From e-Government to e-Governance

Using new technologies to strengthen relationships

with citizens
Contents
1 Introduction: Strengthening governance.................................................. 1
2 Focusing on improved outcomes................................................................. 6
3 Balancing choice and common good......................................................... 11
4 Engaging, educating and enrolling citizens as co-producers.............. 15
5 Improving accountability and transparency............................................. 20
6 The journey to e-governance........................................................................ 25
 1. Introduction: Strengthening governance
As citizens’ expectations of
government have increased, so has the
pressure to improve public services.
With access to more information than
ever before, people are becoming more
knowledgeable, more vocal about
their needs and more sophisticated in
their expectations of how government
should meet those needs. At the same
time, of course, governments are under
growing pressure to do more with less.
Budgets are static or shrinking—even
as citizen expectations and demand for
services continue to grow.
Over the last decade, public service
organizations around the world have
invested heavily in technologies to
improve service delivery and realize
cost efficiencies. Collectively known
as “e-government,” these initiatives
were designed to meet a range of
organizational challenges—such as
improving public access to information
and services through online channels;
sharing data within and across
organizations; improving the efficiency
of business processes; and managing
organizational performance.
1
While investment in e-government has
delivered significant benefits, these
solutions also have limitations when
it comes to public service delivery and
reform. People are no longer content
to be passive consumers of services.
They expect a different kind of
relationship with their government—
one that places individual needs and
expectations at the heart of public
service planning and delivery. This new
relationship is characterized by the
more active involvement of citizens
and other stakeholders in identifying
priorities, influencing decision
making, shaping policies, designing
services, holding governments
accountable for results and even
jointly contributing to service delivery.
In light of today’s changing citizen
expectations, governments have begun
developing strategies to not only
enhance efficiency and effectiveness,
but also to strengthen the relationship
between government and citizens.
While e-government has been largely
a one-way street—with government
delivering and citizens receiving—these
new e-governance strategies enable
government and citizens to engage
and partner with each other and
other stakeholders. In doing so, they
are leveraging new technologies
and modifying conventional service
provision in innovative ways to create
public value. It is a development
that is gaining momentum as
citizens respond positively to the
new information, debate and
participation that government and
non-governmental community
e-governance tools make possible.
To learn more about what citizens
expect and can contribute, the
Accenture Institute for Health & Public
Service Value has been conducting
the Global Cities Forum, an ongoing
international study into how members
of the public define “public value” and
what they believe government should
be doing to help improve the quality
of their lives.1 Launched in 2007, the
study involves a series of citizen panels
in cities around the world. Through
2
 these daylong panels, local residents
discuss and debate their views of
government and public services. During
the first phase, we conducted Forums
in Berlin, London, Los Angeles, Madrid,
New York, Paris, Singapore and Sydney.
In 2008, we continued with panels
in Dublin, Oslo, Rome, Tokyo and
Toronto. In 2009, we are conducting
Global Cities Forum panels in Austin,
Johannesburg, Mexico City, New Delhi
and Rio de Janeiro.
Through the Global Cities Forum, we
have learned that people do indeed
want to become more engaged in their
governance. They want to be more
informed and to have a bigger say in
how government acts to make their
lives better. From that learning, we
formulated what we believe to be a
compelling model for a more active,
trust-based relationship between
people and their governments. The
Accenture Public Service Value
Governance Framework represents
a more publicly engaged model
of governance, one that connects
people—as citizens, service users and
taxpayers—with those whom they elect
to lead them and to shape and direct
their public services.
Accenture Public Service Value Governance Framework
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The framework is built around four
components:
1.  Outcomes—Focusing on improved
social and economic conditions for
citizens—such as health, learning and
safety—and not merely on the amount
of services provided or on efficiency.
2.  Balance—Balancing choice and
flexibility with fairness and common
good, being mindful that narrow
application of either can widen gaps
between those who are able to take
advantage of service improvements
and those who are not.
3.  Engagement—Engaging, educating
and enrolling citizens as co-producers
of public value by eliciting their views,
helping clarify their perceptions
and enabling them to make best
use of government resources and to
contribute to improving their own
quality of life.
4.  Accountability—Clarifying
accountability, being more transparent
about government actions and
performance, and facilitating public
recourse by providing accessible means
to remedy problems with government
and public services.
Together, these highly interrelated
components articulate a relationship
that is about genuine engagement
of people in their governance—not
one that is merely about voting in
elections, answering surveys or paying
taxes, as important as these things are.
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We consider this type of engagement
critical to governments’ ability to
achieve high performance and deliver
greater public value.
Over the last several months, we have
undertaken a follow-up study: an
examination of how governments are
using new technologies, and older
technologies in innovative ways, to
strengthen their relationships with
citizens and residents and to improve
the efficiency and effectiveness of
public services. In particular, we
have explored how governments are
addressing the four components of
the Accenture Public Service Value
Governance Framework. From an
operational perspective, we have found
that governments are using technology
to enable cross-sector, government-
wide collaboration by investing in:
•  Enterprise-wide data sharing
through shared information workflows
and standardized data models.
•  Standardized architectures,
protocols and applications across
agencies.
•  Interfaces that support collaboration
between organizations—for example,
dashboards and enterprise search
capabilities.
•  Enhanced content and record
management capabilities to enable
employees from across government to
access citizen data in multiple formats.
•  Shared business process
management platforms to manage
complex, shared workflows.
Governments are also investing in
citizen-facing technologies that
enable a more meaningful discourse
between citizens and public service
organizations—one that makes it
possible for individuals to partner
with government in creating public
value and to participate in their
own governance as never before.
Many of these initiatives leverage
web 2.0 technologies that empower
people to connect with each other
and with government through
interactive forums, blogs, wikis,
e-participation tools and social
networking platforms. Some use
web 2.0 technologies to maximize
the value of shared information by
opening government data vaults to
the public and encouraging them to
create mash-ups, applications and
widgets to solve real-world problems.
This study explores the strategic
intent that is driving and
shaping these operational and
citizen-facing initiatives.
We have found that governments
around the world are adopting new
strategies and adapting old ones
to better engage the public, deliver
more effective public services and
enable citizens to participate in their
governance. Through our research,
we have identified 10 e-governance
strategies that government is using
to strengthen the governance
relationship. Not all governments are
implementing all of these strategies,
and some are implementing more
rapidly or extensively than others.
Often interlinked and interdependent,
the strategies can be clustered around
the four components of the Accenture
Public Service Value Governance
Framework:
Outcomes
•  Focusing performance management
on actual improvements in people’s
social and economic conditions
•  Continually improving the customer
experience by soliciting service user
and customer feedback
•  Improving the efficiency and
effectiveness of public service
provision
Balance
•  Conducting customer segmentation
analysis and using customer insight to
target services appropriately
•  Ensuring that more citizens can
access and use digital media channels
and providing support to those who
cannot
Engagement Based on our findings and
•  Enabling citizens to engage with recommendations, we also outline
each other through social networking a set of key practices public service
technologies organizations should consider adopting
to drive, shape and manage their
•  Enabling citizens to participate in journey to e-governance:
their governance through digital media
1.  Develop a citizen-centric vision of
•  Educating citizens and encouraging governance
participation through online training
and learning resources 2.  Tailor services and communications
to meet user needs and preferences
Accountability
3.  Strengthen and foster the capacity
•  Increasing transparency and
to innovate by creating a sense of
accountability by developing web- ownership within the workforce
based tools to report on results
achieved 4.  Aim for success in terms of
improved service quality and increased
•  Enabling citizens to report problems citizen trust in government
and resolve complaints through online
channels These practices are central to any
government’s ability to strengthen its
By adopting these strategies, relationship with the people it serves.
government and public service They provide important guidance
organizations are transforming their to public service leaders who seek
relationships with people from one to achieve high performance and
of dependency or even cynicism to deliver improved social and economic
one of shared responsibility. As this outcomes for citizens.
transformation occurs, governments
Finally, we acknowledge that this
are finding themselves better placed
study and our learning are works
to deliver improved services and social
in progress. Just as the demands
outcomes that address people’s whole
and contributions of citizens and
life needs. That, in turn, is building
the responses and tools available to
trust among customers and citizens in
the role that government can play in government are evolving over time,
their lives. our work will continue to evolve as
we track governments’ progress in the
This report elaborates on the findings transformation to e-governance.
of our first study of the evolution
from e-government to e-governance.
We describe the 10 strategies more
fully and present examples of their
implementation. In keeping with our
intent—to find ways in which government
can actually strengthen governance—
we have organized the report around
the four components of the governance
framework. We describe the components
in more detail, outlining some of the
key themes that underpin each and
providing short examples to illustrate
good practice. It should be noted that
the organizations and initiatives we
feature are, in many cases, demonstrating
progress in implementing more than one
component of the governance framework.
4
 Summary of e-governance strategies
The Accenture Public Service e-Governance Strategies
Value Governance Framework
Outcomes Focusing performance
management on actual
improvements in people’s
social and economic
conditions
Continually improving the
customer experience by
soliciting service user and
customer feedback
Improving the efficiency and
effectiveness of public service
provision
Balance Conducting customer
segmentation analysis and
using customer insight to
target services appropriately
Ensuring that more citizens
can access and use digital
media channels and providing
support to those who cannot
Engagement Enabling citizens to
engage with each other
through social networking
technologies
Enabling citizens to
participate in their
governance through digital
media
Educating citizens and
encouraging participation
through online training and
learning resources
Accountability Increasing transparency and
accountability by developing
web-based tools to report on
results achieved
Enabling citizens to report
problems and resolve
complaints through online
channels
5
Examples
• United Kingdom: Public Service Agreements
• United States: EHSResults! Massachusetts Office of Health
and Human Services
• Dubai: eComplain System
• Singapore: Reaching Everyone for Active Citizenry @ Home
(REACH)
• Australia: Australian Tax Office Change Program
• Canada: GCPedia
• Finland: Finnish Immigration Services
• Italy: Linea Amica
• Italy: Magellano
• United States: Cloud Computing in the District of Columbia
• United States: FEMA Risk MAP
• United States: GovLoop
• Australia: STRONG Families Western Australia
• Canada: WelcomeBC
• Sweden: Försäkringskassan
• United Kingdom: Northumberland County Council and Mosaic
Public Services
• United States: NYC 311
• Lithuania: Windows to the Future Alliance
• Malaysia: MySMS
• Singapore: CPF Board m-Ambassadors
• France 2025
• United Kingdom: MySociety.org
• United States: District of Columbia’s Digital Public Square
• Australia: Country Fire Authority and the Victoria Fires Map
• Scotland, UK: e-Petitioner
• The Netherlands: The Dutch e-Citizen Charter
• United Kingdom: Online Watch Link
• United States: The Whitehouse Open for Questions
• New Zealand: Wellington Budget Simulator
• Norway: NAV eLearning
• United Kingdom: Change4Life
• United States: Kentucky Open Door
• United States: NYC Citywide Performance Reporting and My
Neighborhood Statistics
• United States: NYCStat Stimulus Tracker
• United States: Recovery.gov
• United States: The IT Dashboard
• India: Lokvani
• United Kingdom: Community Fix
2. Focusing on improved outcomes
Today, government is serving
a customer base that is more
sophisticated and enlightened.
People’s expectations have risen
in line with the quality of services
many private-sector companies
offer. As such, people expect public
services to be better targeted, more
personalized, more responsive and
more efficient than in the past. Even
so, they still judge public services
on the basis of the outcomes they
achieve—that is, the actual differences
that services make to people’s quality
of life through, for instance, better
learning, public safety or health.
Through Accenture’s Global Cities
Forum research, we have found
that citizens are very concerned
about government waste and want
public service organizations to
ensure that their operations are as
efficient and effective as possible.
By improving the efficiency of
public services, governments can
make savings in the back office
that can be re-invested in citizen-
facing functions—enabling them
to deliver more accessible, higher-
quality public services that improve
social and economic outcomes.
Improving the effectiveness of public
services requires government to develop
a deep understanding of citizens’
needs and preferences. Only then can
public organizations design services
that deliver improved outcomes in the
areas that citizens prioritize. However,
citizens’ needs and expectations are not
constant; they are shaped by changes
in personal circumstances as well as
by major political, economic or social
changes over time. While the role of
government largely remains the same—
to protect, maintain and enhance the
welfare of citizens—the outcomes
people expect government to deliver
are more fluid. Therefore, to deliver
public services that lead to improved
outcomes, government must be quick to
respond to citizens’ changing needs and
deliver flexible public services that can
adapt to changing customer demand.
To be flexible and responsive,
government must place customers’
needs at the heart of their service
delivery strategies. They must solicit
and use customer feedback as the
basis for meaningful change in the
delivery of services, integrating
it into their long-term planning,
service delivery and decision-making
processes.
Achieving a greater level of citizen
centricity requires significant
organizational change, including
multi-agency collaboration around
cross-cutting outcomes. This
approach involves joining up public
services around citizens’ needs
and circumstances or life events—
developing collaborative ways of
working across government agencies,
nonprofits, businesses, community
groups and even citizens themselves. It
also calls for greater coordination and
the integration of policies, program
design and service delivery across
multiple organizations.
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7
High-performance public service
organizations are finding ways to
work together more effectively by
developing joint visions and strategic
plans that reflect shared goals; by
establishing joint accountability and
governance frameworks; by integrating
their processes, procedures and
information systems; by managing
budgets and assets in pursuit of
common goals; and by deploying their
staff more effectively across a range
of services. To help break down service
silos, organizations are increasingly
turning to web 2.0 and other
information technologies to overcome
the cultural, organizational and
technical obstacles to collaboration
and enable government to work
effectively across organizational
boundaries.
e-Governance strategies
Delivering improved social and
economic outcomes for citizens
requires public service organizations
to deliver services more efficiently
and effectively while realigning their
internal operations, decision-making
processes and organizational values
around citizen-centric outcomes. We
have identified three e-governance
strategies government is using to drive
the required cultural, organizational
and technological change:
•  Focusing performance
management on actual improvements
in people’s social and economic
conditions
•  Continually improving the
customer experience by soliciting
service user and customer feedback
•  Improving the efficiency and
effectiveness of public service
provision
Focusing performance management on
actual improvements in people’s social
and economic conditions
To create public value, public service
organizations must translate resources
into real and beneficial outcomes for
the people they serve. Using these
outcomes to measure organizational
performance can make a real
difference, both for governments
seeking to deliver dramatically
improved outcomes for their
constituents and for the citizens they
serve. Measuring outcomes is not the
same as measuring inputs, processes or
outputs. For example, in a secondary
school system the number of teaching
hours per student is an example of an
input; the quality of the curriculum is
a process; the average exam results of
students is an output. A corresponding
educational outcome measure is
how many students go on to further
education or employment.
In our 2007 study into how public
service organizations around the
world are using performance
management, we found that some
public service organizations are
beginning to use performance
management in a strategic way to
plan, develop and manage future
organizational capability. The
purpose: to deliver improved social
and economic outcomes rather than
simply retrospective accountability
and reward.2 This kind of outcome-
focused performance management
enables governments to organize
their activities and budgets around
the results that matter to citizens; to
transform public service organizations
from reactive, inward-focused entities
into proactive agencies focused on
creating greater public value; and to
monitor how effectively and efficiently
they are delivering outcomes that
improve constituents’ quality of life.
Outcome-focused performance
management helps public service
organizations drive enterprise-
wide cultural change and break
down service silos by encouraging
organizations to collaborate around
shared outcome targets and by
challenging entrenched working
practices, organizational boundaries
and corporate values. For instance,
the Massachusetts Executive Office
of Health and Human Services
(EOHHS) is using outcome-focused
performance management to
deliver citizen-centric change by
developing cross-agency strategic
goals defined around improved
outcomes for citizens. The EOHSS
uses dashboards to communicate
progress toward these goals and
support fact-based decision making.
Continually improving the customer
experience by soliciting service user
and customer feedback
Our recent Leadership in Customer
Service study found that high-
performing public service
organizations are using customer
feedback to improve services, business
processes and customer interfaces—
ensuring that these are designed with
customers in mind.3 This is enabling
government to create more effective,
customer-centric services that meet
the real needs of their customers, not
just of the service provider. However,
governments are beginning to realize
that to deliver services that are
responsive to the needs of citizens,
they must develop highly effective
means of soliciting detailed service
and organization-specific customer
feedback so it can be used as the basis
for long-term planning and service
delivery. As a result, governments
are turning to new media, such as
government and community websites
and collaborative social networking
tools, alongside more traditional
channels, such as mail and call centers,
to solicit customer feedback.
An increasing number of public
service organizations are realizing
that platforms designed to solicit
customer feedback must be part of
a broader customer service strategy.
That way, customer input feeds into
long-term planning and makes a
meaningful difference to the delivery
of public services. To that end, public
service organizations are developing
strategies to interpret, evaluate and
visualize (that is, to represent a data
set graphically) customer feedback as
a means of improving services.
Improving the efficiency and
effectiveness of public service provision
Governments are striving to deliver
improved social and economic
outcomes for citizens by using
information technology in new ways
to improve the accessibility of public
services and information about
public services; to reduce the cost of
8
 interacting with citizens by moving
services online and automating
transactions; to enable organizations
to collect, use and share customer
data more effectively; to enable and
reduce the cost of collaboration
across government; and to improve
the efficiency of public service
organizations’ operations.
Some of the most innovative public
service organizations are delivering
more effective public services by
using Enterprise 2.0 technologies to
enable government-wide collaboration
around cross-cutting outcomes. They
are also investing in cloud computing
strategies to improve the efficiency of
their operations.
Traditional approaches to
e-government improved the
accessibility of public services but did
little to break down service silos or
deliver citizen-centric government.
Public service organizations are
increasingly using new technologies,
and older technologies in new ways,
to enable employees to collaborate
more effectively, break down service
silos and join up services in meeting
customers’ needs.
Increasingly, public and private
organizations are using web 2.0
technologies and community
tools to improve productivity,
enable collaboration and support
organizational change. Enterprise
2.0 technologies, such as mashups,
blogs, social networking tools, wikis,
collaborative planning software and
rich Internet applications, are being
created and used by public service
organizations. These technologies
are providing employees with
new collaborative tools, enhanced
enterprise-wide search functionality
and data sharing, authoring and idea-
sharing platforms and real-time access
to information.
Governments are already using
social networking technologies
to enable and reduce the cost of
collaboration between organizations,
improve information sharing and
encourage innovation. For example,
in October 2008 the Government
9
of Canada launched GCpedia, a
government-wide collaboration
platform that is an internal version
of the popular online encyclopedia
Wikipedia. Similarly, since 2006
the United States government has
used Intellipedia, a platform similar
to Wikipedia, to share intelligence
information between 16 agencies of
the intelligence community and other
relevant government organizations.
Government employees are also
using social networking technologies
to collaborate and share ideas. For
example, GovLoop is a public social
networking site, set up by government
employees, which connects over 9,000
government employees, academics and
contractors from around the world.
Using the site, they can share ideas,
explore opportunities and debate and
discuss issues facing government.
Public service organizations are also
beginning to explore how cloud
computing can be used to improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of public
services while providing employees
with more computing power at
a reduced cost. Cloud computing
services enable employees to access
everyday business applications over
the Internet using a web browser. The
actual software and data is stored on
servers, rather than on employees’
desktops. Increasingly, governments
are realizing that although the cost
of implementing a cloud-based
desktop strategy may be high, there
are significant potential benefits—
including reduced capital expenditure
on IT, hardware and location
independence, improved resource
sharing and scalability.
Recommendations
From our research, we have developed
four recommendations that we believe
will help public managers drive and
shape the organizational, cultural and
technical change required to enable
their organization to deliver improved
social and economic outcomes for
citizens.
Develop a compelling citizen-
centric vision
It is important for public service
organizations to provide the public
with a coherent, convincing vision that
demonstrates the actions government
is taking to deliver improved social and
economic outcomes. An organization’s
citizen-centric vision should be
encapsulated in a simple statement
that sums up the core benefits to the
customer and persuades constituents
that government is committed
to providing better services and
improving people’s quality of life.
A comprehensive communications
strategy should then be developed
around this vision.
This communications strategy will
enable government to better manage
the citizen perspective, improve the
effectiveness of engagement initiatives
designed to solicit feedback and
support future efforts to educate
and enroll the public as co-producers
of public value. Co-production
involves citizens and service users
contributing their time, skills and
ideas to improve social conditions for
themselves and their communities,
for example, by acting as student
mentors, as members of community
safety associations, or even in
taking steps to prevent ill health.
Enable and drive collaboration
around improved social and
economic outcomes
To deliver improved outcomes, public
service delivery must use citizen-
centric rather than organizational
or process-driven logic. Organizing
service delivery strategies around
cross-cutting outcomes is a major
challenge, in part because it requires
unprecedented collaboration across
organizational boundaries that
have been reinforced over time by
technical, cultural and organizational
developments within agencies and
service-silos.
Breaking down service silos and
enabling multi-agency, cross-sector
collaboration requires investment in
shared IT systems, common outcome-
centric governance processes and
budgets, and workforce transformation
to bring about more collaborative ways
of working. A crucial first step is the
implementation of outcome-focused
performance management that
challenges siloed ways of working and
rewards effective collaboration.
Effective outcome-focused
performance management requires
organizations to develop:
•  Customer- or user-centric rather
than producer-driven strategic goals
that are aligned to clearly articulated
measures of performance developed
around improved social and economic
outcomes.
•  Outward-focused processes that
ensure goals and objectives reflect
evolving stakeholder expectations,
political context and organizational
capabilities.
•  Performance objectives that are
linked directly to organizations’
plans and budgets that are based on
achieving this year’s policy objectives
rather than adjusting last year’s actual
spending.
•  Individual employees’ objectives
and incentives explicitly connected to
organizational goals that cut across
the organization.
•  Processes that ensure regular
evaluation and reporting of
performance results.
•  Feedback mechanisms that enable
information and analysis from the
performance management system to
be regularly fed back into strategic
planning, creating a learning loop that
drives continuous improvement.
Although there is no universal model
for the implementation of outcome-
focused performance management
systems across different sectors
and organizations, all successful
implementations will:
•  Define the corporate mission
(around citizen-centric government)
and strategic targets (around
outcomes) that the new performance
management system will seek to
achieve. This approach will help to
secure active political support and
firm senior-executive commitment
to implement the performance
management system and see it
through to the point where continuing
improvement is realized.
•  Design the performance
management system, taking into
account current organizational,
cultural and technological enablers
of and obstacles to change. The new
system should foster and enable
integration and collaboration between
the departments or agencies as needed
to deliver intended outcomes.
•  Plan the roll out of the new
performance management system and
ensure the right infrastructure is in
place to support the change process.
A dedicated professional team should
be responsible for implementing
the outcome-focused performance
management system.
•  Encourage open dialogue about
organizational results with all
stakeholders by reporting performance
management findings as transparently
as local laws and regulations allow.
•  Use performance-management
findings to develop organizational
capability and capacity, to continually
learn and to drive future performance
improvement.
Listen to customers
Putting the customer experience at
the heart of public service delivery
enables government to deliver flexible
services that meet people’s needs
and effect real improvement in their
quality of life. To deliver more effective
public services, organizations must
solicit customer feedback, use it
strategically to drive improvements in
service delivery and then evaluate their
performance in terms of improved
outcomes.
We have identified five key practices
that public service organizations
should consider when developing
initiatives and online tools designed to
solicit customer feedback:
•  Customer feedback should be
viewed as a valuable strategic asset.
Public service organizations should
analyze and evaluate customer
feedback to highlight weaknesses
and then use it in performance
management, decision making
and strategic planning to drive
improvements in service delivery.
•  Government should proactively
solicit customer feedback as frequently
as possible. Customers should be
invited to provide feedback at
any point of interaction with the
organization and through a variety
of channels, from a website visit to a
face-to-face consultation.
•  Customers should be able to provide
input using a number of different
channels—for example, websites,
email, traditional mail, face to face,
over the phone and through social
networking sites. They should also
be able to track the status of their
suggestion or complaint so they are
assured that government values and
acts on their input.
•  Front-office employees should
value customer feedback and view
it as an essential means of gaining
insights that will help them improve
the customer experience and overall
service delivery. This may require
a comprehensive training and
communications strategy to drive
cultural change.
Use new technologies to improve
productivity and reduce costs
Reducing the cost to serve citizens
requires public service organizations to
invest in the infrastructure, enterprise
architecture and data warehousing
solutions that support Enterprise 2.0
technologies while adopting cloud-
based desktop strategies that give
employees enhanced computing power
at reduced cost. With this approach,
government employees can collaborate
more effectively in the delivery of
personalized public services that
meet customers’ complex needs and
maximize operational efficiencies.
Organizations can then channel back-
office and IT savings into citizen-
facing services.
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 3. Balancing choice and common good
Through our Global Cities Forum study,
we have learned that people want
governments to tailor service provision
to meet the wide range of needs
across the population. People are
increasingly accustomed to private-
sector services that respond flexibly
and discriminatingly to their individual
demands. They see little reason why
government cannot do the same. For
example, as service users, people want
more choice in the type and means of
service delivery: better public transport
and improved roads, services available
in person and online, a wider choice
of schools and doctors and more
convenient service hours.
However, people also want
government to strive toward fairness
and equality. Although they want
everyone to have more choice, they
recognize that without support,
some people—those who are not as
highly skilled or educated or as highly
equipped because of lack of income—
will be unable to exercise that choice
and thus will be comparatively worse
off as a result.
11
It falls to government to balance the
demand for increased choice and
flexibility with fairness and common
good. Governments can achieve that
balance by striving for equality of
outcomes for all constituents—that is,
ensuring that everyone has the chance
to experience the same social and
economic conditions, or at least similar
improvements in those conditions. To
achieve this, governments must strive
to become better informed about
what the people they serve want and
need, and put in place services and
service delivery mechanisms that are
responsive, connected and aligned
to those wants and needs. Then they
must respond by targeting services
and resources appropriately, ensuring
that those who have the greatest need
receive the most help and those who
are most able to help themselves have
the opportunities and means to do so.
To achieve more equal outcomes,
governments are thinking about how
to personalize and tailor services
around the needs of individuals and
families requiring the most help. Public
service organizations recognize that
because people’s needs continually
change in response to life events and
altered circumstances, the services
they offer must be dynamic and
flexible. Only then can they deliver
improved outcomes for customers
with the most complex needs. To
deliver flexible and personalized
public services, government is
employing more sophisticated means
of developing customer insight. With
that insight, government is better
positioned to distribute resources and
tailor service delivery strategies around
customer need-profiles.
Of course, equality of outcomes is also
influenced by the way in which people
are able to interact with government.
As the use of web 2.0 technologies
becomes more widespread, the citizen-
government relationship is moving
online. Through community and
government-run web sites that utilize
ever more sophisticated
12
 technologies, citizens and government
are able to hold online “conversations.”
However, the web 2.0 revolution is
leaving some behind and widening
the digital divide; those who are not
computer literate and those without
access to a broadband connection or
a PC are not able to engage in online
dialogue with government or to access
online services and information. As
more services and information move
online, the challenge will become
increasingly acute. Whereas some will
be able to conduct all of their business
with government online and access
information in minutes, others will be
forced to interact with government face
to face or over the phone, leading to
dramatic inequalities in the accessibility
of services and information.
e-Governance strategies
Technology can enable government
to deliver more personalized, flexible
and effective public services. We have
identified two e-governance strategies
government is using to help provide
equality of access and outcomes for all
constituents and so effectively balance
choice and flexibility with fairness and
common good:
•  Conducting customer
segmentation analysis and using
customer insight to target services
appropriately
•  Ensuring that more citizens can
access and use digital media channels
and providing support to those who
cannot
Conducting customer segmentation
analysis and using customer insight to
target services appropriately
Government is trying to develop shared
customer relationship management
systems to help organizations capture
and share valuable data from every
customer interaction. The goal: to
ensure that this customer insight is
as detailed as possible and includes,
for example, any significant change
in circumstances or major life events;
information regarding the services and
payments the individual receives from
government agencies; and details of
past service requests and interactions
with government. However, given the
public’s concerns over the collection
13
and use of personal information,
government has to guarantee the
security and integrity of the customer
data it holds. To that end, public service
organizations are investing in advanced
data security systems and implementing
stringent data-handling policies.
Government is employing a wide
variety of methods to develop a better
understanding of people’s individual
needs. Customer segmentation
and customer insight management
solutions are two of the most common.
Customer segmentation
Customer segmentation enables
public service organizations to
better understand the needs of
different customer groups. With that
understanding, organizations can
tailor services and communications
strategies to meet those varying needs.
In private industry, companies conduct
value-based segmentation; in the
public sector, organizations undertake
detailed, needs-based customer
segmentation studies. Depending
on the context, these needs groups
may be defined demographically,
geographically, by income or in
terms of life events, such as losing
a job, moving or having children.
Regardless of exactly how customers
are categorized, public service
organizations should have a detailed
understanding of the needs groups
they serve and use it as the basis for
long-term strategic planning and
service delivery.
Customer insight management
Customer insight is more than just
each customer’s demographic, contact
or service-use data; it is an in-depth,
holistic understanding of a customer’s
needs, circumstances, characteristics,
preferences and behaviors based on
an analysis of patterns of enquiry and
service use. Effective customer insight
management involves public service
organizations collecting, standardizing,
evaluating, visualizing and sharing
customer insight across government
to enable organizations to build a
detailed picture of their customers
and to target resources effectively to
meet their needs. Effective customer
insight management also improves
the accessibility of public services
by reducing the time taken to assess
customers’ needs and eligibility for
support; supports cross-government
and cross-sector collaboration
as organizations responsible for
different outcomes share customer
data; and enables organizations to
tailor service delivery mechanisms
and communication strategies to
reflect the true needs of citizens.
In some cases, public service
organizations are striving to achieve
this by implementing shared customer
intelligence systems, business
processes and information workflows
that enable enterprise-wide sharing of
customer data.
How organizations use customer
insight to deliver more personalized,
flexible public services varies across
government; there is not a single
service delivery model that government
is using to manage customer insight
effectively. However, regardless of the
context, public service organizations
are striving to develop service delivery
models that:
•  Enable collaboration across
government and sectors.
•  Encourage an organization or multi-
agency team to take ownership of
individual cases.
•  Facilitate fact-based decision
making in which customer insight is
the basis for all decisions regarding
eligibility and service delivery.
Ensuring that more citizens can access
and use digital media channels and
providing support to those who cannot
Governments around the world are
developing comprehensive digital
inclusion strategies that are supported
by a network of public and private
organizations from different sectors.
The majority of digital inclusion
strategies aim to increase broadband
penetration, ensure that all citizens
have regular access to a PC and deliver
training programs to increase computer
literacy. A major complicating factor for
government is the correlation between
digital exclusion and social exclusion;
citizens who are digitally excluded
usually suffer from multiple forms of
disadvantage and thus are most in need
of effective, personalized and flexible
public services. As a result, government
has to appropriately tailor digital
inclusion initiatives to target socially
excluded and hard-to-reach groups.
Governments are also turning to
cell phone technology as a means
of ensuring that as many citizens as
possible can access public services,
and information about public services,
quickly and easily. For example,
governments in Bahrain, South Korea,
Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore,
Malaysia and the Philippines all
provide residents with services that
can be accessed through web-enabled
cell phones and SMS messages.
Recommendations
In an effort to deliver more equal
outcomes, and in the face of different
levels of demand and need, public
service organizations are striving to
provide more personalized, targeted
and effective public services. For
customers who have the most
complex needs or are least able
to help themselves, public service
agencies are developing innovative
service delivery models and finding
new ways of generating, analyzing,
interpreting, sharing and utilizing
customer data and customer insight.
Moreover, governments are investing
in platforms and initiatives to improve
the accessibility of online services
and citizen engagement forums for
digitally excluded citizens. Through
our research, we have developed three
recommendations for governments
seeking to deliver more equal
outcomes to constituents.
Develop appropriate customer
segmentation strategies
Government should collect customer
data, conduct customer segmentation
analyses and use customer insight
to tailor services, inform channel
strategies and target marketing
and communications. In doing
so, government can improve the
accessibility and effectiveness of
public services for customers with the
most complex needs while delivering
more equal outcomes.
In our recent Leadership in Customer
Service research, we suggested a
number of points for government to
consider when conducting customer
segmentation as a means of achieving
more equitable outcomes for citizens:
•  Services should be organized and
grouped around the different customer
segments and their needs, rather
than around organizations’ internal
structures. People know themselves
and their needs, but they do not
necessarily know which service they
require or which part of government
provides it. Government services
should be made as intuitive and
customer centric as possible.
•  Public service organizations should
strive toward greater self-service
and “lighter-touch” customer service
for those who are most able to help
themselves or present least risk. This
enables public service organizations
to channel resources into helping
customers with the highest levels
of need and so improve equality of
outcomes. Low-risk customers should
be moved to self-service options such
as electronic services, pre-populated
forms, automated renewals, self-
assessments and self-certification,
where appropriate. Organizations
should offer a more comprehensive
service for those customers who
have greater need or present a higher
risk than the majority—for example,
in-person assistance or dedicated
customer liaisons to individuals or
segments identified as requiring extra
help. More thorough assessments and
audits should be provided to those
most at risk of non-compliance.
Incentivize and enable organizations
to share and maximize the value of
customer insight
Where appropriate, individual customer
data should be shared across public
service organizations. It should also
be used to personalize customer
interactions and offer additional
services based on known eligibility
and need. Effective data sharing
requires investment in common IT
systems and information workflows,
as well as cultural and organizational
change. However, it is important
for public managers to consider
regulatory and legislative guidelines
that limit information sharing between
government agencies and how these
guidelines may impact potential
data-sharing solutions. Moreover,
given the public’s concerns around
the security and appropriate use of
personal information government holds,
public managers should engage citizens
and ensure they understand how
data sharing will improve their public
services and what steps are being taken
to safeguard their personal information.
Consider the accessibility and
usability of web 2.0 technologies
before investing in new citizen-
facing websites
It is difficult for any individual
public service organization to
tackle the digital divide. Digital
inclusion programs are outside most
organizations’ mandates and decision
makers are rarely in a position to
invest in initiatives that are not
business critical. Even so, public service
organizations cannot ignore the issues
surrounding digital exclusion.
Before launching new websites
and investing in digital media
channels, public service organizations
should consider the accessibility of
bandwidth-intensive platforms that
utilize video-streaming and web 2.0
technologies as those constituents
without a broadband connection
will be unable to access them.
Public service organizations need
to provide citizens with a range of
online and offline channels through
which they can access services and
engage government. Offline channels
may include “one-stop-shops,”
surgeries, citizen juries, surveys,
customer call centers, SMS portals
and town-hall meetings that operate
in conjunction with online channels,
such as e-governance portals, forums,
e-commerce sites, online town halls
and government gateways. Moreover,
by identifying customer segments,
government can tailor messages and
channels to target specific needs-
profiles, enabling government to
engage and deliver services to hard-
to-reach groups.
14
 4. Engaging, educating and enrolling
citizens as co-producers
An overwhelmingly consistent
finding from our Global Cities Forums
research is that people all over the
world want government to offer more
opportunities to involve them in
setting priorities, defining outcomes
and designing services that reflect
people’s true needs and preferences.
Moreover, they want to be able to do
this on an ongoing basis—not simply
through rare public consultations or
superficial user satisfaction surveys.
True engagement must go beyond
asking people what they want from
government. It must also include active
programs to educate people about
their rights and responsibilities, as well
as initiatives to enroll them as active
partners in improving outcomes—from
promoting individual preventative
measures (such as consuming a better
diet) to encouraging more active
community participation (such as
organizing environmental clean-up
activities or establishing neighborhood
safety teams) to harnessing people’s IT
skills to create better information and
service delivery mechanisms.
15
Recognizing the interactive potential to petition government to make
of web 2.0, many public service improvements in public services and
organizations are developing a even to work together to improve the
presence on popular social networking quality of life in their community.
sites as a new way of strengthening
This new form of technology-enabled
the relationship with citizens and
participation is becoming more
soliciting their feedback. These new
common as government itself is
digital media help government engage
investing in new technologies that
a traditionally hard-to-reach audience,
enable more effective communication
such as the younger generation
with citizens and other stakeholders.
and people in remote locations.
Technology-enabled participation is
They provide a means for public
rising on governments’ agendas as
service organizations to disseminate
decision makers increasingly believe
information about public services, to
that citizens should be asked what
educate citizens about matters that
they want from their public services,
affect their quality of life, to solicit
that they have a right to know how
people’s feedback and to enroll them
effectively government spends public
as co-producers in a timely and cost-
money, that they should be able to
effective way.
hold government accountable for
Social networking and community performance and that they should
sites also enable citizens to participate be empowered to play a role in the
in their governance as never before. delivery of public services and the
They provide a platform for people creation of public value.
to discuss and debate issues relating
As part of the drive to enable and
to government and public services,
encourage citizen participation,
to voice their concerns, to exchange
governments around the world are
information about their local area,
16
 starting to make an unprecedented
amount of government data, and
an increasing number of public
services, available online through
non-governmental sites. This
“socialization” of government data and
services is driving significant changes
in the channels through which
government and citizens interact.
Increasingly, citizens can choose
to access information and services
from a variety of providers, both
governmental and private. As a result,
government is no longer the only
agent capable of creating public value.
Increasingly there is evidence that
new “intermediaries,” such as popular
social networking, e-commerce and
community sites, are better placed
to disseminate information about
public services, report on public
service outcomes, solicit citizen input,
educate people about how to improve
their own lives or make better use of
public services and enable citizens to
collaborate to deliver public value.
How should government relate to
these emerging intermediaries? If
government adopts a traditional
approach and assumes that it has
a responsibility to deliver all public
services and host all government data,
then public service organizations
may discourage citizens from using
these intermediaries by developing
competing governmental citizen
participation tools. However, if
government assumes that its primary
responsibility is to deliver public
value, then government may chose
to work with these intermediaries
as valued partners that should
be supported and encouraged to
play a role in engaging citizens.
e-Governance strategies
Government is adopting three
main strategies to capitalize on the
developments outlined above:
•  Enabling citizens to engage with
each other through social networking
technologies
•  Enabling citizens to participate
in their governance through digital
media
17
•  Educating citizens and
encouraging participation through
online training and learning
resources
Enabling citizens to engage with
each other through social networking
technologies
Web 2.0 technologies have the
potential to transform the relationship
that citizens have with government
and with each other. The dramatic
growth in the number of people using
social networking sites has led to a
significant increase in citizen-to-
citizen communication, engagement
and collaboration. This growth in
social networking has resulted in the
formation of virtual citizen networks
through which individuals discuss and
debate issues facing government, share
information about government and
public services, petition government,
build applications and mashups
that improve the accessibility of
government data and public services,
and work together to improve social
and economic conditions in their local
communities.
Government is developing strategies
to effectively engage these virtual
citizen networks because they
enable government to enter into co-
productive relationships with citizens
who are enthusiastic about working
with public service organizations
to deliver public value; to solicit
citizen feedback more efficiently and
effectively; and to engage traditionally
hard-to-reach groups.
Although the growth in social
networking presents government
organizations with a range of
opportunities, there are a number of
regulatory obstacles they must strive
to overcome if they are to effectively
utilize external social networking
sites. The federal government in the
United States is already addressing
this problem. In early 2009, the
General Services Administration
(GSA) signed agreements with four
video-sharing and social networking
sites—Flickr, Vimeo, blip.tv and
YouTube—to establish pre-negotiated
service agreements that comply with
federal terms and conditions. These
agreements provide federal agencies
and providers with standardized
service agreements both parties can
sign, enabling the federal government
to use popular media technologies
to engage citizens and distribute
information about public services.
Enabling citizens to participate in their
governance through digital media
Technology-enabled participation
is at the heart of the emerging
governance relationship. Government
is striving to provide citizens with
channels through which they can
effectively communicate and partner
with government in the creation of
public value. Government is using
Information and Communication
Technologies (ICT) to enable citizens
to tell public service organizations
what they need and what they think
about a range of issues—from school
closures and hospital standards to
public-sector reform and cost-cutting
measures. Public service organizations
can use this citizen feedback to drive
improvements in service delivery
and as the basis for communications
strategies to shape citizens’
perceptions of government. This level
of participation involves government:
•  Soliciting and acting on citizen
feedback
•  Managing the citizen perspective
Soliciting and acting on citizen
feedback
Soliciting citizen feedback is
becoming a priority for public
service organizations. Doing so
enables government to understand
how citizens define public value
in particular contexts and what
outcomes people want public service
organizations to prioritize. Citizen
feedback also allows government to
judge how well its constituents think
it is performing and is a valuable
source of innovation. Government
is starting to use social networking
sites and web 2.0 technologies
to solicit citizen feedback and
develop a deeper understanding of
citizens’ changing expectations.
Public service organizations are
challenged to interpret, evaluate
and visualize citizen feedback so it
can be used as the basis for long-
term planning, service delivery
improvements and setting of
outcome targets. One of the main
problems government faces is the
often contradictory and ill-defined
nature of citizen feedback. Putting
the citizen perspective and citizens’
needs at the heart of public services
is not easy when it is so difficult
to define what citizens expect
and want from government.
Managing citizens’ perceptions
Government is also thinking about
how new technologies can help
manage citizens’ perceptions and
expectations. Accenture’s Global Cities
Forum research and the Accenture
Citizen Experience Study4 highlight
the importance of citizens’ perceptions
in informing their judgment on the
performance of government. It seems
clear that organizations that manage
the citizen perspective effectively are
perceived to perform better by the
citizens they serve.
Traditionally, government has
struggled to manage citizens’
perceptions effectively, leading to
unsubstantiated accusations of waste,
inefficiency and ineffectiveness often
perpetuated by the media. Web 2.0
technologies present governments
with an unprecedented opportunity
to bypass the media and directly
engage citizens in a more mature,
reasoned and productive discussion
about the strengths and shortcomings
of government. In this way, public
service organizations can, for the first
time, play an active role in shaping
citizens’ perceptions of government
by providing the public with instantly
accessible, intelligible information and
analysis—enabling a more balanced
and objective debate in which citizens
are able to consider government’s
perspective.
Educating citizens and encouraging
participation through online training
and learning resources
Government is using new technologies
and digital media channels to develop
online training and learning tools
for citizens. These learning tools
are being developed for a variety of
reasons. First, by educating citizens
about public services in their local
community, government ensures that
citizens are aware of what services
they are entitled to and how to access
them, improving the accessibility and
effectiveness of public services.
Second, government is using online
training and learning resources
to enable citizens to enter into a
discussion with government about
public value and public services by:
•  Giving citizens insight into
government operations
•  Making the public aware of the
challenges government faces, including
financial, regulatory, legislative and
organizational factors that affect
operations
•  Increasing people’s awareness of
existing strategies to improve service
delivery and efficiency and reduce costs
Third, through citizen learning sites
and public information campaigns,
government is giving people the
capacity to partner with government
in the production of public value.
Recommendations
Public service organizations are
striving to enable citizens to become
more involved in their governance
by investing in innovative citizen
engagement platforms that use
multiple digital media channels to
enable a dialogue between citizens
and government; by developing a
presence on popular social networking
sites; and by launching online training
and learning resources to provide
citizens with the knowledge they need
to engage government in a meaningful
way and partner with government
in the creation of public value. From
our research, we have developed four
recommendations that we believe
will help public managers maximize
the value of citizen engagement,
education and enrollment to their
organization.
Develop a comprehensive citizen
engagement strategy
Engagement initiatives should be
part of a comprehensive engagement
strategy that is aligned with the
organization’s strategic goals; that
links all initiatives designed to engage,
educate and enroll the public; that
ensures continuity of message and
purpose across engagement activities;
and that demonstrates how citizen
participation and feedback will add
value.
The channels and techniques used
to engage, educate and enroll the
public will vary across organizations.
However, we believe that all citizen
engagement strategies should:
•  Develop a sound business case.
Doing so ensures that engagement
programs are cost effective and
support broader strategic objectives. A
business case should clearly define the
business need for citizen engagement
and include key objectives,
performance indicators and critical
success factors for the initiative.
•  Set up processes to review,
evaluate and overcome organizational,
regulatory, cultural and technical
obstacles to citizen engagement and
participation.
•  Establish a robust and flexible
governance structure to enable
organizations to effectively collaborate
in the planning, delivery and
evaluation of citizen engagement
initiatives. From the beginning, all
partners participating in the strategy
should agree on key performance
indicators, funding arrangements,
oversight and reporting mechanisms,
project management processes and an
organizational structure.
•  Develop a communications strategy
and performance management
process that will drive the cultural
change required within public
service organizations to ensure that
18
 employees from different organizations
proactively collaborate in the design
and delivery of engagement programs;
that employees at every level of
the organization understand how
important citizen engagement is to
their organization and view it as a
critical part of their work; and that
key stakeholders remain committed to
citizen engagement in the long term.
•  Create standards and reporting
mechanisms to ensure that partner
organizations have the business
processes and technical solutions
required to respond to citizen feedback
and use it as the basis for meaningful
change in the delivery of public services.
Consider public service
organizations’ relationships with
online “intermediaries”
Many online citizen engagement
channels, such as groups on social
networking sites, are not owned
by government. Public service
organizations can support these
sites as valuable citizen engagement
channels and/or develop government-
owned digital engagement channels to
compete with or complement them.
One strategy open to government
is to develop a presence on popular
social networking sites. These
sites present public managers
with a range of opportunities for
soliciting real-time citizen feedback,
engaging constituents and improving
the accessibility of government
information. However, public service
organizations must manage the
potential risks and drawbacks of
creating a presence on popular social
networking sites:
•  Government organizations
cannot control the content of online
government pages.
•  There are significant costs
associated with making government
data available on external pages,
monitoring the content of government
pages and analyzing, evaluating and
distributing citizen feedback that
is relevant to a number of different
organizations.
19
•  Incorporating social networking Use citizen feedback strategically
technologies into existing applications Citizen participation can be a valuable
can be technically challenging. source of innovation and input to the
organization’s strategic direction if
Proactively manage customers’
feedback is analyzed and visualized
expectations and perceptions of
effectively—enabling it to be included
government
in the decision-making process and
Citizens’ perceptions of public services
used as the basis for improvements in
greatly influence their judgment
service delivery.
of government’s performance. New
technologies enable government to A crucial first step is for government
bypass the media and directly engage to develop effective frameworks and
citizens in a more objective discussion models for structuring and interpreting
about what they expect from their citizen feedback. These frameworks
public services. Alongside citizen may be based on a core set of
engagement initiatives, government principles that define an organization’s
can use training and learning programs approach; for example, a police
to manage citizens’ expectations, force may structure citizen feedback
opinions, attitudes and behavior. around accountability, transparency,
approachability and engagement.
These training and learning initiatives
Conversely, these frameworks may be
will largely be shaped by an
based on sector-specific outcomes;
organization’s overall strategic goals
for example, health care organizations
and the political, social, economic
may structure citizen feedback around
and organizational context in which
primary, preventative, geriatric,
they are developed. However, all
pediatric and emergency care. From a
government training and learning
technical perspective, public service
initiatives should fulfill the following
organizations require effective data
criteria. They should:
sharing, data management and data
•  Have a clear set of objectives that visualization solutions to ensure that
support broader strategic goals. intelligible, actionable citizen feedback
is able to flow up the organization to
•  Be supported by a robust business
decision makers.
case.
•  Be informed by customer
segmentation analysis to ensure
messages and media channels are
tailored and targeted to reach specific
customer segments.
•  Be built around a concise and easy
to understand set of messages that
can be effectively conveyed using the
media channels available.
•  Include input from a broad range
of stakeholders, from business and
community groups to local and
national government organizations,
in the planning, design, delivery and
evaluation of initiatives.
•  Be delivered via easily accessible,
highly publicized, user-friendly,
engaging and content-rich websites
that enable citizens to access
information and training resources
when they choose.
5. Improving accountability and
transparency
The findings from our our Global Cities
Forum research have shown that
people are demanding much greater
transparency and accountability
from government. Transparency is
especially important with regard to
tax expenditure, where the absence
of easily accessible information fuels
perceptions of waste and inefficiency
and has the potential to undermine
public trust.
People want government to provide
them with information that enables
them to scrutinize government’s
activities, to determine how efficiently
and effectively government is spending
public money and to hold government
accountable for the results achieved.
The results from the citizen survey
conducted as part of the recent
Leadership in Customer Service study
show a strong relationship between
citizens’ perceptions of government
accountability and their overall trust in
government.
Governments around the world
are striving to give the public
unprecedented access to the data they
hold. From crime figures and school
exam results to civil servants’ salaries
and spending figures, government is
pushing data into the public domain
as never before. While governments
already produce a great deal of
information, some forward-thinking
governments and public service
organizations are taking innovative
approaches to maximizing the value
of this information. The key challenge
for government is how to visualize this
data effectively so people can interpret
and use it. Government is beginning to
use mashups as a means of visualizing
the huge amounts of data now
available. In some cases, governments
are running “idea contests” that
encourage people to design their own
mashups to visualize government data.
Making data available not only
increases transparency and enables
greater accountability, but it also
encourages a more open and equitable
dialogue between citizens and
government. In the past, government
could speak from a position of
authority to citizens who lacked
sufficient information to engage
government in a meaningful dialogue
and debate about public services.
Today, the increased availability of
data helps to eliminate the traditional
information “imbalance” between
government and the public, ensuring
that people are well enough informed
to influence government decision
making if they wish to get involved.
In particular, people want more
regular reporting of government
spending and outcome-specific
performance data—results that show
how government is improving people’s
quality of life. By making performance
and spending data available for
public scrutiny and informing
people about policies, programs
and services actively and regularly,
government can engage citizens and
other stakeholders in thinking about
organizations’ performance. Moreover,
20
21
by involving citizens in establishing,
implementing and evaluating measures
of performance, governments can
foster a broader awareness and sense
of ownership among citizens and a
willingness to act as co-producers. As
a result, improving the transparency of
public service organizations’ spending
and performance is fast becoming a
priority for government.
The public is also seeking consistent
and accessible means to voice their
views, concerns and complaints and
to remedy problems with government
when they occur. However, our
Leadership in Customer Service citizen
survey highlighted the prevalence
of unexpressed and unresolved
frustrations in people’s ability to
request services and to register and
resolve their queries or complaints.
Many citizens simply do not know
where to go or whom to call or write
to about an erroneous or missing
benefit payment, poor hospital
treatment or unsatisfactory customer
service. Worse still, the inaccessibility
of recourse can have an impact on
the equality of social and economic
outcomes. If complaints systems are
opaque, complex and burdensome,
only the most knowledgeable,
persistent and articulate in society will
be able to complain and have their
concerns addressed.
Government must therefore provide
the means for all citizens to report
problems and request services as
easily and quickly as possible. These
service requests are the most direct
interaction between citizens and
government. As a consequence,
government’s ability to fulfill them
has a significant bearing on the
governance relationship. While online
service request forms and email
addresses can be used to report
problems to government, they are
often insufficient as they require
citizens to find out which organization
is responsible for the service. What’s
more, they do not always allow
citizens to track the status of issues
they have raised.
Web 2.0 technologies and social media
are changing the way citizens raise
service requests and report problems.
Government and private organizations
are launching websites that enable
citizens to report problems, request
services, send feedback or make
a complaint in seconds without
knowing which agency should receive
their request or complaint. The main
challenges for government are to
ensure that service requests are
acknowledged and services provided
efficiently and effectively, problems
are remedied as quickly as possible
and citizens’ complaints are addressed.
Failure to respond appropriately to
service requests can have a detrimental
impact on citizens’ perception of
government’s performance—making
people less willing to engage with
government and partner with public
service organizations in the creation of
public value.
e-Governance strategies
To increase transparency and
accountability, government is investing
in programs that open up public
service organizations’ spending,
performance and decision-making
processes to public scrutiny and
enable citizens to report problems to
government and raise service requests
more effectively.
We have identified two distinct
strategies government is using
to increase transparency and
accountability and facilitate public
recourse:
•  Increasing transparency and
accountability by developing web-
based tools to report on results
achieved
•  Enabling citizens to report
problems and resolve complaints
through online channels
Increasing transparency and
accountability by developing web-
based tools to report on results
achieved
To improve citizens’ trust in
government and enable them to
participate in their governance
effectively, government is developing
web-based transparency and
accountability tools that make public
service organizations’ spending
and performance data open to
public scrutiny. These web-based
transparency and accountability tools
are designed to provide up-to-date
information that enables citizens to
understand how government spends
public money, how budgets and
spending priorities are decided and
how effectively organizations use
public money to deliver high-quality
public services that improve people’s
quality of life.
These tools enable citizens to
visualize and interpret complex data
sets and provide individuals with
the information necessary to form
fact-based opinions, arguments and
suggestions. They can share these
views with each other and with
public service organizations, thereby
influencing decision making and driving
improvements in service delivery.
To develop these web-based
transparency and accountability
tools, government first needs to
ensure that effective reporting and
oversight processes are in place at
every level. Although the majority of
public service organizations already
have effective reporting and oversight
processes, problems emerge when
there are dramatic changes in an
organization’s spending, structure or
function. For example, at the time of
writing, federal and state agencies
in the United States are planning to
roll out new reporting and oversight
processes to track stimulus funds and
make this information available to the
public through Recovery.gov and state
stimulus sites.
Enabling citizens to report problems
and resolve complaints through online
channels
Citizens want a simple, easy-to-use
and effective means of reporting
problems they encounter in their day-
to-day lives and requesting services
from government. The overwhelming
majority of public service organizations
provide some sort of online channel
for both, usually through online service
22
 request forms or email. The most
effective online channels:
•  Are shared between as many
organizations as possible, enabling
citizens to report problems to
government using a single site.
•  Enable citizens to track the status
of issues they have raised and make it
clear to citizens which organizations
are responsible for remedying
problems.
•  Are widely publicized to raise
awareness of how to seek redress.
Increasingly, though, citizens are
also reporting problems through new
sites, such as communityfix.com
and fixmystreet.com in the United
Kingdom, which are often built by
private businesses or nonprofits. These
sites use web 2.0 technologies to
enable citizens to upload photographs
of problems (for example, potholes)
and send them to government in
place of detailed written explanations.
They also allow people to identify
problems on a map and report
problems without necessarily knowing
which organization is responsible
for remedying them. These sites are
becoming increasingly popular because
they dramatically reduce the cost to
the citizen of reporting problems to
government and requesting services.
Recommendations
Public service organizations are taking
steps to be more directly accountable
to the public and to report more
transparently on their spending and
performance through web-based
transparency and accountability tools
that enable citizens to understand
how, where, why and how effectively
government is spending public money.
They are also empowering citizens
to report problems, find solutions to
problems and request services more
quickly and easily. We have developed
four recommendations that we believe
will improve the effectiveness of these
initiatives and allow public managers
to provide the strategic direction and
leadership required to maximize the
benefit of these projects.
23
Invest in effective reporting and
oversight mechanisms
Improving transparency requires
organizations to provide the public
with up-to-date, accurate spending
and performance data, which requires
government to invest in enhanced
reporting systems that enable this
data to be collected, shared, stored,
analyzed and visualized efficiently and
effectively. Enterprise applications
that generate procurement, spend
and performance analytics and deliver
enhanced business insight are an
integral part of the solution. However,
these technologies must be supported
by a broader organizational and cultural
change program through which new
reporting policies, more transparent
ways of working and greater levels of
accountability are introduced.
Ensure citizen-facing
transparency and accountability
tools are fit for purpose
Successful web-based transparency
and accountability tools should have
three main elements:
•  A function that allows users
to view detailed performance or
return on investment (ROI) statistics
by government agency, category,
geographic area or, most importantly,
cross-agency outcome target.
Including ROI or performance metrics,
and specifically outcomes and outputs,
alongside financial data enables
citizens to evaluate how effectively
government is spending public money.
The tools should provide citizens with
up-to-date, accurate spending and
performance information that can be
compared over time or contextualized
in some other meaningful way.
•  A user-friendly interface that allows
users to search for specific spending
and payments information and
understand the data returned. Graphs
and charts enable users to view and
interpret data easily, particularly if
they can choose how to present the
data through interactive graphics.
•  An educational, engagement and
training component to enable citizens
to develop a deeper understanding of
government spending priorities and
strategies, interpret financial data
and acquire a better understanding of
organizations’ operations.
Prior to designing and developing
transparency and accountability
websites, government should engage
businesses, civil society organizations,
NGOs and the public to ensure that
demand for them exists, that they
make relevant information accessible,
and that they are user friendly and
encourage citizen participation. At the
same time, public managers need to
consider how their organization and
workforce will be affected. With that
insight, they should take steps to ensure
that employees remain motivated, that
they can see the difference they make
and be encouraged to innovate, and
that they remain focused on delivering
public value.
Make as much government data
publicly available as possible
Providing the public with government
data that can be scrutinized and
used in data mashups can improve
transparency, affect people’s
perception of government, increase
their willingness to partner with
government in creating public value
and improve the accessibility of public
services. Moreover, by making the
huge amount of data government
holds available to the public, the
value of this data can be maximized
as individuals create innovative
applications and mashups that solve
real-world problems and improve
quality of life.
Encourage citizens to report
problems and request services
Government’s ability to address
citizens’ concerns can have a
significant impact on the governance
relationship. Governments should
provide citizens with an easy-to-use
online channel through which they
can report problems, request services
and make complaints about a range of
organizations and issues. Government
should follow up with citizens once
an issue has been raised, and citizens
must be able to track the status of
their issue and government’s response.
We are seeing a rise in the popularity
of non-governmental websites that
enable citizens to report problems
to government and request services.
In some cases, these sites are
more efficient and effective than
government’s own online channels
(such as email and service request
forms). Government should not
necessarily try to replicate these sites
since community-built sites are likely
to be more popular than government
sites. Rather, government should
develop strategies to engage and
support these sites as a means of
providing citizens with more effective
ways of reporting problems and
requesting services, while reducing the
cost to government of developing and
hosting such websites.

24
 6. The journey to e-governance
Progress toward e-governance
varies significantly across and even
within countries. Some public service
organizations have developed effective
e-governance strategies that are
having a dramatic impact on the
governance relationship. Others are
just beginning to explore how they
can use technology to strengthen a
particular aspect of their relationships
with constituents.
Through our research, we have found
that just as every organization is
different, so, too, are their journeys to
e-governance. Some are the result of
long-term reform initiatives. Others
grow from departmental service
improvement efforts or as responses
to external political pressures. Still
others are driven by a genuine demand
from citizens to participate in their
governance. Moreover, organizational
factors—including structure, service
delivery arrangements, governance
systems, risk tolerance, embedded
ways of working and even funding
arrangements—can have a significant
impact on an organization’s journey to
e-governance.
25
Regardless of these differences, we
believe organizations should adopt
four key, interrelated practices to
successfully exploit innovations in
technology and strengthen their
relationships with citizens:
•  Develop a citizen-centric vision of
governance
•  Tailor services and communications
to meet user needs and preferences
•  Strengthen and foster the capacity
to innovate by creating a sense of
ownership within the workforce
•  Aim for success in terms of
improved service quality and
increased citizen trust in government
Develop a citizen-centric vision of
governance
Citizen-centric government is
responsive to the real needs of all
citizens. It is open, transparent and
accountable; enables citizens to
participate in their governance and
improve their own quality of life;
and adopts a whole-person, holistic
view of service users. Public service
organizations should develop a vision
of citizen-centric governance that
translates these “generic” aspects
of citizen centricity into specific,
high-level outcomes and meaningful
strategic goals that can drive
organizational change.
To become more responsive to the real
needs of all citizens, public service
organizations must develop flexible
service delivery mechanisms and
effective enterprise tools that enable
front-office staff to assemble networks
of service providers around citizens’
needs. Enterprise resource planning and
business process management solutions,
for instance, enable citizen-centric
public services by providing decision
makers with enhanced business insight
and greater control over the flow of
resources and information. However, to
deliver more responsive, flexible public
services, these IT solutions must be
part of a broader change program to
establish a customer-centric culture in
the front office. This change program
26
 should provide staff with enhanced
client service skills and a comprehensive
understanding of service delivery
mechanisms.
Realizing open, transparent and
accountable government requires
decision makers to invest in reporting
and performance management
systems that enable the effective
collection, analysis and visualization of
operational, spending and performance
data. This information must then
be made available to the public.
Organizations can do so through web-
based transparency and accountability
tools developed via a collaborative,
user-centric design process to ensure
they are user-friendly and provide the
public with relevant information about
results achieved.
Enabling citizens to participate in
their governance and improve their
own quality of life is becoming
easier with the growth in social
networking and web 2.0. Using
popular social networking sites, rich
Internet applications and other web
2.0 technologies, citizens can engage,
coordinate and collaborate with each
other and with government as never
before. Public service organizations
should develop comprehensive citizen
enrollment strategies that outline
how they will use new technologies
(probably alongside more traditional
citizen engagement methods) to
enable citizen participation and to
encourage citizens to take a greater
role in improving quality of life for
themselves and their communities.
Citizen enrollment strategies must
also demonstrate how greater public
participation will contribute to
improvements in social and economic
outcomes for constituents.
Tailor services and
communications to meet user
needs and preferences
Service users want to be able to
access customized services tailored to
meet their individual needs. Similarly,
citizens want government information
and communications to reflect their
personal preferences in terms of
media channel, design, content and
27
frequency. Targeting services and
communications effectively requires
public service organizations to define
and identify user profile groups and
customer segments and to use this
customer insight to inform flexible
service delivery strategies.
To deliver more personalized services
and targeted communications, public
service organizations should identify
customer segments based on registered
preferences, patterns of inquiry and
service use, as well as socioeconomic,
demographic and geographic factors.
Organizations should use this analysis
to redefine service delivery and
communications strategies. To achieve
this, organizations’ customer service
strategy must inform most aspects of
operational planning—from performance
and talent management to IT strategy
and business process management.
To maximize the benefit of customer
segmentation, public service
organizations need to develop effective
customer insight management and
case management systems that
enable enterprise-wide data sharing
and collaboration. These IT systems
deliver enhanced content management
capabilities and, when integrated with
the existing Customer Relationship
Management infrastructure, enable
organizations to maximize the value of
every customer interaction and deliver
more personalized customer service.
Strengthen and foster the
capacity to innovate by creating
a sense of ownership within the
workforce
To maximize the benefits of new
technologies and adapt to meet
citizens’ changing expectations,
public service organizations must
build the capacity to innovate. To
that end, public service organizations
must encourage employees to
take greater responsibility for the
efficiency and effectiveness of
information workflows, businesses
processes, programs and delivery
channels; enable their workforce
to take risks, generate ideas and
share learning; and demonstrate
to employees, through effective
performance management systems,
the value they create for citizens
by developing innovative solutions
focused on improving outcomes.
To give employees greater
responsibility for the efficiency and
effectiveness of operations and
service delivery, decision makers must
commit to cultural transformation.
This transformation requires a move
away from traditional and highly
centralized, hierarchical organizational
structures toward flatter, more
bottom-up, decentralized structures.
These structures encourage and
empower employees to take ownership
of the programs, deliverables and
business processes with which they
are involved. Such an approach
calls for an emphasis on training,
learning and continued professional
development for front-office and
back-office staff at every level
of the organization. Through this
emphasis, organizations can ensure
that employees have the knowledge
required to suggest and implement
process and service improvements.
Empowering the workforce to
innovate also requires organizations to
invest in enterprise 2.0 technologies
that enable employees to develop
applications and mashups, author
content to share learning across the
organization, collaborate through
informal channels and access real-time
data. To maximize the value of internal
crowd sourcing and new community-
based software development models,
decision makers at the top of public
service organizations need to open
up the decision-making process
to employees at every level and
encourage them to contribute.
Aim for success in terms of
improved service quality and
increased citizen trust in
government
From the outset, organizations should
define the success of e-governance
strategies in terms of both improved
service quality and enhanced citizen
trust in government. The journey
to e-governance is as much about
strengthening the relationship with
citizens as it is about creating high-
quality public services.
Organizations’ e-governance strategies
should include high-level key
performance indicators (KPIs) around
improvements in service quality and
efficiency. At the same time, public
service organizations should aim to
gauge the effects of improved service
quality and accountability on public
trust. Our Leadership in Customer
Service research has shown a strong
correlation between increased
accountability and trust in government
and the potential benefits to be gained
from increased willingness of the
public to participate and act as co-
producers are immense—politically and
economically.
At present, the great majority of public
service organizations around the
world are already measuring success
in terms of improved service quality.
Relevant KPIs include transaction cost
and customer satisfaction. Trust in
government, however, is much harder
to measure. At one level, citizen trust
can be quantified by measuring the
gap between what citizens expect
References
1
www.accenture.com/gcf
2
http://www.accenture.com/Global/Research_and_Insights/Institute_For_Public_
Service_Value/ManagingValue.htm
3
http://www.accenture.com/Global/Research_and_Insights/Institute_For_Public_
Service_Value/2008LCSROutcomes.htm
4
www.accenture.com/aces
from government and how successfully
citizens believe government actually
fulfils these expectations. In our
global research project, the Accenture
Citizen Experience Study, we found
that the gap between citizens’
experience of public services and
expectation of government is not
merely a consequence of the level of
service quality. Citizen perception can
be influenced positively or negatively
by the extent to which government
engages them in a discourse about
what is and is not possible in
service delivery. Yet frequently, we
have found, government does not
do enough to make that discourse
meaningful, despite the availability
of new technologies to provide
more regular and informed ways of
communicating with the public.
To increase public trust and
confidence in government, public
service organizations must develop
e-governance strategies that aim
to narrow the gap between citizen
expectations and government
performance. This entails managing
citizens’ expectations through effective
engagement and communications,
as well as improving the efficiency
and effectiveness of public services.
As the technologies advance—from
web 2.0 today to web 3.0 tomorrow
and beyond—their impact on public
services, government organizations
and governance itself will continue to
evolve. More governments will turn
to new technologies as they develop
innovative strategies to enable greater
citizen participation, deliver improved
social and economic outcomes for
their constituents and create public
value. Meanwhile, as technology
continues to change the way people
live, it will also change the tools they
use to connect with each other, the
expectations they have of government
and the demands they place on
public services. As new technologies
change providers’ capabilities
and customers’ expectations, the
journey to more effective forms
of e-governance will continue.
28

Accenture Institute for Health &
Public Service Value Project Team
Giles Randle
Researcher
Julie McQueen
Director of Research
Greg Parston
Director
Copyright © 2009 Accenture
All rights reserved.
Accenture, its logo, and
High Performance Delivered
are trademarks of Accenture.
ACC09-1315
About the Accenture Institute for
Health & Public Service Value
The Accenture Institute for Health
& Public Service Value is dedicated
to promoting high performance in
the health care sector and in public
service delivery, policy-making
and governance. Through research
and development initiatives, the
Institute aims to help health care and
public service organizations deliver
better social, economic and health
outcomes for the people they serve.
Its home page is www.accenture.com/
healthpublicservicevalue.
About Accenture
Accenture is a global management
consulting, technology services and
outsourcing company. Combining
unparalleled experience, comprehensive
capabilities across all industries and
business functions, and extensive
research on the world’s most successful
companies, Accenture collaborates
with clients to help them become
high-performance businesses and
governments. With approximately
177,000 people serving clients in more
than 120 countries, the company generated
net revenues of US$23.39 billion for
the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2008.
Its home page is www.accenture.com.
 Focus on Outcomes

United States:
EHSResults! Massachusetts
Executive Office of
Health and Human
Services

e-Governance strategy:
Focusing performance management on actual improvements in
people’s social and economic conditions
Background Wellness and Quality of Health Care
The Executive Office of Health and Human • Ensure access to care
Services is the largest Massachusetts
Commonwealth secretariat and is • Advance health care quality
responsible for delivering a variety of
services ranging from family services • Contain health care costs
(including adoption, fostering and child
welfare) to health insurance and disability • Promote individual wellness
services. These services are delivered by
16 Executive Office of Health and Human • Promote healthy communities
Services agencies, including Medicaid
and the Departments of Public Health Safe Communities
and Children & Families. EOHHS has a • Surveillance—Monitor key indicators of
budget of $13.5 billion, 48% of the state’s safe communities
budget, and 23,000 employees.
• Preparedness—Develop infrastructure to
support safe communities
Solution Overview
The Executive Office of Health and Human • Prevention—Deliver proactive and
Services has launched EHSResults!— targeted services to individuals, families
an outcome-focused performance and communities
management strategy—to improve the
efficiency of its operations and the • Intervention—Intervene where needed to
effectiveness of the services it delivers. As ensure safety of individuals, families and
part of the EHSResults! initiative, teams communities
made up of employees from all 16 EOHHS
agencies worked together to define a set
of secretariat-level, cross-agency strategic
goals defined around improved outcomes
for citizens:
Jobs and Self Sufficiency
• Increase accessibility and
diversity of available jobs for
targeted residents through policy
and employer outreach
• Provide employment support
services for targeted adults
• Maximize number of targeted
adults who move toward self-
sufficiency and independence
through employment
• Successfully transition EOHHS
youth entering the workforce
Effective Government
• Provide client-centered customer
service
• Develop and maintain a high-
performance workforce
• Improve internal efficiencies
• Increase efficiencies and quality
of the Purchase of Service system
Educating Kids in Our Care
• Ensure access to education-
related programming, services
and opportunities for children
and youth in EOHHS care
• Maximize school attendance and
engagement for children and
youth in EOHHS care
• Maximize stability in education
programs for children and youth
in EOHHS care
• Maximize educational success
for children and youth in EOHHS
care
These strategic outcome targets are Highlights
then mapped to Executive Office • Strategic goals are clearly linked
of Health and Human Services to outcome-focused performance
priorities for the financial year targets at different levels of
and agency-specific goals and government, including agency-
outcome targets. Performance specific performance targets and
dashboards ensure that progress indicators.
toward strategic priorities, goals
and agency-specific targets is • Strategic goals were developed
transparent. through a collaborative process
in which all agencies affected by
The Executive Office of Health the new outcome targets are able
and Human Services is using to contribute.
EHSResults! to drive organizational
improvements, create a citizen- • Performance dashboards are used
centric culture and achieve high- to demonstrate and communicate
performance public service by: success to decision makers and
the workforce.
• Establishing a reporting and
tracking mechanism that explains
clearly and simply what EOHHS
has accomplished and creates
visibility at all levels into desired
outcomes and EOHHS progress
• Providing a management
tool that demonstrates and
communicates success both to
EOHHS executive management
and to the agencies; works across
agencies with goals and outcome
measures that provide multi-
agency perspective; and focuses
budget and resource discussions
on desired results instead of
simply on dollars.
• Creating a performance
management culture that focuses
on cooperative efforts to deliver
outcomes citizens care about;
enables agencies to make the
case for findings and change; and
clarifies connections between
agency and secretariat priorities.
Copyright © 2009 Accenture
All rights reserved.
Accenture, its logo, and
High Performance Delivered
are trademarks of Accenture.

e-Governance strategy:
Focusing performance management on actual improvements in
people’s social and economic conditions
Background
Public Service Agreements (PSAs) are
“key priority outcomes the Government
wants to achieve.” The United Kingdom
government first introduced PSAs in 1998
after the Comprehensive Spending Review.
Originally, there were 600 performance
targets for 35 areas of government. In
2005, government started working with
frontline professionals, the public and
external experts to renew the performance
management framework. Those efforts
resulted in the launch of 30 new Public
Service Agreements in 2007.
Solution Overview
Collectively, Public Service Agreements
form a comprehensive set of outcome-
focused performance targets that are
supported by a limited number of
performance indicators. Each Public
Service Agreement is underpinned by a
single delivery agreement shared across all
contributing departments and developed
in consultation with delivery partners and
frontline workers. Delivery agreements
set out plans for delivery and the role
of key delivery partners. Public Service
Agreements also describe the small basket
of national outcome-focused performance
Focus on Outcomes
United Kingdom:
Public Service
Agreements
indicators that will be used to measure
progress toward each Public Service
Agreement. A subset of indicators also
has specific national targets or minimum
standards attached, and details are set
out in the relevant delivery agreement.
In 2008, the Public Service Agreement
framework was reshaped to reflect
government’s changing spending priorities
during the economic downturn.
Since 2000, Local Public Service
Agreements, now called Local Area
Agreements-Reward Element, have
become increasingly common. These
agreements are designed to encourage
local government to focus on outcomes
and reward local government agencies
that deliver improved social and economic
outcomes for their constituents. Local
Area Agreements-Reward Elements are
agreements between individual local
authorities and central government
that “set out an area’s commitment to
delivering improvement targets, chosen
by themselves and central government.”
The agreements also state central
government’s commitment to rewarding
those improvements and how central
government will assist the authority in
achieving them.
Public Service Agreement Framework 2008—2011
Fairness and opportunity
for all
• Halve the number of
children in poverty by
2010-11, on the way to
eradicating child poverty
by 2020
• Raise the educational
achievement of all children
and young people
• Narrow the gap in
educational achievement
between children from low-
income and disadvantaged
backgrounds and their peers
• Increase the number of
children and young people
on the path to success
• Address the disadvantage
that individuals experience
because of their gender,
race, disability, age, sexual,
orientation, religion or belief
• Increase the proportion of
socially excluded adults in
settled accommodation
and employment,
education or training
A better quality of life
• Improve the health and
wellbeing of children and
young people
• Improve children and
young people’s safety
• Tackle poverty and
promote greater
independence and
wellbeing in later life
• Promote better health and
wellbeing for all
• Ensure better care for all
• Deliver a successful
Olympic Games and
Paralympic Games with a
sustainable legacy and get
more children and young
people taking part in
high-quality physical
education and sport
Stronger communities
• Build more cohesive,
empowered and active
communities
• Make communities safer
• Deliver a more effective,
transparent and responsive
Criminal Justice System for
victims and the public
• Reduce the harm caused
by alcohol and drugs
• Reduce the risk to the UK
and its interests overseas
from international terrorism
A more secure, fair and
environmentally sustainable
world
• Lead the global effort to
avoid dangerous climate
change
• Secure a healthy natural
environment for today and
the future
• Reduce poverty in poorer
countries through quicker
progress towards the
Millennium Development
Goals
• Reduce the impact of
conflict through enhanced
UK and international efforts

Help people and businesses come through the downturn sooner and stronger, supporting long-term economic growth and prosperity
Deliver commitments by the National Economic Council to help people and businesses come through the downturn sooner and stronger,
including packages on repossessions, apprenticeships, business access to finance and help for the unemployed.
• Raise the productivity of the UK economy
• Improve the skills of the population, on the way to ensuring a world-class skills base by 2020
• Ensure controlled, fair migration that protects the public and contributes to economic growth
• Promote world-class science and innovation in the UK
• Deliver reliable and efficient transport networks that support economic growth
• Deliver the conditions for business success in the UK
• Improve the economic performance of all English regions and reduce the gap in economic growth rates between regions
• Maximize employment opportunity for all
• Improve long-term housing supply and affordability

Highlights • Organizations from across • Performance targets are

• Strategic outcome-focused government share common
performance targets are outcome-focused performance
supported by low-level, targets that are supported
organization-specific output by delivery strategies that
targets. emphasize and reward joined-up
working and collaboration.
developed through a
collaborative process that
enables all delivery partners
and stakeholders to shape
performance targets, indicators
and service delivery plans.

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 Focus on Outcomes

Singapore:
Reaching Everyone for
Active Citizenry @
Home (REACH)
www.reach.gov.sg

e-Governance strategy:
Continually improving the customer experience by soliciting
service user and customer feedback
Background Citizens can:
REACH was set up in October 2006 as
part of a major change program around • Submit a general feedback form
the restructuring of the Singaporean that REACH directs to the relevant
government’s feedback unit. REACH organization.
proactively engages citizens and enables
• Complete an e-consultation paper if
them to enter into a more interactive
they know which agency they would like
relationship with government by providing
to register feedback with.
the public with simple, effective and
accessible means of registering their
• Participate in online discussion forums
feedback about any service, policy or issue.
and blog about government and public
services.
Solution Overview
REACH is responsible for collecting and • Submit online questionnaires about
soliciting citizen feedback, reaching out their experiences of public services,
and engaging citizens and promoting proposed changes to services or policy
an active citizenry by enabling citizen and issues facing government, directly
participation. Citizens can use REACH’s to government agencies.
website to provide feedback about any
government agency, public service or policy.
Highlights
• The REACH website includes
a community element that
enables residents to discuss
their experience and opinion
of public services with each
other. This community element
enables government to capture
more in-depth feedback and
encourages more citizens to
contribute to ongoing discussions.

• REACH solicits customer feedback

on specific issues, services or
organizations, which enables
government to collect relevant,
structured feedback that is of real
strategic value.

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e-Governance strategy:
Continually improving the customer experience by soliciting
service user and customer feedback
Background
The Dubai Government is trying to improve
the quality of public services by enabling
customers to voice their concerns directly
to public service organizations and using
their feedback to change the way public
services are delivered. The principal aim
of the eComplain system is to “provide a
solid platform for customers to make their
voices heard and acted upon. We want the
departments to listen to their customers,
to solve their problems and benefit from
them in the continual improvement and
development of services.”
Solution Overview
Dubai’s eComplain System enables
customers to provide feedback on the
service they have received from any one
of 22 government departments. In March
2009, the eComplain system and the Ask
Dubai call center were integrated into a
single e-customer platform that provides
customers with a single point of contact
through which they can register feedback
on any of Dubai’s government agencies.
Customers can provide feedback online, on
the phone, via email or by fax. Customers
Focus on Outcomes
Dubai:
eComplain System
www.ecomplain.ae/Main.aspx?Lang=EN
can also track the status of their feedback
online or over the phone. Dubai’s
government leverages customer feedback
to drive continuous service improvement
as part of an overall strategy to achieve
excellence in public service delivery.
"Any form of grievance can have an
impact on the integrity of any government
department and hence it is important that
these concerns are addressed promptly.
The integrated contact center provides
an easy, centralized and more efficient
platform for government departments
to generate feedback from the public
and subsequently identify areas for
development and improvement. In
addition, this initiative provides a direct
and user-friendly facility that allows
residents to air their views and be heard in
a proper forum by concerned authorities."
Moza Al Akraf, Acting Director of
eServices, Dubai eGovernment
Highlights
• The Dubai government views
customer feedback as a valuable
strategic asset that enables
decision makers to identify areas
of poor performance and drive
improvements in service delivery.

• The eComplain system enables

the Dubai government to
proactively engage citizens to
solicit feedback and use it as a
valuable source of innovation and
indication of performance.

• Providing customers with a

range of possible channels
through which they can contact
government—email, online forms,
telephone, face to face—makes it
more convenient for customers
to register feedback, improving
the overall customer experience,
increasing the likelihood that
a customer will leave feedback
and enabling citizens to report
problems and request services
from government.

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e-Governance strategy:
Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public service provision
Background
The Government of Canada is looking
to web 2.0 technologies as a means of
improving collaboration and information
sharing across public service organizations
and government departments. In 2007,
National Resources Canada, the Federal
Government department responsible for
managing Canada’s natural resources,
launched NRCan Wiki, an internal wiki
that was eventually used by 1,900 of
the department’s 5,000 employees to
share ideas and disseminate information.
NRCan was so successful that the Treasury
Board, a cabinet committee responsible
for managing the administrative aspects
of government including personnel and
budget, decided to launch a government-
wide wiki.
Focus on Outcomes
Canada:
GCPedia
Solution Overview
In October 2008, the Canadian Federal
government launched a government-wide
pilot for a new internal collaboration
platform called GCpedia, an internal
version of the popular online encyclopedia
Wikipedia. The service allows federal
employees to post articles as well as
comment and edit articles posted on
GCpedia by their peers. GCpedia can
only be accessed by federal government
employees and only hosts articles that are
relevant to government operations and
public services.
The federal government is using GCpedia
to make decision-making processes and
organizations’ operations more transparent
within government, share information across
government and ensure that all federal
agencies are aware of policy changes or
developments in service delivery.
Highlights
• The Government of Canada is
using GCpedia to enable informal
collaboration between federal
employees within and across
organizations.

• As the proportion of the

government workforce made
up of people belonging to
“Generation Y” increases over
the coming years, government
organizations’ culture and
traditional ways of working
will change dramatically. The
Government of Canada is pre-
empting and enabling this
culture shift by investing in web
2.0 technologies to facilitate
instant access to information and
encourage collaborative, flexible
ways of working.

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e-Governance strategy:
Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public service provision
Background
Government employees are taking the
initiative and proactively using public
social networking sites to share ideas and
experiences, disseminate information and
discuss issues facing government. These
collaboration platforms range from small
groups on popular social networking
sites such as Facebook to purpose-built
sites with thousands of members such
as Municater, a “social networking site
devoted to helping municipal government
employees find solutions, share ideas,
learn about new products and services,
review and learn about vendors, and
improve their career.” One of the fastest-
growing social networking sites created
by government employees exclusively for
government employees is GovLoop.
Solution Overview
Launched in June 2008, GovLoop is a
government social networking site that
connects over 11,000 federal, state and
local government employees, academics
and contractors from around the world.
GovLoop uses web 2.0 technologies to
enable cross-government collaboration
and innovation by encouraging people
involved in the delivery of public services
to share ideas, explore opportunities
and debate and discuss issues facing
Focus on Outcomes
United States:
GovLoop
www.govloop.com/
government. GovLoop “creates a place for
government innovators to talk about the
possibilities and share ideas of how they
have cracked the code and implemented
change.” This kind of informal social
networking, collaboration and idea sharing
enables public service professionals to
share best practices and is potentially a
valuable source of innovation.
Highlights
Government employees who use social
networking and web 2.0 technologies in
their everyday lives are creating private,
government-only social networking
sites to enable collaboration, facilitate
discussion and disseminate information
across organizational boundaries and
international borders to solve some of
government’s most pressing problems.
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e-Governance strategy:
Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public service provision
Background
In 2008, the District of Columbia’s Chief
Technology Officer decided to switch
from a traditional static desktop strategy
and introduced web-based Google
Apps as the new platform for day-to-
day business operations. The district
moved to cloud computing to reduce
costs, enable government employees to
collaborate more effectively and ensure
better business continuity by moving
from a single data center to multiple,
geographically dispersed data centers.
The aim is to roll out Google Apps to all
38,000 of the district’s employees across
the 86 agencies that the Chief Technology
Officer’s department supports.
Focus on Outcomes
United States:
Cloud Computing in the
District of Columbia
Solution Overview
The Google Apps software suite includes
e-mail, calendar, documents and
spreadsheets, along with wikis and
instant messaging. The new system has
dramatically reduced the amount the
district spends on enterprise applications
as the Google Apps software suite only
costs the district $50 per user per year:
“The average cost of [enterprise] email is
$8 per month [per user]…For half that, we
can get more value beyond just e-mail.
We’re getting Google apps and video for
the enterprise. We’re getting the ability
to share spreadsheets and documents,”
according to the District of Columbia Chief
Technology Officer.
The district’s cloud computing
strategy also reduces the risk, cost
and complexity associated with
large-scale implementations of
enterprise applications: “In D.C.
government, the schools spent
$25 million on [an enterprise
application roll out] and it failed…
Government needs to start asking
the question, ‘Are we building an IT
organization? Or do we move out
of the system of owning hardware
and get services to deliver solutions
to customers faster?’ We spend far
too much on enterprise software
roll-outs,” the district’s Chief
Technology Officer has noted.
From the Chief Technology Officer’s
perspective, the ultimate rationale
for cloud computing is “why should
I spend millions on enterprise apps
when I can do it at one-tenth cost
and 10 times the speed?”
Highlights
• Cloud computing is enabling
the District of Columbia
to provide employees with
greater computing power and
applications that facilitate
collaboration at a reduced cost.
• The District of Columbia is using
cloud computing to reduce the
risk associated with large-scale
implementations of enterprise
applications, which reduces
the level of waste in the IT
budget and enables the CIO
to concentrate on and invest
in innovative, citizen-facing IT
solutions that strengthen the
governance relationship.
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e-Governance strategy:
Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public service provision
Background
The Federal Emergency Management
Agency’s (FEMA) mission is to “reduce the
loss of life and property and protect the
Nation from all hazards, including natural
disasters… by leading and supporting the
Nation in a risk-based, comprehensive
emergency management system of
preparedness, protection, response,
recovery and mitigation.” Floods are one of
the most common hazards in the United
States. The National Flood Insurance
Program, part of FEMA, is responsible for
mitigating the risk posed by floods in part
through flood hazard mapping. Building
on the success of the Map Modernization
Program, through which flood maps were
digitized and made available online, FEMA
launched Risk Mapping, Assessment and
Planning (Risk MAP) in March 2009.
Solution Overview
Risk MAP is a comprehensive strategy
that combines flood hazard mapping, risk
assessment tools and mitigation planning
into one comprehensive, seamless
program. The intent: to maximize flood
loss reduction by encouraging innovative
uses of flood hazard data and enabling
local communities to develop more
effective mitigation plans by providing an
integrated national assessment of risks
based on digital flood hazard data and
web-accessible data.
Focus on Outcomes
United States:
FEMA Risk MAP
Risk MAP has five goals:
Goal 1: Address gaps in flood hazard data
to form a solid foundation for flood risk
assessments, floodplain management and
actuarial soundness of the National Flood
Insurance Program. Actions include:
• Initiate Risk MAP flood map update
projects to address gaps in required
engineering and mapping for high flood
risk areas affected by coastal flooding,
levees and other flood hazards (for
example, lakes, rivers, ponds).
• Ensure state and federal resources
aimed at identifying flood hazards are
aligned with flood risk, data needs and
partner contributions.
Goal 2: Ensure that a measurable
increase in the public’s awareness and
understanding of risk management results
in a measurable reduction in current and
future vulnerability to flooding. Actions
include:
• Implement a comprehensive national
outreach strategy that provides
stakeholders with targeted messaging
using innovative outreach tools to
increase understanding of risk and
promote actions to reduce those risks.
• Establish a baseline, and measure
annual progress, of local
understanding of flood risk.
• Develop a process to conduct
the risk assessment routinely and
measure the reduction of current
and future vulnerability.
Goal 3: Lead and support states,
local communities and tribal
communities to effectively engage
in risk-based mitigation planning
resulting in sustainable actions that
reduce or eliminate risks to life
and property from natural hazards.
Actions include:
• Integrate hazard mitigation
planning with other planning
processes already in place at the
federal, state, tribal and local
levels.
• Communicate the benefits of
the hazard mitigation planning
process to help states, local
communities and tribal entities
to develop, adopt and implement
FEMA-approved hazard
mitigation plans.
• Evaluate hazard mitigation plans
to demonstrate that mitigation
actions are being effectively
implemented at the state, local
and tribal levels, resulting in risk
reduction.
Goal 4: Provide an enhanced
digital platform that improves
management of limited Risk MAP
resources, stewards information
produced by Risk MAP, and
improves communication and
sharing of risk data and related
products to all levels of government
and the public. Actions include:
• Use technology efficiently to
manage Risk MAP investments
and identify, quantify, store,
share and enhance risk analysis
information.
• Leverage advancements in
national geospatial data
production, quality and
availability to improve Risk MAP
products.
• Enhance existing systems and Highlights
tools—leveraging advances in Risk MAP is a comprehensive
geospatial information systems strategy FEMA is using to
and data to help Risk MAP maximize the value of digital
producers and end users take
flood maps. The goal: to improve
a geographic approach to risk
social and economic outcomes
analysis and enable Risk MAP to
for citizens by reaching out to
provide the right information to
and engaging local communities;
the right audience at the right
educating the public and enabling
time.
them to develop more effective
mitigation strategies; collaborating,
Goal 5: Align Risk Analysis
programs and develop synergies coordinating and sharing data
to enhance decision-making with organizations from different
capabilities through effective risk levels of government; and investing
communication and management. in IT to improve the efficiency
Actions include: and effectiveness of government
operations.
• Expand flood hazard mapping
guidelines to include data needed
to support flood risk assessment.
• Develop ways to share risk
assessments, encourage
integrated planning and
coordinate plans for
communicating with the public.
• Create forums for federal, state,
local, tribal and business entities
to discuss risk.
• Identify synergies at all
levels, including interagency
coordination, programmatic
decisions and day-to-day
activities.
• Facilitate the expansion of a risk
management approach beyond
flood to other threats.
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 Focus on Outcomes

Australia:
Australian Tax Office
Change Program

e-Governance strategy:
Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public service provision

Background • Individuals wanted easier tax

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is forms, better phone services, more
the Australian government’s principal online options and assistance
revenue collection agency. One of the with record keeping.
ATO’s strategic objectives is “to make it as
easy as possible for people to voluntarily Solution Overview
comply with their tax and superannuation
Based on the findings of the Listening
obligations by implementing a range
to the Community program, the ATO
of initiatives designed to improve our
launched the Easier, Cheaper and More
products and services.” As part of this
Personalised (ECMP) program in 2003.
strategic drive to improve customer
The ECMP program is a holistic, ongoing
service, the ATO launched the Listening
change program designed to “improve
to the Community program in 2002,
client experiences through enhanced client
through which the ATO engaged people
service practices and systems. The focus
from all walks of life–families, people in
is on providing easier, cheaper and more
rural areas, youth, seniors, accountants,
personalized interactions, information
tax practitioners, software developers and
and advice for individuals, business and
small business operators. The ATO used
tax agents.” More specifically, the ECMP
discussion groups, product development
program aims to deliver:
workshops and other engagement forums
to solicit citizen feedback. Based on this • An integrated processing system for all
feedback, the ATO determined that: ATO products
• Tax agents wanted more detailed • An effective active compliance and
and faster online access to client advice capability
information, better phone services and
secure email. • Effective, improved client service
• Small businesses wanted more • Improved enterprise-wide outcome
personalized electronic access, a more management of work
user-friendly website, greater access
to phone services after hours and more
targeted assistance for their industry.
• Uninterrupted delivery of tax Highlights
office business • Since 2003, the ECMP program
has transformed the ATO into a
• A system with integrity and more citizen-centric organization
performance by improving the effectiveness
of its services, allowing the
• Productivity and sustainability
organization to develop a holistic
benefits
understanding of customers’
needs, behaviors and preferences,
To deliver these outcomes, the ATO
and enabling the ATO to interact
has developed a number of back-
with customers in a more
office and front-office solutions
flexible, personalized manner.
designed to:
• The ECMP program has also
• Offer citizens more
improved the efficiency of
personalization in terms of how
ATO operations by improving
they interact with the ATO by
productivity through work and
developing improved analytics
case management systems and
and intelligence capability. This
reducing costs by rationalizing
enables the organization to
and standardizing IT systems.
develop a deeper understanding
of customers’ compliance
behavior and offer customers
who are experiencing uncertainty
and hardship increased
flexibility—for example, by
expediting refunds.

• Enable the ATO to develop

a more detailed picture of
customers’ tax affairs by
processing all registrations,
forms, payments and accounting
transactions across all types of
revenue products using a single
system.

• Improve customer service to

individuals, businesses and tax
agents through a customer
relationship management system
to encourage staff to focus on
improving levels of customer
satisfaction, case and work
management systems to enhance
the ATO’s active compliance and
advice capability and document
and content management
platforms to improve customer
record management.

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e-Governance strategy:
Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public service provision
Background
Established in 1983 as part of the Prime
Minister’s Office, the Italian Ministry for
Public Administration and Innovation
drives modernization in government. The
ministry seeks to enhance the quality
of public services and reduce the cost
of public administration by promoting
more efficient and effective government
operations.
Over the last few years, the ministry has
coordinated an extensive government-
wide transformation program designed
to improve the quality of public services;
simplify administrative processes and
procedures; reduce and rationalize
public expenditure; and support public
administration modernization.
Focus on Outcomes
Italy:
Magellano
www.magellanopa.it/
Solution Overview
To support this program, in May 2009 the
ministry launched Magellano, a web-based
content management platform designed
to enable government-wide knowledge
sharing, collaboration and coordination;
to encourage the reuse of best practices
across organizational boundaries; and to
reduce the cost of providing employees
with up-to-date content. The ultimate
goal of the Magellano project: to improve
the Italian government’s ability to capture,
update and manage intellectual capital—
content, best practices, knowledge and
tools.
Alongside a sophisticated content
management solution, the Magellano
project has developed an integrated set
of knowledge management processes,
together with a new governance model,
to establish an ongoing management
process and deliver real cultural change
across the Italian government. Magellano
also enables employees from across
government to connect with each other to
share ideas, knowledge and best practices
through online forums and wikis, as
well as authoring and content-sharing
platforms.
Using content from Magellano,
the ministry is currently creating
a comprehensive service catalogue
that gives key details about
individual services, including
the organization responsible for
delivering the service, contact
points for requesting additional
information and important
information regarding the handling
of citizen requests, such as office
opening hours and administrative
procedures.
The system has more than 16,000
registered users from local and
central government, as well as
universities and other public service
organizations, and manages more
than 100,000 documents a year.
Highlights
• The Italian government has
created a single content
management platform that
enables employees from across
government to share best
practices, access up-to-date
information and collaborate to
deliver innovation and improve
the efficiency and effectiveness
of public services.
• Magellano uses enterprise 2.0
technologies to enable employees
to author and share content,
access information quickly and
easily, and discuss and debate
issues—helping government to
innovate, break down silos and
overcome other organizational
obstacles to change.
• Magellano supports improved
customer services by ensuring
that all government contact
centers have access to
standardized information
about individual public services
through a comprehensive service
catalogue.
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e-Governance strategy:
Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public service provision
Background
In recent years, the Finnish Immigration
Service has come under increasing
pressure. In 2008, residence permit
applications numbered 22,752, up one-
third from 2006; asylum applications
increased 167 percent; and citizenship
declarations were up 223 percent
versus 2007. These increases have had a
dramatic impact on Finland’s immigration
landscape. In fact, the number of foreign
citizens living in Finland went up 40
percent from 2004 to 2008. This explosion
in immigration and the migrant population
has placed unprecedented demands on the
Finnish Immigration Service. The service
is processing many more applications and
managing far more complex outcomes,
such as the integration of foreign
nationals, including an increasing number
of asylum seekers from outside the
European Union, maximizing the economic
benefit of immigration and ensuring
national security. It has become clear to
the Finnish government that immigration
services must adopt a joined-up, holistic
approach to processing and managing
complex cases.
Focus on Outcomes
Finland:
Finnish Immigration
Services
Solution Overview
Until 2006, responsibility for immigration
services in Finland was split across seven
different organizations, including the
Ministries of Interior, Foreign Affairs, Labor
and Justice, as well as the Directorate of
Immigration (renamed Finnish Immigration
Services in 2008), the Police and the
Border Guard. In the past, this division of
responsibilities has resulted in complex
migration procedures, delays in processing
applications, inefficient processes and
suboptimal outcomes for migrants. Cases
were often passed from agency to agency
with limited collaboration, coordination,
communication and strategic alignment
among them.
Since 2006, the Finnish government
has sought to improve the efficiency
and effectiveness of its immigration
system by driving and enabling cross-
agency collaboration around cross-
cutting shared outcomes. The first step:
to create a shared outcome model by
bringing together professionals from
several agencies to agree upon a set
of outcomes, metrics and priorities for
migration in Finland. At the highest level,
these outcomes include optimizing the
fairness and equality of the migration
system, fulfilling international protection
obligations toward asylum seekers and
refugees, ensuring the security
of migration and enabling the
smooth transition of the migrant
workforce into the labor market.
Organizations involved in the
immigration system use this shared
outcome model as the basis for
joint strategic planning.
The shared-outcome model
is also being used to drive a
transformation program around
a single groundbreaking, end-to-
end electronic immigration case
management system. When fully
deployed in 2009, this custom-
built case management system
will incorporate over 40 interfaces
and 20 data systems. It will also
enable fully integrated, inter-
agency handling of every process
within the immigration, citizenship
and asylum workflow—from
electronic submission through
processing and communication to
electronic archiving—by 15,000
potential users based in Finnish
government locations and offices
across the globe. Eventually, the
case management system will also
include additional applications,
such as an accommodation
management system and a
reporting system that will enable
outcome-focused reporting.
Highlights
The Finnish Immigration Service is
driving and enabling collaboration
around shared cross-agency
outcomes to improve the efficiency
and effectiveness of Finland’s
immigration system. This effort is
being driven by a comprehensive
shared outcome model that has
been developed by professionals
from all organizations involved
in the delivery of immigration
services.
A shared case management system,
as part of a broader transformation
program, is enabling the Finnish
Immigration Service to improve
communication, collaboration and
coordination among organizations
responsible for a common set of
outcomes.
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e-Governance strategy:
Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public service provision
Background
Every day, more than half a million
Italians contact a Public Relations Office
(URP) or a Public Administration call
center to access information or services
and request support. It is estimated
that 50,000 citizens or more a day visit
government offices unnecessarily as
their request could be fulfilled more
effectively online or over the phone.
This has a detrimental impact on the
efficiency, effectiveness and performance
of public service organizations’ customer
service. To tackle this problem, the
Italian government is taking steps to
reduce the proportion of face-to-face
customer service cases by enhancing
the effectiveness and accessibility of
services online and on the phone.
Focus on Outcomes
Italy:
Linea Amica
www.lineaamica.gov.it/
Solution Overview
In 2009, the Minister of Public
Administration and Innovation launched
“Linea Amica,” a national network of
contact centers and a single online
government customer service portal to
improve the accessibility, efficiency and
effectiveness of customer service by
reducing the proportion of face-to-face
customer service cases. Linea Amica does
not replace existing front-office structures
but integrates them into a single network,
which includes URP and call centers, to
ensure a high standard of customer service
across public services and realize cost
efficiencies. Linea Amica also enables the
Italian government to collect, analyze
and evaluate data on the number, types
and geographic distribution of requests as
well as the number of issues solved and
services delivered.
Citizens can contact “Linea
Amica” by phone, email or SMS
and through an online service
request form. Customers are
then referred to the relevant
organization or, if their request
is more complicated, the case is
handed to a dedicated Linea Amica
team. Through the Linea Amica
online customer service portal,
customers can use an emoticons
tool to register their satisfaction
with the services they have
received and this data is published
in real time on the website.
The Linea Amica customer service
portal offers a range of features,
including:
Highlights
• The Italian government is using
Linea Amica to transform
customer service by establishing
a single point of contact for
customers with a very wide range
of needs, thereby improving the
accessibility and performance of
customer service.
• As an integrated network of
front-office structures from
across government, Linea Amica
enables government-wide
collaboration around improved
customer service and enhanced
data sharing capabilities.

• Links to the main local and

national public administration
contact centers

• Frequently asked questions and

answers

• News, which is also delivered

through Linea Amica Radio

• A virtual assistant that teaches

users how to ask questions,
report service problems or
navigate other government
websites

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e-Governance strategy:
Conducting customer segmentation analysis and using customer
insight to target services appropriately
Background
Mosaic Public Services is a lifestyle
classification system that enables
government in the United Kingdom to
segment its constituents into 61 lifestyle
types and 11 groups: from “Happy
Families” (younger families living in newer
homes) to “Welfare Borderline” (people
living in social housing with uncertain
employment in deprived areas) and “Grey
Perspectives” (independent older people
with relatively active lifestyles). This
segmentation is based on over 900 different
variables from a diverse range of data
sources, including the Census, the British
Crime Survey and the Index of Multiple
Deprivation. The Mosaic classification
has been validated through extensive
surveying across the United Kingdom.
Solution Overview
Northumberland County Council modified
the mosaic classification system and added
three new groups to ensure that rural
lifestyle types common in the area are
adequately represented. This segmentation
methodology has been applied to the
services that Northumberland County
Council provides—for example, council tax,
welfare benefits and refuse. Figures have
been generated showing the level of need
that each lifestyle type has for the various
services that the council provides.
Balance
United Kingdom:
Northumberland County
Council and Mosaic
Public Services
The council has used Mosaic to:
• Develop more effective communication
strategies. By mapping the geographic
distribution of lifestyle types across
the county and considering the
communication methods that people
in each classification respond to best,
the council has been able to develop
targeted communication strategies
tailored to reach specific lifestyle types.
• Identify gaps in service provision
and predict the impact that changes
in service delivery will have on
certain areas by identifying areas in
which high-need lifestyle types are
concentrated and service provision is, or
may become, inadequate.
Highlights
• Classification systems like Mosaic are an
effective basis for a customer segmentation
strategy; they enable organizations to
identify needs groups and tailor services
and communication strategies to meet the
needs of customer segments.
• Northumberland County Council has used
the customer insight derived from customer
segmentation to drive improvements in
service delivery and customer service.
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All rights reserved.
 Balance

Canada:
WelcomeBC
www.welcomebc.ca

e-Governance strategy:
Conducting customer segmentation analysis and using customer
insight to target services appropriately
Background The main aims of the WelcomeBC project
Until 2008, when new immigrants were to:
arrived in British Columbia they had to
use a series of complex, disparate online • Improve access to information, programs
resources to access information and and services for immigrants to BC,
services that facilitate the immigration potential immigrants, their families,
and settlement process. The province sponsors and immigrant-serving
decided that given the social and agencies.
economic benefits of immigration, the
• Allow for streamlined access to
process of settling in British Columbia
information on services and programs
should be much easier. To this end,
from all levels of government
the province created WelcomeBC.ca, a
and relevant community-based
comprehensive, one-stop website for
organizations.
information on immigrating to British
Columbia. WelcomeBC.ca is designed
• Ensure that the website provides client-
to make it easier for immigrants
centered, rather than producer-centered,
and potential immigrants to access
information.
information, services and programs from
all levels of government and relevant
• Translate the information needs
community-based organizations.
of the client segments and related
communities of interest into business
requirements.

• Implement a governance structure to

sustain the management, maintenance
and continuous improvement of the web
site.
Solution Overview Highlights
The key to the success of WelcomeBC demonstrates how
WelcomeBC is its citizen-centric a comprehensive customer
design. WelcomeBC is organized segmentation program can
around broad customer segments successfully support citizen-
or needs groups (for example, centric website design, enabling
temporary workers, international government to create portals
students, family members) to and websites that are easy to
enable users to more easily access navigate and provide accessible and
targeted information and services appropriately targeted information
relevant to them. This is a very and services.
different approach to traditional
organization-centric website
design, in which information and
services are structured around
the organizations or service silos
that deliver them rather than
citizen need profiles or outcomes.
To achieve this level of citizen
centricity, the province conducted
a unique 20-week customer
segmentation program to identify
customer segments within the
immigrant community and tailor
information, services and website
design to meet the needs of
specific segments.

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e-Governance strategy:
Conducting customer segmentation analysis and using customer
insight to target services appropriately
Background
In 2001, the Premier of Western Australia
launched an “Inquiry into the Response
by Government Agencies to Complaints
of Family Violence and Child Abuse in
Aboriginal Communities.” The inquiry was
prompted by the findings of a coroner's
investigation into the death of a 15-year-
old girl. The investigation raised questions
about the response of various government
departments and other agencies to
allegations of physical and sexual abuse.
The investigation, later termed the Gordon
Inquiry, examined the activities of state
government agencies in addressing
complaints and the reporting of sexual
abuse in Aboriginal communities;
identified the barriers and capacity of
government agencies to address the issue
of family violence, particularly child sexual
abuse in Aboriginal communities; proposed
support measures for children reporting
abuse; and considered current research
into the prevalence, causes and solutions
to Aboriginal violence.
Balance
Australia:
STRONG Families
Western Australia
The inquiry concluded that current services
were unable to adequately address the
escalating rates of family violence and
child abuse in Aboriginal communities
and articulated a community-focused
systemic response. In Western Australia,
the government’s response to the Gordon
Inquiry’s recommendations resulted in
state-wide expansion of the STRONG
Families Program. The program is based
on the Strengthening Families strategy
developed and implemented nationally in
New Zealand.
Solution Overview
STRONG Families is a planning and
coordinating process for families who
are receiving services from two or more
states agencies and it is considered that
a formalized, interagency approach will
help the family achieve desired outcomes.
The aim: to join up public services around
the needs of families who are least able to
help themselves and have the highest level
of need.
The organization’s approach recognizes
that the problems experienced by many
families are complex and inter-linked,
and that these problems cannot be solved
by one agency alone, or by agencies
working in isolation. The STRONG Families
approach also recognizes that there
are many barriers to bringing about
coordinated and collaborative
services for families with complex
needs and seeks to overcome
organizational and cultural barriers
to collaboration.
To overcome these organizational
challenges and fulfill families’
complex needs, STRONG Families
has developed a flexible Process
Flow that enables agencies to
coordinate and tailor their services
to meet the needs of the family.
To ensure the families’ needs
remain at the heart of service
delivery and to facilitate regular
communication between
government and the family a
single “lead agency” is appointed.
This agency is not responsible for
delivering services but coordinating
the work of other organizations and
acting as a single point of contact
for the family.
Highlights
• STRONG Families is built on the
assumption that to effectively
support families with the most
complex needs, organizations
must collaborate to deliver
personalized, tailored public
services that correspond to the
needs of individual families.
• To enable cross-government
collaboration and fulfill families’
complex needs, STRONG Families
has developed a flexible process
flow that enables agencies
to coordinate and tailor their
services based on customer need.
• To ensure the families’ needs
remain at the heart of service
delivery and to facilitate regular
communication between
government and families, a
single “lead agency” is appointed.
This agency is not responsible
for delivering services but
coordinating the work of other
organizations and acting as
a single point of contact for
families.

Strong Families Process Flow

1. Referral
• Agency identifies family they believe can
benefit from the STRONG families process and
discuss suitability of referral with Coordinator.
Criteria
• Complex social issues
• Family with children under the age of 18yrs
• Two or more agencies involved (or should be
involved) with the family
• Family consent to the process and for
information to be shared between identified
agencies and individuals
• A period of more formal coordination is
likely to make a positive difference
2. Convening
Engagement with family
• Process is explained to the family and
written consent obtained for information
sharing
• Family prepared for participation in the
meeting
• Coordinator works with referring agency to
identify relevant agencies and to convene
initial meeting
3. Initial Meeting
• Attended by agency and family representa-
tives
• Conducted by neutral facilitator
• Relevant information shared
• Family needs and strengths identified
• Goals are identified
• Integrated action plan developed
• Lead agency appointed
• Review meeting date set

6. Closure 5. Review 4. Implementing

Closure occurs when: • Held at the previously agreed time or earlier Each agency works with the family in
• Goals for the family are substantially if necessary accordance with their agency’s custom and
achieved • Progress is identified and changes to the practice, carrying out their role according to
• Agencies are now working together plan are determined the plan.
effectively and there is no further need for Lead Agency / Worker
additional coordination through STRONG
• Acts as a primary point of contact and
families
communication in relation to the plan
• Significant changes in the family’s
• Monitor progress of the plan
circumstances render the plan inoperable.
• Family withdraws their cooperation or consent
A maintenance plan is developed
Success is celebrated!

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e-Governance strategy:
Conducting customer segmentation analysis and using customer
insight to target services appropriately
Background
Before 2003, residents of New York City
looking for government assistance were
confronted with more than 4,000 entries
on 14 pages of the NYC telephone book,
and more than 40 resource-intensive call
centers were required to direct inquiries to
the right city offices. This had a significant
impact on the accessibility of public
services and prevented the city from
offering residents flexible, personalized
customer service that reflects their needs
and circumstances.
Balance
United States:
NYC 311
Solution Overview
In 2003, the city launched the NYC 311
Customer Service Center: a centralized,
all-purpose call facility. It is accessible
through the simple-to-remember 3-1-1
phone number, which is answered by a
live operator who quickly directs callers
to the information or resources they
need at any time of the day or night. This
single, integrated communication channel
manages all of the city’s non-emergency
service and information requests. The
principal aim of NYC 311 is to increase
the accessibility of public services and
enable the city to offer more personalized
customer service and information—
enabling residents to easily interact with
city agencies to receive information, file
complaints and resolve issues.
The Customer Service Management
System (CSMS) is the technical
solution that supports Customer
Service Representatives (CSRs) in
the 311 Citizen Service Center.
CSMS is a customized customer
relationship management tool
that incorporates a searchable
knowledge base that includes
information dealing with more
than 7,000 aspects of the city's
government; an interagency
work order routing and tracking
system; and an enterprise content
management platform that
provides CSRs with a single point
from which to create, manage,
approve and deploy content that
is shared across the organization.
CSMS not only allows CSRs to find
relevant information and respond
to citizen requests more quickly,
it also enables them to offer more
flexible and personalized customer
service by supporting government-
wide collaboration and data sharing
and by providing enhanced case
management capabilities.
Highlights
• NYC 311 improves the
accessibility of public services
while enabling the city to deliver
more flexible, personalized
customer service that reflects
citizens’ preferences, needs and
circumstances.
• CSMS allows CSRs to adopt a
segmented case management
approach to customer service
whereby lighter-touch customer
service cases can be dealt with
as quickly as possible, enabling
CSRs to concentrate time and
resources on managing more
complex cases.
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e-Governance strategy:
Conducting customer segmentation analysis and using customer
insight to target services appropriately
Background
Försäkringskassan is the Swedish
government’s social insurance provider.
Social insurance covers everyone who
lives or works in Sweden. It provides
financial protection for families and
children, for persons with a disability and
in connection with illness, work injury
and old age. As a result, Försäkringskassan
serves a wide range of customers with
very different needs, preferences and
circumstances—from teenagers and
people out of work to the elderly and
people caring for disabled children.
Balance
Sweden:
Försäkringskassan
Solution Overview
Försäkringskassan has launched a new
customer service strategy designed
to increase customer satisfaction and
reduce costs by delivering more flexible,
personalized customer service that
reflects the needs and preferences of
the customer. One of the main aims is
to eliminate unnecessary face-to-face
meetings with citizens who are most able
to help themselves while moving a greater
proportion of customer service cases to
more efficient self-service channels (where
appropriate).
To achieve this, Försäkringskassan
conducted extensive customer
segmentation analysis. Through rigorous
factor and cluster analysis, it defined 17
discrete customer segments based on
life events and complexity of need. The
agency then developed detailed customer
insight around needs, customer service
channel behavior and preferences for each
segment. It used this insight to align the
12 customer segments that make social
insurance claims to three primary contact
channels:
• Self-service:
– Teenagers
– Parents taking time off work to
care for a sick child
– Citizens on maternity/paternity
leave
– New pensioners
– Younger senior citizens
- Unemployed
• Customer service centers:
– Multi-service users
– People recovering from illness
– Older senior citizens
• Personal case worker/
administrator:
– Citizens entitled to disability
support
– People currently suffering from
ill health
– People with a long-term
disability
Through customer segmentation Highlights
analysis, Försäkringskassan Försäkringskassan’s customer
discovered that around 45 percent service strategy is enabling the
of customers could use self-service organization to deliver more equal
as their primary contact channel. outcomes, increase customer
Further, 50 percent of customers
satisfaction and utilize and target
who do not use self-service could resources more effectively by
be incentivized to change their providing citizens with flexible,
behavior and switch to self service personalized customer service that
as their primary contact channel. reflects their needs, preferences
and behavior.
This customer service strategy
has enabled Försäkringskassan to
deliver more personalized, effective
customer service by encouraging
those who are able to use efficient,
online self-service channels. This,
in turn, enables the organization
to channel resources into meeting
the needs of customers who are
least able to help themselves and
who require face-to-face customer
service. During 2008, 4.5 million
unnecessary face-to-face client
service meetings were eliminated;
meanwhile, the proportion of self-
service cases increased from 10.4
percent to 15.3 percent.
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are trademarks of Accenture.

e-Governance strategy:
Ensuring that more citizens can access and use digital media
channels and providing support to those who cannot
Background
In 2002, some of the largest business in
Lithuania collaborated with the Lithuanian
Ministry of the Interior to launch the
Windows to the Future Alliance. The goal:
to “promote the use of Internet in Lithuania,
and thus raise the standard of life of the
country's population, increase the country's
competitiveness in Europe and the world.”
The alliance “supports the development of an
information society” in Lithuania by:
• Providing public Internet access points
• Stimulating the growth of e-services
• Increasing computer literacy and
enabling citizens to use the Internet
The Alliance receives funding on a project
by project basis. So far, its various projects
have been funded by the European Union,
the Lithuanian government and various
businesses both within and outside of the
Windows for the Future Alliance.
Solution Overview
Between 2002 and 2008, the Alliance
established over 800 Public Internet Access
Points, the majority of which are in rural
areas where broadband penetration is
relatively low. This project was funded by the
European Union, the Ministry of the Interior
Balance
Lithuania:
Windows to the
Future Alliance
and businesses both within and outside the
Windows to the Future Alliance.
One of the most successful initiatives
the alliance has launched so far is the
“Computer Literacy Basics for e-Citizens”
project. Between 2006 and 2008, over
50,400 people were coached and tutored
to use computers. More than 85% of those
tutored—mainly 40- to 59-year-olds living in
small regions and towns—now use their own
PC at home and are sharing their knowledge
with family and friends. Training courses
were offered in 2,938 classrooms and 181
PIAPs. In all, the project involved more than
400 trainers. The training initiative cost €2.7
million and was funded by the Windows to
the Future Alliance and the European Union
through the European Social Fund.
Highlights
The Windows to the Future Alliance is
successful at tackling digital exclusion
because it enables businesses and
government to collaborate in the planning
and delivery of digital inclusion strategies.
This collaborative approach has enabled
the Windows for the Future Alliance to
deliver a well-resourced, easily accessible
and effective e-citizen training program
while increasing broadband penetration.
Copyright © 2009 Accenture
All rights reserved.
 Balance

Malaysia:
MySMS
www.mysms.gov.my/

e-Governance strategy:
Ensuring that more citizens can access and use digital media
channels and providing support to those who cannot
Background The MySMS online portal supports MySMS
The Malaysian Government is trying users and features Member Registration,
to improve the accessibility of public FAQs, Types of Services, List of Agencies,
services and information by using ICTs to Training Manual, Promotions, Feedback and
enable the public to access information a blog. Through mySMS, citizens can access
and services online, over the phone and general information about an agency, such
through mobile devices. It is estimated as the addresses and telephone numbers
that of Malaysia’s 27 million people, of particular offices; request documents
24 million have access to a cell phone and forms that will be sent to the user’s
whereas only 16 million have access to email address; and access their personal
the Internet. information held by different agencies
including “examination results, application
status and personal profiles.” To access
Solution Overview personal information, users must be
In July 2008, the Malaysian Administrative registered with the agency that holds that
Modernization and Management Planning information.
Unit (Mampu) launched MySMS, a
single number (15888) to which citizens
can send an SMS message. In doing so,
citizens can access more than 1,500 SMS
services from 86 agencies—including
the police, Road Transport Department,
Ministry of Education, Ministry of
Higher Education and local councils.
Highlights
• Providing citizens with a single
gateway through which they can
access information and services
from multiple agencies makes it
easier for citizens who are less
able to help themselves interact
with government and may well
improve the overall customer
experience.

• SMS services like mySMS increase

the proportion of lighter-touch
or self-service customer service
cases that can be automated. This
enables government to channel
resources into helping citizens
with the most complex needs.

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e-Governance strategy:
Ensuring that more citizens can access and use digital media
channels and providing support to those who cannot
Background
Singapore’s Central Provident Fund
(CPF) Board is a comprehensive national
social security savings plan. It not only
provides savings plans for retirement,
but also for home ownership, health
care and more. CPF currently has around
3.2 million members; of those, around
1.6 million are actively contributing
to their plans. The mission of the CPF
Board is “to enable Singaporeans to
save for a secure retirement,” while
its vision is to be “a world-class social
security organization providing the best
national savings scheme for Singaporeans
to enjoy a secure retirement.”
Balance
Singapore:
CPF Board
m-Ambassadors
The CPF Board has invested in a range
of online and offline engagement
and empowerment initiatives—from
interactive online games to e-counters
in walk-in government offices designed
to educate and enable citizens to plan
for a secure retirement. However, by its
very nature, the organization has a broad
and diverse customer base. Exemplifying
an organization with cradle-to-grave
relationships, the Board serves customers
of all ages—from the very young to the
very old. It also serves all sectors of
society—from the affluent to the poor.
One of the CPF Board’s key challenges,
therefore, is to differentiate its services to
meet the diverse needs of all its customers
and to engage and adequately serve all
sections of society.
Solution Overview
To engage, educate and empower
individuals who are less able to
take advantage of online tools
or who prefer face-to-face
service, the CPF Board employs
mobile Customer Service Officers
(CSO) or “m-ambassadors.” The
m-ambassadors may visit people in
their homes if they have contacted
the call center to report difficulties
they are facing or if the CPF Board
has identified them as being eligible
for payments they have not claimed.
The m-ambassadors also hold
community road shows to educate
customers and give them the
opportunity to use online services.
m-ambassadors use Ultra Mobile
Personal Computers (UMPCs) and
connect to the Internet through the
Wireless@SG service, Singapore’s
free nationwide Internet service
based on wireless zones. This
enables them to deliver CPF services
anywhere in Singapore and in any
location—from shopping malls to
private homes.
Highlights
• The CPF Board is using the
m-ambassador program to deliver
more equal outcomes by reaching
out to deliver services, educate
and empower traditionally hard-
to-reach groups.
• The m-ambassador system
enables the CPF Board to channel
resources into meeting the needs
of citizens who are least able to
help themselves—allowing the
organization to maximize the
value of strategies designed to
reduce the cost of serving those
customers who are able to take
advantage of online, self-service
tools.
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are trademarks of Accenture.

e-Governance strategy:
Enabling citizens to engage with each other through social
networking technologies
Background
An increasing number of charities and
businesses are building participatory
democracy and citizen engagement
websites that use web 2.0 technologies
to enable citizens to participate in their
governance and engage with one another.
MySociety is a United Kingdom site that
uses social networking technologies to
enable people to engage with each other
in new ways—for example, by creating
sites that enable citizens to collaborate
and launch community projects that
improve social and economic outcomes
in their neighborhood; providing people
with a forum for real-time debate and
discussion; and connecting people so they
can contribute to the design and delivery
of participatory websites.
Engagement
United Kingdom:
MySociety.org
www.mysociety.org/
Solution Overview
MySociety is a charitable project that
“builds websites that give people tangible
benefits in the civic and community
aspects of their lives.” MySociety also
aims to “teach the public sector, through
demonstration, how to use the Internet
most efficiently to improve lives.”
MySociety uses an extensive network
of online volunteers connected through
a variety of social networking media
including blogs, RSS feeds and Twitter to
build effective citizen-participation tools.
These tools are improving people’s quality
of life and changing the relationship
between citizens and government.
Since 2004, MySociety has
launched a number of websites
that enable people to participate in
their governance and engage with
each other in new ways including:
• WriteToThem.com is the
only website in the United
Kingdom that people can use
to contact any of their elected
representatives. WriteToThem has
been used to send over 400,000
messages, about half of which
have come from citizens who
are writing to a politician for the
very first time.
• No 10 Downing Street Petitions
Website was built for the Prime
Minister’s Office and enables
citizens to petition government
online. Over five million people
have used the site to sign online
petitions.
Highlights
• As a charity, MySociety connects
citizens—enabling them to
collaborate in the creation of
websites that allow people to
participate in their governance
and engage with each other in
new ways.
• Government organizations such
as the Ministry of Justice, the
Prime Minister’s Office and the
Cabinet Office are working or
have worked with MySociety
to develop websites that create
public value.

• FixMyStreet is a site where

people can report, view or discuss
local problems such as graffiti,
fly tipping, broken paving slabs
or street lighting. Nearly 25,000
problems have now been reported
across the United Kingdom.

• Publicexperience is a pilot project

hosted by MySociety and funded
by the Ministry of Justice. The
project seeks raw, unvarnished
feedback from citizens about
public services.

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 Engagement

France 2025
www.france2025.fr/

e-Governance strategy:
Enabling citizens to engage with each other through social
networking technologies
Background Highlights
In 2008, the French government The French government is encouraging and
launched France 2025—France’s strategic enabling citizens to discuss and debate
assessment project that “aims to draft issues facing government and strategies
different future development scenarios that could be employed to solve some
for the country and recommend winning of the country’s most pressing problems.
strategies.” France2025.fr was launched as This approach strengthens the governance
the project’s website. relationship, improves transparency and is
a valuable idea-generation and innovation
Solution Overview exercise.
France2025.fr uses web 2.0 technologies
(blogs, wikis and video streaming)
to enable citizens to comment on
government proposals and documents; to
discuss and debate issues facing France
in the future; and to collaborate on
suggestions regarding possible strategies
to address these issues.

The interactive elements of the website

are organized around eight key themes,
from globalization to utilities, and
numerous sub-themes. The site enables
citizens to comment on specific issues, as
well as provide more general comments.

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e-Governance strategy:
Enabling citizens to engage with each other through social
networking technologies
Background
In 2008, District of Columbia CTO Vivek
Kundra launched Apps for Democracy, a
contest in which members of the public
were invited to create iPhone, Facebook
and web applications and mashups to
visualize and make use of DC.gov’s data
catalog. The data catalog contains all
types of open public data, such as real-
time crime feeds, school test scores and
poverty indicators. Apps for Democracy
was a huge success, costing the District of
Columbia $50,000 but resulting in a set
of applications worth an estimated $2.6
million or more. Building on the success of
Apps for Democracy, the District decided
to launch the Digital Public Square “to
make government services more effective,
accessible and transparent.”
Engagement
United States:
District of Columbia’s
Digital Public Square
dps.dc.gov/
Solution Overview
The Digital Public Square is a government
portal that uses web 2.0 technologies to
enable citizens to discover how district
agencies work, to participate in the
democratic process and to connect with
government and each other. The project
reflects the districts CTO’s belief that we
are entering a “new era of governance,
one in which technological advances
now allow people from around the world
unfettered access to their government.”
The site enables citizens to:
• Access, scrutinize and visualize
government data by opening up the
data catalog and allowing users to
create custom downloads and live data
feeds.
• Use and create mashups and
applications built by the public and
government for a range of purposes.
• Use a range of popular social
networking sites to discuss and debate
issues facing government and share
information about government and
public services.
Highlights
The Digital Public Square provides
citizens with a single portal
through which they can participate
in their governance by accessing
government data, sharing ideas,
collaborating to create applications
that improve people’s quality of life
and telling government what they
want from their public services.

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 Engagement

United Kingdom:
Hertfordshire
Constabulary’s Online
Watch Link
www.owl.co.uk/

e-Governance strategy:
Enabling citizens to participate in their governance through
digital media
Background Highlights
Police forces across the United Kingdom • Online Watch Link enables and
are trying to enhance community encourages citizens to connect,
intelligence and communication while collaborate and engage with each
supporting neighborhood policing more another to deliver improved outcomes.
effectively. To achieve this, Hertfordshire
Constabulary launched Online Watch Link • The police use the virtual citizen
in 2007. network created through Online Watch
Link to improve the efficiency and
effectiveness of their operations.
Solution Overview
Online Watch Link (OWL) is a web- • Online Watch Link enables the public
based application that connects all to become actively involved in their
Neighborhood Watch, School Watch, governance as co-producers of public
Rural Watch, Shop Watch, Business safety.
Watch and many other watch programs
in Hertfordshire, Staffordshire and
parts of North Wales. OWL enables the
police to provide timely and localized
communications to watch groups across
the county—helping prevent crime or find
missing people or wanted suspects. The
system enhances communications via
phone, text messaging, fax and email.

Online Watch Link also incorporates

management tools the police and public
use for starting and maintaining watches.
The application enables thousands of
volunteer coordinators to securely and
effectively manage watch programs with
minimal police input.
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 Engagement

Australia:
Country Fire Authority
and the Victoria
Fires Map
mapvisage.appspot.com/fires/
FireMap.html

e-Governance strategy:
Enabling citizens to participate in their governance through
digital media
Background Highlights
The Country Fire Authority, a volunteer- The Country Fire Authority RSS feed
based emergency management provides the public with government
organization, is responsible for preventing data in a standardized, usable format. It
and fighting fires in Victoria, Australia. In enabled a private organization to partner
February 2009, Victoria experienced some with government in creating public value
of the worst bushfires in living memory. by developing a mashup that visualized
To provide the public with real-time government data effectively.
information about the number, location
and severity of these bushfires, Google
created the Victoria Fires Map.

Solution Overview
The Victoria Fires Map is a Flash map that
overlays Country Fire Authority data on
to Google Maps. The data is updated in
real time from the Country Fire Authority
website via the Country Fire Authority
RSS feed. Launched within a few hours of
the start of the emergency, the Victoria
Fires Map greatly assisted the public and
emergency services by providing them
with up-to-date information and reducing
the burden on other websites.

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e-Governance strategy:
Enabling citizens to participate in their governance through
digital media
Background
Citizen engagement and improved
transparency are priorities for the Obama
administration:
“We need to connect citizens with each
other to engage them more fully and
directly in solving the problems that face
us. We must use all available technologies
and methods to open up the federal
government, creating a new level of
transparency to change the way business
is conducted in Washington and giving
Americans the chance to participate in
government deliberations and decision
making in ways that were not possible
only a few years ago.”
Barack Obama, Presidential
Announcement Speech in Springfield, IL
02/10/07
Solution Overview
The Obama administration is changing the
way that citizens relate to government—
using technology to enable greater citizen
participation and to solicit and respond to
citizen feedback. As part of this agenda,
the White House launched the Open for
Questions project. The public was given
two days to post questions about the
Engagement
United States:
The White house Open
for Questions
www.whitehouse.gov/Openforquestions/
economy on whitehouse.gov. The public
rated the questions submitted and then
President Obama answered the questions
with the highest rating in a special online
town hall streamed on whitehouse.gov.
Over 100,000 questions were submitted
and 3.5 million votes cast.
Highlights
• Open for Questions was a mass citizen
engagement initiative that effectively
engaged large numbers of people.
• Responding to citizen feedback in
a transparent and meaningful way
enabled a citizen-government dialogue
to emerge, which increased citizen
interest in and support for future
citizen-participation initiatives.
Copyright © 2009 Accenture
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e-Governance strategy:
Enabling citizens to participate in their governance through
digital media
Background
The aim of the Dutch e-government is “to
improve information exchange, service
delivery and interactive participation by
introducing a new partnership between
citizen and government.” To achieve
this, the Dutch government decided that
through Information Communication
Technologies, citizens should have more
responsibility and choice and should
be actively involved in the delivery
of public services. In 2004, the Dutch
Ministry of the Interior launched the
e-Citizen program—an independent
platform designed to “stimulate the
development of e-government from
the citizen's point of view.” To that
end, the program solicited citizen input
through surveys and forums to aid in the
development of an e-Citizen Charter.
Engagement
The Netherlands:
The Dutch e-Citizen
Charter
Solution Overview
The Dutch e-Citizen Charter consists
of 10 quality standards that define the
digital relationship between citizens and
government. Each standard is built around
a citizen right or entitlement:
• Choice of Channel: As a citizen, I
can choose which way to deal with
government. Government ensures
multi-channel service delivery—that is,
the availability of all communication
channels: visit, letter, phone, e-mail and
Internet.
• Transparent Public Sector: As a citizen,
I know where to apply for official
information and public services.
Government guarantees one-stop-
shop service delivery and acts as one
seamless entity with no wrong doors.
• Overview of Rights and Duties: As a
citizen, I know which services I am
entitled to under which conditions.
Government ensures that my rights and
duties are at all times transparent.
• Personalized Information: As a citizen,
I am entitled to information that is
complete, up to date and consistent.
Government supplies appropriate
information tailored to my needs.
• Convenient Services: As a citizen,
I can choose to provide personal
data once and to be served in
a proactive way. Government
makes clear what records it keeps
about me and does not use data
without my consent.
• Comprehensive Procedures: As a
citizen, I can easily get to know
how government works and
monitor progress. Government
keeps me informed of procedures
I am involved in by way of
tracking and tracing.
• Trust and Reliability: As a
citizen, I presume government
to be electronically competent.
Government guarantees secure
identity management and reliable
storage of electronic documents.
• Considerate Administration:
As a citizen, I can file ideas
for improvement and lodge
complaints. Government
compensates mistakes and uses
feedback information to improve
its products and procedures.
• Accountability and
Benchmarking: As a citizen, I
am able to compare, check and
measure government outcome.
Government actively supplies
benchmark information about its
performance.
• Engagement and Empowerment:
As a citizen, I am invited
to participate in decision
making and to promote my
interests. Government supports
empowerment and ensures that
the necessary information and
instruments are available.
Through each quality standard,
these citizen rights are mapped
to obligations public service
organizations must fulfill to
deliver citizen-centric, multi-
channel e-government across
local and national government
in the Netherlands. In 2006,
the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development
(OECD) recommended that the
Dutch Government should integrate
the e-Citizen Charter into national
policy. As a result, the charter
and associated quality standards
are being adopted by the Dutch
Standardization Council as the
national standard for public service
delivery. In 2008, CitizenLink took
over from the e-Citizen program
and uses the e-Citizen charter
to advise local and national
government on citizen-centric
e-government solutions; monitor
progress toward citizen-centric
e-government and encourage
e-participation.
Highlights
• The Dutch e-Citizen Charter
is an e-participation and
e-government strategy the Dutch
government is using to help
organizations move away from
producer-centric approaches and
toward e-government solutions
that are of real benefit to citizens
and that enable the public to
participate in their governance.
• The Dutch government is using
the e-Citizen Charter to share
best practices and encourage
and enable organizations from
different levels of government to
develop effective e-participation
platforms. As a government-wide
e-participation strategy, the
Dutch e-Citizen Charter ensures
that organizations from across
government view e-participation
as a strategic priority and are
aware of key practices associated
with effective e-participation
and citizen-centric e-government
projects.
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are trademarks of Accenture.

e-Governance strategy:
Enabling citizens to participate in their governance through
digital media
Background
In 1999, the newly established Scottish
Parliament committed itself to principles
of “open, accessible and participative
democracy.” Reflecting this commitment,
the Parliament established the Public
Petition Committee to oversee the public
petitions process. The Scottish Parliament
considers this process vital to encouraging
public participation as it provides
“members of the public with direct access
to the policy development and scrutiny
processes.” The Public Petitions Committee
considers public petitions addressed to
the Parliament, determines whether a
petition is admissible, decides what action
should be taken upon an admissible public
petition and continually reviews the
operation of the public petitions system—
including the e-petitions system.
Solution Overview
Launched in 2004, the e-petitioner is a
web-based tool that enables citizens to
raise, view, learn about, sign, comment on,
discuss and track the status of e-petitions.
This user-friendly tool is fully integrated
into the Scottish Parliament’s website.
Engagement
Scotland, UK:
e-Petitioner
epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/
At the time of its launch, e-petitioner was
truly innovative; the Scottish Parliament
was the first in the world to enable
citizens to raise e-petitions. However,
with the advent of web 2.0 and social
media technologies, the Public Petitions
Committee has been exploring new ways
of enabling participation and engaging
the public. This review of the e-petitions
system was, in part, a response to a 2007
petition submitted through e-petitioner
entitled “New technologies and engaging
young people in the democratic process.”
The inquiry concluded that the e-petition
system should be re-developed to include
web 2.0 technologies as a priority and that
new interactive, social media technologies
should be used to increase awareness of
the public petitions system and encourage
public participation. As a result of the
inquiry, the Public Petitions Committee
launched a new blog page that allows
petitioners and the committee to share
photographs; to post and view video
and podcasts; and to link to the Scottish
Parliament’s YouTube page, website
and podcasts through Holyrood TV, the
Parliament’s webcasting service.
Highlights
From a very early stage, the
Scottish Parliament has partnered
with citizens in creating public
value—encouraging individuals to
participate in their governance and
enabling them to contribute to the
policy development and scrutiny
processes online.
The e-petitioner tool empowers
petitioners to engage and work
with a wide audience across
Scotland; to raise, generate support
for and track the status of petitions
quickly and easily; to discuss and
debate petitions and issues facing
government; and to provide the
public with detailed supporting
information.
As early leaders in e-participation,
the Scottish Parliament is looking
at ways in which it can use web
2.0 technologies to regain its
leadership position, encourage
citizens to participate in the
public petitions process, reach
out to traditionally hard-to-reach
groups and, ultimately, enable
citizens to continue partnering
with government in the creation of
public value.
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are trademarks of Accenture.
 Engagement

Kentucky Open Door

opendoor.ky.gov

e-Governance strategy:
Educating citizens and encouraging participation through online
training and learning resources
Background
In January 2009, Kentucky launched
Kentucky Open Door, a web-based
transparency and accountability tool
designed to “provide a more transparent,
accountable state government, and to
allow you [residents] the opportunity to
find out how your tax dollars are being
applied to move our state forward.”
Highlights
The Kentucky Open Door illustrates
how building citizen learning platforms
into web-based transparency and
accountability tools enables citizens
to acquire the knowledge required to
engage government in a meaningful
dialogue about public value, spending and
performance.

Solution Overview
Kentucky Open Door includes a citizen
education platform. The educational
component is designed to teach people
how the state budget is prepared, give
them insight into the state’s rainy day
fund and enable them to view Kentucky’s
top appropriations. The learning platform
also includes a budget builder, which gives
users a chance to understand in more
detail the considerations and compromises
that shape budgetary decisions.

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e-Governance strategy:
Educating citizens and encouraging participation through online
training and learning resources
Background
Online participatory budgeting is
becoming increasingly common. New
government websites enable constituents
to not only understand how government
spending priorities are determined and
how budgets are created, but also to set
up their own budgets and submit their
spending preferences to government. This
interaction empowers citizens around the
world to develop a deeper, more detailed
understanding of how government and
public service organizations operate
and the complex, conflicting demands
constituents place upon them. In New
Zealand, the Wellington City Council
is using online participatory budgeting
to create a more informed, active
citizenry that is better able to engage in
a conversation with government about
public value and what they expect from
public services.
Engagement
Wellington City Council,
New Zealand:
Wellington Budget
Simulator
www.budgetsimulator.com/wellington
Solution Overview
In 2009, Wellington City Council launched
the Wellington Budget Simulator, a
website that enables residents to find
out what range of services the council is
responsible for, how spending increases
and decreases in each area affect rate
levels and how changes in spending affect
services. Once users have designed their
budget and have seen how their choices
would affect services and rates, their
choices are submitted to the council. As
a result, decision makers enjoy a better
understanding of citizens’ preferred
spending priorities as they consult on the
draft plan for 2009-19.
The main aim of the Wellington Budget
Simulator is to help residents understand
the difficult choices the council faces
in trying to keep rates affordable
while retaining the resources that help
Wellington stay vibrant and internationally
competitive.
Highlights
For citizens, the Wellington
Budget Simulator illuminates the
competing demands government
must consider when formulating
a budget. The site also provides
citizens with insight into the actual
impact spending changes may
have on their city. In this way,
the Wellington Budget Simulator
shows citizens how complicated
and difficult it is for government
to create budgets that reflect the
preferences and needs of all its
constituents. This kind of online,
interactive participatory learning
experience enables citizens to
engage government in a more
productive way and to participate
more fully in their governance.

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e-Governance strategy:
Educating citizens and encouraging participation through online
training and learning resources
Background
Without intervention, an estimated 90
percent of children in the United Kingdom
could be overweight or obese and at risk
from serious diseases by 2050, placing a
huge burden on the health service and
resulting in a public health crisis. The
government is trying to tackle the problem
from the bottom up by educating the
public about healthy living and bringing
about a “lifestyle revolution on a huge
scale.” To tackle the “obesity epidemic,”
the Department of Health launched
Change4Life: a campaign designed to
“galvanise support from everyone in the
country, from grass roots organizations
to leading supermarkets and charities” to
“halt the rising tide of obesity.”
Engagement
United Kingdom:
Change4Life
www.nhs.uk/Change4life
Solution Overview
The aim of the Change4Life project is
to reduce obesity levels by educating
the public about the causes of obesity
and steps they can take to improve
their health. The Change4Life campaign
uses TV advertising, posters, billboards
and online channels to communicate
a core set of simple messages to the
public—including “fat in the body” is more
important than “fat bodies”; there is a
definite link between fat and preventable
illnesses; modern life is responsible for
the obesity epidemic; and a few minor
lifestyle changes can result in dramatically
improved health.
The Change4Life campaign is a partnership
between government, charities and
businesses. The Department of Health
encourages any organization, from
supermarkets to local charities, to register
as partners and support this society-wide
initiative:
"Ten million people visit their
corner shops every day and 36
million shop at Asda and Tesco
(supermarkets) each week—the
fact that grocers and supermarkets
are on board means we can
really influence what goes into
our shopping trolleys. It's
unprecedented for supermarkets
to join the Government and pledge
to cut prices on healthy food. But
this isn't an exclusive club. Anyone
who promises to help families to
be healthier can join. I am today
challenging every CEO of every
company who can influence what
we eat and how we exercise to
come forward and tell us how they
are going to help beat this national
epidemic. Obesity affects us all so
everyone must get involved."
Highlights
• Through the Change4Life
campaign, government is trying
to enroll charities and businesses
as co-producers of improved
public health.
• The Change4Life website is a
well-designed citizen education
platform that effectively conveys
key messages and provides
citizens with links to online and
offline support, so it is easier for
them to change their lifestyle.

Secretary of State for Health,

Alan Johnson

The cornerstone of the initiative

is the Change4Life website. The
Change4Life interactive website
is engaging and easy to use and
navigate, with key messages
conveyed through online games
and interactive tools. Potential
partner organizations can also use
the website to register.

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 Engagement

Norway:
NAV eLearning
elaring.nav.no/alderspensjon/

e-Governance strategy:
Educating citizens and encouraging participation through online
training and learning resources
Background Throughout the course, there are questions
In 2006, the Norwegian Government for users and practical examples to
embarked upon a major pension reform illustrate and reinforce learning points.
program designed to increase the level The tool also features a glossary, and users
of flexibility in the pension system, can choose to assess their knowledge
encourage employees to stay in work through a test.
longer and ensure that the pension system
is fiscally sustainable in the long term. Highlights
This reform program has had a major Your Pension is a highly effective
impact on citizens in terms of pension e-learning tool. It presents complicated
policy, eligibility requirements and messages and learning points in an easily
incentives. accessible way. Engaging interactive
functionality includes self-assessment
Solution Overview tests, multiple-choice questions and
To educate citizens and provide them with illustrative examples.
an overview of the reform program and
how it will affect them, the Norwegian
Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV)
has launched a eLearning tool as part of
“Din Pensjon” (Your Pension), which can
be accessed from NAV’s website (www.
nav.no). Din Pensjon is a comprehensive
self-service solution that enables the
public to apply for pensions online and
allows users to view standard payables
such as next payment and last payment.
Din Pensjon also includes a standalone
e-learning course module that enables Copyright © 2009 Accenture
users to understand how the pensions All rights reserved.
reform program affects them in terms of Accenture, its logo, and
how they earn and receive their pension
High Performance Delivered
and how individual pensions are regulated.
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e-Governance strategy:
Increasing transparency and accountability by developing
web-based tools to report on results achieved
Background
The American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act is an economic stimulus package.
Worth approximately $787 billion, the
package is designed to jumpstart the
United States economy while saving
and creating millions of jobs. Some
stimulus money is distributed by federal
agencies, such as the Departments of
Education, Health and Human Services
and Energy, which decide who will
receive award grants and contracts.
Stimulus money is also being given to
state governments and, in some cases,
is going directly to schools, hospitals,
contractors and other organizations. The
Act provides for unprecedented levels
of transparency and accountability and
makes it clear that citizens must be
able to find out how, when and where
their tax dollars are spent. To achieve
this, Recovery.gov was launched to
enable citizens to track the progress
and impact of the economic stimulus.
Accountability
United States:
Recovery.gov
www.recovery.gov/
Solution Overview
The American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act transparency and accountability site,
Recovery.gov, has three aims:
• Education—Explain the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act
• Transparency—Show how, when and
where the money is spent
• Accountability—Provide data that will
allow citizens to evaluate the Act’s
progress and provide feedback
The site currently includes interactive
graphics to show projections of how
stimulus money will be distributed across
areas and the number of jobs created or
saved in each state. The site also currently
includes an online form that enables
users to “share their recovery story” and
send government feedback regarding the
effectiveness of the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act. In the future, the
site will include information about federal
grant awards and contracts as well as
formula grant allocations. Federal agencies
will provide data on how they are using
stimulus money, and eventually, prime
recipients of federal funding will provide
information on how they are using their
federal funds.
Highlights
• Recovery.gov is user friendly and
easy to navigate, making it easier
for citizens to find, visualize and
interpret information.
• Recovery.gov includes community
pages and interactive channels
that enable citizens to provide
feedback to government.
• Recovery.gov includes education
and learning pages that enable
citizens to interpret stimulus
data and evaluate the impact of
the stimulus act.
• Recovery.gov is continually
updated and improved to include
new, up-to-date information
as agencies and organizations
receiving stimulus funding make
such information available.
• The site has links to all other
agency and state stimulus sites
so the public can use Recovery.
gov as a one-stop transparency
and accountability site to track
the impact of stimulus spending.

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are trademarks of Accenture.

e-Governance strategy:
Increasing transparency and accountability by developing
web-based tools to report on results achieved
Background
Government organizations around the
world are trying to increase citizen
trust by making more spending and
performance data available for public
scrutiny. In his first State of the City
Address in 2002, New York City’s Major
Bloomberg signaled his commitment to
accountability and transparency: “As
elected officials, we must remind ourselves
that we are here to serve all of the people,
not just those who voted for us. That's
why we are doing everything possible
to create ‘Openness in Government’...
‘Open Government’ is not just a slogan;
it's the only effective way to deal with
complicated problems. As part of ‘Open
Government,’ we will create a ‘Citizen
Service Center,’ that will allow New
Yorkers to reach all services by calling one
phone number, ‘3-1-1.’"
By 2008, 311 was receiving over 15
million calls a year—and having a dramatic
impact on New York’s public services.
Launched in February 2008 and 2009,
respectively, the Citywide Performance
Reporting and NYCStat systems use data
from 311 and other sources to enable
New Yorkers to understand their city
government’s performance.
Accountability
United States:
NYC Citywide
Performance Reporting
and My Neighborhood
Statistics
www.nyc.gov/html/ops/nycstat
Solution Overview
The NYCStat portal is New York City’s
one-stop shop for all essential data,
reports and statistics related to city
services. NYCStat provides access to
a wide array of performance-related
information—including citywide and
agency-specific information, 311-related
data and interactive mapping features for
selected performance data and quality-of-
life indicators. Through NYCStat, New York
City is using web-based technologies to
enable citizens to become directly involved
in their governance by “eliminating the
mystery about where and what kinds of
performance information are available.”
Ultimately, the portal is making public
service organizations more accountable to
their customers.
The NYCStat portal provides quick and
easy access to a range of different
reporting tools. Among them:
• CPR, the Citywide Performance
Reporting System, an interactive
dashboard designed for user-friendly
access to the most critical performance
indicators for every city agency, with
monthly updates and automatic
evaluation of trends within specified
program areas
• The Mayor’s Management Report,
the public report card on city
agency performance that is
published twice a year
• The NYC*SCOUT web page, which
maps street conditions, such as
potholes and catch-basin defects,
and allows users to track the
progress of repairs
• My Neighborhood Statistics
(MNS), which maps comparative
performance data at the
neighborhood level for
approximately 50 selected
performance measures
• Scorecard Cleanliness Ratings,
updated monthly for streets and
sidewalks throughout the five
boroughs
• 311 Customer Service Center
data, including basic operational
statistics and community-level
reports on the city’s response to
service requests from 311 callers
• Citywide Customer Survey Results
from the 2008 survey of New
Yorkers’ opinions on the delivery
of city services
• NYCity Map, which lets users find
information on transportation,
education, public safety,
resident services, neighborhood
information and city life
• Additional performance measures
at the websites of 12 key city
agencies
A crucial part of the NYCStat
portal is the Citywide Performance
Reporting (CPR) tool. Launched
in February 2008, CPR seeks to
implement transparent, interactive
performance management and
improve accountability by making
performance data easily accessible.
CPR is a feature-rich set of web-
based applications that:
• Track performance for the most
important "outcome" measures—
those directly reflecting how
citizens' lives are affected by area, analyze long-term trends, and
government. Many of these review specific agencies' outcome
measures are being reported for measures.
the first time and represent fresh
thinking about how to measure
the outcomes each agency is
responsible for.
• Measure performance by
comparing current data to data
for the same period the year
before, thereby holding agencies
accountable for year-over-year
improvement.
• Make performance trends
obvious by providing graphical As part of the NYCStat portal,
representation of performance, My Neighborhood Statistics
including pie charts and color- lets residents know how city
coding to provide early warnings agencies are performing in their
for areas that need attention. neighborhood by enabling them to
view locally mapped performance
• Provide drill-down capability, statistics using a street address or
allowing users to review intersection. Color-shaded maps
comparative trends over a five- also allow for easy comparisons
year period. of highs and lows in different
neighborhoods.
• Aggregate important measures
into citywide themes, which
cut across agency silos and
disciplines to reveal the overall
picture about city government
performance.
• Deliver monthly, quarterly
or annual updates of each
measure—depending on how
often the statistic is produced—
so the most recent data is always
available.
Highlights
CPR: Agency Performance Reporting
• Enable users to download data and My Neighborhood Statistics
for more detailed review and are very strong e-transparency
analysis. platforms in terms of enabling
the public to understand how
• Provide detailed information government is performing. They
about each measure, including an are also user-friendly sites that
explanation of what the measure enable individuals to decide
means, its reporting frequency how to visualize the data of
and other useful details. interest. However, because these
platforms do not link performance
CPR: Agency Performance Reporting data to government spending,
is New York City's comprehensive the public cannot use them
online performance reporting tool to understand how efficiently
that gives the public access to a and effectively government
collection of critical performance is spending public money.
measures from more than 40 city
agencies. The tool enables users to
search for performance measures Copyright © 2009 Accenture
relating to a specific service or
All rights reserved.

e-Governance strategy:
Increasing transparency and accountability by developing
web-based tools to report on results achieved
Background
The 2009 American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (ARRA) supplies
around $787 billion of funding to US
government agencies and departments
designed to support efforts that include
modernizing health care, improving
schools, upgrading infrastructure and
investing in technologies that will lay the
foundation for a robust and sustainable
21st-century economy. Stimulus funds
allocated to New York City are being
used to ensure the continuation of
vital city services, provide assistance
to New Yorkers in need and stimulate
the city’s economy. By law, government
organizations receiving these funds
must provide citizens and public officials
with the ability to track how federal
stimulus funds are received and spent.
Accountability
United States:
NYCStat Stimulus Tracker
www.nyc.gov/html/ops/nycstim
Solution Overview
NYCStat Stimulus Tracker is New York
City’s web-based transparency and
accountability tool designed to allow
citizens to follow stimulus funding
progress at the project, contract and
payment levels and enables the public
to understand how effectively the
city is spending stimulus money by
linking public outcomes to money
spent through the Outcome Tracker and
Contract/Budget Tracker. The stimulus
tracker also includes geographic
information systems (GIS) technologies
that provide a mapping component,
enabling citizens to understand how
stimulus funding is making a difference
in their neighborhoods. Specifically,
NYCStat Stimulus Tracker looks at
the city’s use of stimulus funding in
eight areas: infrastructure; energy
efficiency; economic and workforce
development; health and social services;
education; public safety; neighborhood
stabilization; and budget relief.
NYCStat Stimulus Tracker enables
citizens to:
• See how funding sources are
distributed to building projects
and other city programs.
• Track key performance
measurements, such as jobs
created.
• Drill down to see details of
projects and learn how these
projects are helping the city—for
example, the start and end dates
of construction projects.
• View an interactive map of
certain project and program
locations.
• Help hold city government
accountable by easily identifying
progress toward program goals.
Highlights
• By linking outcomes, such as
jobs created or sustained and
number of internships created,
to stimulus spending, residents
are able to understand how
effectively the city is spending
public money to improve people’s
quality of life.
• The stimulus tracker enables
citizens to understand how, why
and where the city is spending
stimulus funding by organizing
data by area, subcategory and
project/program.
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High Performance Delivered
are trademarks of Accenture.

e-Governance strategy:
Increasing transparency and accountability by developing
web-based tools to report on results achieved
Background
From the start, the Obama administration
has made it clear that it is committed
to transparent, open and accountable
government. To meet this goal, the
administration has launched a number
of initiatives including recovery.gov, the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
tracking site, and the appointment of the
nation’s first Chief Performance Officer.
The Federal Government CIO Vivek Kundra
believes that this new style of government
involves “engaging citizens, making sure
that we put information out there in the
public domain and a different worldview
of what it means to be a citizen.... The
idea of citizenship in terms of civic
participation and transparency or open
government allows you...to embrace the
notion that the government is about we
the people and that it's taxpayer dollars
that are being spent.”
Solution Overview
The IT Dashboard, as part of the federal
government’s comprehensive budget
tracking portal USASpending.gov, is
designed to enable citizens to understand:
• How the federal IT budget is distributed
across agencies.
Accountability
United States:
The IT Dashboard
it.usaspending.gov/
• How federal agencies spend their IT
budgets in terms of specific projects and
programs.
• How agencies and individual programs
are performing in terms of actual
cost against allocation (measured in
percentage variance from planned),
schedule (measured in average days late
per milestone) and an overall evaluation
rating from the agency CIO, which
includes a range of difficult-to-quantify
factors, such as risk management and
contractor oversight.
The IT Dashboard enables users to create
personalized data feeds they can use
to build mashups, applications and
widgets. The dashboard also has extensive
visualization capabilities that enable users
to create a wide variety of customized,
interactive charts.
In the future, the IT Dashboard will
include more detailed and more extensive
spending and performance data, along
with additional chart customization
features, agency-generated content, such
as widgets or mashups using IT Dashboard
data, and personal portfolios that enable
users to create their own portfolio of
“investments” to watch and subscribe to
updates to these investments.
Highlights
Even though the scope of the IT
Dashboard is limited to tracking
IT spending, it is one of the most
successful web-based transparency
and accountability tools
government has developed:

• The IT Dashboard enables citizens

to understand how government is
spending public money in terms
of total federal IT expenditure,
agency IT spending and spending
on individual projects and
programs.
• The IT Dashboard links spending
with performance and uses
multiple performance measures
to enable citizens to understand
how effectively government
spends public money.
• Although the dashboard gives
citizens access to a huge amount
of data, its comprehensive
visualization tools enable citizens
to create customized, animated
graphs and charts that ensure
the data is searchable, intelligible
and easily accessible.
• The IT Dashboard includes
extensive education and learning
materials, including a video,
Frequently Asked Questions pages
and “help” links throughout the
tool to ensure that users are
able to access and interpret
the spending and performance
data the IT dashboard makes
available. Ultimately, the
dashboard enables citizens to
hold government accountable for
its spending and performance.

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are trademarks of Accenture.

e-Governance strategy:
Enabling citizens to report problems and resolve complaints
through online channels
Background
Sitapur (Uttar Pradesh, India) is a
predominantly poor, rural district. When
a new district magistrate was appointed
in July 2004, the system for reporting
problems to government was on the verge
of collapse. All grievances had to be raised
either face to face in a single government
office or via letter. There were no
computers to help government employees
track and respond to citizens’ grievances.
What’s more, the system for processing
citizens’ complaints was inefficient and
opaque. In 2005, the district launched
Lokvani to provide the public with a more
efficient and effective means of reporting
problems to government.
Solution Overview
Lokvani is a Government to Citizen, or
G2C, interface that provides citizens
with a channel for registering grievances
with government. The Lokvani portal
enables citizens to report problems to
Accountability
India:
Lokvani
sitapur.nic.in/lokvani/
government quickly and easily using
online forms. It has also dramatically
improved the efficiency, transparency and
accountability of back-office processes
designed to resolve citizens’ complaints.
Because the vast majority of Sitapur’s
residents do not have computers at home,
Lokvani is made available via Internet
kiosks. By 2008, 110 Lokvani kiosks had
been established across the district.
These kiosks are cyber-cafes that act
as “franchises” for the Lokvani system,
with kiosk owners actively encouraging
citizens to register grievances through
the Lokvani system. Because the literacy
rate in the district is just 38 percent
and computer literacy is rare, the
Lokvani portal is specially designed to
be as user friendly as possible. Between
2005 and 2008, individuals registered
over 100,000 grievances through the
Lokvani portal. In fact, the system
has been so successful it has now
been rolled out across 35 districts.
Highlights
• Lokvani has dramatically
improved the efficiency and
effectiveness of the grievance
reporting system in Sitapur.
Citizens can now report problems
online at their convenience; they
no longer have to travel to a
government office and stand in
long lines to register grievances
face to face. Further, their
problems are resolved much more
quickly than they were under the
previous system.
• Lokvani has been so successful
because district government
effectively engaged private
businesses in local communities,
enabling government to provide
citizens with free access to the
portal through Internet kiosks.

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High Performance Delivered
are trademarks of Accenture.
 Accountability

United Kingdom:
Community Fix
www.communityfix.co.uk/

e-Governance strategy:
Enabling citizens to report problems and resolve complaints
through online channels
Background Highlights
Individuals and private organizations Community Fix provides citizens with a
(charities and businesses) are developing single channel for reporting problems
websites that make it easier and more to government so they can be fixed as
convenient for citizens to report problems quickly as possible. Sites like Community
to and request services from government. Fix are likely to grow in popularity
These sites are much faster and easier to because they reduce the cost to the
use than most government sites, which citizen of interacting with government;
require users to submit online service the majority of local government websites
request forms, send emails or place require users to find and then submit a
telephone calls. service request form or call a hotline,
whereas sites like Community Fix enable
Solution Overview citizens to report problems in seconds and
upload photographs in place of a detailed
Created and maintained by a new media description of the problem.
agency, the Community Fix website uses
web 2.0 technologies to enable citizens
to report local problems directly to the
organizations responsible for fixing them.
Users simply pinpoint the exact location
of the problem on a map and give a brief
description of the problem. Users also
have the option to upload a photograph of
the problem. The information is then sent
automatically to the government agency
responsible for addressing the issue. Once
the problem is resolved, users post this
information on the site, and the problem
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is labeled as fixed. Between the site’s
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launch in February 2008 and February
2009, users submitted more than 10,000 Accenture, its logo, and
incident reports to government agencies High Performance Delivered
across the United Kingdom. are trademarks of Accenture.