Purpose - This paper aims to present a meta-model for electronic government (e-government) which takes account of the broad nature of this contemporary socio-technical phenomenon. As such it contains within it a number of possible "business models" for the development of e-government - strategies for e-government focused around key business processes and information systems. Design/methodology/approach - This meta-model is built from literature taken from the domains of informatics, business and public administration. It is also built on established academic, policy and practitioner literature from the domain of e-government itself. Findings - The paper demonstrates and validates the use of this meta-model in three ways. First, it is used as an explanatory tool to help review the contemporary experience of e-government in the UK. To help in this process we position specific case examples of e-government against the model from this experience. Second, it is used to evaluate a number of existing models of e-government, particularly those which provide an explicit framework of e-government progress. A number of deficiencies in such models are identified from this evaluation. Third, the meta-model is proposed as a framework for evaluating and potentially benchmarking e-government. The intention is to raise the perspective of evaluation and benchmarking in this area beyond its contemporary focus on electronic service delivery. Originality/value - To demonstrate the worth of this approach, the paper describes the application of elements of this meta-model in two evaluation/benchmarking exercises undertaken by the author in the context of regional e-government.
