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Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision: A Strategic Assessment (2007)

Chapter: Appendix E A Short History of E-Government

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E A Short History of E-Government." National Research Council. 2007. Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision: A Strategic Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11920.
×

E
A Short History of E-Government

Begun approximately a decade ago, e-government refers to the application of the Internet and other information technology (IT) to provide governmental information and services electronically. It offers the potential of increased convenience to the public by making such services available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, coupled with the advantages of improved accuracy and also reduced cost to the government, deriving from its requiring little or no direct interaction with a government employee. (See Box 1.1 in Chapter 1 of this report for more on the distinction between electronic services and e-government and on the terminology used in this report, generally.) This appendix offers some context for the Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) e-government activities and plans. The appendix consists of a brief look at the legal and policy background information as well as history of the federal government’s experience with e-government, what the status of e-government is across the United States and to some extent internationally, and then how the SSA’s role and progress compare with those of other government agencies.

E-GOVERNMENT DEPLOYMENT IN THE U.S. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Until the 1990s the federal government, like much of the business world, used information technology to automate backroom operations, with little emphasis on automating “customer-facing” functions such as

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E A Short History of E-Government." National Research Council. 2007. Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision: A Strategic Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11920.
×

information dissemination or service delivery. In many ways, this strategic focus reflected a mainframe processing mentality that had dominated federal IT policy and strategy since the 1960s related to the passage of the Brooks Act of 1949.1 Under the Brooks Act, one federal agency, the General Services Administration (GSA), was responsible for acquiring IT on behalf of federal agencies.2 Although the GSA had an elaborate process for delegating this procurement authority to federal agencies, this degree of centralization in IT governance represented a focus on using IT to save money in backroom operations. As a result, the primary criteria for evaluating IT investments were economy and efficiency, so all systems were justified on a “least cost” basis. Interagency IT efforts focused on consolidation efforts such as the Department of Agriculture’s National Finance Center for payroll and accounting, which sought to standardize financial systems based on commercial off-the-shelf products and to eliminate duplicative personnel systems.3

Starting around the late 1990s, attention began to shift away from simply backroom operations. The federal Chief Information Officer’s Council began emphasizing IT projects that offered “service to the citizen.” At about the same time, the administration was conducting the National Performance Review (NPR, otherwise known as Reengineering Government) effort, which placed strong emphasis on IT-enabled government. Publication of the NPR report Access America: Reengineering Through Information Technology in February 1997 was one of the first occasions on which the federal government began addressing what is now referred to as electronic government.4

The projects identified in that report represented a departure from historical emphasis on internal efficiency and economy. The very first initiative involved improving service delivery through technology. This shift from economy and efficiency to service delivery culminated with the first presidential-level directive to federal agencies on e-government

1

Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, Public Law 89-306, 40 U.S.C. 759.

2

The Warner Amendment of 1982 (Public Law 97-86) subsequently exempted certain types of Department of Defense procurements from the Brooks Act and from Section 11 of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949. See U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Issue Update on Information Privacy and Security in Network Environments, OTA-BP-ITC-147, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, June 1995, p. 106.

3

S.H. Holden, “The Evolution of Information Technology Management at the Federal Level: Implications for Public Administration,” pp. 53-73 in Public Information Technology: Policy and Management Issues, G. David Garson, Ed., Hershey, Pa.: Idea Group, 2003.

4

See http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/announc/access/acessrpt.html, accessed June 20, 2007.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E A Short History of E-Government." National Research Council. 2007. Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision: A Strategic Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11920.
×

in December 1999.5 The FirstGov.gov Web site, which went online in September 2000, projected the vision that it was “the official U.S. gateway to all government information.”6

In addition to this federal government activity, other groups were also articulating a vision for e-government. The National Science Foundation (NSF), which adopted the term “digital government” in its efforts, convened a group of prominent researchers in public administration, public policy, information systems, and computer science, along with government practitioners, to articulate a vision for what they called an agenda for digital government research.7 The Council of Excellence in Government also convened a group of practitioners (from both public and private sectors) and academics to articulate a vision for e-government implementation.8 The National Research Council, with the support of NSF’s Digital Government program, convened a study committee to examine a number of broad technical areas where government investment in IT research would have an impact on the creation of advanced, innovative e-government capabilities.9

With the confluence of these visions for how to use IT to improve the delivery of public information and services, it appeared that e-government was coming of age. The public sector saw opportunities for realizing the kinds of gains realized by the private sector’s use of e-business, the private sector saw opportunities to sell more products and services, academics saw many research and teaching opportunities, and the public’s expectations for how government should work began to evolve as all of these sectors of the economy became increasingly articulate about this new phenomenon. Further presidential highlighting of e-government

5

See history of FirstGov.gov, available at http://firstgov.gov/About.shtml, accessed on June 9, 2006; and William J. Clinton, “Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies (Electronic Government),” December 17, 1999, available at http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/direct/memos/elecgovrnmnt.html, accessed June 20, 2007.

6

See “About FirstGov.gov,” available at http://web.archive.org/web/20060707043959re_/firstgov.gov/About.shtml, accessed August 14, 2007.

7

Sharon S. Dawes, Peter A. Bloniarz, Kristine L. Kelly, and Patricia D. Fletcher, Some Assembly Required: Building a Digital Government for the 21st Century, Center for Technology in Government University at Albany, State University of New York, 1999, available at http://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/reports/some_assembly/some_assembly.pdf, accessed June 20, 2007.

8

Council for Excellence in Government, E-Government: The Next American Revolution, September 28, 2000, available at http://www.excelgov.org/index.php?keyword=a432c10480be99, accessed June 20, 2007. See also Council for Excellence in Government, The Blueprint for e-Government, September 2000 and January 2001, available at http://www.excelgov.org/index.php?keyword=a4338d8c859fc5, accessed June 20, 2007.

9

National Research Council, Information Technology Research, Innovation, and E-Government, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2000.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E A Short History of E-Government." National Research Council. 2007. Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision: A Strategic Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11920.
×

institutionalized a strategic emphasis on the application of technology to change the way government works.

With a change in administration in 2001, e-government continued to be a focus in federal agencies and the White House. Two events early in the Bush/Cheney administration cemented the importance of e-government for federal agencies. First, the role of e-government became more prominent in the structure of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) with the creation of the position of associate director for information technology and e-government, elevating e-government issues from their home at that time under the office responsible for regulatory affairs in OMB. Later in 2001, OMB drafted the first federal strategy for e-government, pulling together 24 “Quicksilver” projects.10 The federal strategy included four portfolios for the projects: government to citizen, government to business, government to government, and economy and efficiency.

Some specific examples of initiatives from each of the portfolios help describe some of the e-government capabilities available across the federal government. One of the best-known government-to-citizen initiatives is the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS’s) Free File initiative,11 which is a public-and-private partnership to offer free tax preparation and e-filing services to selected taxpayers who have an adjusted gross income of less than $50,000. More broadly, the IRS e-file program has resulted in more than half of all individual tax returns being submitted to the IRS electronically, often times with taxpayers filing their federal and state taxes in one transaction.

For the business-to-government portfolio, the Business Gateway provides a one-stop source of information for businesses seeking to comply with federal regulatory and paperwork burden.12 MSNBC recognized the Web site for Business Gateway, Business.gov, as its Web site of the week.13 In the government-to-government portfolio, E-vital is a partnership between the federal government (primarily the SSA) and state governments to share vital statistics, primarily death certificates, electronically.14 Finally, the federal strategy for e-government also includes a portfolio of initiatives designed to increase the internal efficiency and effectiveness of federal operations. For example, e-payroll is designed to consolidate payroll processes among all federal civilian agencies, thereby

10

Office of Management and Budget, E-Government Strategy: Simplified Delivery of Services to Citizens, Executive Office of the President, Washington, D.C., 2002.

11

See http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-1-3-IRS.html, accessed June 20, 2007.

12

See http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-3-5-bg.html, accessed June 20, 2007.

13

See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14718260/, accessed June 20, 2007.

14

See http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-2-4-evital.html, accessed June 20, 2007.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E A Short History of E-Government." National Research Council. 2007. Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision: A Strategic Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11920.
×

simplifying and modernizing the disparate collection of systems that federal agencies now use to pay their employees.15

E-government is one of the elements of the President’s Management Agenda (PMA), with federal agencies being graded quarterly on achieving the goals of the federal strategy.16 A presidential memo was issued on the importance of e-government, emphasizing interagency cooperation as a means to provide cost-effective and efficient government services.17 The inclusion of e-government in the PMA has raised the importance of this initiative in federal strategic management efforts. OMB uses the annual budget process and the “Exhibit 300” Capital Asset and Business Plan Case18 required as part of annual budget requests from agencies to OMB as a mechanism for the enforcement of agency e-government plans’ consistency with the federal e-government strategy and related policies. While e-government was gaining in importance in federal agency plans and administration, the stated goals for federal e-government shifted in 2001 to emphasize data and service integration to support economy and efficiency rather than service delivery.

The e-business experiences of telecommunications and other firms in the private sector indicate that cost reduction and efficiency goals alone are not sufficient—they must be coupled with effectiveness goals that tie the operational effectiveness of their lines of business directly to IT capabilities. However, in business as well as in government, defining and quantifying effectivness measures can be difficult challenges. Nevertheless, government agencies and the publics that they serve can benefit from formulating precise and measurable effectiveness goals.

LEGAL AND POLICY CONTEXT FOR FEDERAL E-GOVERNMENT

The SSA’s electronic services plans and initiatives fit within a broader federal context for e-government. The Committee on the Social Security Administration’s E-Government Strategy and Planning for the Future acknowledges the complex legislative and statutory environment that all

15

See http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-4-5-ePay.html, accessed June 20, 2007.

16

President’s Management Agenda (PMA), 2002, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budintegration/pma_index.html, accessed June 20, 2007.

17

George W. Bush, The Importance of E-Government, July 10, 2002, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/g-2-memo.html, accessed June 20, 2007.

18

The OMB Exhibit 300 Capital Asset and Business Plan Case is used by agencies and by OMB to review the budget justification and business case for major IT investments. See Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, OMB Circular No. A-11. Part 7: Planning, Budgeting, Acquisition, and Management of Capital Assets, June 2005, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a11/current_year/s300.pdf, accessed June 20, 2007.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E A Short History of E-Government." National Research Council. 2007. Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision: A Strategic Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11920.
×

agencies, including the SSA, must negotiate when looking to broaden or enhance electronic services. This section is a very brief description of some of that context. Like much of federal information law and policy, the legal and policy context for federal e-government across all agencies has been put in place over a number of years through various pieces of legislation and several executive branch initiatives. Appendix D in this report summarizes selected key legislation; although it does not provide an exhaustive review of all the relevant law and policy that might affect the SSA’s e-government strategy, it nonetheless provides an overview of legal and policy framework within which the SSA must operate. Rather than having been crafted with e-government in mind, this collection of public law and government-wide policy affecting e-government has accumulated over a period of nearly 25 years. Therefore, federal agencies like the SSA that seek to exploit the benefits of e-government must attempt to do so within a set of legal and policy requirements and constraints that can sometimes be less than clear and consistent. As a general precept, public law is often abstract and somewhat conceptual.

Legislation typically does not provide a statement of requirements that is sufficiently clear and detailed to enable straightforward implementation by agencies. One of the recurring themes in the legislative and policy framework outlined in Appendix D of this report is that agencies have wide latitude on how to comply with the what of federal information policy. It is also very rare for either public law or government-wide policy to specify particular technologies as part of policy compliance. (Indeed, such specification is suboptimal for myriad reasons.) As a result, the Office of Management and Budget, which has government-wide policymaking and oversight responsibility, typically interprets the law through its OMB Circular A-130, Management of Federal Information Resources.19 Other federal agencies, including the General Services Administration (GSA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) also have government-wide information policy responsibilities. Federal agencies then often further interpret government-wide information policy to fit their organizational context. In multibureau federal departments, each bureau may even localize the policy further.20

19

See Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), OMB Circular No. A-130 Revised, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a130/a130trans4.html, accessed June 9, 2006.

20

Stephen H. Holden and Peter Hernon, “An Executive Branch Perspective on Managing Information Resources,” pp. 83-104 in Peter Hernon, Charles R. McClure, and Harold C. Relyea, Eds., Federal Information Policies in the 1990’s: Views and Perspectives, Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1996.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E A Short History of E-Government." National Research Council. 2007. Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision: A Strategic Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11920.
×

STATE OF THE PRACTICE IN E-GOVERNMENT

The U.S. federal government is not alone in realizing the potential benefits of e-government. E-government services are also offered by all of the states, many municipalities, and indeed by the governments of most of the world’s developed countries. A number of efforts by varied groups, including the United Nations (UN) and the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), researchers at Brown University, and various consultancies have begun to compare e-government offerings internationally. Typically, these groups have found that the quality of the e-government offerings of the U.S. federal government is among the best worldwide, although public adoption of such services has been found to be higher in some other countries.21 For example, Accenture’s January 2005 survey of people in the United States found that over 55 percent had made at least some use of e-government; the same survey found that almost 70 percent of those surveyed used the Internet at least once a month. Accenture also found that reported use of e-government was higher in Australia, Canada, and Singapore (with reported Internet usage levels similar to those in the United States), and in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland (with higher percentages of people using the Internet at least monthly).22

A study in 2004 conducted by the UN and ASPA found that the United States offers the most sophisticated e-government services of all the UN member countries studied.23 However, the U.S. public still makes only a rather limited use of e-government services, restricting their utilization primarily to electronic access to government information and publications. The great majority of the public’s interactions with its government is still either on the phone or in person. Significantly, at the same time, the public’s use of the Internet and electronic services for banks and other financial institutions, as well as for retail purposes, is far more substantive, generally centering on actual financial transactions, in addition to obtaining information. One possible reason for this difference in the nature of the public’s interactions may be that current e-government services beyond provision of information do not meet users’ needs as effectively as the services offered by the private sector (see Chapter 2 in

21

A contributing factor toward greater usage in some other countries may be differing attitudes toward privacy and how personal information is handled by governments and the private sector.

22

Accenture, 2005 E-Government Report, “Leadership in Customer Service: New Expectations, New Experiences,” available at http://www.accenture.com/xdoc/ca/locations/canada/insights/studies/leadership_cust.pdf, accessed June 20, 2007.

23

United Nations, Global E-Government Readiness Report 2004: Towards Access For Opportunity, New York: United Nations, 2004, available at http://www.unpan.org/egovernment4.asp, accessed June 20, 2007.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E A Short History of E-Government." National Research Council. 2007. Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision: A Strategic Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11920.
×

this report for more on this topic).24 For instance, some e-government services require users to supplement electronic transactions with paper signature documents or do not offer the complete set of electronic transactions that users might like to use. For example, in some places it is possible to apply for a duplicate birth certificate online, but in other places it is not. In other cases, users still have to understand the interworkings of government agencies to know where to look to retrieve information electronically or to complete transactions. The success of the private sector in meeting public needs with electronic services surely heightens public expectations of government agencies such as the SSA. Increasing demands from users beyond individual beneficiaries, such as the states and other federal agencies, will increase the pressure on the SSA, as will increasing the pressures for cost reductions and efficiency improvements. Taken together, it seems reasonable that all of these pressures will inevitably cause the SSA to move toward increases and improvements in its electronic service provision.

Empirical Studies

The SSA and other governmental agencies have begun to respond to these pressures, and their responses have been growing in both quantity and quality. Internal federal government evaluations, such as the quarterly PMA (described above), have both tracked and precipitated these improvements. Other external evaluations have done so as well. (Chapter 4 in this report describes some empirical results on user attitudes and behavior generally.) The longest-running set of external evaluation studies of e-government deployment results have been published by Darrell West at Brown University’s Taubman Center for Public Policy.25 Dating back to 2001, these studies have evaluated e-government offerings, primarily based on analysis of government Web site content. These analyses have compared Web offerings internationally (among national governments), nationally in the United States (across federal agencies), and also

24

Council for Excellence in Government, The New E-Government Equation: Ease, Engagement, Privacy and Protection, 2003, available at http://www.excelgov.org/usermedia/images/uploads/PDFs/egovpoll2003.pdf, accessed June 20, 2007; and Elena Larsen and Lee Rainie, The Rise of the E-Citizen: How People Use Government Agencies’ Web Sites, 2002, available at http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=57, accessed June 20, 2007.

25

See Darrell M. West, State and Federal E-Government in the United States, Providence, R.I.: Taubman Center for Public Policy, 2005, available at http://www.insidepolitics.org/egovt05us.pdf, accessed June 20, 2007.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E A Short History of E-Government." National Research Council. 2007. Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision: A Strategic Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11920.
×

among the various U.S. states. There have been studies that examined and compared social security administrations internationally as well.26

Those studies that looked specifically at federal agencies gave positive weight to features such as online publications, online databases, and the availability of online transactions. They typically also examined features such as disability access, privacy policy, security policy, Web site personalization, personal digital assistant (PDA) accessibility, and readability level. Features such as advertisements, premium fees, and user payments or fees were considered negative and detracted from an agency’s e-government score. Such studies have typically given the SSA’s e-government efforts very favorable evaluations compared with its public-sector peers.27 West also finds that federal agencies continue to struggle with issues like broken links, poor compliance with accessibility standards, and readability levels that exceed the capabilities of average users. In general, federal agencies are putting more transactions online and are increasingly posting privacy and security policies on their Web sites.28 West’s findings seem to be confirmed by data obtained from the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)—see below.

West’s findings suggest that agencies such as the SSA have much work to do. The agencies have steadily been taking steps to address shortcomings in their online presences. More effective grappling with broader issues is still needed, however, and a high score in the limited West evaluation scheme can certainly not be taken as a cause for complacency. In the

26

A recent study examined the impact of automation on social security administrations across 13 countries. While all 13 would likely be considered developed countries, some countries had different philosophies on their approach to social services provision (i.e., whether they were Scandinavian “social democratic,” European “corporatist,” or Anglo-American “liberal” countries). The significance of this would be somewhat varied service availability online depending on the regime values of the country’s social security system under study. The historical perspective provided by the study is helpful in explaining that automation really came to these national-level social security organizations in the mid-1950s, with the U.S. SSA beginning around 1955, third on the list of countries studied. The report examined the goals for these automation efforts between 1985 and 2000 and found, not too surprisingly, that the primary aims initially were very focused on cost cutting and productivity improvement. Between 2000 and 2004, though, the list of goals grew considerably to include improving information for both in-house staff and outside users, preventing and reducing program fraud, and responding to user demand for online information and services. A head-to-head comparison of the level of aggregate online functionality found the United States with the highest ranking—17 out of a possible 28 points—and the Netherlands coming in lowest with a score of 10. See Michael Adler and Paul Henman, with Jackie Gulland and Sharon Gaby, Computerisation and E-Government in Social Security: A Comparative International Study, Arlington, Va.: IBM Center for the Business of Government, 2005, available at http://www.businessofgovernment.org/pdfs/AdlerReport.pdf, accessed June 20, 2007.

27

Darrell M. West, State and Federal E-Government in the United States, 2005.

28

Darrell M. West, State and Federal E-Government in the United States, 2005.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E A Short History of E-Government." National Research Council. 2007. Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision: A Strategic Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11920.
×

committee’s view, findings such as these suggest that the efforts of agencies such as the SSA that are seeking a forward-looking strategy in the electronic services arena should be compared not with other government agencies, but rather with those of the private-sector financial institutions that are shaping the expectations of the public, especially in regard to service levels expected from large financial institutions (as described in Chapter 2 of this report). While this comparison fails in some ways (e.g., aggressiveness and the role of competition, funding sources, client base, and frequency of interaction), there are useful lessons and insights to be gleaned.

American Customer Satisfaction Index

Since 1994, the University of Michigan has published a series of snapshots of customer impressions of a variety of services in its American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).29 The ACSI provides government agencies (and commercial ventures) with an independent measure of consumer experience. The index relies on a model that includes data on customer expectations, perceived quality, perceived value of information, and on customer complaints and customer loyalty.30

The ACSI started reporting separately on federal agency performance in 1999, about the same time that federal agencies started enabling and promoting their e-government offerings. The ACSI recently added an evaluation for e-government services among federal agencies. Not too surprisingly, the ACSI scores for federal government agencies have been going up gradually since the e-government index was created in late 2003, with the aggregate satisfaction score in September 2005 being 73.5, against an 80.0 score considered exceptional for online transactions either in the public or private sector.31

In the September 2005 reporting of the ACSI e-government satisfaction index, the SSA did relatively well, ranking first of eight federal agency sites in the e-commerce/transaction category (with a score of 87)

29

See “About ACSI,” available at http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=28, accessed June 19, 2007.

30

“ACSI reports scores on a 0-100 scale at the national level and produces indexes for 10 economic sectors, 43 industries (including e-commerce and e-business) and more than 200 companies and federal or local government agencies. In addition to the company-level satisfaction scores, ACSI produces scores for the causes and consequences of customer satisfaction and their relationships.” See “About ACSI,” available at http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=28, accessed June 19, 2007.

31

ForeSee Results, “American Customer Satisfaction Index, E-Government Satisfaction Index,” Ann Arbor, Mich., December 15, 2005. Archived ACSI scores and commentaries are available at http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=68&Itemid=57, accessed June 20, 2007.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E A Short History of E-Government." National Research Council. 2007. Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision: A Strategic Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11920.
×

for the Web site “Internet Social Security Benefits Application.” Of 44 government Web sites rated in the news/information category, the SSA was ranked first (with a score of 91) for the Web site “Help with Medicare Prescription Drug Costs” and seventh (with a score of 81) for the Web site “Social Security Business Services Online.” The SSA’s “Frequently Asked Questions” customer-help page (with a score of 75) and its information for disability benefits (with a score of 71) ranked in the middle and closer to the bottom, respectively, of the Web sites studied. In the March 2006 report, the SSA had the top 4 (of 11) sites in the e-commerce/transaction category and the 2 top ratings in that category (with scores of 86), for “Help with Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Costs” and “Internet Social Security Benefits Application.” However, the SSA’s main Web site (www.socialsecurity.gov) ranked toward the bottom of the agencies’ sites studied, with a satisfaction score of 70 (the top-ranked site scored 82).32

There has been a similarly favorable response to the availability of online e-government transactions. A 2005 ACSI study of the IRS compared the public’s satisfaction with paper filing of tax returns to the public’s satisfaction with electronic filing.33 The ACSI score for paper filing was 50, while satisfaction with electronic filing was 77. While there are distinctions between the kinds of services that the SSA offers and its client base as compared with the services and client base of financial institutions, increased use of online financial services in the private sector may shape expectations, at least on the part of some, for a similarly broad availability of online transactions from agencies such as the SSA that provide important financial services.

32

Scores reported by ACSI can be found at http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=62, accessed June 20, 2007.

33

The IRS worked with third-party vendors to implement electronic filing (see Chapter 4 in this report).

Suggested Citation:"Appendix E A Short History of E-Government." National Research Council. 2007. Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision: A Strategic Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11920.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix E A Short History of E-Government." National Research Council. 2007. Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision: A Strategic Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11920.
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Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision examines the Social Security Administration's (SSA's) proposed e-government strategy and provides advice on how the SSA can best deliver services to its constituencies in the future. The assessment by the Committee on the Social Security Administration's E-Government Strategy and Planning for the Future was based on (1) its examination of the SSA's current e-government strategy, including technological assumptions, performance measures and targets, planned operational capabilities, strategic requirements, and future goals; (2) its consideration of strategies, assumptions, and technical and operational requirements in comparable public- and private-sector institutions; and (3) its consideration of the larger organizational, societal, and technological context in which the SSA operates.

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