Policy Context and Legal Framework

The Burger @Overheid.nl (e-Citizen Programme) is an independent forum which stimulates the development of eGovernment from the citizen’s point of view. To that end it involves citizens, advises government bodies and monitors progress. The programme regularly conducts surveys with its own People’s Panel, annually grants the Web Wise Awards for good practices and has developed the e-Citizen Charter with quality requirements for eGovernment. The project is an initiative of the Ministry of the Interior. The bureau is part of ICTU, the Dutch implementation organization for ICT and government. A Steering Committee representing citizen’s interest groups supervises the proceedings.

Implementation and Management Approach

The e-Citizen Programme ihas an indepedent status for monitoring eGovernment progress, but is deliberately part of the Dutch national ICT Implementation Organisation for e-Government (ICTU). So it can influence research & development in this field from its very "conception". Moreover co-development has been sought with all kinds of municipalities, provinces and other government bodies. Multi-channel issues: The charters' requirements are applicable to all major types of service delivery: counter, phone, website, mail. The promotion of the charter itself is of course based on the same multi-channel approach.

Impact

Since its introduction the charter has gradually gained acceptation. The Dutch National Ombudsman has announced to adopt the charter as part of his evaluation principles. The charter is taken as a guiding principle in the so-called NORA (translated as: Netherlands Government Reference Architecture), which is the basis for national interoperability standards on eGovernment. On April 18th 2006 a joint declaration was signed by representatives of all tiers of government (state, provinces, municipalities and waterboards) to stimulate eGovernment. This declaration takes the e-Citizen Charter as the guiding principle for citizen centred government. The 2006 OECD-peer review recommended Dutch government to integrate the charter in national policy. As a consequence the charter is being adopted by the Dutch Standardisation Council as the national standard for public service delivery. Thus it has gotten an irreversible status. Innovation: The e-Citizen Charter has been developed in an interactive process, with contributions by experts from academia, civil servants and ordinary citizens. The charter is first of all based on research into existing quality systems and several surveys of citizen’s expectations. With the help of Tilburg University, national and international views were gathered. The findings were consolidated in a study presented for public review in 2004. At the beginning of 2005, a version 1.0 of the charter was introduced. On the basis of the many comments and suggestions received, an improved version 2.1 has been drafted at the end of 2005. A new version 2.2 published in December 2006 includes a checklist fo rmeasuring compliance. The e-Citizen Charter has from the start been conceived of as model to be further developed via an open procedure. This was done by distributing it as a workbook that invites thinking, in stead of a manual that should only be studied. The current personal workbook (which is available in several formats, including an online version) allows the owner to write down his or her remarks and criticism. The contributions of about 1000 persons from different backgrounds have been used to create the current version 2.2.

Track record of sharing

The charters' principles have been adopted by the national government in its eGovernment policy and by the Union of Local Authorities in its Online Strategy. Many provincies and municipalties use it as the basis for their service levels. The Charter been used by the jury for the annual eGovernment Awards (citizens’ panel and experts’ forum) to select nominations for and decide on the winners (WebWiseAward 2006 and 2007). Internationally the idea of a charter attracts much attention, as many countries face the problem of rapid technological development of the one hand and stagnating use of electronic services on the other hand. The e-Citizen Programme has been invited to give presentations in many EU Memberstates as well as in the USA, Korea and South Africa.

Lessons learnt

At the start of the project, there were serveral organizations with a rudimentary "charter" which they wanted to improve. In order to be succesful, many of these organisations were involved in hte project. To get acceptance of the resulting standard by other organisations, a voluntary model ("Comply or Explain") proved to be more fruitful than one based on law. In summary: Lesson 1 - Preventing the wheel being invented is possible when you start at the right moment. Lesson 2 - Involvement of all stakeholders produces best results. Lesson 3 - Compliance is better reached when adoption is voluntary.