Despite major progress over the past decade regarding digital government, a recent report by the Brookings Institute claims that e-Government progress has fallen short of expectations. While meaningful success stories abound, the report highlights areas needing improvement.
An excerpt from the executive summary of the report State and Federal Government in the United States, 2008 says:
"Transformationalists often claim that new technology will produce widespread consequences. Incrementalists, on the other hand, point to the influence of institutional forces—such as structural fragmentation within government as well as issues related to the investment cost and organizational structures of state and federal government—in limiting the speed and breadth of technology’s impact on the public sector."
The report closes with recommendation for public officials on how to maximize the use of technology to improve government performance. You can download the full report in PDF format from the link above.
Yes, the report also address many privacy and security findings such as:
Table 3. Percentage of Government Websites Offering Privacy and Security Statements
Table 4. Assessment of E-Government Privacy and Security Statements
The National Governor's Association (NGA) Center For Best Practices authored a summary of the Brookings report. Since it is fairly rare for NGA to highlight reports which are critical of state governments, this Brookings report certainly offers meaningful recommendations that security and other IT staff need to take serious in the public sector, as well as for those in the private sector who support the public portals.
The Brookings report ends with rankings of the state and federal portals.
Any thoughts on their rankings?
