Digital Government at Work A Social Informatics Perspective [Hardcover]

Over the past decade, putting public services on-line has been a focus of huge policy and financial investments aimed at providing more joined-up service delivery. For some this is part of a transformation that is bringing about a new era of integrated digital government. For others digitalization means threats to privacy and security and a strengthening of bureaucracy.

In the UK and beyond, front-line service providers and citizens have been slow to take up digital services whilst major projects have floundered. This book takes a fresh look at this vital area for public policy and practice. Informed by over ten years of original research on the 'inside' of projects to put local services on-line, the authors combine cross-disciplinary insights to provide a new social informatics perspective on digital government.

Experiences in areas such as health and social care are used to illustrate the dangers of 'over-integration' when key decisions are left to system designers, as they seek to integrate information in centralized systems. The authors argue for a new 'architectural discourse' to change the way that systems are deployed, evolve, and are governed. 'They conclude that increased coordination of public services is better achieved through federated rather than integrated services. This recognizes the infrastructural nature of information systems and the essential role of co-production in the future evolution of digital government.

Introduction
1. Digital Government and Public Service Innovation
2. A Social Informatics Perspective
3. Integration: Towards the Virtual Agency?
4. Joining-up Children's Services and Health
5. Identity Management, Governance, and the Citizen as Customer
6. On-line on the Front-Line: FAME
7. Co-production and Tele-care for Older People
8. Making Digital Government Work
Methodological Appendix

As cost pressures increase on governments around the world, new technologies are crucial to drl³q