ICT and governance in The Netherland

In what way are ICT and government designed in the country of your choice?

In the past decades, the development of communication technology in modern society has brought a steady growth in the presence of electronic government service around the world. With the arrival of new information age, The Netherlands has always been one of the pioneers in developing e-government services. The first policy commencing can be traced back to early 1990s. Rather than pursuing e-government as an end in itself, the Netherlands is seeking to use ICT tools to reduce administrative burdens and improve service delivery. Internationally, the Netherlands is at the forefront of administrative burden reduction, which is a major political priority and an important justification for e-government development. Today, from the wide application and personalization of computer, smart phone, tablet to other electronic devices, the Dutch government fully realized that in order to maintain a meaningful position in such fast-paced information society, it is crucial to improve its efficiency and to deliver better service with fast, professional responds to its citizens and business partners. By introducing the new form of communication, the Netherland keeps on pursuing high-volume, high-impact, user-focused citizen e-services ever since.

Throughout the history, the development of E-governance in the Netherlands can be divided into four stages. The first being the information phase, which refers to Ministries, provinces, councils, benefit agencies and independent administrative agencies went online. The citizens were able to contact their councils via email in interaction phase. Next, the phase of transaction started a procedure in order to build a save online env...

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...he reduction potential could take up to 11.7% of working hours, and 0.66% million euros. (OECD, 2007, p247)

Furthermore, to address the issue of administrative burdens from a policy-related perspective, the Dutch government established Actal – Adviescollege toetsing administratieve lasten in 2000. It is an independent advisory body that responsible for advising the government on administrative burden reduction. During six years of its operation, it has contributed to produce detailed burden reduction plan for each ministry, set individual targets and cut them out effectively. (Source)

As we can see, the Dutch government has strongly committed to reducing administrative burdens. These efforts have helped cut red tapes successfully, and more importantly, realized the potential of ICT and employed these technologies to deliver qualitative and user-focused services.