The Role of ICT in Co-Production of e-Government Public Services

This chapter discusses co-production in e-Government services and the role that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) may have in facilitating co-production. We focus our analysis in the area of e-Government, since we are able to support our assumptions through two case studies that we conducted in this area. The case studies regard services for employment and services for social care of frail people. The first case study is exemplified on two systems, namely Servei d’Ocupació de Catalunya (SOC) and Borsa Lavoro Lombardia (BLL), two web portals implementing active policies to prevent unemployment. The discussion claims that both systems have been developed in a co-production style, although this was not explicitly stated. The second case study is discussed using the Attiv@bili project of Regione Lombardia, where we developed the technological platform supporting integrated services for various actors: patients and their families, public administrations involved in care, cooperatives, medical doctors, and others. Finally, we present an overview of recent ICT methods and tools and their use to improve and facilitate co-production with examples for the use cases.

The book revises cases of services to Employment: Borsa Lavoro Lombardia and SOC in Catalunia. Comparisons and reasons of failure/success are discussed and the role of ICT in failure/success are given.