Bridging the gap between citizens and local authorities via e-government

Among the many promises of the digital revolution is its potential to strengthen social equality and make governments more responsive to the needs of their citizens. E-government is the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to transform governments by making them more accessible, effective, accountable, and making the most of the new technologies to deliver better quality and more accessible public services. This paper provides an overview of recent literature addressing e-government issues, and includes a discussion of its implications at the municipal level. It also covers Australian experiences in establishing and managing e-government services.

Planning for smart urban ecosystems : information technology applications for capacity building in environmental decision making

Since the industrial revolution, our world has experienced rapid and unplanned industrialization and urbanization. As a result, we have had to cope with serious environmental challenges. In this context, an explanation of how smart urban ecosystems can emerge, gains a crucial importance. Capacity building and community involvement have always been key issues in achieving sustainable development and enhancing urban ecosystems. By considering these, this paper looks at new approaches to increase public awareness of environmental decision making. This paper will discuss the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), particularly Webbased Geographic Information Systems (Web-based GIS) as spatial decision support systems to aid public participatory environmental decision making. The paper also explores the potential and constraints of these webbased tools for collaborative decision making.

Street computing workshop 2009

The Street Computing workshop, held in conjunction with OZCHI 2009, solicits papers discussing new research directions, early research results, works-in-progress and critical surveys of prior research work in the areas of ubiquitous computing and interaction design for urban environments. Urban spaces have unique characteristics. Typically, they are densely populated, buzzing with life twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. These traits afford many opportunities, but they also present many challenges: traffic jams, smog and pollution, stress placed on public services, and more. Computing technology, particularly the kind that can be placed in the hands of citizens, holds much promise in combating some of these challenges. Yet, computation is not merely a tool for overcoming challenges; rather, when embedded appropriately in our everyday lives, it becomes a tool of opportunity, for shaping how our cities evolve, for enabling us to interact with our city and its people in new ways, and for uncovering useful, but hidden relationships and correlations between elements of the city. The increasing availability of an urban computing infrastructure has lead to new and exciting ways inhabitants can interact with their city. This includes interaction with a wide range of services (e.g. public transport, public services), conceptual representations of the city (e.g. local weather and traffic conditions), the availability of a variety of shared and personal displays (e.g. public, ambient, mobile) and the use of different interaction modes (e.g. tangible, gesture-based, token-based). This workshop solicits papers that address the above themes in some way. We encourage researchers to submit work that deals with challenges and possibilities that the availability of urban computing infrastructure such as sensors and middleware for sensor networks pose. This includes new and innovative ways of interacting with and within urban environments; user experience design and participatory design approaches for urban environments; social aspects of urban computing; and other related areas.

Measuring performance of municipal real estate : softening the impact of financial crisis to local governments

Asset management in local government is an emerging discipline and over a decade has become a crucial aspect towards a more efficient and effective organisation. One crucial feature in the public asset management is performance measurement toward the public real estates. This measurement critically at the important component of public wealth and seeks to apply a standard of economic efficiency and effective organisational management especially in such global financial crisis condition. This paper aims to identify global economic crisis effect and proposes alternative solution for local governments to softening the impact of the crisis to the local governments organisation. This study found that the most suitable solution for local government to solve the global economic crisis in Indonesia is application of performance measurement in its asset management. Thus, it is important to develop performance measurement system in local government asset management process. This study provides suggestions from published documents and literatures. The paper also discusses the elements of public real estate performance measurement. The measurement of performance has become an essential component of the strategic thinking of assets owners and managers. Without having a formal measurement system for performance, it is difficult to plan, control and improve local government real estate management system. A close look at best practices in public sectors reveals that in most cases these practices were transferred from private sector reals estate management under the direction of real estate experts retained by government. One of the most significant advances in government property performance measurement resulted from recognition that the methodology used by private sector, non real estate corporations for managing their real property offered a valuable prototype for local governments. In general, there are two approaches most frequently used to measure performance of public organisations. Those are subjective and objective measures. Finally, findings from this study provides useful input for the local government policy makers, scholars and asset management practitioners to establish a public real estate performance measurement system toward more efficient and effective local governments in managing their assets as well as increasing public services quality in order to soften the impact of global financial crisis.

Innovative project procurement in the Queensland government : the Woodford Correctional Centre

Much of the effort of the construction industry is directed towards the provision of services and products, many with substantial long term implications. Systems and procedures have evolved over centuries to provide these services and products, but inefficiencies have developed. One strategy for improving the efficiency of the construction industry is to restructure the systems and procedures which deliver projects so that improved benefits to the end users are provided. In this paper, contemporary systems and procedures for the delivery of projects are reviewed and the roles of the major stakeholders are examined. The recent construction of Woodford Correctional Centre in Queensland is reviewed as a case study in restructuring the delivery process and the lessons learned from this successful project are summarised.

A survey on six sigma implementation in Singapore service industries

The concept of Six Sigma was initiated in the 1980s by Motorola. Since then it has been implemented in several manufacturing and service organizations. In case of services, health care and finance were major beneficiaries till now. The application of Six Sigma is gradually picking up in other services like; call centers, utilities and public services. This paper provides empirical evidence on Six Sigma implementation in service industries in Singapore. By using a sample size of 50 service organizations (10 responses are from organizations which have implemented Six Sigma), the paper helps in understanding the status of Six Sigma in service organizations in Singapore. The findings confirm the inclusion of critical success factors, critical to quality characteristics, tools and key performance indicators as observed from the literature. The revelation of “not relevant” as a reason for not implementing Six Sigma shows the need for understanding specific requirements of service organizations before its application.

Co-management to solve homelessness : wicked solutions to wicked problems

While governments are engaged in developing social policy responses to address wicked issues such as poverty, homelessness, drug addiction and crime, long term resolution of these issues through government policy making and state-based programmatic action has remained elusive. The use of vehicles for joint action and partnership between government and the community sector such as co-management has been offered as a way of harnessing productive capability and innovative capacity of both these sectors to resolve these complex problems. However, it is suggested that while there is a well advanced agenda with the intent for collaboration and partnership, working with the models for undertaking this joint action are not well understood and have not been fully developed or evaluated. This chapter examines new approaches to resolving the wicked issue of homelessness through applying the lens of co-management to understand the complexities of this issue and its resolution. The chapter analyses an attempt to move away from traditional bureaucratic structures of welfare departments, operating through single functional ‘silos’ to a new horizontal ‘hub-based’ model of service delivery that seeks to integrate actors across many different service areas and organizations. The chapter explores case studies of co-management in the establishment, development and operation of service hubs to address homelessness. We argue that the response to homelessness needs a ‘wicked solution’ that goes beyond simply providing shelter to those in need. The case of the hub models of community sector organizations working across organizational boundaries is evaluated to determine whether this approach can be considered successful co-managing of an innovative initiative, and understanding the requirements for developing, improving and extending this model. The role of the third sector in co-managing public services is examined through the in-depth case studies and the results are presented together with an assessment of how co-management can contribute to service quality and service management in public services.

Land use planning for privatized airports

Problem, research strategy, and findings: The privatization of airports in Australia included airport property development rights, regulated only by federal, not local, land use control. Airports then developed commercial and retail centers outside local community plans, resulting in a history of poor coordination of planning and reflecting strong differences between public and private values in the role of the airport. Private owners embraced the concept of an Airport City, envisioning the airport as a portal of global infrastructure, whereas public planning agencies are struggling with infrastructure coordination and the development of real estate outside of the local planning regulations. Stakeholder workshops were conducted in each of the cases where key stakeholders from airports, regulating agencies, state and local governments participated in identifying key issues impacting the planning in and around airports. This research demonstrates that if modes of infrastructure provision change significantly (such as through privatization of public services), that transformation would best be accompanied by comprehensive changes in planning regimes to accommodate metropolitan and airport interdependencies. Privatization has exacerbated the poor coordination of planning in the past, and a focus on coordination between public and private infrastructure planning is needed to overcome differences in values and interests. Takeaway for practice: Governance styles differ considerably between public agencies and private corporations. Planners should understand the drivers and value differences to better coordinate infrastructure delivery and effective planning. Research support: The Airport Metropolis Research Project under the Australian Research Council's Linkage Projects funding scheme (LP0775225).

Shifting from asset dominant to service centric delivery systems: engaging users and communities

Research and practice has observed a shift toward service-oriented approaches that depend on input from users and community as co-producers of services. Yet, in delivering public infrastructure the focus is still on assets rather than services. The contribution of external stakeholders in the co-production of public services is still limited. Using the Policy Delphi with a panel of experts, we found that although practitioners understand the need for asset management to follow the service approach, guidelines and policies still lack that service-centric perspective. Findings revealed a range of obstacles to effective service delivery, related to the sub-optimal involvement of stakeholders’, asymmetric levels of power, the lack of accountability, transparency and availability of government, and the lack of genuine consultations between government and stakeholder groups. The paper concludes by offering directions and strategies for asset managers and policymakers to support and reconnect disengaged government-citizen relations for optimal service delivery outcomes in asset management.

Empirical Analysis of Competition in Procurement Auctions

A vast amount of public services and goods are contracted through procurement auctions. Therefore it is very important to design these auctions in an optimal way. Typically, we are interested in two different objectives. The first objective is efficiency. Efficiency means that the contract is awarded to the bidder that values it the most, which in the procurement setting means the bidder that has the lowest cost of providing a service with a given quality. The second objective is to maximize public revenue. Maximizing public revenue means minimizing the costs of procurement. Both of these goals are important from the welfare point of view. In this thesis, I analyze field data from procurement auctions and show how empirical analysis can be used to help design the auctions to maximize public revenue. In particular, I concentrate on how competition, which means the number of bidders, should be taken into account in the design of auctions. In the first chapter, the main policy question is whether the auctioneer should spend resources to induce more competition. The information paradigm is essential in analyzing the effects of competition. We talk of a private values information paradigm when the bidders know their valuations exactly. In a common value information paradigm, the information about the value of the object is dispersed among the bidders. With private values more competition always increases the public revenue but with common values the effect of competition is uncertain. I study the effects of competition in the City of Helsinki bus transit market by conducting tests for common values. I also extend an existing test by allowing bidder asymmetry. The information paradigm seems to be that of common values. The bus companies that have garages close to the contracted routes are influenced more by the common value elements than those whose garages are further away. Therefore, attracting more bidders does not necessarily lower procurement costs, and thus the City should not implement costly policies to induce more competition. In the second chapter, I ask how the auctioneer can increase its revenue by changing contract characteristics like contract sizes and durations. I find that the City of Helsinki should shorten the contract duration in the bus transit auctions because that would decrease the importance of common value components and cheaply increase entry which now would have a more beneficial impact on the public revenue. Typically, cartels decrease the public revenue in a significant way. In the third chapter, I propose a new statistical method for detecting collusion and compare it with an existing test. I argue that my test is robust to unobserved heterogeneity unlike the existing test. I apply both methods to procurement auctions that contract snow removal in schools of Helsinki. According to these tests, the bidding behavior of two of the bidders seems consistent with a contract allocation scheme.

Urban growth dilemmas and solutions in China: Looking forward to 2030

China’s urbanization and industrialization are occupying farmland in large amounts, which is strongly driven by land finance regime. This is due to the intensified regional/local competition for manufacturing investment opportunities that push local governments to expropriate farmland at low prices while lease land at high market value to property developers. The additional revenue obtained in this way, termed financial increment in land values, can drive local economic growth, and provide associated infrastructure and other public services. At the same time, however, a floating population of large numbers of inadequately compensated land-lost farmers, although unable to become citizens, have to migrate into the urban areas for work, causing overheated employment and housing markets, with rocketing unaffordable housing prices. This, together with various micro factors relating to the party/state’s promotion/evaluation system play an essential role leading to some serious economic, environment and social consequences, e.g., on migrant welfare, the displacement of peasants and the loss of land resources that requires immediate attention. Our question is: whether such type of urbanization is sustainable? What are the mechanisms behind such a phenomenal urbanization process? From the perspective of institutionalism, this paper aims to investigate the institutional background of the urban growth dilemma and solutions in urban China and to introduce further an inter-regional game theoretical framework to indicate why the present urbanization pattern is unsustainable. Looking forward to 2030, paradigm policy changes are made from the triple consideration of floating population, social security and urban environmental pressures. This involves: (1) changing land increment based finance regime into land stock finance system; (2) the citizenization of migrant workers with affordable housing, and; (3) creating a more enlightened local government officer appraisal system to better take into account societal issues such as welfare and beyond.

Vaikuttavuusyhteiskunta : Sosiaalisten olojen arvostelusta vaikutusten todentamiseen

Evaluation practices have pervaded the Finnish society and welfare state. At the same time the term effectiveness has become a powerful organising concept in welfare state activities. The aim of the study is to analyse how the outcome-oriented society came into being through historical processes, to answer the question of how social policy and welfare state practices were brought under the governance of the concept of effectiveness . Discussions about social imagination, Michel Foucault s conceptions of the history of the present and of governmentality, genealogy and archaeology, along with Ian Hacking s notions of dynamic nominalism and styles of reasoning, are used as the conceptual and methodological starting points for the study. In addition, Luc Boltanski s and Laurent Thévenot s ideas of orders of worth , regimes of evaluation in everyday life, are employed. Usually, evaluation is conceptualised as an autonomous epistemic culture and practice (evaluation as epistemic practice), but evaluation is here understood as knowledge-creation processes elementary to different epistemic practices (evaluation in epistemic practices). The emergence of epistemic cultures and styles of reasoning about the effectiveness or impacts of welfare state activities are analysed through Finnish social policy and social work research. The study uses case studies which represent debates and empirical research dealing with the effectiveness and quality of social services and social work. While uncertainty and doubts over the effects and consequences of welfare policies have always been present in discourses about social policy, the theme has not been acknowledged much in social policy research. To resolve these uncertainties, eight styles of reasoning about such effects have emerged over time. These are the statistical, goal-based, needs-based, experimental, interaction-based, performance measurement, auditing and evidence-based styles of reasoning. Social policy research has contributed in various ways to the creation of these epistemic practices. The transformation of the welfare state, starting at the end of 1980s, increased market-orientation and trimmed public welfare responsibilities, and led to the adoption of the New Public Management (NPM) style of leadership. Due to these developments the concept of effectiveness made a breakthrough, and new accountabilities with their knowledge tools for performance measurement and auditing and evidence-based styles of reasoning became more dominant in the ruling of the welfare state. Social sciences and evaluation have developed a heteronomous relation with each other, although there still remain divergent tendencies between them. Key words: evaluation, effectiveness, social policy, welfare state, public services, sociology of knowledge

Sosiaalipalveluja kaikille ja kaiken ikää? : Tutkimus suomalaisten mielipiteistä ja kokemuksista sosiaalipalveluista sekä niiden suhteesta legitimiteettiin

This research analyses opinions on the system of social welfare services from the point of view of clients and the public in general in Finland. The approach is quantitative, drawing on theories of the welfare-state tradition. The data used comes from the comprehensive Welfare and Services in Finland survey compiled by STAKES. While previous research on the welfare state has predominantly focused on surveying public opinion on social protection, this research focuses on social welfare services. The main focus of this research is on publicly funded care provided by municipal social welfare services. In this research, social welfare services include child day care, services for people with disabilities, home-help services, counselling by social workers and social assistance. The research considered in particular whether the clients or the population has different opinions towards social welfare services or social benefits. In addition, the research partly covers areas of informal care provided by family and friends. The research material consisted of the STAKES Welfare and Services in Finland survey. The data was compiled in 2004 and 2006 by Statistics Finland. The research comprises five articles. Additional data have been extracted from social welfare statistics and registers. Multiple approaches were applied in the survey on welfare and services the methods in this research included interviews by phone and mail, and register data. The sample size was 5 810 people in 2004 and 5 798 in 2006. The response rates were 82.7% and 83.7%, respectively. The results indicate that a large majority (90%) of the Finnish population is of the opinion that the public sector should bear the main responsibility for organising social and health services. The system of social welfare services and its personnel have strong public support 73% and 80% respectively. However, new and even negative tones have emerged in the Finnish debate on social welfare services. Women are increasingly critical of the performance of social welfare services and the level of social protection. Furthermore, this study shows that women more often than men wish to see an increase in the amount of privately organised social welfare services. Another group critical of the performance of social welfare services are pensioners. People who had used social welfare services were more critical than those who had not used them. Thus, the severest criticism was received from the groups who use and gain most from public services and benefits. However, the education and income variables identified in earlier studies no longer formed a significant dividing line, although people with higher education tend to foster a more positive view of the performance of social welfare services as well as the level of social protection. Income differences did not bear any significance, that is, belonging to a high or low income group was not a determining factor in the attitude towards social welfare services or social benefits. According to the research, family and friends still form an informal yet significant support network in people's everyday lives, and its importance has not been diminished by services provided by the welfare state. The Finnish public considers child day care the most reliable form of social welfare services. Indeed, child day care has become the most universal sector of our system of social welfare services. Other services that instil confidence included counselling by social workers and services for people with disabilities. On the other hand, social assistance and home-help services received negative feedback. The negative views were based on a number of arguments. One argument contends that the home-help service system, which was originally intended for universal use, is crumbling. The preventive role of home-help services has been reduced. These results mirror the increasingly popular opinion that social welfare services are not produced for all those who need them, but to an increasing extent for a select few of them. Municipalities are struggling with their finances and this, combined with negative publicity, has damaged the public's trust in some municipal social welfare services. A welfare state never achieves a stable condition, but must develop over time, as the world around it changes. Following the 1990's recession, we are now in a position where we can start to develop a system that responds to the needs of the next generation. Study results indicating new areas of dissatisfaction reflect the need to develop and improve the services provided. It is also increasingly essential that social welfare services pay attention to the opinions of clients and the public. Should the gap between opinions and actual activities increase, the legitimacy of the whole system would be questioned. Currently, the vast majority of Finns consider the system of social welfare services adequate, which provides us with the continuity required to maintain and improve client-oriented and reasonably priced social welfare services. Paying attention to the signals given by clients and the general public, and reacting to them accordingly, will also secure the development and legitimacy of the system in the future.

El abastecimiento de agua corriente en la ciudad de Córdoba (1900-1910) : continuidad y cambio en la gestión

Resumen: Desde un punto de vista general el agua es definida en la actualidad como un recurso natural no renovable en cantidad, recuperable en calidad y con posibilidad de nuevo uso (re-uso) en continua mutación dentro del ciclo hidrológico. A la vez posee las categorías de bien común como elemento esencial para la vida humana y que como tal no tiene precio, y de recurso hídrico con dimensión económica como insumo, que supone un valor mensurable. Los recursos hídricos y su gestión forman parte de la administración pública, como pueden serlo la energía o la salud. La organización adecuada de un servicio, y las formas institucionales a través de las que se presta, varían de acuerdo a las épocas, los costes tecnológicos, los de distribución, organización y regulación, resultando un aspecto importante del análisis la implementación y funcionamiento del servicio público. Atendiendo a estos aspectos teóricos, este trabajo continua con la problemática del abastecimiento de agua corriente en la ciudad de Córdoba, ahora en la primera década del siglo XX, manteniendo el supuesto de que las dificultades para el abastecimiento de agua obedecen a razones de orden natural, a dificultades económicas y a enfrentamientos políticos, en el marco de un Estado que aún posee limitaciones de índole institucional y administrativo, por lo cual intervendrán el gobierno provincial y Nacional para la concreción de las obras de salubridad, en una ciudad y un país enrolados en el proceso de modernización impulsado por el deseo de adecuación al modelo de vida europeo. Seguimos analizando las fuentes inéditas del Archivo Histórico Municipal de Córdoba, fuentes oficiales editas, publicaciones periódicas y bibliografía tanto general como específica.

Apuntes jurídicos sobre el paisaje lingüístico en Euskal Herria

This paper is a study of place-names and signs in the Basque Country from the point of view of language law. These are matters that relate to both the status and corpus of language and contribute to the formation of the language landscape,» After a brief historical introduction, the author focuses on the factors that bear on signs and the language 1andscape: the cornpetence factor and the language factor. The description of the latter leads the author to a discussion of the existing language system, in which the Spanish and Basque sharing official status does not necessarily entail the obligation to use both languages at the same time. Using this discussion as a frame of reference, the au- thor analyses place-names, traffic signals and signs. As for place-names, the existing rules are deemed rigid and lacking in ambition, in that they do not pursue the dissemination of official Basque forms. In traffic signaIs, Basque has to appear alongside Spanish, which is required by Spanish legislation, although this bilingualism excludes place-names that have an official Basque form only. With regard to signs, the author analyses public premises, companies licensed to provide public services and the private sector. For public premises there is no specific regulation, but the status of Basque as an autochthonous language, together with the identification and informatíon purposes of signs, could support the exclusive use of this language, According to the author , companies licensed to provide public services should observe the same language system as the goverment and therefore promote the use of Basque. Finally, in the private sector, the author upholds the legitimacy of measures to promote Basque language use such as tax allowances and exemptions in advertising and commercial signs.