Closing the local government digital divide
In 1997, the first website to provide information about local government in New Zealand went online. 13 years later, research by Unitec confirms that councils are struggling to meet the Government’s digital strategy goals and to provide truly democratic local e-government.
In 2004, the Government launched a digital strategy aimed at providing equitable access for all New Zealanders to participate in an information society. The strategy set targets for local governments to meet by 2010. Professor Kay Fielden of Unitec’s Department of Computing and Pam Malcolm, Head of the Department of Community Studies, have published the results of a collaborative study that reveals vastly disparate e-readiness amongst the country’s 85 councils.
PROGRESS ON TARGETS
By 2010, online participation was set to become the norm with the internet as the main platform, rather than an additional tool, for proactively delivering services.
“The Government intended the internet to have transformed the way councils operate,” says Kay, “yet few local governments have had any formal strategies to build e-government services, let alone the readiness to begin delivering them.”
A snapshot of the country’s city, district and regional councils, taken mid-2009, showed that all local governments had partially met the 2004 targets for online transactions but none had met the minimum service standards set for 2007.
Online participation in government was still in its infancy, with only nine councils even surveying their residents about website design. Most had not moved beyond using organisation-specific jargon and organising their sites from an internal point of view. Regional councils particularly lagged behind on targets, “perhaps because they have fewer dealings with people on a day-today basis,” says Kay.
WHO PAYS THE PRICE
While cost benefits are often cited in the push towards e-government, UK studies have shown that digital engagement comes at a cost for users and shifts the responsibility onto residents. The last census in New Zealand showed that around 80,000 people live in a household without a phone and therefore no internet connection.
Kay and Pam’s study looked at the implications of the push towards e-government through hypothetical case studies of four marginalised groups: intellectually disabled, mentally disabled, the homeless and the elderly. Together, these groups may constitute as much as 20 percent of the country’s population.
“We know from previous studies that website design creates barriers for older users and that access to the internet is inequitable,” says Pam. “Online literacy requires not only the basic infrastructure but also a set of skills shaped and reinforced by those with power. We believe that the push to provide 24/7 seamless internet access is broadening, rather than closing, the digital divide.”
REVISED TARGETS TO 2020
The Government has now pushed out digital strategy targets to 2020, to take advantage of the democratic potential of social networking, through blogging and other interactive tools such as Twitter that give residents access to more immediate conversations with their councils. Use of such tools is currently weak.
“Most sites provided downloadable pdf forms for submissions,” says Kay, “which only extends existing models of consultation. There was no online voting on any issues or blogs providing open access to council processes.”
Use of technologies has multiple and paradoxical effects, says Pam. “There’s no quick fix, but we believe that councils need to actively extend themselves to those who are socially and digitally marginalised, to gain their voice in designing a local government environment that’s genuinely inclusive.”
“E-government in New Zealand” is being published in Comparative E-government: An Examination of E-government across Countries by Springer Integrated Series in Information Systems. The researchers intend disseminating their results to local government policy makers.
This article also appeared in Advance, Unitec's research magazine.
