The fourth issue of the European Journal of ePractice provides insightful and provocative reflections on the topic of “efficiency and effectiveness” of public eServices. There are analytical articles but also a couple of very telling concrete examples of how innovative deployment of ICT combined with institutional and organisational change have contributed to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of public administrations.

After several years in which the policy focus for the Information Society has been simply on bringing eServices online and on benchmarking their availability and sophistication, at the end of 2003 the European Commission in its official Communication on the “Role of eGovernment for Europe’s future” stressed the need to go beyond simple availability and sophistication and to demonstrate concrete benefits and impacts. Ever since then “efficiency and effectiveness” have become one of the key pillars of the eGovernment agenda. In 2005 the Commission financed the groundbreaking study known as eGEP, which produced a new Measurement Framework spurring debate and building up momentum. “Making efficiency and effectiveness a reality” was one of the key targets of the November 2005 eGovernment Ministerial Declaration adopted in Manchester and became later one of the objectives of the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan. The aim is to reduce by 2010 administrative burden and increase efficiency in public offices, as well as foster high transparency, accountability and user satisfaction. Currently the EC Benchlearning project is involving 12 public agencies in 9 different European countries in collaborative exercise to build measurement capacities and share experiences.

While efficiency and effectiveness are by now a consolidated policy priority of eGovernment both at EU and at Member State level, the evidence proving the achievements remain still limited and anecdotal as shown in most recent state of the art reviews. Much still remains to be done in terms of devising and implementing robust methodologies and of building measurement capacities across EU27 before the eGovernment benchmarking of impacts envisaged in the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan becomes a reality. For this reason five of the essays in this issue are of a reflective nature and provide theoretical and analytical insights, both for eGovernment practitioners and scholars, to further develop and sharpen measurement frameworks and methodologies.

Codagnone and Undheim in their review essay further contextualise the other contributions contained in this issue within the theory and practice of evaluation of public sector policies and services, outlining the changing focus of eGovernment measurement and the challenges and gaps to be filled for its further consolidation. They particularly stress the need for better integration between the more scientific and the more practical oriented approaches, and call scholars and practitioners to engage in a more interactive dialogue also within the ePractice exchange platform. They also distinguish between internal, external and participatory evaluation and underscore the importance of the latter in the world of web 2.0. While recognising the increasing importance of measuring effectiveness and broader governance, Codagnone and Undheim warn that this should not imply leaving aside the efficiency agenda.

Millard provides a very high level conceptual and analytical discussion of measurement, especially targeting policy makers and helping them selecting their targets and corresponding approach. The framework proposed by Millard is general and holistic but at the same time flexible and scalable, as it distinguishes different policy objectives and different steps and levels at which measurement can be undertaken. In doing so it helps to sharpen the purpose for which measurement is undertaken and to tailor the methodology. In his appraisal of current developments Millard sees as a positive development the move from a focus prioritising efficiency gains to increasing emphasis on effectiveness and broader governance issues. He additionally foresees in the future a trend whereby measurement is increasingly conducted, not only top-down at central government level, but also bottom- up at local level and involving directly the users.

Osimo brings our readers directly onto the world of web 2.0 measurement with the provocative proposal of launching an eGovernment benchmarking where the main focus is no longer on the transactional nature of the services, but rather on the availability of transparent and re-usable data and information. If the benchmarking of online availability has been the “flagship” of eGOV 1.0, Osimo argues, the benchmarking of public sector information and data should become the “flagship” of eGOV 2.0. This proposal is rooted in a sustained critique of the limits of the current benchmarking of online public services (whose emphasis on transactions is outdated, still shaped by the eCommerce focus of the late 1990s “dot.com” boom) and into a well developed argument on the need of reflecting the changed context and priorities, which can be supported by the new potentialities and functionalities of Web 2.0.

While it is widely recognised that take up and usage are essential preconditions for realising the promises of eGovernment, there are few analyses that discuss this issue with the depth and breadth provided by Foley in his essay on the use of eGovernment by citizens as a pillar of the government transformation agenda. Using both general data on the EU as a whole and more in depth and detailed data on the UK, Foley analyses with methodological rigour eGovernment use and uncovers at least two empirically proven facts that should be taken into account, both in the design of public eServices and in their measurement. First, he proves that eGovernment usage in the past years has grown physiologically only as a result of increase in Internet usage, while the supply of eServices has had not substantial and significant effects. This points at the need to better focus on users’ needs and on elements that can catalyse usage and, accordingly, to evaluate them. Second, by looking at the use of Government in general, Foley stresses that several services are used very infrequently by citizens, which weakens the case for delivering them online unless bundled together in one-stop-shop offerings. This observation clearly implies the need to prove the impact of such services as discrete stand alone offerings.

Remaining within the users’ perspective, Wauters and Lorincz discuss users’ satisfaction and reduction of administrative burdens as two sides of the same “effectiveness coin”. Their essay reviews the various dimensions that can increase the satisfaction of users and shows how an important contribution can come from the simplification of the interaction with government and the reduction of administrative burden. In concluding their analysis the authors highlight that efficiency and effectiveness can be positively interlinked, since reducing the administrative burden produces a combined efficiency-effectiveness impact.

The article by Strano et al is a case study focussing on the eService for the Compulsory Communication of Employment Status (henceforth CO eService) recently (March 2008) launched in Italy. CO eService allows a fast digital handling of communications about employment status, previously handled manually, that all employers must provide and many governmental administrations at different levels (national, regional and local) must process and store. CO eService is a quintessential example of a public service joined-up across government tiers and leveraging the ICT potentiality for inter-operability. The service reduces the administrative burden for both businesses and public administration, it enhances efficiency of processes for the latter, and increases the transparency and accountability of the labour market situation and policies. Moreover, the faster and more reliable aggregation of data on the labour market will enable policy makers in the near future to better design regulatory and support policies and, subsequently, measure their outcome.

Finally, Deller underscores the importance of interoperability as a necessary condition to ensure effective service to citizens and to perform governmental functions effectively as well as efficiently. His article examines samples of European eGovernment initiatives submitted between January 2006 and October 2007 to the EC’s ePractice.eu website for evaluation as “best practice” and applies an interoperability assessment framework to determine to what extent a requirement for interoperability is addressed by currently considered good practices of eGovernment.