Programmable Messaging for Electronic Government - Building a Foundation - Formal Methods and Hybrid Real-Time Systems - page 219

licensing service defined in Section 3. Section 6 describes the development and
operations of a prototype software infrastructure that implements the models.
Section 7 presents related work and explains the contribution of this work. The
final Section 8 presents conclusions and draws some directions for future work.

2 Electronic Government

Electronic Government refers to the use of ICT, particularly the Internet, as
a tool to achieve better government [8]. In particular, Electronic Government
aims to: provide customer-focused, ecient and reliable public services deliv-
ered through a variety of traditional and electronic channels; engage citizens
in two-ways interactions with their government; support internal government
operations; and enable one-stop access to all public services.
Based on the extent of ICT support for the underlying government processes,
Electronic Government enables the delivery of public services at different levels
of automation. A model by UNPAN - United Nations Public Administration
Network identifies the following five levels [18]:
1. Emerging - The entry level for online presence, it involves publishing static
information on agency websites including information about public services.
2. Enhanced - Expanded on-line presence, with regular content updates, search
services, and periodicals - publications, legislations and newsletters.
3. Interactive - Enabling two-way interaction - e-mail contacts with public of-
ficers, download and upload of forms, possibility to search databases, etc.
4. Transactional - Complete and secure transactions can be executed through
the website in order to: renew passports, apply for licenses, pay taxes, etc. A
user is able to complete the whole process, including payments electronically.
5. Seamless - Related services are offered across agency boundaries responding
to the needs of citizens (life events) or businesses (business episodes).

The UNPAN and other service maturity models [8][23] all recognize seamless
services as the highest level of service maturity. At this level, agencies share the
data provided by customers and cooperate in delivering public services through
the integration of operations across agency boundaries. For example, Section 3
presents a concrete business process for citizens to apply for business licenses,
with several agencies collaborating in the delivery of this service.

3 Example - Electronic License Service

Local governments LG are responsible for issuing various types of business li-
censes: for selling goods, for establishing food and beverage activities, for ad-
vertising in public places, and others. LG can offer these licensing services by
requesting government agencies to collaborate in the execution of the under-
lying business process: carry out inspections, provide technical opinions, and
check conformance to the relevant regulations. For instance, here is a five-stage
process to issue a license for establishing a food and beverage business, based on
the service provided by Macao Government [12]: