information technologies, electronic government, electronic public services, public sector
Abstract
Rapid development of the information technologies has a huge impact not only in everyday life. It changes government institutions as well: leads to the modernization of management processes, optimizes work and impacts traditional society and government relations. Information age demanded from the public institutions to transfer most of the information, communication and public services to the electronic systems. However, many of local governments are not ready to improve the quality of information technologies and transfer administration services to the electronic space. This phenomenon is particularly apparent in the small local government institutions which faces difficulties when transferring electronic services to electronic systems. This article is based on the literature studies and it analyzes the main features of the information technologies and their role in public administration processes. The authors also identify the concepts of electronic government and electronic services. This case analyzes the situation of the electronic services provision in Šakiai district municipality, affects the major problems of e-services in this institution and offers solutions to these problems. In order to move evenly with changing environment, public institutions need to understand that the attitudes of employees has to change first. Therefore collaboration of governmental institutions must be stimulated sharing the experience of the best practice. Such collaboration is necessary in order to increase the knowledge of employees and control information traffic. The article concludes, that the development of the electronic public services in local government institutions is inherent from availability of these services to the community. Because of that great attention should be paid to introduce local people with the main advantages of the electronic public services.
