Digital Government at Work: A Social Informatics Perspective

Over the past decade, putting public services on-line has been a focus of huge policy and financial investments aimed at providing more joined-up service delivery. For some this is part of a transformation that is bringing about a new era of integrated digital government. For others digitalization means threats to privacy and security and a strengthening of bureaucracy.In the UK and beyond, front-line service providers and citizens have been slow to take up digital services whilst major projects have floundered. This book takes a fresh look at this vital area for public policy and practice. Informed by over ten years of original research on the 'inside' of projects to put local services on-line, the authors combine cross-disciplinary insights to provide a new social informatics perspective on digital government.Experiences in areas such as health and social care are used to illustrate the dangers of 'over-integration' when key decisions are left to system designers, as they seek to integrate information in centralized systems. The authors argue for a new 'architectural discourse' to change the way that systems are deployed, evolve, and are governed. This leads to the conclusion that increased coordination of public services in a digital economy is better achieved through federated rather than integrated services that recognize the infrastructural nature of information systems and the essential role of co-production in their future evolution

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1: Digital Government and Public Service Innovation 2: A Social Informatics Perspective 3: Integration: Towards the Virtual Agency? 4: Joining-up Children's Services and Health 5: Identity Management, Governance, and the Citizen as Customer 6: On-line on the Front-Line: FAME 7: Co-production and Tele-care for Older People 8: Making Digital Government Work Methodological Appendix

About the Author :
Professor Ian McLoughlin is Distinguished Professor of Management and Head of the Department of Management at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Prior to this he was Director of the Newcastle University Business School at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (UK). He co-founded and directed the Newcastle Centre for Social and Business Informatics which later became University Centre for Knowledge Innovation Technology and Enterprise (KITE) - where he is now a Visiting Professor. His research interests lie in the broad area of technological and organizational change and the management of innovation. He has published widely in leading international academic journals and is author or co-author of eleven books. Dr Rob Wilson is a senior lecturer in Information Systems at Newcastle University Business School (NUBS) and Director of the University Centre for Knowledge Innovation Technology and Enterprise (KITE). He has extensive experience working on and leading public sector information system development and implementation projects. His research interests are in public service innovation and the role that information and information systems play in organizational change and inter-organizational working. He has lectured and published widely on information systems in the public sector.

Review :
Steve Halliday, President of Society of Information Technology Management describes the book as a 'rigorous and thought-provoking analysis of the history and the future of digital government', and I would agree with that analysis...the book is also very readable and what is more, should be read. This is an insightful debate about the issues and opportunities of technology to improve public service outcomes. It brings together a rich mix of academic and practical research which challenges preconceptions [and] provides a fresh insight into the complexity of modern, IT-enabled public service policy delivery. It shows just why a more strategic view is required and why IT projects in the public sector are in practice so challenging. It advocates methods of systems analysis and delivery which allow existing infrastructure to be continually adapted to reflect changing political and social priorities. Above all, it makes a compelling case for much more co-design and co-delivery with service users, so that digital government can put the citizen in more control. Policy makers, IT leaders and politicians will all gain from this research. As cost pressures increase on governments around the world, new technologies are crucial to drive efficiency and boost productivity. Advances in ICT have the potential to dramatically improve the interface between government and citizen, allowing governments to better target services, and citizens to more easily access the support they need. But if digital government is not done well, the costs may outweigh the benefits. In Digital Government at Work, McLoughlin, Wilson and Martin have shown that it is possible to place the human users of technology right where they should be at the centre of government thinking when it comes to digital service delivery. The authors have done a superb job in illustrating the importance of taking a social informatics perspective in order to better understand the multiple dimensions of digital government and public service innovation and how digital government can be made to work more effectively in practice. With a strong and convincing analysis of rich case study descriptions, this book is a must-read for scholars, practitioners, policy makers and students interested in digital government. This is a rigorous and thought provoking analysis of the history and the future of digital government. A multi-dimensional perspective reveals an evolving maturity of conceptual models and challenges simple notions of the relationship between technology and society. This is an insightful journey beyond transactional citizen interactions, towards genuine innovation in co-produced service design, addressing more complex areas of social need and peoples lives. Digital and service leaders at all levels and across the many public service partnership organizations would benefit from understanding this book. ... the book has a great deal of relevance for public policy, particularly in considering the need for technology to empower rather than constrain its users. ... the book is also very readable and what is more, should be read.