Technology, politics and the public

Sunday, 12 February 2012

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.

By Raphael Phang | 17 August 2010 | Permanent link | 0 comments

“The risk to successful technology programmes is driven by competing and vacillating political agendas; and citizen perceptions and the public will”.

I came across this statement at a presentation sometime ago and felt that it encapsulated a truism about the way governments tended to roll out many information technology initiatives in the Asia Pacific. While we know that most economies in the region have information technology (IT) master plans that cover periods ranging from five to ten years, most elected governments must often face their electorate in general elections once every three, four or five years. This excludes the numerous by-elections and local elections that can take place in between these general elections and serve as a barometer of public sentiment about how well the government of the day is doing.

This creates a situation where IT programmes are often held ransom to the political demands of the day. IT master plans serve as a good roadmap for both public sector officials and the private sector and if well implemented will ensure that the original objectives of benefitting the citizen will be achieved. However, the impact of such political demands often causes a deviation in such plans to the point where objectives become unclear and very often end up benefiting only pockets of citizens.

The upcoming elections in Australia serve as a good illustration of this with the fate of several IT programmes being subjected to conflicting political agendas. One such program generally acknowledged by local commentators being the National Broadband Initiative to connect the entire country.

How then can an economy ensure that IT programmes that benefit citizens become immune to such competing and vacillating political agendas? In a recent survey of over 120 public sector officials conducted by FutureGov across the region, respondents highlighted that two of their key business priorities were to deliver cost savings and to demonstrate (evidence of) improved effectiveness. These priorities were being driven in part by increasing customer demands of government services and specific organisational objectives.

While the priorities themselves are not something we are unfamiliar with, they do highlight the fact that government organisations often have common ongoing challenges as well as specific organisational needs. The key then is to identify these challenges (e.g. greater operational efficiencies) and drivers (e.g. customer demands) and craft the programs to target these needs within a specific timeframe.

By addressing specific needs, such programmes will have a higher chance of success. And as they speak of the ‘desires’ of the citizen (who ultimately forms the electorate), it is likely that the second part of the statement “citizen perceptions and public will” will play a more influential role in reducing the risks associated with technology programmes and ultimately help ensure its success.