Defining the government transformation agenda

Sunday, 12 February 2012

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By James Smith | 25 August 2010 | Permanent link | 0 comments

I came into office rather snappily dressed today, as I had a lunch meeting planned with a bank manager - though happily for all concerned this was the World Bank’s Oleg Petrov, who was in town and wanted to catch up to swap notes on government transformation.

Based in Washington DC, Oleg coordinates knowledge sharing and the learning programme on ICT for development at the World Bank - and was bouncing between meetings, as he chaperoned a delegation from Moldova which is about to embark on a major (US$15 million) government transformation programme. Earlier this year John Suffolk, an old FutureGov friend, and still the GCIO of the United Kingdom, had flown into Moldova’s capital Chişinău (you get points if you can find that on a map) along with Andrea di Maio and an assortment of the great and the good of government ICT to try and pin down what e-transformation means. It’s certainly easier to say, than to do.

If e-transformation, or government transformation, means anything then it has to represent the shift from rolling out e-government services, to leveraging ICT infrastructure to empower civil servants to work smarter, enable change and accelerate the reform of governance; quality over quantity, if you like.

What it shouldn’t be seen as is e-government with a bit of lipstick slapped on. Already I sense that in civil servants’ enthusiasm for being seen to do something, there’s a temptation to do anything - provided it can be tagged as ‘government transformation’.

We’ve been here before, when seven years ago there’d be breathless press releases about whether a city state had 1500 or 1600 e-services. But that kind of progress only gets you to first base.

Earlier this year, over a nice cup of tea and biscuits in Delhi, the Department of IT’s R. Chandrashekhar made the same point, as he shared his perspective on government transformation: “E-governance was the first step. Putting the technology in place is relatively easy. Appreciating what you want to do with it, and getting an organisation the size of the civil service to move forwards in a timely manner, this is where challenges arise.”

Organisations like the World Bank, and FutureGov naturally, will play a big role in separating the government transformation hype, from the reality. Certainly watch this space - I will hopefully to be able to announce further collaboration with the World Bank in due course.