Hill Times Supplement on Technology and Government

The Hill Times, the Ottawa-based weekly that covers Parliament Hill, has published a supplement or policy briefing on technology in the federal government sector.

The supplement takes a critical look at the Government On-Line initiative, examines plans to spin off a new Service Canada department, and features an interesting selection of statistics on the use of information technology by government.

Some of the statistics:

• The average costs associated with transactions with the federal government are $30 per interaction in person; $20 per interaction by mail; $10 per interaction by telephone, and $1 or less per interaction over the Internet
• For the fourth consecutive year, Accenture ranked Canada number one in terms of its
  "e-government maturity", ahead of 21 other countries
• According to the Auditor General report for 2005, only one government department among the 46 that responded to a survey met all the basic requirements of the government’s IT security policy. Meanwhile, 16 per cent of government departments did not have an IT security policy; 26 per cent did not have a plan in place to ensure continued computer operations in the case of a cyber-attack or power failure
• The total number of secure electronic transactions completed by citizens and businesses with government in 2004 was 113.8 million. Over 40% of Canadians filed their 2003 personal income tax returns electronically and 90% of applications for federal jobs are being received on-line