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Statement
of
Patricia McGinnis, President and CEO, Council for Excellence in
Government
before the
Committee on Governmental Affairs
United States Senate
July 11, 2001
Thank
you, Mr. Chairman, and other members of the committee, for
inviting me to participate in this important hearing on S.803,
the E- Government Act of 2001.
I congratulate you and this committee for your leadership
in promoting e-government as a way of transforming government,
both the way it operates and the way it connects with the people
it serves.
This is not only about e-government.
It is also about e-the people.
The internet links people not only to one another and to
e-commerce, but to the public marketplace of ideas, initiatives,
innovation, transactions, and results.
At the Council for Excellence in Government, we think of
our ambitious mission in terms of excellent performance and
results, and also in terms of the American people’s
understanding, participation, and trust in government.
If you ask what has the greatest potential to improve the
performance of government and connect it to people in a
meaningful way, the answer is clearly electronic government.
The
Council for Excellence in Government has assembled an
E-government initiative in partnership with 350 leaders from
government, business, civic groups, and the research community.
Together, we developed a blueprint for E-government which we
released in February.
Our report is called Electronic Government: The Next
American Revolution because we believe strongly that the
Internet has the potential not only to revolutionize the way
government operates but also to put ownership of government
truly in the hands of all Americans.
(Copies of the report have been made available to all
committee members and can be viewed online at www.excelgov.org).
According to a Hart/Teeter opinion poll sponsored by the
Council for Excellence in Government, most Americans think in
terms of the government, not our government and
most Americans, especially
young people, do not think of government as “of, by, and for
the people.”
For
the next generation of leaders—who are the young people of
today—the Internet is a part of their connective beings.
Sixty percent of adults in the U.S. are on-line; 75% of
12-17 year olds are on-line.
Unfortunately,
young people do not see much of a role for government in their
pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. What for young Thomas
Jefferson was a great experiment in representative democracy is
for young people today boring and irrelevant—“whatever.”
They don’t vote much.
Only 17% of 18-24 year olds voted in
the 1998 election (28% is
the estimate for 2000), compared to 50% in 1972, when 18 year
olds were given the right to vote.
Besides
not voting, the best and the brightest are also not choosing
government service. But
they are choosing to change the world through new technology and
communications. This presents an important opportunity for
e-government to attract young people to a bold, new enterprise
and connect people of all ages to the public policy arena.
Two
recent Council opinion polls, conducted by Hart/Teeter over the
last few months, show that Americans today recognize the
potential of electronic government.
The
vision of our e-government blueprint is government truly of, by,
and for the people—where they no longer have to wait in line
between eight and five on weekdays, but where they can be
online anytime, anywhere—not only to get information but to
complete transactions with government, receive services, talk
with elected representatives, eventually even to vote.
We envision a government that organizes and offers its
information and services around the needs of people
rather than the organization of government agencies.
There are several important guiding principles for
e-government:
·
It has to be easy to use, accessible
to everyone, private and secure, and innovative.
·
We have to invest in public-private, interagency,
and intergovernmental partnerships to design, implement,
and manage truly effective e-government.
·
And we have to eliminate the digital divide
providing not only access but also education to
those who need it.
Our
recommendations focus on leadership, the strategic investment of
working capital, a skilled e-government workforce, collaboration
between government and business, creative approaches to privacy,
security, and interoperability, and access and education.
The
dot.gov revolution is just beginning.
Even at this early stage, there are many examples of the
productive use of the internet by government.
·
In 2000, more than two million applications for
financial aid received by the Department of Education were filed
online.
·
Taxes can be filed on line with the IRS and in
many states (for example, Virginia, California, and Kentucky)
·
Drivers can renew their licenses and car
registrations, and pay tickets online in many states.
·
Procurement online is growing at the federal and
state levels.
·
The Department of Transportation posts all of its
regulations online for information and comment.
These examples of e-government all fall into the
categories of Government
to Citizens (G to C), and Government to Business (G to B).
What is missing? Government
to Government (G to G). At
this point there is very little cross agency or
intergovernmental collaboration on line and this is a
significant problem.
The Congress has set an ambitious goal for the federal
government (through
the Government Paperwork Elimination Act) to offer all of its
services and transactions online by 2003.
This is a challenge that should be taken seriously by setting
priorities based on customer needs and impact to get
services and transactions on line in an integrated, user
friendly way. This
will require collaboration across agencies which serve the same
customers and effective partnerships with other levels of
government and the private sector.
The development
of S. 803, the E-Government Act, is an example of e-government
in action. Just
over a year ago, Senator Thompson and Senator Lieberman launched
the first ever Senate website to gather and exchange ideas about
what should be in this legislation.
That contributed significantly to the bill now before
you, which addresses the important issues required for
e-government to succeed. Although
the details of its provisions are not exactly the same as the
recommendations in our blueprint for e-government, it focuses on
the essential elements of leadership, strategic investment, a
skilled e-government workforce, access, and education, and
privacy and security. It
calls for government on line in dimensions ranging from basic
information, regulatory proceedings, and the courts, to research
and development to be offered to the public.
This legislation provides an excellent framework for
discussion and negotiation to significantly advance
e-government. I
think you may find, as we did in developing our blueprint for
e-government, that the process of engaging key players in
government, business, and the civic and research communities to
refine this bill will build the ownership and commitment
necessary to break down the barriers to e-government.
Leadership must come not only from OMB and the CIO
Council but from the President, the cabinet, the Congress,
governors, mayors, state legislators, and the judiciary.
All must embrace e-government as a tool to improve
government performance and revitalize our democracy.
I commend three of our specific recommendations to you
for consideration:
1. Creating a
public-private council that would bring the best thinking of
private entrepreneurs and a cross section of federal, state, and
local leaders to the e-government enterprise.
2. Establishing a Congressional Office of Electronic
Government to help members of the House and Senate connect more
effectively with the public and to advise members and committees
on using e-government to achieve policy goals.
3. Organizing public forums around the country to
engage the public, including those on the wrong side of the
digital divide, in the
design and implementation of e-government.
The E-government Fund in this bill recognizes, as does
the President’s budget, that we need to invest in
collaboration across agencies, levels of government, and with
the private sector. That
will break down the organizational stovepipes that now give us
e-government within agency systems only—systems that are not
interoperable or easy to use unless you are seeking information
or service from only one agency.
Because the $45 billion now devoted to information
technology is appropriated agency by agency, the stovepipes are
formidable. The
challenge is not only to provide an adequate e-government fund
to foster collaboration, but to provide incentives for agencies
to collaborate in the use of their much larger IT budgets.
The potential long term savings of e-government are
enormous. For
example, in Arizona, the cost of vehicle registration renewals
has dropped from a $7 paper process to $1.50 on line.
At the Social Security Administration, phone transactions
on their award winning toll free number that now cost $10 could
be reduced to 10 cents on line.
Just think what the potential cost savings are across
virtually every function of government at every level.
We applaud the provisions in S. 803 that allow
share-in-savings contracting in which the contractor could be
paid a portion of the savings and the agencies would be allowed
to keep a portion for additional investments in information
technology.
The offering of services, transactions, and information
to the public, businesses and other customers of government in a
truly user friendly way will require breakthroughs that are not
likely to occur unless given high priority, adequate funding
streams, and accountability for results.
The answers may lie in more powerful search engines,
portals or on line exchanges that can integrate and offer a
range of services based on need and eligibility.
The innovative know-how to accomplish this vision of
e-government exists in the public and private sectors. It must
be harnessed in a new way.
We conclude our report by saying, “Leaders in the
public and private sectors must, together, seize this
opportunity to take bold, decisive action to make electronic
government a reality. The
people are ready. We
can do this together.”
Thank you Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to be here
today.
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