax and Revenue Management: A government’s lifeblood
IT has provided the opportunities for governments to remodel the entire process of tax collection over the last decade. It is, however, a continuously evolving process and governments the world over need to constantly upgrade their tax systems to optimise their revenue workflows.
Unlocking Public Value
A recent SAP study confirmed that those organisations which adopt best practices in the areas of scope and adoption, process standardisation, technology and customer governance, do perform better, and do so as their best practice maturity increases.
Governments and Socialising
The advent of social media has seen governments hopping onto the bandwagon in a bid to further engage citizens.
Advertisement
Follow us on Twitter 
| Join us on 
E-Government, Local Government
Seoul tops global cities ranking for e-govt
The South Korean capital of Seoul is the world’s most advanced municipal e-government, according to a global survey of city web sites. The “Soul of Asia” topped the UN-sponsored table ahead of Prague, Hong Kong, New York and Singapore on the usability, content, services, privacy and inclusiveness of its online operations.
Seoul, which was the world’s first city to introduce wireless high-speed mobile internet services, was singled out for giving its citizens the opportunity to play an active role in governmental processes, such as the submission of ideas and suggestions on e-policies via well-organised policy forums.
Commenting on why Seoul emerged on top, Dr Jung-hee Song, Assistant Mayor for IT and Chief Information Officer, Seoul Metropolitan Government, told FutureGov: “At the core of Seoul’s success is the systematic information infrastructure, which includes e-Seoul Net and ISO 27001 ISMS (Information Security Management System). On top of this we have provided convenient and customized services that give citizens plenty of opportunity to get involved in policymaking.”
Song pointed to Seoul’s e-Clean Finance System, e-Clean Fire Fighting System and e-Clean Welfare System as successful measures to bring greater transparency and accountability to public administration in the world’s second largest metropolitan area. She added that sound IT governance has paved the way for prompt decision making in the capital. This has been made possible thanks to the integration of a wide range of information systems based on flexible enterprise architecture, she said.
Seoul also topped the bi-annual ranking in 2003, 2005 and 2007. The survey was conducted by the Global e-Policy e-Government Institute at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Korea and the E-Governance Institute, School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University-Newark in the US. It was co-sponsored by the UN Division for Public Administration and Development Management and the American Society for Public Administration.
Looking to the future, Song said that while it was tricky to predict how technology would change the future of public administration in Seoul, “it is likely that every public service will be provided without the need for on-site visits, which will ease transportation issues. Working environments will be transformed into completely paperless offices. More people will work from home. And we will live in a city where ‘ubiquitous working’ is possible, raising efficiency and productivity and reducing our environmental impact.”
Initiatives such as u-Seoul, which aims to allow Seoulites to use mobile devices to access public services ‘anytime, anywhere’, will be a reality “within the decade”, predicted Song. “Such developments will make citizens more satisfied, raise Seoul’s image on the global stage and elevate its status as one of the world’s most liveable and sustainable urban environments.”
While three Asian cities featured in the top five, Asia ranked third in the ranking of continents, behind Europe and Oceania (Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands), which topped the table.
The top 10 e-government cities is as follows: 1 Seoul 2 Prague 3 Hong Kong 4 New York 5 Singapore 6 Shanghai 7 Madrid 8 Vienna 9 Auckland 10 Toronto
Rate this article
Add your comment
Most highly rated
Better learning with web 2.0 and virtual worlds
In a visit to Ngee Ann Secondary School yesterday (22 July), FutureGov found students deeply ...
Students take a green stance with social media
Ngee Ann Secondary School’s students are on a bid to “change the world” with ...
Will Facebook profiles replace govt web sites?
It’s all the rage for ministries and agencies to have a Facebook pages these ...