• Home
• About this Site
• Contact Us
• RSS Feeds
• eGovRC Toolbar

Help & Print

Help Print

Resize Text

Categories, RSS and More

The challenges of delivering citizen centric services in Hong Kong and Singapore

A survey of 110 public sector executives in Hong Kong and Singapore, Sponsored by TIbCo, FutureGov, March 2010

2010 FutureGov research

Executive Summary

Global trends around information sharing are leading toward increased workflow connectivity. Similar to the multinational enterprise that needs to work across plants or international borders, so too are governmental organisations and agencies (GOAs) finding that they must better share information and resources across departments and ministries. Although Information sharing between GOAs and departments in developed nations is generally well managed, the expected increase in the variety of information being shared is already raising concerns. Moreover, the growing automation seen at the first point of contact, where the public meets the government, coupled with the expanding channels of communication increasingly available, means the volume and variety of transactions coming through the governmental organisation is bound to rise.

In this study, 54 Hong Kong and 56 Singaporean civil-service IT managers were surveyed. Nearly two-thirds of the survey respondents believe there will be growth in workflow connectivity between GOAs, and that this will be seen over the coming five years.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents indicated that the majority of workflow connectivity would involve information transfer across GOAs in response to serving the public.

More than 80% said they currently manage workflows that involve other GOAs.

Nearly 70% of survey respondents believe there will be an increase in the variety of information that will be shared across GOAs over the next five years.

Nearly 70% of respondents already used online and real-time systems for file sharing and transfer. Similarly, nearly 80% reported that they still used some form of paper-based methods, which indicates that there remain many areas that may see increased IT development.

The growth in the volume of requests that GOAs will process is primarily driven by the increasing automation at the point of contact between the public and the government sector. Nearly 70% of such interactions are already automated through online portals and IVR (interactive voice response) systems.

More than 80% of survey respondents said they are currently managing multiple channels of communication between their agency and the public, with more than half saying that these have involved feeding requests back to the agency.

Roughly half of the respondents mentioned that they currently use software tools for managing information requests.

Almost 90% of the respondents were securing approvals through related software.

Nearly 80% of survey respondents said they had plans of automating the approval process within the next five years.

The use of workflow automation software for processing requests in Singapore was higher than in Hong Kong. Slightly more respondents in Singapore indicated that they processed requests across multiple channels as compared to those in Hong Kong.

There were more heavy users of workflow automation software in Singapore than in Hong Kong. Similarly, there were slightly more moderate users of workflow automation software in Singapore than in Hong Kong.

The role that automating approvals as part of the integration and coordination process between GOAs looks poised for change. A majority of respondents from Hong Kong said only basic approvals have been automated, while a large number of respondents from Singapore were already automating most approvals.

Although the need to exchange between GOAs has remained stable, the expected increase in the variety of information suggests that GOAs can anticipate an increasing complexity of the processes being used. Furthermore, the growing automation of the first point of contact with the public, coupled with the expanding channels of communication, will likely yield greater volume and variety of transactions that GOAs will need to manage.

Finding a strategic solution that will allow GOAs to manage this growing volume of transactions is now critical to ensuring there is no breakdown in the provision of governmental services.

A document transcript is available

Last updated: 29 August 2011

Search, Login and Options