Question 2a and 2b.

Q2a. What characteristics have you found important in the legal and regulatory

environment to promote successful GEMSD projects?

Q2b. What impediments have you encountered in the legal and regulatory

environment?

All participants answered question 2a and fourteen answered question 2b. However, in combining responses from questions 2a and 2b a number of categories of interest were determined from the data collected, the primary categories identified were:

1. The need to change due to the delivery service being electronic or mobile, rather than paper transactions;

2. Any legislative change is only necessary for those issues such as Privacy, Security, Form design; and

3. The process of legislation, on the scale necessary, was a considerable issue also.

A limited number of participants have had to change or re-draft legislation relating to GEMSD, ‘(we) have amended the existing legislation so that it then caters for both paper and electronic (1)’ transactions. Others expressed the view for a need for some new legislation to occur. One participant expressed the view that there was too much worrying about the issue of legislation and that service delivery was effectively the same as always, ‘just in a different form (9)’, however the majority of the participants expressed the view that the change in form (electronically or mobile) creates issues which resulted in the major issue of processing legislative change. This process of change specifically arises from using electronic and mobile forms in service delivery. If these were not an issue for GEMSD then no legislative change is required

‘assuming that privacy is not an issue and requires no legislative change (10)’. However, different to participant ten’s belief, privacy was considered an important issue ‘we have all got to work around that now (1)’. It was considered both an ‘enabler and dis-enabler (2)’ for successful GEMSD projects, providing reasonable protection for individuals but simultaneously being a regulatory burden to

implementers. This was indicated to be due to the poor definitions of ‘public good or benefit (3)’, the view being that ‘privacy principles do not fully reflect the balance between public good and private interest (3).’ It was seen to be important to consider general information and specific personal information (3) ‘it is that grey area that is causing some issues (12).’ ‘The interpretation of privacy and application of privacy in Victoria is perhaps a bit of an impediment to being able to offer a public service that is useful to them (12).’ Importantly the complexity of privacy policy was highlighted as, ‘incredibly complex law to get past (5)’ ‘you have got 3-4 privacy regimes within one project (2)’ plus ‘now we are supposed to be globally centric… that is what the laws have to relate to (5)’ which highlights the increased complexity of privacy as a core issue for successful GEMSD.

In total five participants held the view that privacy laws were important but posed an unequitable burden on GEMSD projects (2, 3, 5, 12 and 14). Similarly two (11 and 12) local participants deemed security as part of the ‘counter terrorism and identify fraud changed and hardened (11)’ ‘trying to satisfy a risk averse department in terms of audit trails and ability to have enforceable evidence (11)’. Thus privacy issues verses security issues based on verifying identity and audit trails can be considered another onerous task for GEMSD practitioners.

Processing forms (4 and 11) was also an issue for electronic transactions because the forms themselves are often enshrined or locked in legislation and thus can only be utilised as ‘PDF so people can download them, fill them in by hand and either put them in the fax machine or mail it (4)’. Thus severely limits the GEMSD service interaction at this level and needs to be empowered by a regulatory instrument that sets out the objective parameters rather than ‘hardwired documents’.

One participant was concerned about costs and government maintaining its neutrality in pricing ‘Pricing, the issue of statutory and non statutory fees and competitive neutrality (1),’ there are a ‘number of issues around ensuring that what we develop is not found to be anticompetitive (1),’ implying government must not artificially affect the market place with the introduction of GEMSD facilities or products. Thereby ensuring market stability is maintained after the initial GEMSD implementations. The process of legislation change itself was seen as complex and time consuming (5). It was considered important to minimise the process as much as possible by

‘consultation with all peak bodies,’ ‘leverage off existing legislation’ and ‘have to think hard about how we can streamline the amount of reform (1)’. ‘How long it takes to get a legal thing through parliament is amazing… and how many

ramifications it has with the Australian law and international law (5)’. Further the ‘subtlety in the courts. How they want some things to happen…therefore there is impediments in their mind of thinking and there have been changes in laws happen only because some groups of judges have dispersed (5)’ was an impediment to the process. Participant 1 surmised, ‘e-government initiative is an interesting one because we are moving into a space to be and it delivers a lot of benefits across industry (1).’ One overseas participant noted a jurisdictional problem, ‘The complication arises when you do cross boarder whereby your Electronic Transaction Act does not necessarily apply (OS2)’.

5.4.3 Question 3.

How would you rate your experience with single access portals with 'one stop

shopping' for online government services compared with individual department access points?

While two of the participants indicated they did not have enough experience (1 and 2) to adequately answer this question, the majority favoured a single portal approach.

There were a number of concerns expressed over the requirement of good quality portals and the development issues associated with providing those portals. In one group of participants these issues were enough for them to prefer individual sites (3, 9, 10, and 11).

Thus the appropriateness of single portal is dependant on the quality with which it has been created or delivered, and in turn, depends on the resources (financial and time) allocated to its development and implementation. Alternatively it is necessary to consider: if search engines do the job adequately, why waste the resources on a single entry point or portal? ‘I use google for almost everything now (3)’ ‘I went to google and could not find it, so I went to Victoria online and I found it (4)’. Overall most participants could not adequately answer this phenomenon referring to it as being a necessary for government policy or to promote a single face of government.

Quality was definitely seen as a major issue with user friendliness, navigation, familiarity (changing structure). An example cited was the American ‘3-11 service’ which is a good example with a comprehensive planned delivery service inbuilt to the system (3). Another offered we ‘managed to catalogue across the three levels of government and aggregate all that information services together in one style has been far more effective (4)’. In relation to user friendliness one participant suggested ‘people do not identify which level of government delivers what service (4)’, but rather, view government as one entity. An alternate opinion of merit was

‘complexity, time and the cost of developing especially with the quality of search engines available renders many govt portals useless (9).’

5.4.4 Question 4.

How would you comparethe multi jurisdictional/Departmental nature of GEMSD single access with service levels previously provided by individual or separate agencies?

All participants answered this question. Overall participants felt that the multi jurisdictional nature was a good idea, however many felt they had inadequate experience to comment, for while there is some move in that direction its development was still in its ‘infancy’.

Beneficial characteristic included that it is ‘easier (10)’ for users and that it was important for the users to have a ‘whole-of-government view (11).’ However it was

also pointed out that ‘parallel processes of access’ was important for those familiar with a department and those who are not and ‘do not know where to start (12)’. However the concern was if we ‘lose that capacity for individual initiatives to show excellence and to do things in a slightly different ways. The innovation goes right out (9).’

Four participants (4, 6, 9, and 11) were conscious of issues relating to the

implementation process. Primarily they believed there is a need for ‘implementation to be done on a comprehensive project basis (6)’ and that this comprehensive process can be hampered by ‘bureaucracy issues (4)’ and the ‘departmental duplication throughout the process (9)’. Similarly it was held all parties require a ‘clear sense of the purpose of the site (11)’.

The Overseas participants supported the multi Jurisdictional policy transfer capability as the ‘same look and feel for service makes use easier (OS1)’ for users. Suggesting, that good public promotion ensures ‘every (country reference) knows that that should be a starting point (OS2).’ ‘My general impression is that one-stop shop solutions are better way to provide GEMSD solution, especially when hierarchal organisation of the government sites allows providing intuitive way to find the relevant piece of information (OS3).’

5.4.5 Question 5.

Does the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) enhance or complicate legacy systems; should they be kept separate?

The general opinion from local participants was ICT enhances legacy systems with the view that ‘the majority should be using some smart ICT, (It) should allow for smarter ways of doing things (5)’. It is seen as a ‘liberating technique (3)’ and ‘should be enhanced by new mobile technologies and web services (7)’. ‘The idea of keeping things in separate non-communicating silos is something that is not consistent with moving government forward (8).’

The transition process was an important element (not well implemented currently) with one participant noting that it may take time but eventually ICT will replace legacy systems, with a combination of enhancing and redundancy of legacy systems ‘some cases enhance it in other cases the legacy system will be killed off (6)’. The

process ‘requires web service and mobile standards... for manipulating and making use of data (3)’ more consistent. One participant suggested they were trying to overcome this problem, ‘(we are) trying to reconcile database entries... we have built in standardised interfaces in those sort of things that helps there (10).’ Also

suggesting ‘a lot of databases they are using will probably not integrate they will probably leave stand alone (10)’ identifying the single silo nature of some systems. There was a strong emphasis by three participants (2, 5 and 8) on ‘change culture’, suggesting ‘change’s probably the hardest issue’ believing ‘change management (2)’ to be the hardest issue of all. Many comments emerged on while it will enhance the system, (why else would it be implemented) a transition time was primarily due to issues of change. The change process itself/ reconciling data between databases (identification problem) will have to be dealt with but were seen as secondary to cultural adjustment.

‘Legacy systems ultimately have to migrate, it is a transitional exercise and the government has to [do] for efficiency’ some old systems work fine and ridging technologies useful not practical to up data all –cost (12). A lone participant felt it [porting older systems to new] was not value for money (1)

5.4.6 Summary of re-engineering government for electronic and mobile