Estonia and e-Governance

As part of my trip to Estonia last week I was lucky enough to meet Arvo Ott, Director of the e-Governance Academy.

"The e-Governance Academy (eGA) is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation, founded for the creation and transfer of knowledge concerning e-governance, e-democracy and the development of civil society"

Estonia is an extraordinary country when it comes to the internet. There is a plan to have 100% broadband coverage by 2015 and at the moment 76% of the 1.34m population use the internet. When I went there was (free) wifi almost everywhere.

The internet is so fundamental to everything that Estonians do there is almost no distinction between what is done online and what is done offline. The country's leaders have been showing the way since at least 2000, when Government cabinet meetings went paperless.

Some amazing internet statistics:

• 76% of people use the internet
• 63% of people have a computer in their home
• There are 51 internet access points per 100,000 people in Estonia
• 92% of citizens and 97% of companies completed their tax returns online in 2010. (The speed at which any money is refunded is far quicker for online returns, 5 days vs 2 months)
• Estonia is number 1 in the world for internet banking

As Arvo explained, e-governance comes in two parts; the act of governing using the internet (voting, participation) and the delivery of services.

One example of service delivery is the Parental Benefit project, which won an award for best eGov service in 2004. It's essentially the joining up of 5 government databases, across 5 departments, to offer parents a more joined up benefits service. Simple (in concept, if not technology) but hugely effective. Much of Estonia's service delivery work has come from the joining up of databases to make information easier to find and connect.

For Estonia, the outward symbol of this joined up, online world is the smart ID card, there are 1.1m for a population of 1.34m. As well as using the cards to access public services, Estonians can use them to buy public transport tickets and for voting. E-voting has been a big success in Estonia, about 10% of votes in 2009 were done online. They found that access to e-voting didn't actually change turnout numbers all that much and there was no bias to any one party.

The Estonian ID card is similar in functionality to a credit card; no information is actually stored on it and it's accessed via a PIN. The card allows people to access all sorts of services and can read their information at any time online.

E-Government in Estonia - best practices and lessons learned

International Conference on eGovernance

Presentation from Arvo Ott in 2007 "Environment for Inclusive e-Government":