A Public Value Evaluation of e-Government Policies

Public Administration aims at producing value for citizens; the use of ICTs to improve government and governance, as implied by e-Government, can be considered as a means to increase the public value produced by Public Administration. As a consequence, the policies for e-Government can be evaluated according to their ability to increase the Public Administration capacity of producing public value, both for citizens as users and citizens as operators of Public Administration. In the first case, the policies for e-Government can be evaluated with respect to the quality of the services delivered to citizens; in the latter case they can be evaluated with respect to their ability to improve the system of Public Administration. In this paper, we describe a public value evaluation of two different systems of support to e-Government projects implemented in Lombardy Region (Italy). Both systems support Small Local Government Organizations that set up aggregations in order to implement innovation projects. The two systems we will consider concern the funding for eGovernment projects according to the Italian National Action Plan for e-Government and the Regional Government funding for the implementation of Inter-organizational Information Systems for Local Government (SISCoTEL). Considering the stability in time, the attractivity and the level of trust within the funded aggregations as indicators of public value (considered from an internal point of view), in the paper we will use data concerning the Local Government in Lombardy to compare the two supporting models according to their capacity to set up aggregations that are stable, attractive and that could strengthen the level of trust among the partners. In section 1 we will describe some of the actions currently in use in Italy to support the spread of E-Government at a local level. In section 2 we will describe the models for supporting innovation implemented in the National Action Plan for eGovernment and in the Regional Plan for the activation of SISCoTELs. In section 3 we will compare the main characteristics of the two supporting models. Finally, in section 4 we will evaluate the two models, from a public value point of view, with respect to their capacity to strengthen the cooperation among Local Government organizations.