According to a recent global study, E-Government Leadership: Rhetoric vs Reality - Closing the Gap by Accenture, in the past year Australia has been overtaken by Canada and Norway in the world ranking of e-government implementers, moving from third to fifth out of 22 countries surveyed. Accenture evaluated governments on the basis of"delivery maturity" and"service maturity", with the overall maturity rating used to determine categories of Innovative Leader, Visionary Follower, Steady Achiever or Platform Builder.
Australia rated above average on depth and breadth of online services but fell down on its level of sophistication. To be considered an e-government leader, the report concludes, Australia needs to embrace single entry points to access government services, build customer-focused sites and implement widespread customer relationship management processes.
"Future progress for Australia depends on a whole-of-government approach and addressing security and privacy concerns to delivering government services online," says David Hunter, global managing partner for Accenture's government practice."Australia is in an excellent position to take advantage of the next wave of e-government developments, but the challenge for the federal government still remains to ensure that vision is translated into reality."
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