Citizen Engagement in ICT Design: The Challenge - Informing Digital Futures: Strategies for Citizen Engagement - page 130

Fig. 7.1. Examples of elements of a sociotechnical system for e-Government (Of-
fice of the Deputy Prime Minister 2003).
It is evident from the discussion above, that local e-government should
be seen as a sociotechnical system (see Fig. 7.1). The UK Government's
strategy for e-government is a central part of its agenda to reform and
modernise all public services. In 2000 it set itself the ambitious target of
making all its services (at both national and local level) available online by
the end of 2005. For this to genuinely lead to improvements in partici-
pation of citizens in the democratic process and to a reduction in social
exclusion, democratic principles need to inform the process of design-
ing e-government systems. Embedding democratic and participatory de-
sign principles into all local government processes, with clear relationships
between services and initiatives and the e-government agenda is funda-
mental to success. In such a model, the key goal for e-government should
be successful ICT systems which lead to increased participation and social
inclusion, with all key stakeholders, including designers and citizens, vol-
untary and governmental agencies and business, sharing responsibility for
achieving the objective.
Canada provides an example of world-leading success with its Gov-
ernment On-Line (GOL) strategy. It is instructive to note that this is
underpinned by “ fundamental e-Government principles of clear vision,
user involvement, good targets and departmental and jurisdictional in-
tegration ” (Accenture 2004). Sociotechnical aspects of the Canadian
strategy include the re-design of governance and management systems
to accommodate new models of service delivery and the requirements of
users.