Adela Mesa and Pedro Martínez‐Monje
Focusing on the first dimension mentioned above( e‐Administration), during said years the use of the ICT in the public administrations reached quite high average levels, and very significant in some cases. At the beginning of the new millennium, the idea which started with the modernising the administration has gone hand in hand with the introduction and development of the ICT in the public Administrations( mainly through the new possibilities offered by the use of Internet, the online communication of information, etc.).
Spain joined this process – followed by most western countries – since 1997 when telecommunications were liberalised in the country( with the exponential expansion of the call centre companies). The European Union in turn adopted a leading role to encourage all of the member countries setting out a series of guidelines aimed at Europe becoming the worldwide leader in the information society.
Since them, and in the specific case of Spain, abundant regulations have been produced to regulate this area( mainly at the end of the nineties and since the approval of the electronic access Act in 2007). These regulations have also been commonly boosted by different scope( regional, state, international) information society and electronic government plans all from the perspective that the development of electronic government provides modernisation and progress for the current public administrations. And although the current financial crisis is going to force some projects to be halted and others to be reconsidered, it is a good time to ask which elements influence( and how) said development of electronic governance. We shall focus our study on this point.
It is noticeable how the development of the electronic Administration( e‐Administración) is not following a continuous rhythm but in some cases is actually slowing down and even halted. This paper is therefore aimed at finding out about the main barriers to the progress of e‐Administration and electronic government in general, above all in the healthcare sector which is one of the main pillars of the welfare state. One must also take into account that Spain’ s Autonomous Regions ‐ Comunidades Autónomas –( 17 in total) have been taken as reference entities.
Along the lines mentioned above, the European institutions – particularly the Commission – and the different Member States have been working for over fifteen years to try to promote electronic government. The 1994 Bangemann Report“ Europe and the Global Information Society. Action Plan”, which indicated the main issues at the end of the century and in the new millennium, marked the start of a new era. Since then there have been a series of plans both European( eEurope 2002, 2005, i2010), and their respective reflection in the Spanish arena ‐Plan InfoXXI, administración. es, España. es, Plan Avanza 2006‐2010 and its continuation with the Plan Avanza 2( 2011‐2015) ‐; which have shown said evolution within the state framework and in that of the Autonomous Regions. There has been some progress as far as e‐Government is concerned: although this does not mean that there has been linear progress. Through the widespread regulation in this area over the last decade we can see many points of disagreement and debate between the actors involved, with different results in each case.
The electronic administration processes are in general considered to be related to modernisation, or( as it is more commonly called) innovation in the public administration. The approaches which seek to apply innovation to the public entities are increasingly present both in the academic debate and in the real practices. However, we must consider the amount and scope of the problems which arise as a result, precisely due to the public nature of the governmental organisations( clash between policy and management, the resistance of the administrative culture, the application of effective evaluation mechanisms, etc.)( Mulgan, 2007). In this way the electronic government strategies can be seen as an opportunity to introduce innovative initiatives into public management and in the provision of public services.
Within this context, and focusing precisely on the issue of the evolution of the implementation of the electronic administration and the online public services, our study is focused on defining what we understand by barriers to electronic government and, once this term has been defined, analysing some of the groups of barriers referring to the framework of the Spanish regional politics and particularly applied to the area of health.
For such purpose, and taking some previous work as a reference( Oxford Internet Institute, 2007), we have developed a methodology which allows us to consult 45( out of 51 base sample) technicians and administrative modernization directors in the 17 Autonomus Regions and all members of the Inter‐Regional
338