What Differences Does E-Government Make in Governance? – Evidences from the Quasi-Democratic City-State of *

Wilson Wong Associate Professor Department of Government and Public Administration The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shatin, NT HONG KONG

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Oct 2010

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1 What Differences Does E-Government Make in Governance? – Evidences from the Quasi-Democratic City-State of Hong Kong

Abstract

The major objective of this paper is to understand how e-government may impact on governance through a case study of Hong Kong, one of the recognized leaders of e- government technology. It moves beyond the efficiency-driven paradigm in e- government to examine the concept of e-governance and conducts an empirical study to assess the level of e-governance in Hong Kong, one of the widely recognized top performers in the application of information technology in the public sector.

According to the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, governance is defined with a much larger context than government to refer to the manner, traditions and institutions on how power is exercised. This paper adopts this definition to investigate how power may be affected, enhanced, transformed and redistributed with the use of e- government. It also challenges the assumption that globalization necessarily causes a convergence of pattern of administrative systems and e-government technology will lead to a homogenous impact on governance. E-governance, as a more advanced stage of e- government, places a strong emphasis on public participation. Building on but also improving the existing major international e-performance measures, this study designs its own e-governance measure, which is more comprehensive in nature, including five major dimensions: content, security, interactivity, usability, and e-engagement. While Hong Kong has been ranked among the top in e-government internationally, its performance in e-governance is less than satisfactory. The case of Hong Kong, which is believed to be typical than being exceptional, shows while many cities or countries may use e- government actively, it is still mainly deployed for efficiency purposes, particularly in a less democratic setting, instead of enhancing public participation - the essence of e- governance. This further leads us to question the limit of the impact of e-government or information technology in general on transforming governance.

2

Introduction This is a study of the e-governance in Hong Kong. E-governance is a major and increasingly important aspect of e-government. E-government can be defined simply as the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), the Internet in particular, by government for any purpose. E-governance, on the other hand, has a more well- defined focus, which is a more advanced application of e-government for enhancing governance. More specifically, our study would like to examine the use of Internet by the Hong Kong Special Administration Region (HKSAR) Government in promoting better participation for improving public services as well as policy-making. E-government, the use of ICT by governments, has been increasing rapidly and widely around the globe. Internet is one of the most common and major tools in e- government. According to the United Nations, in 2008, all of its 192 country members have their own websites. 1 E-government receives such a strong attention because it carries the promise to change government in many of its relationships with its external actors and stakeholders: government to business (G2B), government to citizen (G2C) and government to government (G2G). In addition, it is also believed that e-government has the potential to significantly transform government in many key aspects. In addition to enhancing the efficiency of public service delivery, importantly, it could draw government closer to citizens, changing its nature of governance by making government more transparent, responsive and accountable, all three are key aspects of governance. With the popularity and expansion of application of e-government, it also becomes a major subject of study of academics and international organizations. There are at least three academic journals devoted exclusively for e-government: Electronic Journal of E- government, Journal of E-government, 2 and International Journal of Electronic Government Research (IJEGR). There are more and more books or book chapters focused exclusively on the study of e-government, many of them published by prestigious university presses such as Cambridge, MIT, Oxford, and Princeton, and major

1 United Nations. (2008) UN E-government Survey 2008: From E-government to Connected Governance. UN, p. 12. 2 The Journal of E-government was retitled as Journal of Information Technology and Politics since fall 2007.

3 policy think-tanks like the Brookings Institution.3 Besides, e-government is a major topic examined by many articles published in major academic journals, particularly in the fields of political science, public administration and information technology studies. It is obvious that e-government has already successfully established itself as a serious subject for intellectual and academic inquiry in the mainstream research. Many international organizations, including United Nations (UN) and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have published reports regularly to examine the application of e-government and its impacts. For example, OECD has published a E-government Studies series which are country reports of the use of e- government in different countries, covering countries like Norway, Finland and Denmark. In terms of overall e-government performance, Hong Kong has been ranked highly in many international studies.4 Notwithstanding the commitment and good performance of Hong Kong in e- government, challenges and unanswered questions remain. First, there is unquestionably still room for Hong Kong to improve itself in e-government, particularly in the new area of e-governance, which is an increasing important area for both the international rankings and the natural evolution of applications of e-government as discussed in the academic literature. A major issue concerning the development of e-government in Hong Kong is its key focus up to this moment is mainly set on enhancing the efficiency of service delivery. It seems that the Internet or e-government is perceived more as a technological tool to promote efficiency gain by the government. However, the international trend and research development of e-government is moving beyond the narrow concern of efficiency towards a broader concern of governance, e-governance. By e-governance, it refers to the potential of the use of ICT in government to transform the relationship

3 Some examples include: Boyne, George, Kenneth Meier, Laurence O’Toole, Jr., and Richard Walker, eds. (2006) Public Service Performance: Perspectives on Measurement and Management. NY: Cambridge University Press; Chadwick, Andrew. (2006) Internet Politics: States, Citizens, and New Communication Technologies. N.Y.: Oxford University Press; Fountain, Jane. (2001) Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press; Viktor Mayter-Schonberger and David Lazer, eds. (2007) Governance and Information Technology: From Electronic Government to Information Government. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; West, Darrell (2005) Digital Government: Technology and Public Sector Performance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press; 4 The performance of Hong Kong in the international studies would be reviewed in a later section of the paper.

4 between government and citizen, making government more transparent, responsive and accountable. In addition, in many of the e-government and related rankings, there still exist a considerable distance between Hong Kong and the top leaders. For example, in 2007/08, in the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) developed by World Economic Forum, Hong Kong was only ranked at 11th.5 Hong Kong’s position was even much lower in the 2007 Global E-government ranking by Brown University, which was 22th.6 While Hong Kong is one of the good performers in e-government, it is also obvious that there is room for Hong Kong to learn and grow in this aspect in order to become a true world leader in e- government. In order to make the necessary improvement, it is imperative for Hong Kong to learn more and have more feedback on its performance. However, ironically, Hong Kong is not included in many of the well-known and well-quoted international studies, often for the reason that country is their unit of analysis. For the above reason, for example, Hong Kong is not included in the E-government Readiness Index developed by the UN. This has seriously handicapped the capacity of Hong Kong in collecting feedback and knowing more about its performance according to the criteria applied and emphasized by the international community. Hong Kong must overcome this major obstacle for the further development of its e-government. Even in studies that do include Hong Kong in their evaluation or ranking, it would only give an overall score to the entire HKSAR Government. Although this piece of information is still valuable for assessing the overall performance of Hong Kong, it becomes less useful in giving feedback on the website and e-government performance of individual agencies. By giving only a single score for the entire government, those rankings essentially make the assumption that all government agencies are the same in its e-government performance. The truth is the HKSAR Government has more than 100 government agencies. Although there is a general framework and principles to follow in the website design, each agency still has its own website and exerts a considerable management control over its content and features. As a result, considerable variations do exist across agency websites. In other words, this overall score is too raw, too brief, and

5 See http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gitr/2008/Rankings.pdf 6 See http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/policyreports.html

5 too aggregated to be useful for providing insights for making improvement for the website of each individual agency. As a study of the e-governance in Hong Kong, the main objectives of this paper is to examine the status and development of e-governance in Hong Kong, particularly its role in promoting public participation for improving services and policy-making. We take e-governance as the major focus of this study because it is commonly recognized as an advanced stage of the development of e-government. It is also one of the important criteria used by many international studies in accessing e-government performance. Based on the literature, authoritative international rankings and best practices, the study would design a set of evaluation criteria to access the level of e-governance of government websites of all departments and offices of the HKSAR Government. This paper is divided into the following sections. It will first introduce the background of e-government development, including its vision, policy framework, institutional arrangement and major initiatives in Hong Kong. Then, it will review the international context of e-government development, putting our focus of e-governance into the context of the overall development of e-government, and its best practices. The third section would set up the research framework for our study. Finally, it would report major findings and discuss the implications of the case of Hong Kong on the development of e-governance and institutional change in public administration.

E-Government in Hong Kong Hong Kong, as one of the major international cities in the world, is also investing heavily in use of ICT in the public sector. In terms of policy making, e-government falls into the policy scope of the Bureau of Commerce and Economic Development. In general, e-government in Hong Kong is implemented in a coordinated and guided approach but not exactly a top-down fashion. The Bureau sets up the general directions and guidelines but flexibility and autonomy do exist at the agency level. Under the Bureau, in 2004, the HKSAR Government set up the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO), replacing the department of Information Technology Services Department (ITSD), in order to strengthen leadership for the development of ICT within and outside

6 the Government. 7 In the same year, a high-level E-government Steering Committee (EGSC), chaired by the Financial Secretary, was formed to set the strategic direction of e- government programmes in Hong Kong and coordinate interagency implementation. Digital 21 Strategy, is the most important policy document published by the government regarding its ICT development, in which e-government is always a core component. It serves as a blueprint and set out the vision for Hong Kong’s ICT development. It was first published in 1998 and was updated in 2001 and 2004 subsequently to take into account the evolving needs of the community and technological advancements. Its latest version has just been released in 2008.8 The government strongly emphasizes the Digital 21 Strategy is a living document which should be constantly updated and regularly upgraded to take into consideration of the changing needs and environment. Moreover, the government views that it concerns not only the ICT industry, but the entire community, including other industrial sectors, academia, non-government organizations and the general public as ICT has a direct bearing on almost every facet of the daily lives of citizens. The expenditure of Government on ICT keeps increasing over the years. In 2008-09, it is estimated that HK$4,444 millions will be spent by government departments on information technology (IT). 9 This figure runs up to HK$5,491 millions if Housing Authority, Hospital Authority and subvented schools are included in the calculation. Compared with 2007-08, the IT expenditure in 2008-09 has shown a very significant increase. In 2007-08, the government expenditure on IT was only HK$3,002 millions. Within just one year, there is an increase of more than 48% in the government IT expenditure in 2008-09. One of its major characteristics of Hong Kong in its investment in ICT is the passion for technology. Hong Kong is one of the cities in the world with the highest penetration rate of ICT such as internet and mobile phones. In 2007, the mobile phone penetration rate was 139.8% in Hong Kong, meaning that, on average, each citizen had more than one mobile phone. Broadband can be reached by all commercial and residential buildings

7 See its website at: http://www.ogcio.gov.hk/ 8 The report can be found and downloaded at official website of the Digital 21 Strategy at: http://www.info.gov.hk/digital21/eng/index.htm 9 Government IT expenditure figures are found at: http://www.info.gov.hk/digital21/e- gov/eng/init/itexp.htm

7 in Hong Kong, with broadband household penetration rate of 74.8% in 2007.10 As all these advanced ICT are adopted voluntarily by citizens themselves, these figures suggest a social passion for technological enhancement in Hong Kong. Technology is always perceived as something positive. It is aggressively pursued even if no immediate benefit could be seen and carefully calculated as it is perceived as long term investment into the future. There is a factor of economic necessity behind this passion. As a small city with little natural resources but a huge population of seven millions, Hong Kong people are well aware that they must rely on other factors for its economic survival and prosperity. ICT is one of the competitive edges taken so seriously in Hong Kong and its quality is considered as a symbol of its international status. Hong Kong is also constantly paying close attention to the ICT and e-government development of its economic competitors, such as Singapore, another major well-known city state in the world, to make sure it is not falling behind. The mode of economic development and restructuring in Hong Kong also fits well with its active pursue of ICT and e-government. Benefiting from the rapid economic growth of China, Hong Kong has successfully transformed itself from an industrial production base to a major financial and service center. In 2006, in terms of GDP, manufacturing only accounted for 3.2% while finance, insurance and business services accounted for 25% and wholesale, retail, import and export trades, and restaurants and hotels accounted for 27.9%.11 Although many of the industries move their production base to the mainland China, many of them still choose Hong Kong as their headquarters. All these industries and business require ICT to coordinate and facilitates their economic activities and in turn their growth further drives the enhancement of ICT and e- government in Hong Kong. A mutually reinforcing relationship between e-government performance and the mode of economic development has been formed.

10 Hong Kong SAR Government. (2008) Digital 21 Strategy 2008. Hong Kong: Bureau of Commerce and Economic Development, Hong Kong SAR Government, p. box 2. 11 Hong Kong SAR Government. (2008) Hong Kong Yearbook 2007. Hong Kong: Hong Kong SAR Government, Appendix 6, Table 1c.

8 The way Hong Kong government formulates and implements its e-government policy also makes a difference. E-government is driven by a clear and ambitious vision in Hong Kong. What is special and unique about the vision of Hong Kong’s e-government is, under this vision, e-government is not perceived narrowly in itself but is integrated into the overall ICT investment and essentially the grant development of the whole city. The vision underpinning and as stated in the 2008 Digital 21 Strategy is "advancing our achievements and seizing new opportunities: building on Hong Kong's position as a world digital city". The government’s vision is to make Hong Kong a world digital city by using ICT and e-government to support and further Hong Kong’s economic role, and raise its quality of life. This vision is in alignment with the Chief Executive policy blueprint.12 According to the document, achieving the vision would require collaboration amongst all stakeholders in the community, including the Government, the ICT industry, other sectors, the academia and members of the public. Regardless of the changing foci and emphasis, e-government remains one of the key areas of concerns in the overall ICT strategy of the Hong Kong government. In examining the strategies and policy initiatives closely, it tends to suggest that the emphasis of e-government in Hong Kong is centering more around public service delivery and promoting efficiency rather than enhancing governance. With the growth and diffusion of ICT and e-government, there emerge many international rankings of ICT and e-government performance. Hong Kong is usually ranked highly in many, though not all, of these rankings. Table One shows the major international e-government rankings and the recent rankings of Hong Kong. The rankings can be broadly divided into two general categories: overall ICT measures and specific e-government measures. Although e-government performance is often its important component, strictly speaking, overall ICT measures are not e-government measures. Instead, they are measures of the total performance, potential or readiness of the use of ICT in society. E-government measures, while focusing more specifically on e-government performance, also differ among themselves in terms of the breadth of its measure, with some measures concentrate on a specific aspect of e- government, such as e-payment, and some measures as comprehensive measure

12 The 2008 Digital Strategy 21, Conclusion.

9 integrating the multiple dimensions of e-government. As already mentioned, because Hong Kong is not a country, it is not included in some studies. When Hong Kong is included in all seven overall ICT rankings we have identified, only 5 out of the 13 specific e-government measures have included Hong Kong in their studies.

Table One: Major Best Practices Rankings of ICT Development and E-Government Performance and the Performance of Hong Kong A. Overall ICT Ranking Organization HK recent rankings International 8th (2007) 1. Digital Opportunity Index (DOI) Telecommunication Union 5th (2005) (ITU) 2nd (2008) Economic Intelligence Unit 2. E-commerce Readiness 4th (2007) (EIU) 10th (2006) United Nations Conference 3. ICT Diffusion Index 12th (2004) on Trade and Development International 4. ICT Opportunity Index (DOI -OI) Telecommunication Union 3rd (2007) (ITU) Information Data 5. Information Society Index 11th (2004) Corporation (IDC) Economic Intelligence Unit 6. IT Industry Competitiveness Index (EIU) 21st (2007)

11th (2008) Harvard University/World 7. Networked Readiness Index 12th (2007) Economic Forum 11th (2005) B. E-government Ranking Organization HK latest rankings 1. ACSI E-government Satisfaction ForeSee Results, the Federal Not Included Index Consulting Group Rutgers University, USA & 2nd (2007) 2. Digital Governance Ranking Sungkyunkwan University, 4th (2005) South Korea 2nd (2003) United Nations & American 3. E-government Index, Benchmarking Society for Public Not Included of E-government (BMEG) Administration (ASPA) 22nd (2007) Taubman Centre, Brown 4. E-government Ranking 20th (2006) University 4th (2005) 5. E-government Readiness Index United Nations Not Included

10 6. E-participation Index United Nations Not Included 7. Government E-payment Adoption Economic Intelligence Unit 9th (2007) Ranking (GEAR) (EIU) 11th (2003) 8. Government Online Usage Taylor Nelson Sofres 12nd (2002) 6th (2001) 9. Maturity of E-government Accenture Not Included Development Cyberspace Policy Research 10. Openness Measures: Transparency Group in University of Not Included and Interactivity Arizona (CyPG) 6th (2008) 11. World E-government Ranking Waseda University, Japan 12nd (2007) 11th (2006) 12. Web Measurement Assessment United Nations Not Included United Nations & American 13. Web Presence Index Society for Public Not Included Administration (ASPA)

With regard to overall ICT performance, Hong Kong is ranked high, though not always at the top, by the studies. In the latest rankings, it was ranked second in the E- Commerce Readiness ranking by the EIU of Economist and third in the ICT Opportunity Index but its position dropped to around the top 10 or top 20 in the rest of the ICT measures. Concerning e-government performance, it was ranked as one of the best performers by two of the comprehensive measures, at the second in the Digital Governance Ranking and sixth in the World E-government Ranking. However, its performance is less impressive in another comprehensive measure, E-government Ranking by Brown University, in which it was only ranked at the 22 in 2007. In the two remaining specific measures of e-government aspects, Hong Kong was rated around the top ten positions. There are evidences that e-government performance of Hong Kong was stable and sustainable over time. For example, it was ranked at the top five in Digital Governance ranking in 2003, 2005 and 2007. Some gaps still exist, waiting to be bridged, if Hong Kong would like to become a true, consistent and all-rounded e-government leader in the world. One of those gaps is about e-governance. E-governance is taken so preciously in research and by international

11 organizations including Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations (UN) as a best practice and the next and an advanced stage of e-government development.13 This weakness is clearly reflected in the Digital Governance ranking. In all their three rankings (2003, 2005, 2007), although Hong Kong was ranked highly in four of the five dimensions: privacy, usability, content and service, it was very weak in participation, an aspect related so closely to e-governance. In terms of ranking, its participation was ranked only at 31 in 2007 and even lower in 2005, ranked at 46th place. The best ranking it could achieve was 21 in 2003. Finally, although e-government has already established itself as a major field of academic studies, it is ironic that when we need knowledge on the e-government development in Hong Kong the most, there is still a great scarcity of academic studies and research on it. Our literature survey finds a great shortage of in-depth and systematic knowledge on the e-government development in Hong Kong. According to our survey, there are only two academic journal articles on the e-government in Hong Kong.14 If we further expand our scope of search to include studies by non-academic institutions, it only slightly increases the number by one. There is a report conducted by a local professional group, which just comes out very recently in mid 2008.15 It means, despite its importance, e-government in Hong Kong is not receiving its attention it should have in studies and research.

From E-government to E-governance What defines the identity and significance of this study is the term “governance”. Due to the increasing importance of governance in the world, many major research and international institutions have adopted the term and applied them in their studies. In surveying the major literature, including research reports of major international

13 See UN (2008) and also: OECD. (2005) E-government for Better Government. Paris: OECD; OECD. (2003) Promise and Problems of E-Democracy: Challenges of Online Citizen Engagement. Paris: OECD; OECD (2003) The E-government Imperative. Paris: OECD. 14 Ho, Shuk Ying and Kevin K. W. Ho. (2006) “Success of Electronic Government Information Portal: Technological Issues or Managerial Issues?” Journal of E-Government, Vol. 3 (2): 53-74. Holliday, Ian and Rebecca C. W. Kwok (2004) “Governance in the Information Age: Building E-government in Hong Kong” New Media and Society, Vol. 6 (4): 549-570. 15 The Professional Commons. (2008) E-Government and Better Governance in Hong Kong. Research Report on Information and Communications Technology, published by The Professional Commons on June 18. 2008.

12 organizations, while some level of variations does exist, governance has been defined or interpreted as follows:

ƒ “Governance is the exercise of political, economic and administrative authority to manage a nation’s affairs. It is the complex mechanisms, processes and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their rights and obligations, and mediate their differences.” (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP))16

ƒ “Governance is the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s social and economic resources for development. Governance means the way those with power use that power.” (Asian Development Bank (ADB))17

ƒ Governance is not necessarily government as a physical entity, nor is it the act of governing through individuals. It is more realistically understood to be a process; the process by which institutions, organizations and citizens “guide” themselves. Governance is also about the interaction between the public sector and how society organizes itself for collective decision making, and provides the transparent mechanisms for seeing those decisions through.” (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) / American Society for Public Administration (ASPA))18

Although there are some differences among the definitions, a common theme has emerged that governance refers to the case that government, citizens and other groups in civil society cooperate and interact together as close partners for resolving issues and addressing problems in society. Putting this common theme into the context of the study,

16 See http://mirror.undp.org/magnet/policy/glossary.htm 17 See http://www.adbi.org/discussion- paper/2005/09/26/1379.governance.indonesia.comments/definition.of.governance/ 18 United Nations, Division for Public Administration and Public Economics and American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). (2002) Benchmarking E-government: A Global Perspective. Author, New York, pp. 53-54.

13 we use the following as a working definition of governance in this study: “to enhance the understanding of government by citizens and encourage citizen participation for improvement in public services and policy-making.” Having the term “governance” defined, logically, “e-governance” could be generally understood as the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) by government for the purpose of “governance”. The following characteristics and elements of E-governance are highlighted by UNDP and ASPA in their report:19

ƒ “E-governance is the public sector’s use of the most innovative information and communication technologies, like the Internet, to deliver to all citizens improved services, reliable information and greater knowledge in order to facilitate access to the governing process and encourage deeper citizen participation.”

ƒ “Introduction and acceptance of e-governance is a way to ensure that every citizen has an equal right to be a part of the decision-making processes which affect them directly or indirectly, and influence the process in a manner which may best improve their lives.”

It is important to differentiate the term “e-governance” from the term “e- government”. E-government has many different meanings and can therefore easily cause confusion. While some authors may attach a narrower definition to “e-government”, limiting it to the use of ICT for public service delivery, the general trend and a more acceptable consensus is to interpret it broadly in order to recognize the diversity, wide range of applications and huge unexplored and often unexpected potential of the use of ICT in government.20 Hence, Heeks defines e-government simply as “all use of digital information technology in the public sector”.21 OECD also adopts a broad definition of e-

19 Ibid. 20 Rocheleau, Bruce. (2007) “Whither E-Government?” Book Reviews Public Administration Review May/June 2007: 584-588. 21 Rich Heeks (2006) Implementing and Managing E-government: An International Text. London, Sage: p.5.

14 government as “the use of information and communication technologies, and particularly the Internet, as a tool to achieve better government.”22 On the other hand, e-governance focuses mainly on the use of ICT for the purpose of governance. Owing to the increasingly ambiguous and confusing use of the term “e- government”, in the more advanced research on e-government, a more refined and systemic distinction have been drawn between the different “Es”. For example, in the UNDP / ASPA report, they have set up an analytical framework for classifying the different “Es” in government23:

ƒ E-government: Inter-organizational relationships • Policy coordination • Policy implementation • Public service delivery

ƒ E-Administration: Intra-organizational relationships • Policy development • Organizational activities • Knowledge management

ƒ E-Governance: Interaction between citizens, government organizations, public and elected officials • Democratic process • Open government • Transparent Decision-making

E-governance is important for e-government and considered as an advanced stage of its best practice. In the theory of development and evolution of e-government, e- governance, that is, the application of ICT for governance purpose, is often taken as a

22 OECD (2003) The E-Government Imperative. Paris: OECD, p. 23. 23United Nations, Division for Public Administration and Public Economics and American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). (2002), pp. 54-55.

15 more advanced stage of e-government and incorporated into many international rankings of best practices in e-government. Some organizations take e-governance so importantly that a separate measure is created specifically for it. For example, UN has created an E- Participation Index to measure the level of application of e-government for facilitating public participation in policy-making. One of the most well-known models of e-government development underlying the best practice evaluations and rankings is developed by the UN, called the “Web Presence Measurement Model”.24 It divides the development of e-government into five stages or phases: emerging, enhanced, interactive, transactional, and connected. There is a ladder of progress among the five stages in terms of both level of technology applied and purpose achieved. In the own words of UN: “As countries move upwards towards the stage of connected government, they pass through many thresholds in terms of infrastructure development, content delivery, business re-engineering, data management, security and customer management…….each state faces a number of similar challenges as it moves up the pyramid, and the issue of how states meet those challenges will determine the pace at which they migrate upwards.” “Emerging” is taken as the first and foundational phase, using the simplest technology and achieving the most basic goal. To the other end, “connected” is taken as the final and most advanced phase, applying the most advanced technology and most importantly, achieving the more crucial goals of e- government. The content and characteristics of each of the five stages are described by the UN as below:

Stage I - Emerging: A government’s online presence is mainly comprised of a web page and/or an official website; links to ministries or departments of education, health, social welfare, labour and finance may/may not exist. Much of the information is static and there is little interaction with citizens.

Stage II - Enhanced: Governments provide more information on public policy and governance. They have created links to archived information that is easily accessible to citizens, as for instance, documents, forms, reports, laws and regulations, and newsletters.

24 United Nations. (2008).

16

Stage III - Interactive: Governments deliver online services such as downloadable forms for tax payments and applications for license renewals. In addition, the beginnings of an interactive portal or website with services to enhance the convenience of citizens are evident.

Stage IV - Transactional: Governments begin to transform themselves by introducing two-way interactions between ‘citizen and government’. It includes options for paying taxes, applying for ID cards, birth certificates, passports and license renewals, as well as other similar G to C interactions, and allows the citizen to access these services online 24/7. All transactions are conducted online.

Stage V - Connected: Governments transform themselves into a connected entity that responds to the needs of its citizens by developing an integrated back office infrastructure. This is the most sophisticated level of online e-government initiatives and is characterized by:

1. Horizontal connections (among government agencies)

2. Vertical connections (central and local government agencies)

3. Infrastructure connections (interoperability issues)

4. Connections between governments and citizens

5. Connections among stakeholders (government, private sector, academic institutions, NGOs and civil society)

According to this UN model, the best practices in e-government are, logically, having reached all stages and possessing all their related characteristics, and importantly and ultimately, reached the final stage of e-governance. In fact, in describing this final stage of e-government, UN has explicitly stated that in this stage, “e-participation and citizen engagement are supported and encouraged by governments in the decision- making process.”25 Essentially the same conclusion that e-governance should be an advanced stage of e-government development and its best practice, and one of the higher-order goals of e- government is reached by other models. Another major model of stage of e-government

25 Ibid, p.16.

17 development is developed by West, a professor in Brown University.26 West views the progression of e-government development as a shift from billboards to service delivery, and finally to interactive democracy. Under his framework, West divides e-government development into four general stages: (1) the billboard stage, (2) the partial service- delivery stage, (3) the portal stage with fully executable and integrated service delivery, and (4) interactive democracy with public outreach and accountability-enhancing features. Like the UN model, both the technology and level of purpose are upgraded whenever e- government progressed from one stage to the next. The final stage of interactive democracy, apart from lots of online services and interactive features, is characterized by accountability-enhancing features and technologies for public feedback and deliberation. Again, according to West, the best practices in e-government are attaining all stages and having all their related characteristics, and eventually reaching the level of e-governance. In addition to the two models, many other major authors of e-government reach similar findings, further supporting the role and importance of e-governance. For example, Hillar and Belanger classify e-government development into five stages: (1) simple information dissemination (one-way communication), (2) two-way communication (request and response), (3) service and financial transaction, (4) integration (horizontal and vertical integration) and (5) political participation.27 In the fifth stage, the focus is on the “promotion of web-based political participation, including online voting” and “web-based political activities by citizens”. The importance of engaging and empowering citizens is again emphasized in the final stage. While the terms and terminology used may be different across studies and models, the significance of e- governance and its status as being a superior and ultimate best practice always prevail. Major international organizations, including United Nations (UN), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Trade Organization (WTO), all take the use of ICT in government essential and powerful for transforming and enhancing governance in nations.28 In a

26 West, Darrell M. (2005) Digital Government: Technology and Public Sector Performance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 27 Hiller, Janine, and France Belanger. (2001) Privacy Strategies for Electronic Government. E- Government Series. Arlington, VA: Pricewaterhouse Coopers Endowment for the Business of Government. 28 Amoretti, Francesco (2007) “International Organization ICTs Policies: E-Democracy and E-Government for Political Development” Review of Policy Research Vol. 24 (4): 331-344.

18 World Bank report published in 2004, using examples in Asia and Europe, it argued that e-government had the potential to transform transparency, citizen trust and potential participation, all of them are essential elements of governance.29 In addition to country e- government studies, OECD has published at least three major e-government studies, The E-government Imperative (2003), E-government for Better Government (2005), and Promise and Problems of E-Democracy (2003). All three studies affirm the pervasive impact of Internet on governance.

The Evaluation Framework Key ICT and e-government measures applied in major international studies have already been identified in Table One. Welch, Moon and Wong (2006) developed a typology of e-government measures.30 In their typology, there are two major dimensions in classifying e-government measures: level of sophistication and focus of measurement. Measure sophistication ranges from simple (in which only one to two indicators are used) to complex (in which multiple measures are employed). Among the measures identified, almost all of them belong to sophisticated measures. In fact, as e-government matures and evolves, it is no longer possible to rely on simple measures to capture and measure the multiple dimensions of e-government. As a result, the international trend is moving from simple to sophisticated measures. Focus of measurement distinguishes between measures that are primarily concerned with features and characteristics visible on the website from measures that also consider national enabling capacities. In a more correct sense, those societal enabling capacity measures are measuring more than e-government but also the societal environment and capacities for overall ICT development. Because sophisticated measures are in general more superior to simple measures and the focus of our study is e-governance, not overall ICT development in society, we would concentrate only on the sophisticated e-government measures related to e-

29 Seifert, Jeffrey, and Matthew Bonham (2004) The Transformative Potential of E-Government of Transitional Democracies. Washington, D.C., World Bank. (available at www1.worldbacnk.org/publicsector/egov/.) 30 Welch, Eric, Jae Moon and Wilson Wong. (2006) “What Drives Global E-government? An Exploratory Assessment of Existing E-Government Performance Measures.” In Boyne, George, Kenneth Meier, Laurence O’Toole, Jr., and Richard Walker, eds. (2006) Public Service Performance: Perspectives on Measurement and Management. NY: Cambridge, pp. 275-294.

19 governance in our review for developing a measure that best suit the purpose of our study. The methodology and more detailed information about these two groups of measures can be found in Appendix I “Best Practice Measures and Their Methodology” of this paper. As e-governance has become a core aspect of e-government, many of the comprehensive measures of e-government, such as the E-Government Ranking by Brown University and Digital Governance Ranking by Rutgers University, USA and Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea have included it or its related elements in their measures. Among all these measures, we find the best practice measure of E-Participation Index by the UN the most relevant and useful for this study. It is a measure devoted specifically for participation, which is a very important element of governance. At the same time, it is theoretically well-designed and thought through by dividing e- participation into three different and progressive levels: e-information, e-consultation and e-decision-making. These three levels are taken into consideration in developing our own measure for this study. More information of these three levels is given below:31

E-Information The government website offers information on the list of elected officials, government structure, policies and programmes, points of contact, budget, laws and regulations and other information of public interest. Information is disseminated through a number of online tools such as: community networks, blogs, web forums, text messages (micro democracy), newsgroups and e-mail lists.

E-Consultation The government website provides the tools necessary for e-consultation. It allows citizens to set the agenda for the debate through e-petitioning. The government ensures that its elected officials have a website to communicate directly with their constituents. It maintains an archive of their discussions and provides feedback to citizens.

E-Decision-Making The government is willing to take into account the e-inputs of citizens into the decision-making process. The government informs its citizens on what decisions have been taken based on the consultation process.

Despite the fact that some measures related to e-governance are found in our survey, it is still necessary and important for this study to develop its own measure for the

31 UN (2008), p. 18.

20 following reasons. First, although many measures have governance as one of its component, they are very often mixed measures which also include components unrelated to the purpose of our study. They therefore are unable to give a clear and non-confounded picture of the level and status of e-governance. For measures that are more related to governance, Hong Kong is not included in their study as country is used as their unit of analysis. Moreover, even when studies have e-governance as its focus, they sometimes do not capture all the dimensions involved by e-governance. Additional dimensions have to be added to make them as more complete measures.32 Importantly, many of the studies do not fully reveal their methodologies, particularly on how they evaluate the websites for coming up with the actual scores. Given all these reasons, it becomes a more viable and productive strategy for us, instead of relying on the existing measures, to develop our own measure by incorporating the useful elements of the related existing measures while adding in new elements that would enhance our capability to measure a wider spectrum of the concept of e-governance. In this study, we have developed a e-governance measure for website evaluation which includes the following five dimensions: content, security, interactivity, usability, and e-engagement. The meaning and significance of each of the five dimensions are explained as below. More detailed information can be found in Appendix II.

(1) Content: To what extent does a government agency offer useful information on its website?

(2) Security: To what extent does a government website ensure the trust of citizens in using it for contacting government and participation?

(3) Interactivity: Does the government website allow citizens to feedback on the website performance in specific and the performance of the government agency in general? Are performance data available on-line for the information of citizens?

(4) Usability: Does the government agency equip its website with the essential technical features to make it accessible and easy to use? Is the government website maintained and updated on a timely and regular basis?

32 Bannister (2007).

21 (5) E-Engagement Does the government agency offer internet-based means for e-consultation? How well is it doing in facilitating the consultation process? To what extent does the government agency indicate it will take citizen input into decision-making? How easy is it for citizens to approach the policy-makers for participation in decision- making? Does the government provide feedback on e-opinions? What is the impact of citizen’s e-inputs on the outcome of government decisions?

Our e-governance measure will be a combination of these five dimensions. This e-governance measure is more comprehensive than the E-Participation Index of UN. It has incorporated the three major elements of the E-Participation Index: e-information, e- consultation, e-decision-making on the one hand. E-information is included in our content dimension. e-consultation and e-decision-making are built into our e-engagement dimension. On the other hand, it includes other elements not included in the E- Participation Index that are extremely important for facilitating and enabling e- governance. Compared with the E-Participation Index, our e-governance measure has three more dimensions. Following the guiding principles in the concept of governance, we have added the new dimension of interactivity, which represents the extent government allows citizens to provide feedback on its website performance and its general performance and equally important, the degree to which government uses the Internet to keep citizens updated of its performance. E-consultation is a more government-initiated, one-way communication initiated by government on an issue, which is often pre- determined by government. At the other extreme, we have e-decision-making in which citizens are taken on equal footing with government as one of the core decision-makers and partners of government. We consider interactivity as a middle-ground between these two ends and plays a critical role in the governing process. We have also added the security dimension as it is difficult to have citizen take the initiative to contact and communicate with government electronically if no secure environment could be provided. Similarly, in order to facilitate and enable e-governance, the website itself must be equipped with the necessary technological features and capacities for doing so. That is why another new dimension, usability, is also added into our e-governance measure.

22 To enhance the reliability and validity of our measurement, each of the five dimensions consists of multiple indicators. There are a total of 86 indicators for all five dimensions. Our e-governance measure is the sum of the items. Details of the indicators can be found in Appendix II “Website Evaluation Checklist”. We follow the general practice of major e-government evaluation studies of using multiple coders in evaluating each website to assure accuracy and reliability of the evaluation. All coders have education level of university degrees or above and they are well-trained and thoroughly briefed before conducting the evaluation. In case of discrepancy in the evaluation among coders, the consultants themselves would visit the website to reach a final assessment. To make the evaluations comparable and meaningful across websites, all websites are evaluated within the same time frame of about six weeks between May and June of 2008. As citizen should be the major audience of government websites for the purpose of governance, we follow the standard practice of many international studies to adopt the “average citizen approach”. For example, if an item cannot be easily found or a feature is difficult to be used by a general citizen, a negative response is recorded for that item.

Findings and Discussion: Does Information Technology Promote More Policy Participation?

The summary statistics of our E-governance measure were shown in Table Two. The number inside the bracket under the name of each dimension was the total number of indicators, which was also the maximum possible score for each dimension. For example, there were a total of 40 indicators for the dimension of content and 40 was also the maximum possible score, the highest score an agency could get for this dimension. The table showed the mean, mode, standard deviation, minimum score, maximum score in our website evaluation for each dimension and also the total of all dimensions. Figure One gave a clearer picture and a visible comparison of the performance of agencies across dimensions, between the actual average performance and the best possible performance of agencies. The bars in Figure One charted the mean / total index, that was, the mean scores of agencies divided by the maximum possible scores. It would let us know about how well the agencies were performing on average when they were compared to the best

23 performance defined by our measure. For example, a mean / total index of 0.5 would mean that on average, agencies were able to achieve half of the highest possible scores allowed in our measure or attaining 50% of the indicators for that dimension. Certainly, the best number for this mean / total index was 1, meaning that all agencies are able to attain 100% of the requirements of the indicators in our measure, a perfect score.

Table Two: Summary Statistics of E-Governance Measure CONTENT SECURITY INTERACTIVITY USABILITY E-ENGAGEMENT TOTAL (40) (7) (5) (11) (23) (86) Mean 19.27 1.2 0.66 8.95 1.79 31.87 Mode 20.00a 0 1 9 0 35.00a Std. 4.68 1.8 0.62 0.64 2.58 6.49 Deviation Minimum 6 0 0 7 0 13.00 Maximum 29 7 3.00 11.00 12.00 44.00 a. Multiple modes exist. The smallest value is shown

Figure One: Overall Statistics of Website Evaluation: Mean / Total Index by Dimension and Total

Websites Evaluation Overall Statistics

0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 Content Security Interactivity Usability E-Engagement Total

24

The first major observation we had was, in general, there was a gap between the actual performance of HKSAR government agencies in e-governance and the optimal level of e-governance set in our E-governance measure. The total maximum scores for our E-governance measure was 86 but the mean score of all the agency websites we evaluated was only 31.87. This was lower than half of the total maximum score, 43, which could be taken as a passing line in our evaluation. The lowest total score was 13 and the highest total score was 44. It meant that even for the best agency in our evaluation, it was only performing slightly above the passing line. The mean / total index was only 0.37, meaning that on average, the HKSAR Government agencies could only meet 37% of all the indicators we set for the E-governance measure. As our E-governance measure had a total of five dimensions and each of them was focusing on a different aspect or component of e-governance, it was also important to examine the performance of agencies by dimension. In theory, it was completely possible that agencies might do strongly on some dimensions while they were performing more weakly on the other dimensions. Examining agencies performance by dimension therefore could allow us to know the weaknesses and strengths of agencies on different dimensions centering the core concept of e-governance. It further enabled us to focus on the aspects where attention and resources were needed the most for making the improvement. When we broke down the average performance of agencies by our five dimensions, variations did exist. On average, the agencies performed the best in terms of usability. The highest possible score for usability was 11 and the average score of all agencies for this dimension was 8.95. The mean / total index was 0.81, a very impressive number, meaning that government agencies, on average, met 81% of all the indicators we set for the usability dimension. In fact, we have four government agencies which scored the perfect mark of 11 in usability. The lowest score got by government agencies in this dimension was 7. But even for this lowest score, it was still not a poor score and was well above 5.5, the passing line of half of the total points. Besides, only one of the 100 agencies had this lowest score of 7. All the other 99 agencies had a score of 8 or above.

25 This should not be a surprising finding to most people as Hong Kong had been well-known for investing heavily in and frequently updating and upgrading its IT infrastructure. Technological capacities in IT were always taken as one of leading edges of both the public and private sectors in Hong Kong. In all the agency websites we evaluated, all of them were frequently updated and well maintained. Many of our indicators for usability dimension, such as sitemaps, versions for different languages (English, simplified Chinese and Chinese), speed of access, had long become the most common and basic features of government websites in Hong Kong. The second e-governance dimension the HKSAR Government agencies performed the best was content. Despite that, compared with usability, there was a considerable drop in the performance of agencies. The mean score was only 19.27, below the passing line of 20. The mean / total index was only 0.48, meaning that on average, government agencies could only attain 48%, less than half, of the indicators for this dimension. The maximum possible score for content was 40 but the highest score among the websites we evaluated was only 29. Although this passed the passing line of 20, there was still a sizable gap between the best possible performance and the actual performance of the top performer. At the same time, the lowest score in content was 6, which was very much below the half-point line of 20. There was only one agency with the lowest score, which was the Secretariat of Commissioner on Interception of Communications and Surveillance. Even if we could make a convincing case that, due to its relation to national security and its sensitive nature, the agency should be taken as a special case that not much information could be released to the public online, the next few agencies above it were also not doing very well in terms of content performance. Ranked immediately above the Secretariat of Commissioner on Interception of Communications and Surveillance, there were two agencies with a score of “9”, one agency with “10” and three agencies with “12”. Even though the Secretariat of Commissioner on Interception of Communications and Surveillance did receive the lowest score and perform poorly in the content dimension, it was not an outliner and not alone. One of the reasons why many agencies did not do well in content was many agencies still provided only general contact information on their websites. Although this was important and useful, it was no longer sufficient. Following

26 the international trend of rising expectations of the quality of governance, our evaluation had put into indicators which emphasized putting information regarding specific programmes and policies, and contact information of key policy makers on the webpage. This would draw citizens closer to government, making it easier for them to contact the officials in charge of the policies and services they concern about. All these were necessary to make government more transparent, responsive and accountable. Among the five dimensions, using the mean / total index as a guideline, the third area the HKSAR Government agencies performed well was security. But there was even a bigger gap in the performance of agencies between content and security. The average score of HKSAR Government agencies in security was only 1.2. Taking into consideration that the maximum possible score was 7, the average was a very low number. The mean / total index was 0.17, meaning that, on average, the agencies could only meet 17% of all the indicators we set for the security dimension. But it was encouraging to see that one agency, the Hong Kong Post Office, did achieve this maximum score, reflecting that the optimal level set by our dimension was a reachable target. Nevertheless, many agencies did not even score a single point for this dimension. There were a total of 60 agencies receiving a zero score in security. Many of our indicators used for measuring security involving putting up statements, taking measures, and stating policies on protecting the privacy and data security of citizens. The low score of many agencies on security showed those measures and statements were not emphasized by or simply absent in their websites. There were two major reasons for this problem. First, many agencies relied totally on the portal of the HKSAR Government to provide such assurance and measures. However, while this could be understandable as the portal was linked directly to agency websites, this was not sufficient and acceptable. Many citizens still logged on to the websites of agencies directly, instead of going through the government portal. It was still important to address the privacy and security concerns of those citizens in the agency websites. Second, many agencies websites did not have those measures and statements on privacy and data security because they were taken as unnecessary with regard to the stage of development of those websites. Many of the agency websites having a low score in security were still staying in the stage of providing information, with limited interactive capacity. As no

27 information and data transfer were needed, it was not necessary for agencies to address the resulted privacy and data security concerns. Consequently, aside from a security concern, low scores in security dimension also pointed to the serious problem of limited and left-behind stage of development of agency websites, particularly its lack of interactive capabilities. On average, government agencies were weak in interactivity. The maximum possible score for this dimension was 5 but the average score for government agencies was only 0.66. The mean / total index was 0.13, meaning that, on average, government agencies could only met 18% of all the indicators set for the interactivity dimension. The maximum actual score was 3 and the minimum actual score, like the dimension of security, was 0. Only one agency had this maximum score of 3, which was the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department. On the other hand, a total of 41 agencies had a zero score in interactivity. The indictors of Interactivity mainly dealt with the availability of specific features and functions in the websites for collecting feedback on the performance of agencies and keeping citizens informed of the agency performance. The low score of many agencies reflected that it was still not a common practice for departments to rely on the Internet and their websites for collecting feedback from citizens and communicating with citizens on their performance. The final dimension we examined was e-engagement. E-engagement was a core component of e-governance but it was also the dimension government agencies performed the worst on average among all five dimensions. The maximum possible score for e-engagement was 23 but the average score was only 1.79. Its mean / total index was 0.08, the lowest one among five dimensions, meaning that on average the government agencies could only met 8% of all the indicators set for e-engagement. The maximum score by government agencies was 12 but it was only attained by one agency, the Planning Department. The score for the agency ranked second already dropped to 10 and then dropped further to 8 for the third and fourth agencies. What raised our concern was 50 of our evaluated agencies, exactly half of them, did not score a single point in e- engagement. The e-engagement dimension assessed the extent to which the government agencies offered Internet-based means for e-consultation. But e-engagement involved

28 more than just e-consultation. It also included the extent to which government agencies incorporated citizen inputs via the Internet into their decision-making. In our evaluation, we found that it was increasingly common for government agencies to have e- consultation. However, it did not go too far beyond that. In our indicators, we also looked for engagement tools and mechanisms, such as blog, chat room, online forums, and citizen surveys. Almost no agencies offered them and that explained the low scores of most agencies on this dimension. This showed that the function of e-governance was not yet fully developed by most government websites in Hong Kong. In addition to the absolute performance of government agencies in website evaluation, we would also compare the relative performance of government agencies among themselves. In examining the absolute performance of government agencies, we compared its actual score with the maximum possible score. In examining the relative performance, we compared the government agencies according to their own actual scores. Within the actual range of scores of government agencies, we separated them into three different groups of performers: high performers, medium performers and low performers. 33 The advantage of looking at the relative performance of government agencies was to allow us to see the variations among agencies in their e-governance performance. By separating them into three groups of different performances, we identified agencies with a less satisfying performance, those would need more attention, incentives and resources for making improvement. At the same time, by highlighting the high performers, we allowed the low and medium performers to learn from the high performers. As the high performance was performance actually attained by agencies, it would be more convincing to use them as benchmarks and examples to persuade agencies of other groups to follow these actual and concrete cases for improving their website performance. Table Three shows the number of HKSAR Government agencies in each performance group by the five dimensions. The mean score of each group is also included in the Table. Information of government agencies in each group by each

33 To calculate the overall range of scores, we take the difference between the highest actual score and the lowest actual score of government agencies. Since we divide the government agencies into three groups, we also divide the overall range into three smaller ranges of equivalent width for fitting the government agencies into the corresponding three groups. As an illustration, if the highest actual score is 40 and the lowest actual score is 11, the overall range will be 30. In this example, the range for each group of performance is: high performance (40-31), medium performance (30-21), low performance (20-11).

29 dimension was shown in Appendix VII: “Website Evaluation Scores by Dimension: High Performance, Medium Performance and Low Performance”. Similar to our findings on the absolute performance of agencies above, content and usability were the two dimensions in which most agencies performed the best. In content, there were as many as 36 agencies in the high performance group. More than half of the agencies, 53 of them, had medium performance in content. Only 11 agencies were classified into the low performance group of content. In usability, although there was only four agencies in the high performance group, 79 agencies were identified for the medium performance group, with only a minority of them, only 17 agencies, had low performance.

Table Three: Number of HKSAR Government Agencies in Each Performance Group and Average Scores by Dimension Content SecurityInteractivity Usability E-Engagement Overall High 36 2 1 4 2 41 Performance (24) (6.5) (3) (11) (11) (38.07)

Medium 53 22 5 79 14 49 Performance (17.75) (4.25) (2) (10.05) (6.29) (29.08)

Low 11 76 94 17 84 10 Performance (11.09) (0.26) (0.56) (7.94) (0.82) (20.1) Notes: The numbers in brackets are the mean scores of each group.

Performance of agencies was less impressive on the three remaining dimensions. In security, there were only two agencies in the high performance group. There were 22 agencies in the medium performance group but a majority of them, 76, belonged to the low performance group. In interactivity, only one agency was classified as having high performance. Even in medium performance group, there were only 5 agencies. Almost all the agencies, a total of 94, had low performance. Security was one of the most important enabling factors for e-governance and interactivity was an intermediate stage of governance coming before e-engagement. It was difficult to have good performance in e- engagement without correspondingly strong performance in these two dimensions. Consequently, even when we only took relative performance into consideration, most

30 agencies were not performing well in e-engagement. There were only two agencies in the high performance group. For the medium performance group, there were 14 agencies. But a huge majority of the agencies, 84 of them, were in the low performance group. Table Four showed the three groups of HKSAR Government agencies by their total scores in our E-governance measure. Although most agencies were not performing well in three of the five dimensions (security, interactivity and e-engagement), due to their stronger performance on the two other dimensions (content and usability), their overall performance improved. There were 41 agencies in the high performance group, 49 agencies in the medium performance group and only 10 agencies were classified as having low performance. Apparently, the good performance of those agencies in the two dimensions had offset some of the bad performance in the three dimensions. Moreover, our E-governance measure is simply the sum of all the 86 indictors and more than half of our indicators, a total of 55, came from the two dimensions on which most agencies performed well. There were 40 indicators in content and 11 indicators in usability. This also helped most agencies achieve a better overall performance in spite of their relative poor performance in security, interactivity and e-engagement. We see that a gap does exist between the actual performance of government agencies and the optimal standard set by our E-governance measure. The mean of all government agencies is below half of the maximum possible scores of our E-governance measure. Variations do exist across dimensions and agencies. Among the five dimensions, government agencies, on average, performed better in the dimensions of usability and content, but were relatively weak in the three other dimensions, security, interactivity and e-engagement. In addition to absolute performance, the gap between our optimal measure and the actual performance, we also compare the relative performance of agencies among themselves. When we take all five dimensions together to evaluate their relative performance, most of the government agencies, 90 of them, belong to the high performance or low performance groups. However, when we look at the performance of agencies in each of the five dimensions individually, findings similar to our actual performance are obtained. A majority of the agencies belong to the high performance and medium performance groups in the dimensions of usability and content. But the result is completely reversed for the dimensions of security, interactivity and e-engagement. It

31 shows that our government agencies have done relatively well in setting the foundation of e-governance in terms of information provision and technological capacities, in improving and strengthening its level of e-governance in the future, it should focus more on the dimensions of security, interactivity and e-engagement. In concluding this study, from the experience of Hong Kong, it is perhaps fair to state that the Internet does seem to fall short in pushing government to be more open and democratic in reaching the e-governance stage. Instead of using e-government to deepen the reforms in government, radically transforming its relationship with citizens, leaving government on its own, e-government is still adopted more or less as an efficiency- enhancing tool for accomplishing some existing purposes. If we put this finding in the larger context of literature of e-government or ICT in general which investigates to what extent information technology really transform government and organization, it does not seem to be as surprising as it seems. Some previous literature has already pointed out that information technology in general or e-government in specific are not the major driving forces of institutional change.34 They are often tools picked up deliberately by policy- makers and managers to accomplish the goals they already have in mind, and therefore, information technology in general and e-government in specific usually serve no more than reinforcing the preexisting forces or tendencies in governments. As a result, the surge of e-government should never be taken as a panacea for institutional change and shift our attention totally away from more fundamental forces.

Table Four: E-Governance Performance of HKSAR Government Agencies by Total Scores High Performers (35—44) 41 agencies Audit Commission Census and Statistics Department Civil Engineering and Development Department

34 For example, please see Wong, Wilson and Eric Welch. (2004) “Does E-Government Promote Accountability? A Comparative Analysis of Website Openness and Government Accountability in Fourteen Countries.” Governance, Vol. 17(2): 275-297; Kraemer, Kenneth and John Leslie King (2006) “Information Technology and Administrative Reform: Will E-government be Different?” International Journal of Electronic Government Research, 2 (1), 1-20.

32 Commerce, Industry and Tourism Branch Communications and Technology Branch Companies Registry Correctional Services Department Customs and Excise Department Department of Health Department of Justice Environmental Protection Department Fire Services Department Food and Environmental Hygiene Department Government Flying Service Hong Kong Post Housing Authority and Immigration Department Independent Commission Against Corruption Inland Revenue Department Land Registry Legislative Council Leisure and Cultural Services Department Office of the Government Chief Information Officer Office of the Telecommunications Authority Planning Department Rating and Valuation Department Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) Social Welfare Department Sustainable Development Division Tourism Commission Transport and Housing Bureau Transport Department Water Supplies Department Works Branch Medium Performers (24—34) 49 agencies Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department Architectural Services Department

33 Auxiliary Medical Service Building Department Central Policy Unit Chief Executive Civil Aviation Department Commerce and Economic Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau Development Bureau District Council Drainage Services Department Economic Analysis and Business Facilitation Unit Efficiency Unit Electrical and Mechanical Services Department Executive Council Film Services Office Financial Secretary Financial Services Branch Government Laboratory Government Logistics Department Government Property Agency Highways Department Hong Kong Auxiliary Police Information Services Department Innovation and Technology Commission Intellectual Property Department Invest Hong Kong Joint Secretary for the Advisory Bodies on Civil Service and Judicial Salaries and Conditions of Service Labor and Welfare Bureau Labor Department Legal Aid Department Marine Department Narcotics Division Office of the Commissioner of the Insurance Office of the Ombudsman Official Receiver's Office Planning and Lands Branch Protocol Division Registration and Electoral Office

34 Security Bureau Student Financial Assistance Agency Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority The Treasury Branch Trade and Industry Department Treasury Low Performers (13—23) 10 agencies Administration Wing Chief Secretary for Administration's Office Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau Government Records Service Insider Dealing Tribunal Secretariat, Commissioner on Interception of Communications and Surveillance Security and Futures Tribunal The Office of the Government of the HKSAR in Beijing Travel Agents Registry University Grants Committee Secretary

35 APPENDIX I

BEST PRACTICE MEASURES AND THEIR METHODLOGY

A. Best Practice in Overall ICT Measures

Ranking Organization Methodology y Connectivity and technology infrastructure 20% y Business environment 15% y Social and cultural environment Economic Intelligence Unit 8. E-commerce 15% (EIU) Readiness y Legal environment 10% http://www.eiu.com/ y Government policy and vision 15% y Consumer and business adoption 25% y Overall business environment 10% y IT infrastructure 20% 9. IT Industry Economic Intelligence Unit y Human capital 20% Competitiveness (EIU) y Legal environment 10% Index http://www.eiu.com/ y R&D environment 25% y Support for IT industry development 15% International y Opportunity (affordability, 10. Digital Opportunity Telecommunication Union coverage) Index (DOI) (ITU) y Infrastructure (network, device) http://www.itu.int/ y Utilization (usage, quality) y Networks (fixed telephone lines, Internet bandwidth, mobile subscription) International y Skills (school enrolment, 11. ICT Opportunity Telecommunication Union literacy) Index (DOI -OI) (ITU) y Uptake (computers, Internet http://www.itu.int/ users, house- holds with TV) y Intensity (broadband subscription, outgoing telephone traffic) y Connectivity (number of Internet hosts per capita, no. of PCs per United Nations Conference 12. ICT Diffusion capita, no. of telephone mainlines on Trade and Development Index per capita, no. of mobile http://www.unctad.org/ subscribers per capita) y Access (no. of estimated Internet

36 users, adult literacy rate, cost of a local call, GDP per capita) y Environment for ICT offered Harvard University/World y Readiness of key stakeholders 13. Networked Economic Forum (individuals, business, Readiness Index http://www.harvard.edu/ governments) http://www.weforum.org/ y Usage of ICT among stakeholders y IT spending as a percentage of GDP, software spending, IT services spending y PC penetration, Internet users, home Internet users, mobile Information Data Corporation 14. Information Society Internet users (IDC) Index y Ecommerce spending, broadband http://www.idc.com/ households, wireless subscribers, handset shipments, y Secondary education levels, tertiary education levels, civil liberties, government corruption.

B. Best Practices in E-government Measures

Ranking Organization Methodology Measurement of a country’s online United Nations & American stage of development: Society for Public y Emerging Presence 14. Web Presence Index Administration (ASPA) y Enhanced Presence http://www.un.org/ y Interactive Presence http://www.aspanet.org y Transactional Presence y Seamless or Fully integrated 15. E-government United Nations & American y Web presence Measure Index, Society for Public y Telecommunications Benchmarking of E- Administration (ASPA) infrastructure Measure government http://www.un.org/ y Human Capital Measure (BMEG) http://www.aspanet.org y Web measure index 16. E-government United Nations y Telecommunication Readiness Index http://www.un.org/ infrastructure index Internet users, PCs, main telephones

37 lines, cellular phones, broad banding) y Human capital index (adult literacy rate, combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio) y Connected y Transactional 17. Web Measurement United Nations y Interactive Assessment http://www.un.org/ y Enhanced y Emerging y E-Information 18. E-participation United Nations y E-Consultation Index http://www.un.org/ y E-Decision-Making Rutgers University, USA & y Security/ Privacy 20% Sungkyunkwan University, y Usability 20% 19. Digital Governance South Korea y Content 20% Ranking http://www.rutgers.edu/ y Service 20% http://www.skku.edu/eng/ y Citizen participation 20% y Transparency (ownership, contacts/ reachability, organizational info, issue info, Cyberspace Policy Research 20. Openness Measures: citizen responses) Group in University of Arizona Transparency and y Interactivity/Accessibility (CyPG) Interactivity (security & privacy, contacts/ http://www.cyprg.arizona.edu/ reachability, organizational info, issue info, citizen responses) Websites are evaluated for the Taubman Centre, Brown presence of the following features: 21. E-government University y Information availability Ranking http://www.brown.edu/Departm y Service delivery ents/Taubman_Center/ y Public access y Service maturity (Publish— passive/ passive relationship, Interact— active/ passive interaction, Transact— active/ 22. Maturity of E- Accenture active interaction) government http://www.accenture.com/ y Customer relationship Development management (insight, customer service, interactions, organization, networks, support) 23. ACSI E-government ForeSee Results, the Federal y Customer expectations Satisfaction Index Consulting Group y Perceived quality

38 http://www.foreseeresults.com/ y Perceived value http://www.fcg.gov/ y Customer complaints y Customer loyalty A model of E-government use: y Information seeking y Downloading 24. Government Online Taylor Nelson Sofres y Consulting Usage http://www.tnsglobal.com/ y Providing information y Transacting y Exploring y Non-users y Network Preparedness y Required Interface- 25. World E- Functioning Applications Waseda University, Japan government y Management Optimization http://www.waseda.jp/ Ranking y Homepage/Portal Situation y Introduction of CIO y Promotion of e-Government y Consumer to government (e.g. income tax payments) y Government to consumer (e.g. income tax refunds) y Business to government (e.g. sales/VAT tax payments) 26. Government E- Economic Intelligence Unit y Government to business (e.g. payment Adoption (EIU) loans disbursements) Ranking (GEAR) http://www.eiu.com/ y Infrastructure (e.g. broadband, mobile phone usage) y Educational, economic & political context (literacy and educational levels, Internet/ technology savviness)

39 APPENDIX II

WEBSITE EVALUTION CHECKLIST

Table 3.1 Major Dimensions of E-governance Measure Dimension Max. Score

1. CONTENT To what extent does the government agency offer useful information on its 40 website?

2. SECURITY 7 To what extent does the government website ensure the trust of citizens?

3. INTERACTIVITY Does the government website allow citizens to provide feedback on the website 5 in specific and the performance of the government agency in general? Are performance data available online for the information of citizens?

4. USABILITY Is the government website maintained and updated on a timely and regular 11 basis? Does the government agency equip its website with the essential technical features making the website accessible and easy to use?

5. E-ENGAGEMENT Does the government agency offer Internet-based means for e-consultation? Does the government provide actual feedback on citizen input on major issues 23 in its website? To what extent does the government agency involve citizens through the Internet into its decision-making?

TOTAL 86

40 (1) CONTENT

To what extent does the government agency offer useful information on its website?

Measured by the following 40 items

Does the website contain the following information? (Some examples)

ƒ Organization chart, Name and title (agency head), Background information (agency head), Duties and responsibilities (agency head), Departmental Budget, Size and establishment, Speeches, Newsletter, Archive of major information

(2) SECURITY

To what extent does the government website ensure the trust of citizens in using it for contacting government and participation?

Measured by the following 7 items

Does the website contain the following items? (Some examples)

ƒ Policy statement on personal data security, Policy statement on payment and transaction security, Channel for lodging enquiries / complaints and providing feedback on security concerns

(3) INTERACTIVITY

Does the government website allow citizens to feedback on the website performance in specific and the performance of the government agency in general? Are performance data available on-line for the information of citizens?

Measured by the following 5 items

Does the website contain the following items? (Some examples)

ƒ Online performance surveys for major services / performance of the agency, Findings of online performance survey of the agency posted in the website, Online survey for the website itself, Performance outcomes of the agency

41 (4) USABILITY

Does the government agency equip its website with the essential technical features to make it accessible and easy to use? Is the government website maintained and updated on a timely and regular basis?

Measured by the following 11 items

Does the website contain the following features / items? (Some examples)

ƒ Website frequently updated, Information on how to contact the responsible person for the technical features of the website, Information on how to contact the responsible person for the content of the website, Site map

(5) E-Engagement

Does the government agency offer internet-based means for e-consultation? How well is it doing in facilitating the consultation process? To what extent does the government agency indicate it will take citizen input into decision-making? How easy is it for citizens to approach the policy-makers for participation in decision-making? Does the government provide feedback on e-opinions? What is the impact of citizen’s e-inputs on the outcome of government decisions?

Measured by the following 23 items

Does the website contain the following features / items? (Some examples)

ƒ Consultation documents for viewing, Consultation documents for download, Consultation archive, Online submission of comments, Online forum, Online polls, Statement on encouraging citizen participation, Statement on committing itself to incorporate the results of e-participation into decision-making, Structured process for handling public suggestions and feedback and how they are incorporated into the policy-making process, Statement on the responsiveness on handling public feedback and suggestions, Archive and summary of opinions and suggestions given by citizens through e-consultation and e-deliberation, Responses from government, especially key officials, to public’s e-opinions

Methodology

For most items, each agency receives “0” for No, “1” for yes. However, for some items, like “restricted area”, the scoring is reversed in order to preserve the meaning of governance and for being consistent with other indicators. There are a total 86 items. The final score of the e-governance measure is the sum of scores for all 86 items.

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