Foreword

From its inception at the turn of the millennium, e-government has been about enabling the delivery of information and services in ways that better reflect what people need or want from government, rather than simply what agencies want or are prepared to provide to them.

The fundamental step toward the transformation of government is understanding that e-government is about people, not technology. The release of the Development Goals for State Services in 2005, provide a wider context for e-government and the important links between people, service delivery and trust.

The first e-government progress report in 2004 showed that people were increasingly able to readily access information about government services using the Internet. Dramatic changes have taken place in the technological landscape since then. In 2007, information and communication technologies have become a ubiquitous and essential part of people’s everyday lives, and an integral part of government’s service delivery.

E-government is a domain where many disciplines meet. This necessitates collaboration and the sharing of knowledge across sectors, which begins with appreciating the unique perspectives of government's diverse stakeholders.

This is especially the case when government delivers services to users. You will read in this report the stories of people who receive the wide range of services that government provides, as well as the voices of individuals imagining the future of e-government beyond the present possibilities of how network technologies could be used.

Meeting people's needs online has meant changing the way government works by integrating processes and services across traditional agency boundaries. To achieve this, government has increasingly adopted common policies and standards, developed shared data resources, software applications and infrastructure. The foundations have been laid for the next phase of e-government to deliver improved outcomes for users, and to ensure that people continue to have confidence in the delivery of government services online.

Building on the progress that has been made, we need to prepare ourselves to use information and communication technologies in the future to enrich the ways in which people engage with government.

Exciting developments lie ahead as we look forward to 2010.

Do tell us what you think at blog.e.govt.nz.

Laurence Millar

Deputy Commissioner and Government CIO