Local Government ICT Platform Standardization Activities of ICT Systems and Services for Offering High Value-added Service by Interacting Local Governments, Regional Institutions and Private Sector

As Japanese local governments are facing severe financial situation, reduction of administration cost with use of ICT is in burning necessity. However, electronic local government has not been promoted smoothly in Japan, since ICT systems have been introduced without sufficient business process reengineering. On the other hand, the citizens’ needs for enhancing public services have increased. In order to respond the citizens’ needs with the fiscal constraint, enriching public online service by the service interaction between local governments and regional institutions and private sector is indispensable. The Association for Promotion of Public Local Information and Communication (APPLIC), its members are local governments and private companies, has promoted the standardization activities of Local Government ICT Platform, which enables smooth interaction of data and services and brings solutions to the problems. By applying the standard specifications, business operation in local governments will be streamlined, and local governments and regional entities will be able to provide high value-added services such as one-stop service to citizens. This paper describes problems Japanese local governments have regarding the public service utilizing the ICT, activity of APPLIC to establish and promote Local Government ICT Platform for alleviating the problems, and the effect and architecture of Local Government ICT Platform. Akihira Yoshimoto, Shu-ichi Muto, Genichi Kaneda, Kazuaki Ohara, Masahiko Nakayama, Atsushi Hirao, Hidekazu Masaki, Daisuke Miyamoto 316