Joined-up e-Government: an exploratory study of UK local government progress

The introduction of e-commerce activity into an industry’s value chain has the potential to radically transform it. Some participants may become redundant as others use the Internet to sell their products; new digital intermediaries may enter the supply chain to compete with traditional participants. In the UK public sector, the government is driving forward an agenda for modernisation in its e-Government programme. The target has been set for complete availability of electronic service delivery by 2005. Government policy has been to steer local government away from direct service delivery, encouraging an ‘enabling’ role, where they are made responsible for commissioning and monitoring service provision by other partners. The intention of the e-Government programme is for councils to become more customer-focussed in their approach, joining up services in ways that better meet customer needs. This joined-up working may horizontally integrate functional areas across the council or vertically join services across multiple tiers of government. This paper presents the results of an exploratory study of the phenomenon of joined-up e-Government. The outcomes of two phases of research are presented. The first phase investigates the extent to which local authority websites are becoming digital intermediaries in the supply of joined-up e-Government services. This explores joined-up working from the customer’s perspective, using a ‘life episode’ transaction. The second phase evaluates the challenges of joined-up e-Government from the local authority perspective. Based on qualitative survey work with a sample of council e-champions, it concludes that joined-up e-Government is still more of an aspiration than actuality.