Digital Government at Work: A Social Informatics Perspective

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.

Professor Ian McLoughlin is Distinguished Professor of Management at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Formerly he was Director of the Business School at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (UK). He co-founded the Newcastle Centre for Social and Business Informatics which later became part of the University Centre for Knowledge, Innovation, Technology, and Enterprise (KITE), where he is now a Visiting Professor. He is author or co-author of numerous books and has published widely in leading international academic journals.

Dr. Rob Wilson is Senior Lecturer in Information Management at Newcastle University Business School (NUBS) and current Director of the University Centre for Knowledge, Innovation, Technology, and Enterprise (KITE). He has extensive experience working on and leading public sector information system development and implementation projects. He has lectured and published widely on information systems in the public sector.

Mike Martin is a consultant in information systems and Visiting Fellow in the University Centre for Knowledge, Innovation, Technology, and Enterprise (KITE) at Newcastle University.