Svein Ølnes
important for analysing the results in 3.1 is the degree of cooperation with other municipalities and the amount of resources dedicated to work with the website.
Table 3: The knowledge of the system for evaluation of public websites( small, medium sized, and large municipalities – percentage of N)
|
Small |
Medium |
Large |
No knowledge or little / very little knowl. |
36 |
0 |
0 |
Fair, good, and very good knowledge |
59 |
15 |
3 |
Don’ t know |
5 |
85 |
97 |
Total |
100 |
100 |
100 |
Table 4: How difficult / easy is it to understand the quality indicators( percentage of N)? Small Medium Large
No response |
4 |
0 |
0 |
Difficult / Very difficult |
37 |
34 |
13 |
Easy / Vey easy |
58 |
66 |
87 |
Don’ t know |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Total |
100 |
100 |
100 |
Table 5: Do you regard the quality indicators as useful or not in your work with improving the website?( percentage of N)
|
Small |
Medium |
Large |
No response |
4 |
0 |
0 |
Not useful or little usefulness |
24 |
12 |
13 |
Useful / very useful |
58 |
77 |
83 |
Don’ t know |
14 |
11 |
3 |
Total |
100 |
100 |
100 |
Table 6: How much resources are allocated to website information and administration?
No response
Small Medium Large
<= 1,0 man year 98 90 53 > 1,0 man year 0 7 47 Don’ t know 2 3 0
Total 100 100 100
The tables in 4.2 show that small municipalities in general have less knowledge of the evaluation system, thinks the indicators are more difficult to understand and do not perceive the indicators as useful as the medium sized and large municipalities( significant difference at 95 % confidence interval between municipality groups in all tables 3 – 6, using T‐tests). These are good explanations for why the small municipalities’ overall score in the website evaluations are lower than the medium sized and large municipalities.
Even more interesting as an explanation of the difference in quality between small and larger municipalities, is the resources allocated to website administration and digital information, as shown in table 5. The larger municipalities of course have more resources allocated to this work than the smaller ones. With more labour also comes more knowledge and less reliance on only one person as is often the case in small municipalities. Even if larger municipalities also mean larger websites, the administrators seem capable of handling the increased amount of information and at the same time develop better quality.
4.3 Survey of public services users
Difi undertakes a comprehensive user survey of public services with 3‐4 years intervals. The last published survey is from 2009 / 2010 and comprises questions from a range of governmental bodies and municipalities( Difi 2010). It is a large survey with questions from many sectors and services.
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