Meanwhile, it seems clear one of the great remaining barriers to e-government is the disparity and fragmentation of government at state and federal level.
According to a report published last October by Deloitte Consulting, Through the Portal - Enterprise Transformation for E-Government, significant cultural and organisational changes confront Australian government agencies if they expect to go"beyond the Web site" and make all information and transactional services available through a single portal.
Nonetheless, Mike Lisle-Williams, e-government principal with Deloitte Consulting's public sector practice, is optimistic. He believes citizens in Australia can look forward to accessing a single Internet portal for government-related transactions and interactions within less than three years.
"The single portal will allow people to effectively log on to one Web site and complete all their government business at the same time. For example, if they change their home address details, they will only ever have to do this once and all relevant departments will be updated," Lisle-Williams explains.
"Convenience and ease of access will be the drawcards for the community but people will need to have choices in the way they access services. Today, many portals serve customers across certain government departments and levels. Within two to three years in Australia, those departments and levels will become less visible if government managers are serious about achieving enterprise-wide seamless multi-channel delivery to their customers.
"Many challenges lie ahead for government managers, perhaps the greatest being how best to invest to achieve genuine benefits in access and convenience for the community. Senior government executives need to consider not only the funding required to move their enterprise to the portal but also the potential changes in fiscal obligations resulting from potentially leaner operations and inter-governmental cooperation through shared services," he says.
Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.