Social Security Administration Electronic Service Provision A Strategic Assessment (2007) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix E A Short History of E-Government
Appendix E A Short History of E-Government
Pages 149-160
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From page 149... ...
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.
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From page 150... ...
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.
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From page 151... ...
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.
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From page 152... ...
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.
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From page 153... ...
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.
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From page 154... ...
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)
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From page 155... ...
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 21A 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.
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From page 156... ...
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.
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From page 157... ...
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)
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From page 158... ...
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?
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From page 159... ...
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.
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