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The EU is keen to promote the Information Society which is emerging today through various programmes and frameworks. Currently in Greece, the Operational Programme for the Information Society (OPIS) of the 3rd Community Support Framework by the European Commission is dealing with the promotion of ICT in all layers of society and especially in the public sector. However, e Government appears shyly on the horizon in Greece, mainly with the creation and establishment of citizen service centres which act as public sector ‘one-stop shops’. Online presence is still in its infancy.
This paper examines the current stages of development of e Government in Greek cities, municipalities and rural communities using C. G. Reddick’s model of e Government development. Reddick identifies two stages: Stage I is characterised by the cataloguing of information online and Stage II by transactions being completed online. The model is applied to data from a content study of 460 central and local government websites, from an online survey which yielded a response rate of approximate 20% from employees in central and local government and from interviews with key government officials. These data, in corroboration with other studies on the use of the Internet and ICT in Greece, indicate that most central government and nearly all local government websites are at Stage I.
The reasons for this are discussed with reference to the technological, cultural and organisational challenges. It is recommended that the Greek government should prescribe and enact the adoption of e Government measures, particularly by local government authorities in order to improve the delivery of services and the quality of government and public service efficiency.
Keywords:
Information society, e Government, EU, Greece, public sector, local government
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