Use of European Union funds in promoting information society
Audit Office is of the opinion that the state is too focussed on financing the IT developments aimed at the state when distributing aid for the implementation of the National Information Society ... has not been transparent and the state’s supervision of the implementation of the projects has been regarded as a formality. ... The National Audit Office audited the use of the aid allocated from the structural funds of the European Union (hereinafter EU aid) in the information technology (IT) area of the state. The National ... Riigikontroll auditeeris Euroopa Liidu struktuurifondidest ehk tõukefondidest eraldatud toetuste (edaspidi ELi toetusraha) kasutamist riigi infotehnoloogia (IT) valdkonnas. Uuriti, kas raha jagamine ... infoühiskonna arendamise eesmärgil on olnud tasakaalustatud ja läbipaistev ning kas toetuste jagamise üle tehakse piisavat järelevalvet. Riigikontrolli hinnangul on riik infoühiskonna arengukava rakendamiseks ... toetuste jagamisel keskendunud liiga riigile suunatud IT-arenduste rahastamisele ning jätnud tagaplaanile ettevõtete konkurentsivõime parandamisele ja kolmandale sektorile suunatud IT arendusprojektide ... Balance needed for success of Information Society Development Plan ... , true suppervision and measurement of progress are listed by the Estonian SAI as next key elements necessary to keep balanced development of strategy for Information Society. ... 50% of aid has been granted primarily for the development of information systems of state agencies, i.e. as much as the other two target groups - business and citizens - put together. Information
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Audit of the key ICT project federal GEVER programme Federal Chancellery
During the first stage, two new GEVER (electronic records and process management) products were procured in an open WTO tender within the framework of the two-product strategy (federal GEVER WTO ... procurement project). CHF 1.6 million was spent on these. The departments and Federal Chancellery (departments/FCh) had to choose one of the two products within three months of the contract being awarded. ... ... Advanced process management system's cost-effectiveness and deadlines at risk ... Ever since 1990, sequential controls and file management have been part of the Federal Administration's IT landscape (GEVER business administration). Significant obstacles have to be overcome ... in order to ensure the successful creation and introduction of GEVER. Previous efforts did not have any widespread success and led to a diverse GEVER landscape. The federal GEVER project has now laid ... the foundations for simplification and centralisation.
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Use of consultants and temporary staff
New skills needed in a longer term UK NAO: Used well, consultants and temporary staff can be an important source of specialist skills and capabilities that are uneconomic for departments to maintain in their permanent staff. Since 2009-10, the government has used spending controls to reduce its use of consultants and temporary staff, and by 2014-15 spending had fallen by £1.5 billion. However, spending has increased by between £400 million and £600 million since 2011-12, suggesting that this was more of a short-term reduction than a sustainable strategy. In the longer term, departments will need to develop workforce, skills and capacity plans to reduce their dependence on external skills. They will need to improve their strategic workforce planning to determine where they can deploy existing staff, where they need to recruit, and where they need to engage temporary resources. Without this, departments cannot demonstrate that they are achieving value for money from the use of consultants and temporary staff.
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Information Technology Cost Estimation Agencies Need to Address Significant Weakness in Policies and Practices
and agencies have appropriately implement costestimating policies an procedures(four caracteristics of a reliable cost estimation: comprehensive, well-documented, accurate, credible). ... To estimate reliable cost for the sucess of an IT program by providing the basis for the informed decision making and realistic budget information. To assess the extent to which selected departments ... IT cost estimation ... , lack of adequacy and inadequate implementation. ... Check out what may go wrong with the information technology cost estimation. Results of the US GAO audit can help to identify high risk areas: comprehensiveness of estimations, their documentation
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Management of IT security in systems outsourced to external suppliers
Security to be improved in IT processes outsourced to external suppliers When IT processes are outsourced to external suppliers, the authorities no longer have direct control of the IT security, but remain responsible for managing the security of the IT. Authorities that fail to manage IT security actively based on risk assessments, and omit to monitor the implementation of these requirements, will not be able to determine if the level of IT security in the outsourced systems safeguards their systems and data. This is how the conclusion of the Rigsrevisionen starts. The Danish auditors noticed improvement in the audited entities, but they add that tha majority of the auditees: can refine their requirements for and follow-up on access control and logging practices
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Results of the development of the state’s information systems
, several measures have been implemented in the state to organise the development better and to guarantee that the systems are compatible. This audit gives an opinion of the results of development project ... The National Audit Office has repeatedly audited the management and development of the state’s information technology (IT) area in the last ten years. The last audit was performed in 2005. After that ... management and the state’s coordination mechanism in this process. ... ... Success and failure depend on preparation ... Conclusions of performance IT audit based on a sample of government projects: business portal, land register, e-police, fire safety monitoring system, childcare information system and the document ... management system of the Defence Forces. Key problems and discussion with auditees are presented.
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Report to the Public AccountsCommittee on mitigation of cyber attacks
have addressed the risk of cyber attacks and whether they have implemented these three security controls. ... This report concerns the action taken by Danish government bodies to prevent cyber attacks. Behaving sensibly in cyberspace to avoid attacks is important, but should be supplemented by technical ... security controls that can increase security and mitigate cyber attacks. International studies have concluded that three central security controls can prevent the majority of the currently known types ... Three basic security measures are often neglected ... Government agencies are open for cyber attacks because they often forget to respect three basic IT security measures. The three measures are: 1. technical restriction on programs downloading; 2 ... . limited use of local administrators rights; 3. systematic software updates.
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Report to on the user-friendliness and user involvement in the development of e-government services in Denmark
stipulate that improvements of the solutions can be implemented post launch? - Are the e-government services user-friendly, and is the take-up satisfactory? 2) The study included the following five ... The e-government user-friendliness requirements are divided into five overall categories: language, design and flow, data and functionality, and accessibility. 1) The objective of the study ... is to provide an assessment of the authorities’ efforts to ensure that e-government services are user-friendly. The report answers the following questions: - Have the authorities involved the users ... ... User-friendliness of public services should be consistenty required and tested ... The Danish Rigsrevisionen is of the opinion that the user-friendliness of the services can be improved if the authorities meet all the requirements of the Danish Agency for Digitisation concerning ... the matter. The audit covered user-friendliness related problems in case of five systems, before and after the launch. The systems take-up was also considered, as well as communicating with citizens who ... are unable to use digital services.
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Quality of public services in information society in 2010
if this is acceptable to the person in question. Even though state and local government agencies have made efforts to implement the principles of good administration, the National Audit Office cannot affirm ... The National Audit Office found that irrespective of a few positive changes, the quality of provision of public services in information society has not improved significantly in comparison to 2007 ... . Information about the services is still difficult to find on websites and people who use public services must still submit unjustified documents, proof of facts or go to administrative agencies in person ... ... The quality of public services has been improved but still isn’t good enough ... Irrespective of a few positive changes, the quality of provision of public services in information society has not improved significantly in comparison to 2007. Information about the services ... is still difficult to find on websites and people who use public services must still submit unjustified documents, proof of facts or go to administrative agencies in person.
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Digital transformation in government
Support exemplars, provide consistent guidance... and do not lose focus As the NAO states: Government faces significant challenges in providing public services. While many government services are now available online, public administration is struggling to manage more complicated programmes and to improve the complex systems and processes that support public services.
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