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| The European Court of Auditors (ECA) issues special report about effective e-government projects |
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Electronic Government (e-Government) refers to electronic transactions between governments and citizens or businesses, or between different governmental administrations. e-Government requires the use of information and communication technologies combined with organisational change and new skills in order to deliver better quality public services. Audited EU support takes the form of co-financing projects in Member States. |
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| This European Court of Auditors´ (ECA) performance audit focused on the 2000-2006 programme period and four Member States: France, Italy, Poland and Spain.Between them they accounted |
| for €3 billion or 45 % of expenditure from the ERDF on Information Society projects. |
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| The ECA concluded that despite the fact that ?-Government programming at national level gradually improved during the programme period, weaknesses in early strategies meant that the co-funded projects did not always address priority needs for ?-Government development. Although, project outputs were generally delivered, they were often delivered late or with a reduction in scope due to poor design or lack of an implementation methodology. |
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| Most of the projects audited were technologically sound and the IT applications developed provided electronic services to public institutions, citizens and businesses. In general, the systems co-financed by the ERDF, were appropriately maintained and financially sustainable. |
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| The Court concluded that the e -Government project sup¬ported by the ERDF have contributed to the development of electronic public services in the four selected Member States. However, despite the fact that the majority of projects are technically operational, insufficient focus on project results has meant that the benefits obtained were much lower than expected. |
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| For this purpose, the ECA makes a series of recommendations in its special report for the design of future e-Government projects or similar schemes. Among them are that Member States should develop strategies for e-Government, which are based upon identified needs, have clear objectives and assign responsibilities to the bodies accountable for the achievement of these objectives. They should also select e-Government projects on the basis of an assessment of likely project costs and benefits. The ECA also calls on the European Commission to ensure that EU principles and recommendations enabling trans-European interoperability are taken into account by projects benefiting from ERDF funding. |
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