The article considers the history of formation and development of e-government in Kazakhstan. Integrated Information System Citizen Service Center is described more accurately, as one of the varieties of direction in functioning of e-government. Conclusion is given in the end that the implementation of e-government is an important element of administrative reform aimed at increasing the efficiency of the state administration. Prospect of Kazakhstan development is the task of Kazakhstan at the present stage — the concentration of efforts for transition to informational society through informational technology.
The modern development of human civilization is characterized as a next stage in scientific and technical revolution — implementation in every sphere of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) which change the way of people’s living and construct the foundation and material base for transition to informational society, the society with high social and economic, political and cultural development.
Informational technologies of XXI are designed to solve the global complex problems in state politics sphere, social sphere, improve the organization of industrial processes and business structures.
A world-class cybernetic Glushkov Victor Mikhailovich set the question and developed the technology of electronic document management firstly in the USSR. The prototype of «electronic government» within the USSR was a project and ideology of Glushkov V.M.He was an initiator and a main ideologist in development and creation of Nationwide automated accounting system and information processing (NASI), designed for automated managing of the national economy of the USSR on the whole. He designed the theory of systems of distributed databases management (SDDM) for it.
«Electronic government» is a system of state management based on automation of the whole complex of management processes across the country and serving the purpose of significant increase of efficiency in state government and costs of social communications decrease for every member of the society.
«Electronic government» creation involves nationwide distributed system of public administration building implementing the full range of tasks decision connected with documents management and their processing.
The tasks of «e-government» are:
- optimization of providing government services to the public and business;
- support and empowerment of citizens self-service;
- growth of technological knowledge and skills of the citizens;
- increasing the level of participation of all voters in governance and country management;
- reducing the impact of geographical location «Electronic government» is not an addition or analogue of the traditional government, but it defines a new way of interaction on the basis of information and communication technologies (ICT) for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of providing public services.
Types of interactions «e-government»:
- between government and citizens (G2C, Government-to-Citizen);
- between government and business (G2B, Government-to-Business);
- between different branches of government (G2G, Government-to-Government);
- between government and employees (G2E, Government-to-Employees).
The automation of public authorities’ activity is carried out within the «e-government» creation. Creating the information systems of state bodies is the main thing here which allows providing a citizen with electronic service which is necessary and rather actual for his/her everyday life and work. And the main idea of «e-government» in Kazakhstan is «providing the citizens with quick and qualitative access to electronic services of state bodies». Creation of «electronic government» should provide not only more effective and less expensive administration but total change in interactions between the society and the government. Finally, it will lead to improving the democracy and increasing the responsibility of the authority to people.
The idea of «e-government» creating in Kazakhstan was announced at the annual Message of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan March 19, 2004 «Towards the competitive Kazakhstan, competitive economy, and competitive nation» [1]. «The state program of forming «e-government» in the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2005–2007» was accepted on the 10th of November 2004» [2]. This was one of the first serious steps towards the development of high technological country.
Creation of «electronic government» in Kazakhstan is long-termed and its realization can be implemented only in several stages. The experience of the countries was studied where significant progress in development the technology of e-government was achieved: Korea, Singapore, Estonia and others. Taking into account the world experience, the implementation of «electronic government» in the Republic of Kazakhstan is carried out in four steps:
- Informational step (2005–2006) — the publication and spreading the At this stage, a single point of access to all informational resources of state bodies and focus on the needs of the citizens and organizations, basing on the concept of life and business events. Within this stage, the informational services of all state bodies were placed at the portal up to the end of 2006;
- Interactive step (2006–2008) — the service delivery by means of direct and inverse interaction between the government and the citizen. Within this step the mechanism of identification and authorization of the users with the purpose of providing the citizens with interactive services with the help of state bodies, the service of the citizens’ appellations reception is implemented and the mobile version of the portal was put into operation;
- Transactional step (2008–2010) — interaction by the way of performing the financial and juridical operations at the governmental portal. At this stage, mechanisms of citizens’ applications through the portal to paid state services to perform financial transactions, through integration with payment gateway and banking information system were implemented;
- Transformational stage (2010 to present days) — the creation of complex electronic services. Maximum efficiency in the providing the socially significant
But it is not enough to develop a program for its implementation for the realization of «e-government». It is also necessary to train people who are computer literate and have the access to ICT will be able to interact with the «electronic government» in any geographical point of the country.
The first stage in forming the informational society is a reduction of the informational inequality. To achieve this objective, the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for informatization and communications developed a «Program for information inequality decrease for 2007–2009» [3]. The program is aimed to the deal with challenges on reducing the information inequality, characterized by different levels of computer literacy and unequal opportunities of access to modern communication technologies.
On the way to reducing informational inequality three important steps are needed to do. The first is training the population. The second is lowering tariffs on the Internet. The third is ensuring citizens' access to Internet resources.
State Program on forming «electronic government» is mainly focused on the formation of the basic infrastructure of e-government. The implementation of the concept of «electronic government» requires, at least, the following initial conditions:
- the appropriate level of computerization of state bodies;
- a certain level of market development of information and communication technologies in the country;
- the existence or the presence of IT professionals like customers represented by public authorities and suppliers of goods and services capable to realize assigned tasks;
- suitable legal and regulatory framework;
- a sufficient level of funding;
- the political will should be possessed not only by the head of state, but by all the participants in this process.
The portal of «electronic government» of the Republic of Kazakhstan is a reference and interactive web portal providing state services and services in electronic form and providing a single point of access to obtain the most relevant information on state services.
The portal of «electronic government» is developed for the Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Kazakhstan by the national operator in the field of Information Technology of the Republic of Kazakhstan JSC «National Informational Technologies», a subsidiary of JSC «National ICT Holding «Zerde».
The launch of the web portal of «electronic government» on the Internet — www.egov.kz took place on the 12th of April 2006. At the initial stage, it contained the materials about public services with information and reference character.
The web portal of «electronic government» is a practical mechanism for implementing the concept of providing public service by the principle of «one window». Currently, the informational services, covering the activities of the Ministry of Education and Science, Lab our and Social Protection of Population, industry and trade, justice, finance, healthcare, energy and mineral resources, the Agency for Civil Service Affairs and the National Bank, are implemented at the portal. The services are provided as by public authorities, the General Prosecutor's Office, the Constitutional Council, the Tax Committee of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the National Security Committee and others, and by private enterprises «Kazpost» JSC, «NC «KazMunaiGas» JSC, «Kar-Tel» (Beeline), LLP «GSM Kazakhstan», «Kazakhtelecom» JSC (Kcell), and others.
The projects of «electronic government» include dozens of different information systems (IS), registers, state databases (SDB), hundreds of applications and services. This is IS «E-akimat» IP «E-Notary» IP «Electronic government procurement», SDB «Individuals», SDB «Legal Entities», SDB «Real Estate Registry», Unified system of electronic documentation of public authorities, Integrated IS «PSC», IP SDB «E-licensing», internet-portal of public authorities, gateway and payment gateway of e-government, and many others.
Let’s examine the informational system PSC in more details.
The public service centers (PSC), providing public services to individuals and legal entities on the principle of «one window» were created in the regions, in the cities of Almaty and Astana to implement the President's Message to the people of Kazakhstan dated February 18, 2005 «Kazakhstan is on the way of accelerated economic, social and political modernization» [4] on the basis of Resolution of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated 05.01.2007 № 1 «On creation of public institutions — public service centers of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan» [5].
The government service is an activity of state bodies, aimed at meeting the needs of individuals and legal entities, which has particular character and carried on the addressing of individuals and entities.
In Kazakhstan the company «I-Teco» performs a large-scale project on automation the Public service centers. «I-Teco» is one of the leading IT companies in Russia in terms of turnover, growth rate, number of performed projects, specialists’ skill.
The basis of all public service centers work is an integrated informational system (IIS) developed by the company «I-Teco» software-based Amdocs CRM 7.5. The system provides complex IT support for the process of providing public services to citizens. The main purpose of the implementation of IIS PSC is improving the quality and efficiency of public services provision. The services will be included in IIS PSC within the approving the way of its delivery at the state level, said the Head of the analysis and design of business processes «I-Teco».
Initially, only the services of the Ministry of Justice of Kazakhstan were provided at the PSC, and now other ministries and departments of the country joined the project. The PSC began provide the services of almost all ministries: transport, land relations, education, finance, environment, agriculture, economy and budget planning, etc. Such way provides a significant reduction in the costs of a system creation and its support solves the problem with the unification of services, allows using a single network PSC to provide all services. And finally, thanks to the citizens are not needed to think which agency or public authority issues a particular reference, but in any case he/she should be referred immediately to the PSC.
As a result of monitoring, the analysts came to the conclusion that the load of PSC is uneven; a lack of resources is the main problem for compliance with quality standards. According to recommendations, the experts primarily indicate a need to translate the most popular services in electronic format, as it is, in their opinion; will help to reduce the load of PSC.
In order to reduce costs the existing IT infrastructure of PSC is used at maximum. The use of so-called «smart client» will reduce the costs for work places support. In general, within the project solves the problem of unification of business processes in the national system of PSC, which will reduce the transaction costs in the future.
Data security is of special importance within the project. Serious steps in this direction were taken: data about citizens and organizations will not be discharged in IIS PSC. It tests the mechanism helping to obtain the data about the citizen (or organization) only when he/she addresses to PSC.
Experience on introduction IIS PSC in Kazakhstan is a valuable example of realization the function of control over the process of citizen servicing. The system allows tracking all actions of civil servants in each addressing of applicants. If the documents of the citizen are unreasonably delayed at any stage of the preparation, it is easy to identify who exactly stops it, and then figure out why it happened. IIS PSC has become a convenient and effective tool to fight the corruption, bureaucracy and red tape thanks to this transparency of the whole working process. Thus, at the initial stage the shortcomings of the work of PSC revealed and 250 employees received disciplinary action.
The main positive qualities of PSC became ensuring the equal access for all, the creation the opportunity to receive services of producing the documents of various organs at one place, the exclusion of the direct contact between documents performers and citizens.
The practice of operating system IIS PSC demonstrates how effective this mechanism of interaction with the public.
The Decree № 11 «On the transfer of public institutions — public service centers Registration Service Committee and legal assistance of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan management to local executive bodies» [6] was adopted on January 15, 2010 after two years of activity under the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan in accordance with the request of the President, the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The transfer of authority was due to the fact that the local authorities work closely with the population and know the needs and requirements of residents better. Thus, the government body of PSC and the body carrying out towards him function of the subject of state ownership became akimats of regions, cities of Almaty and Astana. But the results of the monitoring showed that the quality of work of PSC during this time decreased significantly.
According to the Decree of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated 11.03.2011 № 249, the PSC were given for operating to Monitoring Committee of automation of public services and coordination of service centers of the Ministry of Communications and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan [7].
Ministry of Communication and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan the conversion of PSC to republican state-owned enterprises was planned to the end of 2011.
Republican state enterprise on the right of business «Citizen Service Center» of the Monitoring Committee of automation public services and coordination of service centers of the Ministry of Communications and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan was created based on the Resolution of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated November 11, 2011 № 1325 «On some measures on optimization of the activities of public service centers» in order to improve the efficiency of public service centers[8].
According to this decision 25 republican state institutions of regions, cities of Astana and Almaty were reorganized by attaching them to the Republican state enterprise on the right of business «Public Service Center» of the Monitoring Committee of automation of public services and coordination of service centers of the Ministry of Communications and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The Ministry of Communications and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan transformed into the Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Kazakhstan according to the Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan «On further improvement of the system of government of the Republic of Kazakhstan» № 226 from 20.01.2012 [9].
The Ministry of Transport and Communications to improve the quality of public service delivery and further development of PSC implemented measures for their modernization, optimization of business processes of public service delivery and automation.
So, 28 PSC located in major cities, regional and district centers upgraded in 2011 and 224 PSC upgraded in 2012.
Modernization of PSC is characterized by the introduction of new information and communication technologies, business process optimization, reducing the number of required documents, the introduction of a barrier-free service.
14 PSC working in the mobile mode with departure to remote rural districts were launched in a pilot mode within the framework of execution of the task set by the Head of State to ensure the availability of public services to the general population, including people in remote settlements in all areas. There are over 10 thousand of such visits. 120,000 applications from people in remote areas accepted. They did not have to go to regional centers or cities to obtain the services.
In 2012, work of additional 56 similar PSC was organized. In 2013, 70 mobile PSC functioned, the chairman of the Monitoring Committee of automation services and coordination of PSC Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Kazakhstan marked.
In all regional PSC there is a trained employee who can help on e-government, to conduct a brief excursion into the e-government portal. When you receive a digital signature it is explained how to use it and what services you can get at home.
An informational Call-center of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan with a single free number has started to operate in the country. Call-center operators will consult on the list of required documents, time and cost of providing services; will answer any question about government services. The citizens can also report the complaints about unlawful actions of inspectors of PSC calling the free number.
Transition to new formats of work of Public service centers helped to improve the quality of public service delivery to the population and create tools for monitoring and quality assessment.
Improving the quality of public services is a strategic task set by the Head of State. The quality of delivery of public services should be steadily improved and perfected. An important component here is professionalism of civil servants. Their professionalism in this case is a timely and qualitative delivery of public services. In addition, public servants should have proper culture of communication with the consumers of these services. Therefore today it is not enough for us to determine only the standard of public services. It is necessary to provide qualitative functioning of the whole process of assist. In other words, a system of assessment is necessary. The assessment criteria are the availability, quality of public service delivery, timeliness, courtesy, the appeals process and providing public services in electronic form. Social surveys of consumers and statistics will be used for the evaluation. Independent experts and non-governmental organizations will be enlisted for the survey. Furthermore, the mentality change of civil servants is one of the conditions for improving public service. They are called to provide public services to citizens by the state. The level of public confidence in the civil service as a whole depends mainly on the competent execution of this task. The trust is not only civil servants’ work evaluation criteria but indicator of their image in society. The assessment of branch employees of the enterprise has been made in order to determine the level of professional and qualification preparation and knowledge of current legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
5552 employees of the following positions were certificated: inspectors and consultants, heads of departments and their deputies, heads of operating rooms, supervisors and mentors, workers of monitoring and control of the quality of public services, chief specialists of the storage sector, branch directors and their deputies, employees of office services.
4 411 (79 %) workers passed successfully and confirmed their qualification and 1 141 (21 %) workers didn’t pass the test.
Special attention is paid to improving quality and service delivery of public services, new institutions of mentoring and supervising, introduced in PSC from 2012 perform a significant role. Staff training and development is provided by the Institute of mentoring (tutorship), and the main task of supervisors is timely and effective supervision and monitoring of technological processes of public services.
The independent monitoring of PSC activity and the quality of public services delivery is held annually as part of implementing of the Memorandum of Association of Legal Entities (ALE) «Civil Alliance of Kazakhstan». The results of the surveys showed the level of population trust increases. So, it counted 65 % in 2010, 76 % in 2011 and 81 % in 2012.
A large-scale work on launching the projects of specialized PSC on registration of vehicles and driver's licenses issuance was carried out to execute the paragraph 7 of the National Action Plan for implementation of the Message of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan «Socio-economic modernization is main direction of development of Kazakhstan» dated January 27, 2012 in conjunction with the local executive bodies of Almaty, Astana and Karaganda, Mangistau regions.
This project was implemented successfully on the 7th of December, 2012 on the basis of branch № 3 «PSC» in Karaganda region.
Minister of Transport and Communications, Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan and akim of Karaganda region participated at the opening of the first specialized PSC where services for the issuance of driver's license and vehicle registration are provided.
The time of service delivery is reduced significantly because of business process automation, integration of databases and information systems of state bodies and unification within the same complex of all the steps necessary to obtain these types of services.
It will be possible to register vehicles in specialized PSC within 1 hour, and it will take for about 2 hours to obtain a driving license in case of passing the theoretical and practical exams successfully.
Passing exams on knowledge of traffic rules takes place in a specialized PSC. A class for testing is equipped and automated circuit is built, which is equipped with special sensors and video cameras. Electronic system for monitoring and evaluation driving skills records all stages of the examination, excluding the human factor when deciding on the results of the practical examination.
It should be noted that PSC operators and the traffic police are involved in the course of providing services, but their responsibilities are clearly defined: center operators receive the necessary documents, and traffic police certificate the units, manufacturing driver's licenses and registration certificate. Thus it eliminates the direct contact citizens with performers, responsible for the production of documents.
January 10, 2013 a grand opening of a similar PSC in Almaty with the participation of Head of State N.A.Nazarbayev was held.
May 31, 2013 the opening of a specialized PSC in Aktau took place, and in September 2013 a dedicated PSC in Astana opened.
The idea of creating PSC was progressive, convenient for citizens and for the state, which demonstrated its value in practice. Every citizen who applies for public services, receives all the necessary information and documents in a «single window» and does not think in what authorities he/she needs to address, what documents collect and the most important how much time will be spent to get each of the required documents.
The introduction of «electronic government» is an important element of administrative reform aimed at improving the efficiency of public administration. Firstly, it provides transparency in government procedures, reduces the level of corruption. Secondly, it reduces the state costs of the government apparatus and simultaneously increases the social level of civil servants. Thirdly, the professionalism and the coefficient of efficiency (CE) of employees’ activity are improved. Fourthly, it allows not spending much time on procedures such as payment of taxes, registration and preparation of various documents. Created web-portal offers over a thousand information services of state bodies. These services increase every year. Electronic document management is implemented at the Presidential Office, Government, Parliament, some ministries and departments. Now it is possible to send tax returns declaration via the Internet, to apply for government purchases electronically, virtual receptions function.
During its existence, e-government of the Republic of Kazakhstan overcame four stages of formation and development, it was accepted positively and appreciated highly by the international community; a high position at international and national ratings, nominations at contests prove it. The degree of development of Kazakhstan's e-government is assessed as «developing» (emerging leaders) and is considered one of the most successful.
Kazakhstan task at modern stage is to concentrate the efforts for transition to informational society through informational technologies.
In our country, only one of the components of informational society was accentuated; it is the formation and development of e-government, which has been successfully implemented. However, the problem of informational society is broader than just the development of e-government and the telecommunications industry.
References
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