Defining a Model for Effective e-Government Services

and an Inter-organizational Cooperation in Public Sector

Nunzio Casalino

, Maurizio Cavallari

1,2

, Marco De Marco

, Mauro Gatti

and Giuseppe Taranto

Università degli Studi Gugliemo Marconi - CERP, Via Plinio 44, 00193 Rome, Italy

Università del Sacro Cuore Milano, Largo A. Gemelli 1, 20123 Milan, Italy

Università La Sapienza, Via del Castro Laurenziano 9, 00161 Rome, Italy

LUISS Guido Carli - LBS, Via Pola 12, 00198 Rome, Italy

Keywords: Public Sector, Interoperability, e-Government, Innovation, Change Management, Organizational Issues,

Online Services, Learning Contents, National Best Practices.

Abstract: Accomplishing interoperability among public information systems is a complex task not only by the variety

of technological specifications and by the nature of the organisations in which the systems are implemented,

but also because a detailed evaluation and analysis of the multiple aspects involved is lacking. The aim of

this paper is to identify and summarize the main aspects regarding the field of interoperability (strategic

frameworks, laws, regulations, specific requirements, organizational and technical issues) by means of the

location and assessment of works that focus on the identification and analysis of the barriers, the

organizational issues and the success and risk factors in information systems (IS) for public sector. Most of

the interesting studies, based on the literature review of organisational studies, focus on other related themes

such as bond interconnection, information sharing, and process integration in public administration but not

on the specific subject of interoperability between European public administrations IS.

1 INTRODUCTION

Interoperability is the capacity of information

systems to process, store and exchange electronic

documents using uniform technology standards and

processes. In the age of the advanced information

society, the interoperability of information systems

of different organisations, both public and private, is

a major factor in the efficiency of the economy. A

number of European Commission directives indicate

the crucial impact of this issue on the evolution of

the information society and the EU Digital Agenda,

one of the 7 flagships in the Europe 2020 strategy,

defines interoperability as a main line of action. One

of the question marks when addressing an objective

as ground breaking as the interoperability is, “Are

the necessary skills in place?” Whereas most

European countries have developed excellent

legislative frameworks and have set up the necessary

institutions, the skills required of the players for the

actual implementation of interoperability remain an

obstacle. In the last five years were established

several governmental programs, action plans,

interoperability strategies, public sector IS

frameworks. Besides quite a few public projects on

interoperability’s aspects, funded by the European

Commission and the creation of observatories on e-

government issues, highlight the importance of

interoperability for public organizations. However,

despite this recognition and the investment and

effort already made in the pursuit of improved

collaboration and data exchange capacity between

different government agencies, the level of

interoperability between agencies remains far short

of adequate and the problems and difficulties caused

by this lack of interoperability are evident.

Transparency means knowing the reasons, facts, and

logics of the decision taken. Unfortunately, public

agencies continue to operate in a highly fragmented

manner and delay in service delivery, lack of

transparency regarding bureaucratic procedures,

requiring filling out numerous application forms

with identical sets or subsets of data.

400

Casalino N., Cavallari M., De Marco M., Gatti M. and Taranto G..

Deﬁning a Model for Effective e-Government Services and an Inter-organizational Cooperation in Public Sector.

DOI: 10.5220/0004968704000408

In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS-2014), pages 400-408

ISBN: 978-989-758-028-4

 2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

2 A MODEL FOR A NEW

E-GOVERNMENT

As part of the transparency and effectiveness of

services, public administrations are obliged to adopt

appropriate tools to detect customer opinions of its

online services. The subject of the Customer

Satisfaction Management (CSM) in public sector is

particularly important at European level and has

been treated with the aim of providing countries

with a set of methodologies and practices. The well-

known evolution of the role of the State, from the

New Public Management until the Governance

approach, in its diverse interpretations, has been

translated in a series of new principles and tools that

characterize the Open Government Model. Open

Government has been historically used in various

contexts including freedom of information, anti-

corruption, and transparency, so the concept cannot

be considered recent. The basic idea of Open

Government is to establish a modern cooperation

among politicians, public administration, industry

and private citizens by enabling more transparency,

participation and collaboration. Open Government is

an interoperable government model in which people

and systems can communicate easily. The role of

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

is central for opening government, though

technology cannot explain all recent changes. Open

Government Implementation Model (OGIM) needs

of four specific implementation stages: increasing

data transparency, improving open participation,

enhancing open collaboration, realizing ubiquitous

engagement.

Figure 1: The Open Government Implementation Model.

The main key point of OGIM is that public

authorities should advance their open government

initiatives gradually, focusing on one

implementation stage at a time. In fact, the

increasing of data transparency is a required

precondition and an enabler for implementing earlier

phases. After all, without an accurate information

management, it is not possible to establish a

participation culture among the relevant

stakeholders. Transparency helps communities to

enhance their governments by positive contributions,

also helping to resolve concrete problems inherent

specific government activities. Therefore, accessible

information and Open Government Data (OGD) can

be seen as crucial aspects of OGIM. Governments

around the world are adopting massively

information and communication technologies to

increase efficiency and improve public sector

services. Increasingly powerful and user-friendly

technologies are creating serious opportunities for

governments to offer new ways to interact with

citizens in order to respond to their needs more

effectively and with their integral participation. On

the course of e-government development, Open

Government Model and Government 2.0 seem to be,

respectively, the new ends and new means of e-

government. The current platforms and

interoperability of technology-enabled public

administrations, are moving from a traditional e-

government approach (Government 1.0) to Open

Government and Government 2.0 approach. This

shift transparency has been increasingly emphasized

as a fundamental driver for e-government. The

development of online services has been studied at

different stages: (1) presence, (2) integration, (3)

transaction and (4) seamless, that describe the new

patterns of interactions of digital governments.

These four stages are explained in terms of

complexity involved and different levels of

integration.

Figure 2: The stages of an effectiveness e-government

development.

The last stage is reached when the government

promotes shared governance to transform how it

operates, in terms of seamless information flow and

collaborative decision making. This is the most

sophisticated level of online e-government initiatives

and is characterized by:

1. Presence

An official

government

online presence is

established

2. Interactive

Users can

download forms,

send e-mail and

interact through

Complete Partial

Integration

3. Transactional

Users can pay for

services and other

transactions

online.

4. Seamless

Full integration of

e-services across

administrative

boundaries.

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 horizontal connections among public agencies;

 vertical connections (central and local);

 infrastructural and organizational issues;

 relations between governments and citizens;

 influences among stakeholders (government,

private sector, companies, etc.).

This last stage has not yet been fully achieved, since

the transformation of government requires a

meaningful negotiation between public

administrations and citizens as well as among

citizens themselves. Information should flow not

only between public organizations and from the

government to the citizens but also from citizens to

the government and to citizens as a network. In

order to achieve this kind of transformation, there is

the need of an extensive technology support for

citizen participation. In addition, the government

needs to make sure to release information and to

make it available to the public for informed

discussions and participation. This will promote a

collaborative decision making process by including

citizens in the inception of new government policies

called “Open Government Model”. The Open

Government Model initiative endorses transparency,

participation, and collaboration that may offer new

means for an electronically-mediated governance,

sewing the gap between the actual status of e-

government (use of e-government chiefly for

cataloguing information on governmental webpages,

web-based interaction and on-line transactional

services) and the “seamless” stage of e-government.

Consequently, Open Government Model is the new

goal and Government 2.0 is new tool of e-

government. Due to the increasing complexity of

data required, the range of services to be provided

and the heterogeneity of the public, differentiation

between the channel options available to the

customer is of prime importance. The work of

organization and integration of information supply is

operated from a multi-level back office, which

should not only select and implement the tools and

communication channels, but also produce content

that is tailored specifically to the publication

medium. The criteria for selecting a channel and a

tool are based on: accessibility, attractiveness,

flexibility and adaptability to the location/service,

cost/benefit analysis, innovation, delivery modes,

diffusion of the instrument and the space-time

coverage. A further distinction of instruments may

be: information tools, relational tools and settlement

instruments. The Public Connectivity System (PCS)

is a network that interconnects all public

administrations, enabling them to share and

exchange data and information resources. The

process of integration and data administration occurs

by the availability of an architectural interface with

which different systems and organizations are

presented and exchange their data and services.

Individuals, directors and employees of companies

and Public Administrations can acquire a digital

signature and managing the process of drafting,

review and approval of documentation flows is

completely customizable by the user, who can also

organize documents in folders with hierarchical or

logical links. The use of a workflow engine

facilitates the development of specific modules. The

process of managing Public Administration

documents comprises transmission of files via

computer, management of document flows to the

proceedings and the record update management and

archiving. This is the collection and storage of all

incoming documents (mail, email, fax) and the

management of the entire process by contacting the

offices concerned to create a “dossier”. This

minimizes paper documentation both internally and

externally; stores and searches for any document

type, including fax and e-mail; keeps an archive of

previous versions of documents and simplifies the

dissemination of information and documents. The

needed reorganisation is essentially based on the

need to respond to the objectives of improving the

processes in terms of increased effectiveness of

public action (effectiveness), containment of

government operating costs and reducing the time

needed to perform various activities (efficiency),

increasing visibility and the possibility of user

control (transparency). The concern over the issues

of re-engineering processes comes mainly from the

observation of widespread problems encountered in

public administration to define, initiate and

implement computerization projects capable of

achieving visible and tangible results in terms of

improvement of services provided to citizens and

cost-efficiency. The initiative is aimed at developing

a methodological proposal for the reengineering of

service processes to be proposed to the government

and in particular of a methodology:

 supplement the current methodology for the three-

year planning of information systems;

 applicable in either scenario of radical change or

minor improvement of existing processes;

 applicable to both interventions aimed primarily at

restoring efficiency and actions aimed at

improving the quality of services provided;

 flexible and adaptable to specific situations of the

various administrations and, especially, scalable,

i.e. applicable to areas of complex processes that

often involve a plurality of administrations;

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 pragmatic and results-oriented, used by the

subjects of change, and able also to enrich the

cultural heritage of the PA staff involved.

3 ELGI: AN EUROPEAN FUNDED

PROJECT TO PROMOTE THE

INTEROPERABILITY

The ELGI “eLearning for e-government” project

deals with the issue of interoperability in the context

of e-government and the establishment of cross-

border electronic services (http://www.elgipro

ject.eu). It aims to improve the knowledge and skills

of stakeholders in e-government projects across

Europe through the development of an innovative e-

learning tool based on the consortium’s own state-

of-the-art research. Skills and expertise are gathered

from a variety of sources: research institutions,

universities, vocational education and training

(VET), public administration cooperation, e-learning

and interoperability. Each partner institution is a

leading educational/training organization with a vast

network extending between the target groups and the

resources to disseminate and exploit results of the

project effectively and efficiently. The resulting e-

course contributes to the inclusion of working adults

in lifelong learning and the development of new

skills and attitudes to help them meet the

requirements of the changing environment, thereby

improving their employment prospects.

Figure 3: ELGI project homepage www.elgipro ject.eu.

The objectives reached by the project are:

1: An e-learning platform offering content aimed at:

 understanding of the processes of entry in registers

of information objects related to electronic services

and all related operating instructions of National

legislative bodies;

 ability to formulate unified names of electronic

services and their status, to analyse the legal

consistency and technological feasibility of

electronic administrative services;

 awareness of the legal regulations and procedure

needed to certify these software applications, for

use in e-government and e-learning;

 ability to formulate the processes of re-engineering

of existing administrative systems so that they are

eligible for certification, and to define adequate

specifications for the creation of new systems in

accordance with the law and regulations.

2: Training of target groups:

 civil servants of local, regional and national public

administrations or agencies;

 managers of e-government projects;

 information systems developers;

 policy makers and citizens.

e-learning modules has been chosen as a training

method for its three major advantages:

 in the field of interoperability, an electronic course

promises to be most effective;

 proven cost-effectiveness;

 flexibility in terms of real time updates to the

topics covered.

The project has the potential for playing an

important role in the development of public services

in Europe, both at national and local level and in

support of broader cross-national needs. The ELGI

project was carried out in five phases: the first part

focused on general information regarding the

participant’s Country by summarising the situation

of citizens, companies and public administrations in

order to identify the features of each Country

involved in the project and understand the dimension

and historical background to automation in PAs. The

second focuses in particular on the regulatory and

legal aspects that already exist and any future legal

amendments required to enhance online service

interoperability of each Country involved. The third

focuses on the organizational aspects and their

effects on PA structures and on the performance of

the services provided. The fourth deals with the

technological aspects, detecting unsuccessful

attempts and analysing the strengths and weaknesses

of any given action. The final phase comprises a

detailed description of a successful example as best

practice and an on-going experiment of

interoperability in each Country.

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4 THE NATIONAL CONTEXT

The Italian public administrations involved in

interoperability actions and analysed in the ELGI

project include:

 AgID - National Body for the Digitalization of

Public Administration: this organization is

governed by public law, has expertise in the field

of information technology and communication

within the Public Administration;

 Department for the digitalization of the public

administration and technological innovation

(www.funzionepubblica.gov.it/link/digitalizzazion-

innovazione): this organization is the facility used

by the President of the Council of Ministers for the

coordination and implementation of policies

promoting the development of the Information

Society, and related innovations;

 Formez PA (www.formez.it) - is a service center,

offering support, studies and training for the

modernization of Public Bodies;

 Infocamere (www.infocamere.it) - is the

consortium of information technology companies

of the Italian Chambers of Commerce.

 CONSIP (www.consip.it) - is a company owned by

the Ministry for the Economy that handles

procurement on behalf of public administrations.

The main systems adopted are:

 SPC: The Public Connection and Cooperation

System is a complete system including technical

communications infrastructure, services, a registry

and connection rules and guidelines. SPC has

already reached a mature stage and continues to

evolve.

 SIOPE: the Information System on the Operations

of Public Bodies, is a system of electronic tracking

of receipts and payments made by the treasurers of

all public bodies;

 SIATEL (Local Bodies Tax Registry Interchange

System ): by which public bodies can obtain tax-

payers’ fiscal domicile;

 SISTER (Inter-Territory Exchange system): offers

cadastral and mortgage title search services; local

authorities can now access the database of the

Agency of the Territory and control the tax base

reported by citizens for the payment of municipal

property tax or municipal solid waste disposal tax

and check the owner of a property located within

the territory.

 Telemaco: service developed by InfoCamere to

give access to data regarding the Register of

Companies held by the Chambers of Commerce

and enabling certified online registration of firms,

corporations and individual firms.

 INPS on line (www.inps.it/portale/defaul.aspx):

information channel, developed to promote the

digital handling and transmission of data regarding

the recruitment and payment of employee

contributions.

 Italia.gov.it (www.italia.gov.it): search engine and

index of public websites, developed and managed

by AgID. The purpose of the service is to facilitate

the G2B and G2C relationships.

 dati.gov.it - Web portal for data sharing between

Public Administrations (www.dati.gov.it): this

website is a compilation of recent information on

the appropriate licenses designed to allow free

circulation of data via the Italian open data license

2.0 and used by PAs to give access to the

information contained in their websites.

 CEC-PAC (www.indicepa.gov.it and www.po

stacertificata.gov.it): in order to make the services

provided by the digitization of PA available,

Certified Electronic Mail is an essential tool and

therefore obligatory for all public authorities.

 SIT - Geographic Information System: is the

system for obtaining and sharing data on a specific

geographic area.

 Companies Register (www.registroimprese.it):

provides online data regarding Italian and

European companies, their shareholders and

directors.

AgID coordinates the instruments and modernization

procedures for the activities of PAs. This body has

also established working groups to define the

technical requirements and guidelines relating to

strategic aspects of the process:

 creation of electronic documents, storage systems

and management of document flows;

 digital identity management for data access;

 operational continuity and critical infrastructures.

5 ORGANIZATIONAL ASPECTS

AND ISSUES

Monitoring, a form of quality control process related

to administrative records in accordance with national

regulations, must be undertaken within the context

of a public process (competitions, announcements,

contests, contracts, simpler administrative

procedures). The “Measurement, evaluation and

transparency of performance” section of Law

150/2009 provides the following dynamics for the

performance management cycle.

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Table 1: Indicators adopted and phases for the public

administrations.

Phase Responsibility

Identify the basic methodologies of

the cycle

Commission

Political priorities Political-administrative

Translating political priorities,

through the activities of management

and services for citizens

Executives and employees

Support of the development cycle of

performance management and ensure

the application of methodologies

prepared by the commission

Independent evaluation body

The innovation of the Italian Public Administration,

in addition to a total re-engineering of the entire

procedural administrative apparatus, includes a new

approach offered to citizens. There are several

guidelines for the preparation of streamlining

measures adopted by the Italian Government and for

monitoring and evaluating the progress of these

activities, time-keeping and effective achievement of

objectives. Our research has revealed the existence

of a number of critical procedures of a legal nature,

including:

 the significant number of administrative tasks

required by law;

 the multiplicity of authorities involved in

individual cases;

 the diversity of tools such as simplification,

authentication and log-in self-certification,

silence gives consent;

 non-standard application forms in any local area;

 regional initiative in terms of computerization

and telematics;

 unsatisfactory usage of digital administration

solutions capable of improving levels of service.

The effects of critical opinions collected from the

business sector that perceives as excessive are the:

 costs of access to informations;

 excessive time costs relating to bureaucracy.

The new Plan for reducing administrative fees in

Italy (2007-2012) provides some benefits such as:

 elimination of duplicates;

 standardization of forms;

 online procedures (less paper);

 reducing the frequency of compliance;

 reduction of administrative burdens and

bureaucracy;

 reducing delays and inefficiencies generated by

errors or delays in data management.

 reduction of civil servants.

One of the fundamental requirements of online

communication in the Public Administration is to

ensure maximum accessibility to information and

full utilization of the services provided. The

Department for the Digitization of Public

Administration and Centre for Technological

Innovation has promoted accessibility to services

provided by Public Administrations on line. This

network improves responsiveness to citizens,

promotes a unified perception of the system of the

Italian PA, and develops confidence in public

services, enhancing the professionalism of civil

servants who work in contact with the public and

those with back office roles who operate services.

Access to administrative documents is one of the

cornerstones of the administrative procedure

jurisprudence and the measurement of the level of

democratization of Public Administration. Online

services enable citizens to apply for access to

information and/or documentation on a variety of

websites and consult announcements published in

the Official Journal. AgID intends to co-finance

projects that involve the transfer of e-government

solutions already implemented and in operation, so

that other administrations can reuse the solution. The

deployment of innovative technologies in Public

Administration can only be deemed effective if its

contribution to improving the final performance of

the service provided to users is clearly perceived.

The proposed approach does not exclude the need to

reorganize and innovate the back-office processes

that lead to the final delivery of the service and

requires that such reorganization be explicitly aimed

at improving service to users. Participation,

discussion and interaction with users form

increasingly valuable elements, not only for citizens

but also for the administration body running the web

site. The main Front-end services are the following:

1. CSM (Customer Satisfaction Management):

can

greatly enhance the dialogue with users, as forms of

interaction at various levels.

2. RSS (Really Simple Syndication): is used for the

dual purpose of disseminating and aggregating

content, making it particularly easy to use and

ensuring interoperability across multiple platforms.

3. Web forms: the creation of CSM online forms to

receive feedback from users or create special

questionnaires, permits greater awareness of visitors

and avoids the creation and publication of ad hoc

email addresses potentially subject to spamming.

4. Newsletter: offers Public Administrations the

possibility of reaching a very high number of users,

managing registrations and invalidations in full

automatic mode.

5. Multilingual: CSM easily manages content

written in multiple languages, facilitating not only

the rapid transition between the different languages

of written content, but also, the translation of the

entire interface of the site.

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6. Content for mobile: the sharp increase in recent

years of the use of enabled smartphones used to

consult online content should urge the PA to make

information easily accessible to the newest

generation of mobile devices.

7. Taxonomy: the accurate indexing of contents

allows the user to reach information of interest more

easily, increasing the availability of documents and

easy reference to information.

In the last year, new goals were fixed as follow:

 the government allows users to make payments

due to the government, with the exclusion of taxes

governed by specific regulations.

 central government may use service providers for

payments by debit, credit or prepaid cards and

other electronic payment instruments available.

 all regions and local authorities must be provided

of systems for online payments.

6 DESCRIPTION OF A MODEL

FOR THE

INTEROPERABILITY OF

PUBLIC PROCESSES

Public information systems include all features that

support the storage, retrieval and maintenance of

information supporting the public administrative

services. Also in this field, Enterprise Resource

Planning systems (ERP) are proven to significantly

increase efficiency, improve information access and

reduce total cost of ownership. Some features that

these organizations are integrating are the following:

MIS - ERP – Payroll. The main solution is the

implementation of an Integrated Information System

adapted for the public sector. Main subsystems of

the applications are:

 financial management;

 public accounting;

 procurement;

 contract management;

 management of the projects

 decision support system;

 data processing;

 information analysis and reports.

HRM – Payroll. In this case, the subsystem supports

organizations on issues such as:

 human resource management;

 recruitment;

 appointments;

 licenses;

 skills evaluation;

 organizational issue of payroll.

Protocol and Document Management. An

application for the creation, management, workflow

and tracking of all types of electronic documents.

AgID is the Public Administration organization

delegated to the definition of standards, architecture

and guidelines about the development of e-services

in the Italian e-government domain. AgID is

currently responsible for the entire lifecycle of the

Public Connectivity System and Application

Cooperation. A standard for XML representation of

norms and a specific plan has been defined, with

particular regard to the peculiarity of the structure of

documents and metadata for advanced documents’

management and workflow. The model establishes

two important principles:

 cooperation among administrations is exclusively

carried out by its tools and according to its

technical rules; it has legal value and no further

decree or official publication is needed (e.g.

standard XML formats for data exchange);

 public ICT managers need to organize their

information systems, including organizational

and management aspects, in order to

accommodate workflow rules.

Figure 4: Structure of documents’ management and

workflow.

The European Union has a long history of promoting

projects and standards that encourage the adoption

of secure-authentication tools online. Each Member

State is committed to enacting these initiatives by

law and establishing a regulatory framework for the

spread and use of these standards. The model

represents the most effective way to meet the

requirements of the law for standardization and

widespread adoption, unlike other exclusive

authentication mechanisms. The spread of

smartphones and other thin, networked devices

offers the technological grounding for a capillary

distribution of this solution and for its efficient

management. The role of e-government in treating

information as a key service to the citizen becomes

increasingly important and lends credence and

significance to the need for maintenance and

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sustainability of online service delivery. Over recent

years the number and dimension of Public

Administration websites have increased at such an

impressive pace that the daily monitoring of the

information has proved increasingly complex, both

quantity- and quality-wise. Moreover, in terms of

their complexity and economical and planning

efforts, the investments of public sector turn out to

be comparable with those of the most advanced

private sector organisations. The borders between

services for citizens, businesses and professionals

are more and more undefined. At present, online

web-services are not the only integration technology

available on the market. At present, within main

public organizations, situations characterized by

substantial innovation co-exist with situations in

which progress towards innovation are still

hampered by substantial obstacles. The reform’s

process is based on a centralized model focused on:

 promotion of the effectiveness;

 impact on competitive sourcing models;

 alignment of collective bargaining provisions;

 importance of effective managerial way of

thinking for civil servants;

 simplification of WFMS and document

management.

The key idea is that available state-of-the art

technologies in the fields of information retrieval,

natural language processing, semantics and machine

learning are now adequate to build a common

knowledge management system (KMS) capable of

collecting and automatically managing large

quantities of data and information to a level of

quality (in terms of correctness and completeness)

comparable or higher than human teams could reach.

Figure 5: Centralized and distributed models of processes.

This innovative development approach of e-

government portals collects and provides

information gathered from different, heterogeneous

and independent sites in a consistent way. The DB

system, from the point of view of software

architecture consists of a database containing data

and a web application for maintenance (research,

creation, update, removal).

7 CONCLUSIONS

The centralized approach to the governance of

public information systems and services could be

easily replicated in other countries as well. This

approach is being applied in the framework of ELGI

project aimed at the establishment of a big

knowledge management system as well as vertical

search services for public data. Public organizations

choose appropriate services (IP multi-channel

services, VoIP services, security services, etc.), to

connect their offices from a special list managed by

AgID. The first significant impact is the costs’

saving (approximately 50%). Furthermore, the

quality and security of public services have been

improved. The project (on March 2014) involves 56

central PAs (over 20000 websites connected), 20

regions, 110 provinces and 8000 municipalities. The

case developed is an innovative multi-provider

model that promotes competition between ICT

providers. All the qualified providers will be

connected to the qualified exchange network made

of different Neutral Access Points and managed by

AGID through a specific consortium. In order to

implement their networks, the PAs choose the

appropriate services from a list. The network is

already operational and almost all ministries have

deployed their networks and activated the main

services on their websites. The application services

phase is to be launched currently. Several services

can be planned such as the Electronic Visa and the

Electronic Passport (for Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

Chinese and other Mediterranean countries showed a

strong interest on the project.

Could be possible to

determine also how the complex of forces acting on

each country can be related with the existence of

previous ICT structures, through the presence of

private/public partnerships, with the attitude of PA

civil servants, and with specific organizational

issues. The authors feel that similar studies in

countries that present different levels of

development and maturity of e-government,

particularly with respect to the level of

interoperability between PA, can improve the

DefiningaModelforEffectivee-GovernmentServicesandanInter-organizationalCooperationinPublicSector

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operation of the information systems already

achieved and can provide great benefits.

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