A European Commission bencharking report has placed as the leader in e-government services in Europe.
The 9th e-Government Benchmarking Report, which measured public sector performance in the deployment of e-Government in 32 countries (the 27 European Union member states together with Croatia, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey) found Malta to be the best performing country by achieving 100% in five of the six core indicators measured.
IT minister Austin Gatt said that such a result reflected Malta’s vision and strategy in e-Government.
“We have always believed in the ability of the Internet to act as a tool to transform public service delivery. We have constantly worked not to merely place services online but to ensure that the digitisation of the process would actually enhance the outcomes for the citizens and businesses. Today we can truly say that all our efforts have paid-off” Dr Gatt said.. “This is the factual realisation of Government’s Vision 2015, wherein we lead the pack through our knowledge, capabilities and determination to cut red tape”.
Claudio Grech, Chairman of the Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA), the agency responsible for e-Government in Malta said that this success was primarily driven by a concerted effort to constantly re-invent the way electronic services weredelivered, hence leveraging on the technological evolution to deliver first-class electronic services.
“We managed to converge the technological and administrative developments in the Maltese government into an e-Government synergy which has enabled us to always remain ahead of the curve in the deployment of electronic services. We pushed the boundaries of the online environment to open ourselves to a wider audience, capitalising on the Internet penetration in households and businesses which has increased exponentially over the last years."
The e-Government Benchmarking study has been annually prepared since 2001 and is compiled by Capgemini, Sogeti, IDC, RAND Europe and the Danish Technological Institute for the EC Directorate General Information Society. Malta first participated in 2004 and has significantly improved its performance year after year.
The report measures Online sophistication, Full online availability, User experience for eServices, User experience for national portals, eProcurement visibility and eProcurement availability.
Malta was the only country to attain a score of 100% in both User Experience indicators and also the only country to achieve a 100% in the ‘User experience for eServices’, with the report stating that “the eServices of Malta (100%), Sweden and the United Kingdom (both 99%), Estonia (94%) and Denmark (92%) have been particularly well-rated in terms of transparency of service delivery, multi-channel service provision, privacy protection, ease of use, and user satisfaction monitoring. France (100%), Malta (100%), the Netherlands (96%), Spain (95%) and Portugal (94%) have the best portals as regards usability, user-centric design, and service bundling”.
‘eProcurement visibility’, measured to what extent potential suppliers are able to find information and links to eProcurement by contracting authorities. Malta scored 100%, an improvement from last year’s 92%. The second, ‘eProcurement availability’, measured to what extent the eProcurment process can be carried out online. Malta scored 76%.
MITA in collaboration with the Department of Contract is currently in the process of implementing a nation-wide eProcurement solution which will see public procurement becoming fully electronically enabled between mid-2011 and 2012.
Malta is the only country amongst the EU27+ which managed to score 100% in five of these six core indicators, followed by Ireland which managed to score 100% in three indicators.
The full report on the e-Government Benchmarking will be available in January.