Digital Governance: A Public Policy Perspective
Abstract
The need, importance and benefits of digitisation of the public sector by using digital technologies as an integrated part of its service delivery mechanism cannot be overemphasised. However, despite recognizing the need for the digitization of public services, governments in developing countries are not giving it the importance it deserves. One of the main reasons for this slow speed of digitising the public sector is the capacity deficit of the public servants coupled with their inherent tendency to resist the change. Consequently, unless the bureaucracy is sufficiently motivated, and educated, their urge to resist change will keep the country at lower levels of modernization.
In this article, I will be discussing the four areas to focus on, four public policy issues to tackle and four steps to take for putting a country on its long-term trajectory of digital transformation
Introduction
Digital governance essentially means the online provision of public goods and services such as the casting of votes, issuance/renewal of licences, payment of government dues/utility bills etc to the general public by the government agencies by using the internet portals instead of citizens going to the respective offices of these agencies for getting these services. However, these internet portals in the form of websites and apps are in addition to and not the substitution of traditional brick and mortar offices.
The need, importance and benefits of digitisation of the public sector by using digital technologies as an integrated part of its service delivery mechanism cannot be overemphasised. Besides improving governance through greater transparency and accountability of government functionaries, it helps governments to ensure efficient and effective provision of services at a fraction of the costs incurred by providing the same services through traditional means. Additionally, creating an open, participatory and trustworthy public sector, also helps to improve socioeconomic inclusiveness essential for long-term sustainable growth.
However, despite recognizing the need for the digitization of public services, governments in developing countries are not giving it the importance it deserves. According to a study carried out by Microsoft, lack of supportive government policies and ICT infrastructure, uncertain economic environment, cyber threats and security, lack of organizational leadership skills to execute, and no urgency to counter industry disruptors are a few of the barriers to digital transformations.
While agreeing with these findings I believe it is the capacity deficit of the public servants coupled with their inherent tendency to resist the change which is hindering progress in the digital transformation of the public sector. Consequently, unless the bureaucracy is sufficiently motivated, educated and if need be, compelled to go for accelerated digitization, their urge to resist change will keep the country at lower levels of modernization.
In my article, I will be discussing the four areas to focus on, four public policy issues to tackle and four steps to take for putting a country on its long-term trajectory of digital transformation
Four Areas to Focus
There are four areas namely quantity, quality, access and affordability of public services through digitization which need close attention.
- Quantity/Range of Services
No one can prepare an exhaustive list of public goods and services which could be made available online to the public; the sky is the limit. Per Mackinsy, a small country like Estonia with only a 1.3 million population, provides more than 160 services ranging from the casting of votes to issuing entitlement vouches for the poor online to its citizens. You can very well imagine the number of services which could be potentially provided to the citizens of developed or large countries. However, prioritization is essential for any country embarking on digital transformation or upscaling it. The best course of action is to prepare the list, prioritize them per the ease of their digitization, needs of the citizens and availability of resources. Piloting with low volume services and learning lessons along the way could help the government to gradually move towards high volume but labour-intensive services.
2. Quality of Services
With few exceptions, here and there, all over the world, state institutions are often accused of inefficiency, non-responsiveness and lower quality of services. Providing these very services online is ipso facto, no guarantee of their improved quality. But there are some good reasons to believe that digital governance can and has resulted in improved services. Firstly, the basic objective of digitization is to improve the quality of public goods and services; as such, no government agency can afford to be negligent on this count.
Secondly, being interactive and accessible to millions of people online has its corrective mechanism to ensure improvement. Thirdly, the slackness of any government agency in providing quality services will immediately become a topic of discussion on print, electronic and social media, forcing the political elite to take remedial measures to save their skins. Fourthly, most of these services will be handled by professional people and the majority of them will be outsourced to the private sector. Professional management and private sector involvement are strategic drivers for improved services.
Lastly and most importantly, the very technological architecture of digitization is based on the streamlining of services. It means creating appropriate algorithms for automatic classification of the big data for its easy location and retrieval by the end-users. For example, if all the tasks involved in registering companies could take place with no human effort, there should be no complaint about its less than satisfactory service delivery. -
3. Access
Ensuring the availability of hassle-free, timely, accurate and relevant information and services to the end-users is the biggest public policy challenge. If you develop proper information highways and portals, you reduce the burden on public highways-why citizens should commute by public or private transport to the government offices to seek information if these are made available online.? Why he should be forced to go to the even nearest bank branch to pay a utility bill if this facility is available online?
It is a paradigm shift now instead of a stakeholder coming to your office, the state is to provide the services at his/her doorsteps, a click away whether living in a city or the rural areas. It is comparatively easy to provide digital services to those living in the urban areas of a country; the real challenge for civil servants is to ensure its across the board availability to the rural areas and remote corners-an an uphill task but not impossible. If we can have plans for Smart Cities, why can’t we have for Smart Villages!
That is why the creation of a centralized agency with provincial and local branches is the most appropriate and cost-effective way to not only economize on these scarce human resources but also to avoid unnecessary fragmentation of service providers. Only a centrally linked provision of big data and services on a range of platforms with similar access requirements can ensure a seamless experience for the end-users even in the rural areas.
4. Affordability
One of the most beneficial aspects of digitization is its comparative affordability even by the poorest of the poor. One source of this affordability is of course the savings to be made by the public in terms of time and resources spent by them to visit offices if the state provides them with the same services online. Secondly, there are savings to be made by the state also by providing the public services online instead of creating brick and mortar structures for this purpose. However, the state must pass on these savings dividends to the public and must not try to cash on them by pricing the online services at the same rate as are applicable off-line.
We must come with a pricing structure that keeps the affordability threshold of the poor as the bench march rather than recovery of the fixed and variable costs for the provision of these services as its prime motive. Some services must be free to everyone but for others, remember the rule of thumb-online issuance of any public service (i.e. renewal of passports or driving license should not be priced more than one-tenth of its off-line cost to the end consumer.
Four Issues to Tackle
All along the road to the digital transformation of the public services, there will be issues to tackle-four need special attention
- Management
Digital transformation of a country is a huge societal project involving multiple stakeholders who are continuously handling the colossal amount of data for providing services to the public for improving their quality of life. It becomes all the more challenging when we take into account the uncertainties involved in the entire process- timely availability of requisite resources, project execution delays, rapidity of technical change making technology redundant in a few years and the shifting priorities of the changing political regimes.
Add the typical turf wars among various government institutions creating difficulties in pooling of information and its sharing among public and private-the two main pillars of big data. The public servants must cope with these management issues arising out of the diffused ownership of information to be collected and diversity of services to be provided in the nook and corner of the country ensuring their ready availability and almost free of cost access. And that too in the face of a critical shortage of specialized expertise.
2. Cyber Security
Like every technology, digitisation has its dark side also. The lethality, frequency and duration of cyber-attacks have increased manifold in the recent past and are likely to increase still further. While greater digitisation provides more opportunities for hackers who are increasing in number and improving their sophistication, the slow pace of counter-cyber-attack technologies is making the situation even more complex. Make cyber risk a priority only next to service delivery, ensuring network security, malware protection and secured configurations as the cornerstones of cyber security strategy.
3. Change Management
Technological changes being very disruptive due to their inherent logic, are a great source of stress for public servants. And digitisation of public services is not an incremental change, rather a paradigm shift demanding attitudinal and behavioural changes in civil servants. You can very well imagine the anxiety and the frustration of public servants who are supposed to change the entire framework of thinking and doing the normal work. Manage this change scientifically through improved personal competency and constant capacity building of those involved bedside providing them with congenial working conditions and an amiable cultural environment.
4. Digital Divide
Technology is a double-edged weapon in terms of creating inequalities or bridging them. Left to itself, it, unfortunately, favours those who already have and leaves out the have-nots in the lurch. Let it not happen. It is a godsend opportunity to empower everyone. Grab it. Those who are illiterate will be worst affected while those who are not sufficiently tech-savvy will get fewer benefits from greater digitisation of the public services. One way to help them is to encourage the development of maximum user-friendly apps., in local languages which should also have an audio interaction facility.
Establishment of public portals at community centres where dedicated staff is available to help those who can’t use these services has been the most effective way of increasing digitisation outreach to the poor. Similarly, providing public services on mobile platforms is another convenient and cost-effective method of doing the same.
Four Steps For Digital Transformation
Like any other public policy issue, these are the four standard steps to be taken for the implementation of a comprehensive plan of digital transformation of the country
- Formulation of a Vision
Any transformation starts with a vision backed by total commitment at the political and executive levels. The same is the case for the digitisation of the public sector. It is incumbent upon the civil servants to help the political elite in the formulation of a long-term vision by making them aware of the need, importance and benefits of digitising the public sector in the rapidly globalizing world. They should explain to the political elite how crucial digitisation of public services is for the realisation of their goal to make the country a just, prosperous and modern nation-state having a status in the comity of nations. Try to convince them that information highways are as crucial for the economic growth of a country as motorways and other infrastructural projects are.
Remember, political commitment at the highest level in terms of resource allocation and providing guidance is the most crucial but also the most difficult element for the successful and sustainable implementation of any plan of action. If it is there, even rua rudimentary legal framework and institutional structure can work wonders; if not, even the best of the above would not deliver.
2. Framing of Legal/Regulatory Framework
After the formulation of a long-term vision where the country would be in the medium to long term in terms of digital transformation, bureaucracy needs to assist the elected representatives in framing a comprehensive legal regulatory framework that is in sync with the globally accepted best practices. Some of the fields requiring clear cut policy formulation and legislative enactment are accessibility protocols for stakeholders, data protection, E-Commerce Frameworks, Public-Private Partnership Agreements etc.
For this you do not need to reinvent the wheel; any good legislation already in force anywhere in the world can be adapted and enforced with suitable amendments. Do seek the assistance of the donor agencies and the technocrats but use your knowledge and experience to draft practicable public policies as well as legislative provisions for improving the legal/regulatory framework already in force or proposing new sets of rules and regulations for putting the country on the long-term trajectory of digital transformation.
This framework must be approved by the competent forums for its institutional legitimacy and providing confidence to the stakeholders for its long-term continuity irrespective of periodic regime changes.
3. Creation of Institutional Arrangements
To implement the legislation approved you need a robust but flexible institutional framework that must meet two crucial tests-Vertical Alignment and Horizontal Linkage. Sheer volume of data that needed to be collected, collated and made retrievable, demands its vertical alignment from the central to provincial and local tiers of the state. At the same time, it needs to be linked horizontally with the public-sector institutions as well as the private sector entities at various levels of the vertical chain above.
Needless to over-emphasise, the portals provided at various levels for the public to access the services made available for them online must be easy to navigate and interact with. Again, you do not have to be entirely innovative. You can find extremely useful and effective models from across the globe. Leave it to the consultants to do the research
4. Implementation Strategies
Here is the test of the leadership capabilities of the civil servants. Who knows better than you that the best of the legal framework and institutional mechanism can fail to deliver results if not properly implemented? Attract the best of the technical and managerial brains from within the country. Despite all the misgivings people have about the critical shortage of this crucial element in a developing country, we can find dedicated and hardworking people with impeccable integrity to run these institutions.
Of course, if such talent is not available locally, employ expatriates or even foreigners to run these institutions with capable and dedicated staff. Resist the temptation of heading these institutions yourself because of the better terms and conditions of these posts; these are meant to attract the best talent. Keep yourself with regulation and the creation of an enabling environment and let the whiz kids and the business champions run the show.
Tailpiece
Here a word of caution will be in order. ICT is a tool, not the solution; it is meant to end itself, not the end itself. You must realize that ICT itself is not going to solve some of the fundamental challenges faced by the state. Thus, if there is wrong data in our revenue record about the ownership, possession and cultivation patterns of the agricultural farms, just digitizing it and making it available online is a laudable effort. However, it is not the ultimate solution to the correction of the land records nor is it is going to make illiterate farmers tech-savvy and redressing the grievances of the farmers.
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