Select Committee on European Scrutiny Fourth Report


1 Interoperability for Pan-European eGovernment Services


(27974)

14645/06

COM(06) 611

Commission Communication: Evaluation of the implementation of the IDABC programme

Legal baseArticle 156(1) EC, followed by Decision 2004/387/EC
Document originated24 October 2006
Deposited in Parliament3 November 2006
DepartmentCabinet Office
Basis of considerationEM of 16 November 2006
Previous Committee ReportNone; but see HC 34-xxiii (2005-06) para 12 (29 March 2006)
To be discussed in CouncilTo be determined
Committee's assessmentPolitically important
Committee's decisionNot cleared; further information requested

Background

1.1 IDABC stands for Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Business and Citizens. According to its website, it takes advantage of the opportunities offered by information and communication technologies to:

  • encourage and support the delivery of cross-border public sector services to citizens and enterprises in Europe;
  • improve efficiency and collaboration between European public administrations; and
  • contribute to making Europe an attractive place to live, work and invest.

1.2 To achieve its objectives, IDABC:

    "issues recommendations, develops solutions and provides services that enable national and European administrations to communicate electronically while offering modern public services to businesses and citizens in Europe". The programme also "provides financing to projects addressing European policy requirements, thus improving cooperation between administrations across Europe. National public sector policy-makers are represented in the IDABC programme's management committee and in many expert groups. This makes of the programme a unique forum for the coordination of national e-government policies. By using state-of-the-art information and communication technologies, developing common solutions and services and by finally, providing a platform for the exchange of good practice between public administrations, IDABC contributes to the eEurope objective of modernising the European public sector".[1]

1.3 The IDABC Programme continues on from the work done under the IDA[2] and IDA II programmes, which have established a number of data exchange networks between Member States, as required by European legislation, in areas such as employment, health, agriculture, fisheries, statistics and competition.

1.4 The IDABC programme includes both Projects of Common Interest, which implement European eGovernment services in specific policy areas (e.g. education) and Horizontal Measures (HMs), which implement infrastructure services and European eGovernment services not linked to specific policy areas and perform strategic and support activities. HMs are grouped under four main headings:

  • Technology Solutions: addressing basic, common requirements of many European eGovernment projects: currently network and hosting services, middleware, security and interoperability guidelines;
  • Business Applications: providing specific solutions for the particular needs or "business" of different policy areas, including eProcurement, Interactive Policy Making and the "Your Europe" portal to Services of Public Administrations;
  • Spreading Good Practice: including the eGovernment Observatory and Promoting Open Source Software and OSS-related activities; and
  • Programme Management: activities aimed at improving the execution of the IDA I and II programmes and preparing the successor IDABC.

1.5 On 29 March 2006 we considered a Commission Communication on the IDABC, which noted that while much progress had been made on all levels of administration in Europe, more effort now needed to be paid to developing the cross-border dimension of eGovernment and raising the attention of Member States to the necessary work to achieve pan-European interoperability of eGovernment services. For the purposes of the Communication, interoperability was defined as "the ability of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems and of the business processes they support to exchange data and to enable information and knowledge to be shared". We noted that with eGovernment increasingly central to the efficient, effective and economical delivery of both national and European policies and services, and increasingly touching everyone's business and private lives, improving delivery would be crucial to the attainment both of governments' aspirations and business plans and of customer satisfaction; though a "next step" rather than a radical departure, we judged it appropriate to report it to the House because of the intrinsic importance of its subject matter and because the picture, in the UK at least, had been mixed so far.[3]

1.6 On 8 November 2005, the Commission had adopted the first IDABC work programme for the period 2005 to 2009.[4]

Commission Communication

1.7 The Communication details the mid-term Evaluation of the programme and sets out recommendations on how the programme should be taken forward. The evaluation was carried out by the Commission with the assistance of a consultancy company[5] and in cooperation with various stakeholders including officials from Member States. It focused on five main issues:

  • Relevance: the extent to which the objectives and aims of the programme are pertinent to the evolving needs and priorities at both national and EU level, first and foremost in relation to the i2010 programme and more generally to those established by the Lisbon objectives;
  • Efficiency: how economically the inputs and action were converted into outputs and results;
  • Effectiveness: whether the results and outputs of the programme achieved their objectives;
  • Utility: whether the results of the programmes compared with the needs of the target population, and what improvements might be made; and
  • Coherence: the extent to which the actions formed part of a "holistic" approach within the programme and how well synergies were achieved between IDABC action and other Community activities in the area of pan-European eGovernment and infrastructure services.

1.8 Three cross-cutting issues were also raised during the Evaluation, relating to:

  • the state of progress of actions funded by the programme;
  • the coordination and involvement of Member States; and
  • the extent to which the recommendations from the evaluation of the IDA II programme had been met in the implementation of the IDABC programme.

1.9 The Evaluation's recommendations are:

  • Greater attention must be paid to the timing of the evaluations;
  • The Commission must ensure that all stakeholders know their part in the implementation process;
  • Efforts should be made at the strategic level of the programme to gather and disseminate specific and up-to-date information about users' needs;
  • The extent to which IDABC actions are able to comply with agreed milestones should be closely monitored during the implementation of the programme in particular to Horizontal Measures; and
  • A strategic appraisal of the links between the various EU programmes with which the EC develops interoperable eGovernment initiatives should be carried out.

1.10 All in all, the Commission says that "while highlighting a few shortcomings", the report is "largely positive" at a time when detailed appraisal is "rather premature", and says that it will "pay the utmost attention" to the recommendations.

The Government's view

1.11 In his 16 March 2006 Explanatory Memorandum, the Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office (Mr Pat McFadden) finds it "encouraging that the UK is on the same path as the IDABC Programme in achieving organisational interoperability across administrations and also to assist in the drive for efficiency". He gives, as an example, in line with the work highlighted in Recommendation 5 of the Evaluation, that:

    "the Delivery and Transformation Group [in the Cabinet Office] has developed a cross-Government Enterprise Architecture (xGEA). This is a fundamental element of the government's Transformational Government Strategy. The xGEA will allow us to identify opportunities to reuse solutions and share across public sector organisations, so saving resources and driving efficiencies".

1.12 He also says that the Scottish Executive "is proposing to work with the National Computing Centre (the eGovernment Interoperability Framework Authority) to help map out the interoperable links between the big projects and programmes underway in Scotland".

1.13 Although, he notes, the Evaluation:

    "confirms that in many cases the projects and measures are not yet mature enough to realise their objectives, HMG and the Devolved Administrations look forward to further progress of the IDABC Programme…. HMG is broadly in favour of IDA and IDABC as the these programmes have proven successful in delivering guidelines, a communication platform and several software tools which are useful for HMG's European work. Throughout the history of IDA, the European Commission has been keen to take on board the views of the UK as a leader in eGovernment and this continues to be the case".

Conclusion

1.14 As the Commission and the Minister rightly say, the IDABC is at an early stage. Nevertheless, it seems to us that this evaluation has identified more than "a few shortcomings". It cannot evaluate efficiency or effectiveness at all. As regards utility, there seems to be no agreement on who the target, or targets, should be: whether European public administrations at all levels, or "whether efforts to satisfy needs of businesses and citizens should be increased".[6] The Commission expresses no view. Nor does the Minister. We should like at least his views on what would seem to be a fundamental consideration.

1.15 In the section on coherence, the Commission talks of "a global level of dissatisfaction as regards the ability to co-ordinate opinions between Member States' representatives in the PEGSCO and in the sectoral Committees". Given that the IDABC is all about Member State cooperation with the Commission and among themselves, this does not sound encouraging. We should be grateful for the Minister's comments, and for an explanation of what PEGSCO is and how it operates.

1.16 The Recommendations strengthen the sense that, while the IDABC may be working well internally, its external aspects — which would seem to be central to its purpose — are not. In particular, we wonder:

  • why the IDABC Decision was not amended accordingly, since an evaluation carried out now would clearly be half-baked (Recommendation 1)?
  • why those involved in the IDABC still need to become "fully aware [of] their roles" and to be "aware of their roles and responsibilities in the implementation process" (Recommendations 1 and 2)?;
  • on what basis has IDABC been operating if strategic level information still needs to be gathered and disseminated about users' needs (Recommendation 3)?
  • if a better balance is required between Horizontal Measures and staff resources, why the Commission thought it preferable to move the goalposts — the milestones and deadlines — rather than the staff resources (Recommendation 4)?
  • what action the Commission proposes to take and over what time scale to improve the coherence of IDABC with other Community pan-European eGovernment programmes and infrastructure services (Recommendation 4)?
  • And, if so, how this is related to the strategic appraisal "of the links between the various EU programmes within which the EC develops interoperable eGovernment initiatives" (Recommendation 5, which is drafted in such a way that its purpose and scope is incomprehensible to the lay reader)? and
  • above all, how it is possible to evaluate a programme without at any stage saying what its budget is, how much has been disbursed and upon what activities?

1.17 We should be grateful if the Minister would let us have answers to the above questions. In the meantime, we shall keep the document under scrutiny.


1   http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/home Back

2   Interchange of Data between Administrations Back

3   See headnote Back

4   See http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/5101/3 for the IDABC work programme 2005-2009 Back

5   Whose report is available at http//ec.europa.eu/idaabc/en/document/5707/3  Back

6   COM(06) 611, page 5 Back


 
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