Government Online plans to take smaller bite out of taxpayers

The federal Liberals will have a better idea in July how much their Government Online (GOL) initiative will cost, with one senior official insisting the final tally will be far less than originally forecast. But that news isn’t reassuring to one Member of Parliament who still doubts the political will exists to take the project too far. Michelle d’Auray is chief information officer at Treasury Board and the person responsible for the GOL project. She dismisses reports the bill will be $3.3 billion. "People came up with a number originally that was a simple addition of what every department and agency thought it was going to cost them individually," she explains to Network Letter. There were some redundancies, as projects were listed by more than one government body. GOL is also designed for services to citizens and businesses. Interdepartmental initiatives are not eligible and were dropped from the original list. The updated list puts the number of projects closer to 200 from the 693 originally suggested. "There was a lot of duplication, there was a lot of imprecision. We’ve asked departments to come back to us again, because we now have a better understanding of what an online service is going to be, what are some of the infrastructure costs, how many of these are common services rather than distinct or individual and what are some of the efficiencies that can be achieved through common business processing." D’Auray says a first draft of the estimated cost will be prepared in mid-July. The final tally should be ready in October. Even though the plan concentrates on external services, the CIO believes there will be benefits to the internal workings of government. "The Government Online initiative for most citizens and business is very much driven to electronic service delivery to them. Therefore we’ve concentrated on that aspect," she notes. "What will happen, though, is in order to be able to serve citizens and businesses more effectively there will be some efficiencies to our internal processes. But it’s as a consequence of the outward looking or outward delivery." Informed leadership needed That change can’t come soon enough for one Liberal backbencher. Reg Alcock is the MP for Winnipeg South and a longtime advocate of electronic democracy. Prior to his election to the House of Commons in 1993, he researched the issue at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He says the onus should be on his colleagues rather than bureaucrats to get GOL operating efficiently. "It’s so easy to slag public servants but the reality is the public servants are faced with having to address the organization the way it is currently structured. They don’t have the mandate to change it," the three-term MP offers. "Without an informed leadership it becomes difficult to initiate any of these changes. So part of the role we have taken on is to try and educate Parliamentarians from all parties and at all levels." Alcock has been doing his part to extend electronic government by using teleconferencing sessions with his constituency office back in Winnipeg. Previously, voters might have to wait weeks to meet with the MP. Now he schedules sessions in the evenings even though he and his constituents are in different time zones. There are reports the federal government would like to adopt a similar approach to cabinet meetings. Ministers would be able to take part in the regular sittings even if they are in other parts of the world. The major concern at present is finding secure connections. Alcock endorses the idea and has even had one minister try out his system. "Herb Gray came and used my setup when he was doing stuff in his riding, but I’ve not had a lot of folks jumping in," he reports. "It’s an expensive thing for an individual member to do. It’s not easy." It is ironic that Gray, the most senior member in the House, would be the one to take the plunge. His backbench colleague finds older Parliamentarians are usually the least accepting of change."We’re in much more of an intergenerational problem. I think you’ve got to spend some time educating the leadership to help them," Alcock states. "I think everybody accepts these tools are important but I don’t think many people have a sense of the secondary and tertiary issues that they raise." Some of that education is currently underway as departments start to offer services online. For several years the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency has allowed citizens to file their taxes electronically. Pilot projects involving telehealth are being developed. The amount of work involved can be quite overwhelming, d’Auray believes. "The greatest challenge for a government the size of the government of Canada is the consistent coordination and across government approach. It’s a huge organization: 200,000 employees, 186 departments and agencies, 1600 programs." The work has not gone unnoticed. The consulting firm Accenture recently conducted a survey of 22 countries on how well their governmental web sites worked. Canada placed first in the study.D’Auray is pleased at how the initiative is working so far and predicts things will only improve as development proceeds. "The next wave of online services will test a broader range of functionality. We’ll have a better sense then. As we’re building the common electronic secure platform through the secure channels we’ll be able to test more effectively some of those functionalities that we can’t do now." The upgrades are badly needed, insists Alcock. He worries that citizens do not have faith in their leaders to handle the digital sector. "There is a public sense that government is becoming increasingly stupid in a world that is moving faster and faster," he says. "When you survey for it, there’s a desire on the part of the public that the government begin to offer services the same way other large organizations do—24/7, accessible from the desk top. But that hasn’t crystallized as a broad public issue." The desire for the departments to go online, he adds, is tempered with concern over privacy. "There’s sort of a schizophrenia in the public’s approach to this," Alcock suggests. "On one hand they want government to act a little more intelligently; on the other hand the defining image that they have of government’s use of technology is the more malevolent one of Orwell and Big Brother and they certainly don’t want that." Privacy paramount D’Auray agrees with Alcock and maintains the issue is paramount in the minds of GOL administrators. "The policy framework includes the issue of security, confidentiality and privacy, information management. All of those are core to our ability to move or increase the degree of functionality of some of our online services. They’re dependent on two things. One is public acceptability and use and familiarity and the second is our ability to adapt our policy frameworks and legislation as necessary to meet the challenges of an Internet-based service delivery." Both the MP and the public servant are heartened by the work currently undertaken by the National Broadband Task Force (NL, Oct. 23/00). They feel the rollout of broadband to more Canadians will help less sophisticated users become more comfortable using digital technology. "It would be the first time we could use an electronic communications vehicle to reach out to people that have literacy issues, who have physical and mental handicaps," D’Auray says. "It just adds that much more flexibility for us and takes us away from the text base. It allows us to use audio in a very innovative way and it allows us to use visual elements more creatively."

Government Online plans to take smaller bite out of taxpayers

News | 05/22/2001 4:00 am EDT

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