eGovernment for Development

eTransparency Case Study No.1

Opening Government Information via the Cape Gateway

Case Study Authors

Alan Levin (alan@radian.co.za) and Ryan Dingley (ryan@radian.co.za)

Application

The Provincial Government of the Western Cape (PGWC) is located in South Africa.  It established the Cape Gateway portal project in 2001 as part of the Cape Online Programme.  The portal was finally completed and launched in 2004.

Application Description

The Cape Gateway portal offers transparency by providing information about all government departments and services over the Web.  Although the focus is Western Cape province, the content includes information about national and local government (e.g. the City of Cape Town).  A detailed structured data model was developed, indicating how to express government information consistently; this can be seen at: http://capeonline.org/datamodel .  Information is provided using this standardised data structure on all the vertical market segments; for example, health, housing, licensing, transport and education.  Various views on the information are provided.  A citizen or business can have a view according to life event/stage (e.g. marriage, home ownership, pensioner) and topic (e.g. agriculture).  Very little of the information was available electronically at the start of the project and considerable resources were required to re-create the electronic text and to ensure that the content is user-friendly, of a uniform standard and style.  Further, many of the public servants resisted change or were resistant and apathetic to providing information to the programme.  Hence, a content management system ("Bee") and supporting policy were developed that prescribe minimum content requirements for content input, workflow and reporting.  The software and source code is freely licensed to all government organisations in South Africa and internationally.

If the beneficiaries of the information believe that information indicates wrongdoing, and wish to exert feedback or control over the public servants by bringing this information into the public domain, then they are able to use the whistleblowing procedures as set out in the Protected Disclosures Act 26 of 2000.  They are also able to feed back information via a Consumer Complaints Department.

Role of ICT

ICT has been used in this project as an enabler, based around the Web as a publishing tool.  All functional and user interface specifications have been developed to be technology neutral and standards complaint (i.e. including xhtml and xml).  A content management application as well as a portal publishing application server have been custom developed.  The backend database used for the content repository is Oracle.  The project team ensured that open source principles were utilised wherever possible.

Application Drivers/Purpose

The PGWC has decided to align its long-term strategies in order to take advantage of the information society and has identified the potential of effective use of ICT.  In doing so the PGWC developed the Cape Online Programme of ICT-based projects.  The Cape Gateway project is the flagship project and the first step in the staged introduction of e-government in the Western Cape Province.  The project was specifically designed to provide, manage and maintain easy access to government information, resources and services.

Stakeholders

The Cape Gateway Portal Task Team draws together representatives from every one of the stakeholder departments and ministries within the PGWC (Provincial Administration of the Western Cape / The Premier's Office; IT Services; Communications; Legal Services; Human Resource Management; Community Safety; Cultural Affairs and Sport; Development Planning; Economic Development and Tourism; Education; Environmental Affairs and Planning; Health; Local Government; Housing; Social Services and Poverty Alleviation; Transport and Public Works; Agriculture).  Other government stakeholders include the City of Cape Town, National Department of Public Service and Administration, other national government departments in South Africa, and the State IT Agency (SITA).  Main recipient stakeholders include all citizens and residents in Western Cape Province (assessed at 4.5 million people), Western Cape businesses, and other organisations in the province.  Other stakeholders include any party interested in seeking information about, or services from, the Provincial Government.

Transparency and the Poor

Many of the poorer communities in the Western Cape do not have access to the Internet at work or at home.  The Cape Gateway project is related to the broader Cape Online Programme, which has implemented a project - named Cape Access - aimed at improving such communities' access to ICTs and, hence, to ICT-based information and services.  The Cape Gateway project recognises that there is a need for additional channels of access to the information other than through the Web portal.  These additional channels of access include a telephone contact centre and a physical walk-in centre, which will provide information in three different languages; English, Afrikaans and Xhosa.

Impact: Costs and Benefits

The Cape Gateway project has cost approximately US$1.5 million but the benefits are difficult to determine, as only the call centre has been launched to date.  The main envisaged benefits of the project do not directly relate to transparency, but include:

• Convenience, as each channel provides a single point of access to government information via the online 24/7 portal, or anywhere via telephone or at no cost via the walk-in centre
• Simplicity of use, with the information organised from the citizen's, not the government's, perspective and with knowledgeable, trained facilitators available.
• Empowerment, by allowing anyone access to and use of government services more efficiently and with a minimal amount of effort.

The project is contributing to transparency by providing easy access to government information, resources and services.  This information previously was not - readily - available to the citizens in the Western Cape.

In order to ensure responsibility, the information content is maintained directly by the identified government departments.  They have to comply with standards of quality, consistency and reliability.  Operating procedures will ensure that there is follow up by Cape Gateway staff with the users in order to ascertain whether users' needs have been fulfilled and to monitor effectiveness.

Evaluation: Failure or Success?

Bridges.org, an international non-profit organisation, conducted an evaluation of the ongoing implementation of the Cape Gateway project (available at: http://capeonline.org).  The evaluation found that the project had consistently tried to adopt best practice, and to take full cognisance of the needs of the citizens of the Western Cape in providing access to government information online.  An evaluation of the portal itself has not been conducted because the full version had yet to be launched at the time of writing.

Enablers/Critical Success Factors

1. Top-level support .  The broader Cape Online Programme (including the Cape Gateway project) received support from the highest political level: the Minister of Finance and Economic Development (a single individual with two portfolios) and the Premier of the Western Cape.  Support was obtained by lobbying the Minister and through him the Premier for their support.  Their support was critical as there was no official political portfolio that included e-government at the commencement of the project.  Obtaining the Premier's backing involved providing the Minister with an overview of the e-government strategy and ensuring that he understood the principles of this new form of ICT governance in order for him to communicate and champion the principle at the political level.  Fortunately in this case the individual is a visionary leader and he took on the opportunity and added considerable insight into the broader e-government strategy.
2. Stakeholder consultation .  The project recognised the importance of stakeholder consultation, ensuring buy in and participation for the process.  Stakeholders were consulted at different levels within the broader provincial government and included top management, other senior management, the centralised Communications group, the IT Department (especially the "Web team") and various other communications or role players in provincial departments who had their own Web sites.  We believe that one of the success factors was the agreement by the top management to establish a task team - made up of top management representatives from every department - for the purpose of stakeholder consultation.  This proved to be a successful mechanism to ensure that all appropriate stakeholders within the Provincial government were included in consultations and the decision making process.  Other consultation was required at an operational and planning level and was done on an as-needed basis.  Other major stakeholders brought in to some degree included other spheres of government such as the local government, national government, government agencies, and the public and private sectors.  For a full list of the stakeholders and some information about how broader consultation was made, see the summary document of the Cape Online Symposium at http://www.capeonline.org .
3. Competent hybrid project team .  A strong team with a range of core competencies was required for a forward-thinking and technologically-innovative project such as the Cape Gateway project.  The core competencies that assisted the project team included deep, extensive skill sets and broad experience in: leadership, business knowledge, ICTs, usability, and web content.  The team therefore had the key 'hybrid' characteristic of bridging the divide between technical and business knowledge.  The project was purposely designed to be user- (citizen/business/government beneficiary) centric, and hence it was decided to be usability-led, i.e. the overall team leader was the usability team leader.

Constraints/Challenges

1. Resistance.  Implementing innovative technologies and approaches to e-transparency was met in some cases with organisational inertia and resistance.  Many of the people affected by the project felt threatened because they lacked the requisite self-confidence that would enable them to reinvent their job profiles.  They felt that the project disrupted their status quo .  This problem was exacerbated by the fear that this new efficiency in government would disempower them.  In particular there was resistance from some of the departments who had invested resources in developing their own Web sites and infrastructure.  These individuals and organisations felt that they would lose control of - and potentially be undermined in - the process going forward.  One reason for resistance acknowledged by the IT Department was that they owned technical skills but lacked the requisite business knowledge.  Similarly the business managers lacked the technical skills to be able to part with their business knowledge in technical language.  These groups felt insecure and threatened about the new 'hybrid' team that was formed because it had both these areas of skills as well as critical missing skill elements of usability and content management.
2. Implementation gaps .  Despite broad consultation and the formation of a representative Portal Task Team, decisions within the team did not get implemented effectively at the lower levels within the departments.  For example, although top management agreed to providing a basic set of minimum content, the project team struggled to obtain the agreed minimum content requirements from individuals tasked with this responsibility at lower levels.
3. Technology and content issues .  The PGWC is characterised by a lack of uniformity of key communications technology and readily available content for the portal.  The majority of the information content was written in "government speak" and needed to be first rewritten in common English, and then translated into simple language versions of Afrikaans and Xhosa.  Below, for example, is given two different approaches to job advertisements in government.  Not only are content element titles different, making mapping difficult, but content is different, making exact mapping impossible.  This leads to inefficiencies and difficulties for users, who would find themselves comparing 'apples and oranges'.  Thus the Cape Gateway project first phase included detailed analysis of government information, which led to the agreed data model and data standard for government communications.  This is an essential underpinning for any effort to make government information more transparent.

Recommendations

1. Find a champion .  Ground breaking transparency-related projects, like the Cape Gateway project, need to be steered by a champion(s) at the highest political and administrative level.
2. Run awareness and change programmes .  In order to ensure that there is a smooth transition towards e-enabled government information provision and service delivery there must be concurrent programmes of change management for senior government officials and internal awareness creation programmes.  In the project case, a management guideline document was written on "Management issues in creating an Internet presence".  Secondly, the Portal Task Team was established which ensured that a senior manager from every department was represented in the monthly Portal Task Team report-back meeting. (This report-back meeting focused on education and dissemination of information to the senior managers.  These representatives had to report back to their own departments after each meeting.)  Other training programmes relating to the content management system were developed for the end users.
3. Get the right skills .  Do not underestimate the specialised skills set that is required to undertake e-transparency information provision projects and the relatively high cost of these skills.  The specialised skills required for a project of this nature included skills in the following areas:
• Open systems, content and standards development skills
• Business skills, especially good governance and leadership
• New economy leadership skills, such as skills that bring diverging interests into a converging standards-based systems development environment
• Usability skills
• Data modelling skills
• Multimedia design skills
• Project management skills
• Government content skills
• Online writing skills
• Systems engineering skills

These skills were obtained from various professionals living in Cape Town who were willing to work for government.  The skills were found by networking and advertising.  Since the environment was highly attractive yet the local economy was small - and highly networked - the task of finding these skills and acquiring them at public sector remuneration levels was realistic.

Further Information

http://capegateway.gov.za & http://www.capeonline.org

Case Details

Case Editor : Richard Heeks.

Author Data Sources/Role : Project Management and Project Consulting Role.

Centrality of Transparency : Secondary.  Type : Publication.  Audience : External.  Content : Mixed.  Sector : Multiple (Local Govt).  Outcome : Too Early to Evaluate.

Region : Southern Africa.  Start Date : 2001 (completion launch in 2004).  Submission Date : November 2003.