Digital Government at Work (Hardcover)

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 beenslow 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 onthe '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 thatsystems are deployed, evolve, and are governed. This leads to the conclusion that increased coordination of public services in a digital economy is better achieved through federated rather than integratedservices that recognize the infrastructural nature of information systems and the essential role of co-production in their future evolution Drawing upon extensive research from inside live projects, the book examines the use of digital technologies to provide more joined-up public services, and combines cross-disciplinary insights to provide a new social informatics perspective on digital government. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.…