Constructing electronic government: The case of the UK inland revenue

The term electronic government (e-Government) generally refers to the use of information and communications technology (ICT) to change the structures and processes of government organisations. Many governments worldwide have invested heavily in this agenda but there is a lack of clear case material, which describes the potentialities and pitfalls experienced by organisations grappling with this change. The department of the Inland Revenue has been at the forefront of this e-Government vision in the UK. The department has undertaken major attempts to re-engineer its interface with the UK citizen and other stakeholders. It has also suffered a number of highly publicised failures in delivering its services electronically. This paper presents a case study of the process of 'constructing' e-Government experienced by this organisation. It describes one particularly interesting instance of the way in which public sector organisations are struggling to construct an e-Government identity. We place this organisation's attempts at ICT innovation within the context for e-Government within the UK. These innovations are used to highlight the usefulness of a model of the ideal-typical electronic government organisation developed as part of our research and consultancy activity. The model is useful as a means of highlighting the limitations of conventional definitions of e-Government in the UK while providing pointers for the development of future strategy in this area. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.