Understanding E

Case vignette 1.1: E-government pay-off in Europe
In a study on the pay-off of technology initiatives in government (TNO
and CapGemini, 2004), it was concluded that ICTs do pay off in terms
of improved quality of information provision, reduction of process time,
reduction of administrative burdens, cost reduction, improved service
level, increased efficiency and increased customer satisfaction. At least
some of the changes not only occurred because of characteristics of the
ICTs used in policy implementation (faster calculations, increased
capacity to process huge amounts of information), but also could be
attributed to organizational changes in back offices (for instance,
redesign of workflows).
The focus of this book is upon the use of smart machines, or in general infor-
mation and communication technologies, in and around public administration. In
recent years, a lot has been said about ‘electronic government’ or ‘e-government’
(Bekkers and Homburg, 2005; Fountain, 2001; Grönlund, 2003; Snellen, 1998;
Tat-Kei Ho, 2002) and in practice, there are enough existing implementations of
ICTs to talk about an actual ‘wired government’ (Minister for the Cabinet Office,
1999, 2000; Ministerie van Economische Zaken, 1999; Ministry of Research and
Introduction
3

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Information Technology, 1995; Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom
Relationships, 1999; National Audit Office, 2002; National Performance Review,
2000; OECD, 2003). It is seductive to ask the question what the effects of smart
machines are for public administration, but, for the reasons mentioned above,
such a question will not be asked in this book. Rather, the focus is on the proper-
ties, potentials and paradoxes of ‘smart machines’ for governments (including an
analysis of what would make machines ‘smart’ or ‘intelligent’). After reading the
book, it will probably not be possible to give an answer to the question, what are
the exact consequences of ICTs for public administration, but I hope that the
question is more circumscribed, defined more exactly and, therefore, better
answerable.