e-government

Non-stop public services

In the Øresund Region information and communication technologies are a tool for developing new relationships between the public administration, citizens and businesses. All municipalities on both sides of the Øresund Region are on the Internet, most of them offering a myriad of online services, such as scheduling of health services and registration of personal information.

For both countries, e-government means much more than placing public information on the Internet. It means, for example, full electronic case handling of procedures by a service provider. The advanced level of public services on the Internet is the result of political drive and investments from the Danish and the Swedish authorities, which has been recognized in several international analyses.

In a survey made on behalf of the European Commission to assess the progress of online services in Europe, Denmark and Sweden get the highest scores in the ranking that measures progress of online public services in European countries.

According to the study, conducted by Capgemini Ernest & Young, the online sophistication of public services is the most advanced in Sweden, with 87%, and Denmark, with an 86% rank (see figure below).

In terms of percentage of services that offer a complete electronic case handling, Denmark (72%) and Sweden (67%) are again among the three best performing countries (see figure below).

A report by IT research and consulting firm IDC confirms Sweden and Denmark leadership in e-government diffusion. IDC's 2003 European e-government benchmarking survey has found Nordic countries to be the European leaders in e-government progress, with Denmark, Sweden and Finland ahead of the pack both in terms of availability of e-government services and in readiness of the population to use such services.

Moving services online is only a step in the road to build a more flexible, efficient and transparent public administration. But, as the Internet creates new possibilities that challenge the public sector to review existent structures and processes, the Øresund countries, armed and stimulated by e-government tools, have a competitive advantage in pursuing an increasingly better public administration