Despite cost cutting and budget constraints across the economy, European e-government services will grow by 13pc to US$2.8bn in 2003, according to the international data corporation (IDC).
The progress is not uniform across the five countries surveyed by Europe, with different countries displaying different levels of sophistication and readiness for e-government.
“The UK and Germany have fallen behind Finland, France, Spain and Italy in the sophistication of their e-government activities. They are also behind the Nordic countries in their readiness for e-government,” said analyst James Weir.
Western European governments are struggling to trade off budget constraints with the need to improve service sophistication. E-government is part of the EU’s eEurope strategy that public administrations must implement to: deploy electronic delivery of services; create e-business platforms for public procurement; and connect organisations to leverage intra-agency and inter-agency knowledge.
By Dick O’Brien
