Cities and Governments around the world have responded to the community-driven demand for greater citizen participation by turning to eGovernment (Shand et al., 2009). The leading adopters of eGovernment are not only making more information publicly available through new media channels but are also empowering citizens through creating new spaces for online participation in consultation, policy development and decision-making (Accenture, 2007). Cities in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada have provided frameworks which allow eGovernment to place information, consultation and participation at the centre of City councils operations (Shand et al., 2009). New Zealand was once a frontrunner in the use of eGovernment but a 2008 United Nations survey ranked New Zealand 18th out of 192 countries for eGovernment readiness (ITU, 2010).
eGovernment has been shown to significantly improve the cost-effectiveness of engaging with the public (Carpini, 2000), but has also been shown to drastically improve the efficiency of operations by considerably removing the barriers of time and space (Berns, 2009). While improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of all facets of government considered paramount to central government, the real benefit that eGovernment provides for this report is its ability to foster greater citizen participation among youth (Lukensmeyer and Torres, 2006). While the majority of councils understand the benefits of eGovernment, a Local Government New Zealand survey revealed that local councils largely only catering for the information side of online engagement (such as interactive application forms and the ability to look up property information), with few offering the services needed to foster a high level of engagement (Local Government New Zealand, 2008).
See Summary of Local Government New Zealand ‘Benchmarking New Zealand local e-government initiatives 2007/2008′ at the bottom of the page.
The summary reveals that local governments current failings to provide for youth-engagement through eGovernment rests in their inability to utilise a strategic approach to eGovernment, a failure to promote its use through the channels most appropriate to young people and a failure to provide the forums necessary of high-level engagement and lack of user-centric focus. This has led to a situation where eGovernment services are severely under-utilised; take for example how citizens interact with elected representatives.
Even though the use of ‘snail mail’, phone and face-to-face communication is significantly more expensive and time-consuming than online forms of communication they continue to be the main ways in which citizens and elected officials interact (along with email). While email is used increasingly as a form of communication its use is deemed by many to be impersonal and does not lend itself to high-level engagement. Those forms of communication that do (Online chat, VOIP and Webcams) are severely under-represented in usage by councils with all registering below 10%. This is significant because youth increasingly use and prefer newer forms of communication such as VOIP technology (Skype), social networking, blogging and texting. As the Local Government New Zealand report indicated councils are slow to adopt these technologies to communicate with citizens and as a result youth are increasingly abandoning attempts to engage with local government.
See summary of the Local Government New Zealand ‘Benchmarking New Zealand local e-government initiatives: 2007/2008′ here
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