eEurope Action Plan drives improvement and savings in public services
Driven by the EU's eEurope Action Plan and national modernisation programmes, public sector organisations are engaged in a transformation process that is expected to foster better services for citizens while reducing spending in public services. 'Agencies must improve quality, accessibility, and the responsiveness of service delivery and grow efficiency and effectiveness of internal processes,' said Massimiliano Claps, Research Analyst with IDC's European Vertical Markets group. In terms of IT budget expenditure, results of a recent IDC survey suggest that local governments are more optimistic than central agencies, especially in the UK, where local councils are currently investing significant funds to develop electronic front and back end solutions. Education institutions also have a positive outlook on their IT budgets, especially in France, the UK, and the Netherlands. Security technologies, systems infrastructure software, collaborative technologies and knowledge management applications and database/datawarehouse solutions attract the attention of most organisations for future investments. Industry specific solutions are also very important, particularly to local government agencies. The adoption of security technology is very high in the public sector across all surveyed countries, due to the increasing reliance on network solutions and virtual systems to interact with constituents, patients and students and the sensitivity of their records. Many public sector agencies already have or plan to have mobile solutions, wireless networks and rich media video streaming for education institutions.