Vicente Pina

E-government developments on delivering public services among EU cities

Abstract Since the late 1990s, governments at all levels have launched electronic government projects aimed at providing electronic information and services to citizens and businesses. Although Web sites are becoming essential elements of modern public administration, little is known about their effectiveness. The objective of this paper is to study the quality and usage of public e-services to citizens in Europe. According to the results of this study, e-government seems to be following a more or less predictable development pattern ranging from a stage in which interaction is limited to what is shown on the screen to stages in which there is two-way communication and service and financial transactions can be completed with a satisfactory level of protection of personal privacy. At present, e-government in almost all the cities studied is merely an extension of the government, with potential benefits in speed and accessibility 24/7. Despite the limited degree of development observed, online access has advantages that are impossible to replicate offline. Even though few expect e-government to completely replace traditional methods of information, e-government is becoming a powerful tool of transformation that has become embedded in the culture and in the agenda of the public sector.

E‐government and the transformation of public administrations in EU countries: Beyond NPM or just a second wave of reforms?

The adoption of web-based technologies to deliver government services has become a global trend in public administration. E-government inherits the administrative reform policies inspired by New Public Management (NPM) reforms implemented throughout the EU over the past twenty years. However, e-government aims at going beyond NPM reforms, since its goal is to transform the relationships between the public sector and society and to explore new channels of service delivery. The construction and management of websites is becoming an essential element of modern public administration, but little is known about how these initiatives are being implemented. Given the substantial investment in time and other resources in governmental online initiatives, it is essential to begin to evaluate governmental Web site initiatives in terms of quality and effectiveness. The objective of this paper is to study the development of e-government initiatives at regional and local level in the EU through the opinion of those agents directly involved in the projects.

Accrual Accounting in EU Local Governments: One Method, Several Approaches

This paper seeks to measure the degree of accrual implementation in EU local government accounting systems and also tries to give an answer to the question of why accrual accounting has overcome the resistance to other New Public Management (NPM) reforms in countries relatively suspicious of them. We carry out our analysis through the comparison of the accrual accounting legal requirements in force in each country, and the published financial statements, taking the IPSASs of the IFAC as a benchmark. The results show different degrees of accrual accounting implementation and legal compliance. The reason of accrual accounting dissemination lies partially in that the dual systems implemented in European Continental countries do not require the introduction of deep organizational changes and answer the democratic demands of citizens for higher responsiveness, transparency and accountability, while traditional budgetary statements are maintained for monitoring compliance with legality and for administrative decision-making purposes.

Analysis of the efficiency of local government services delivery. An application to urban public transport

In recent years in the European Union (EU), we have witnessed an externalization process of the provision of local government services, in order to separate the political responsibility and the direct delivery of the service. The reasons that justify this process are focused on the belief that the private sector is more efficient in carrying out economic activities, the pressure to reduce the public deficit and the public debt, the search for management systems that bypass public administration procedures, and the increase of control on local governments in auditing and accountability issues. The objective of this paper is to compare the efficiency of public and private sectors in the provision of urban transportation services. This paper shows the results of an empirical study commissioned by the Regional Audit Office of Catalonia (Spain), in order to evaluate the efficiency with which urban transportation services are delivered in the most important cities of this region. This efficiency study has been carried out using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model, multiple linear regression and logit and cluster analysis. The results allow us to conclude that, in the cities studied, exogenous factors are not relevant and the private management of urban transport service is not more efficient than public management.

Is E-Government Promoting Convergence Towards More Accountable Local Governments?

ABSTRACT This article analyzes how extensively European Union local governments are using their websites to disseminate financial information in order to evaluate whether electronic-government (e-government) is promoting convergence towards more accountable local governments. We also posit and test various hypotheses about the influence of internal and contextual factors on Internet financial reporting (IFR) practices. Results show that the public administration style, the size of the city, and the audit of financial information by private firms are significant explanatory factors of IFR practices. Our findings also suggest that multilateral organizations are overly optimistic about the possible convergence in transparency and financial accountability through the use of common modes of IFR. That is, the introduction of information and communication technologies without the corresponding institutional reform is leading to limited success of IFR.

Public-private partnership and private finance initiatives in the EU and Spanish local governments

This paper analyses the different public-private partnership initiatives carried out by EU and Spanish local governments in the framework of public sector reforms. In the first part we analyse the degree of externalization in the public services delivered by the most important EU cities and the kind of organization chosen to provide them. In the second part we study the different methods of PFI applied in Spain and the accounting, auditing and monitoring of these kinds of contracts. The results of our survey show that almost all EU local governments provide similar services, that there is a high degree of PPP initiatives in the delivery of local government services, and that PPP is concerned with those activities which do not constitute the core of public administration. This means that an important part of the activity controlled by the local governments, which are responsible, are not reflected in their individual annual accounts. Because of this, local governments will have to implement accountability and monitoring tools, such as PPP and PFI accounting standards, consolidation of annual accounts, regulatory bodies and value-for-money audits in order to assess the performance of local services delivered under PPP initiatives, and to prevent monopoly abuses.

E‐government evolution in EU local governments: a comparative perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe an empirical study of the advances and trends of e‐government in transparency, openness and hence accountability in European Union (EU) local governments to determine the extent to which the internet promotes the convergence towards more transparent and accountable government. The paper also tests the extent to which different factors related to the implementation of information and communication technologies (ICTs), the number of inhabitants and the type of public administration style have influenced e‐government developments in the cities studied.Design/methodology/approach – A comprehensive content analysis of 75 local government web sites was conducted using a 73‐item evaluation questionnaire. The evaluations were performed in 2004 and 2007 and 15 EU countries were covered (five per country). To analyse the evolution of e‐government, several techniques were used: tests of difference of means, multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. The contribu...

IS E-GOVERNMENT LEADING TO MORE ACCOUNTABLE AND TRANSPARENT LOCAL GOVERNMENTS? AN OVERALL VIEW

This paper seeks to assess to what extent e-government enables accountability and transparency in EU local governments. It also provides an overall view about how local governments are implementing ICTs initiatives to bring citizens closer to governments. Although the mere capacity of the Internet for the dissemination of information improves accountability and makes benchmarking easier, our results show that the expected benefits are far from being achieved because e-government projects are still in the early stages. The results also show that, at present, ICTs have not had a dramatic impact on EU local government accountability.

Changes in Public Service Delivery in the EU Countries

In the 1990s, a number of EU countries adopted New Public Management (NPM) techniques to restructure their public sectors. Countries have been widely ‘deconcentrating’ (moving delivery away from the centre) and ‘externalizing’ (using the private sector, either totally or in part) their public services. The authors chart the extent of this change and highlight some of the problems—for example the difficulty countries are experiencing in developing value for money audits. The article questions whether current methods of delivery and audit are appropriate for 21st–century public services.

Accounting for Accountability and Management in NPOs. A Comparative Study of Four Countries: Canada, the United Kingdom, the USA and Spain

Financial and non-financial information are developing issues in the NPO field. Countries such as Canada, the UK, the USA and Spain have recently updated their accounting systems for NPOs through the implementation of full accrual basis to enhance their accountability and the usefulness of accounting information for decision-making purposes. The information provided by accrual accounting will be incomplete until performance indicators are developed. The performance indicators are essential for making budgets, for planning and forecasting, for evaluating the financial needs, for carrying out benchmarking with other NPOs or governmental entities, and for explaining the welfare activities realised to donors.