Rory O'Hanlon
Ceist:484 Dr. O'Hanlon asked the Minister for Finance his plans for the development and encouragement of e-government in 2001, and the amount of money included in his Department's Estimate for this purpose in 2001. [1564/01]
Written Answers. - Electronic Government.
The central objective of the action plan for the information society, which was approved by Government in July 1999 was, and continues to be, to make Ireland one of the leaders in the emerging information society. The plan identified a number of key initiatives and assigned specific responsibility to a number of Departments for their achievement. These include, inter alia, initiatives to improve access to and to address social inclusion – Taoiseach, electronic delivery of integrated public services – Taoiseach, Finance and Social, Community and Family Affairs – reach and the introduction of electronic procurement across all of the public service – Finance. The highlights of my Department's involvement in this process include the provision and administration of action plan funding, the procurement of telecommunications infrastructure for on-line Government services and the development of an e-procurement system.
The centre for management and organisation development in my Department administers the action plan fund – £46 million for 2001 – and chairs the team that evaluates project proposals from Departments and offices. Funding of £3.26 million has been assigned to projects in my Department.
A key requirement in the provision of electronic services is a quality telecommunications infrastructure for all sectors of government. Work is at an advanced stage in the acquisition of this service. E-procurement by public service agencies has been identified by, among others, IBEC and Forfás as being key to the wider implementation of electronic commerce in Ireland. It has the potential for significantly reducing procurement costs in public sector agencies through bulk buying discounts, reduced administrative overheads and further improving and standardising procurement practices in agencies. An interdepartmental committee, chaired by the procurement section in my Department, has been set up to explore and develop the potential of e-procurement for use by all public sector purchasers. The ultimate aim of the project is to establish access to procurement opportunities in the public sector supporting all stages of the procurement process and to facilitate ease of use both by suppliers and contracting authorities. As a first step this year, a website containing all procurement opportunities will be available. This is under construction and will be in place in the next week. Funding of £1.3 million has been provided for this project. In tandem a longer term project with appropriate funding has commenced with external consultants and public servants which is exploring new processes and a more streamlined solution to procurement within the public sector. This should be in place in early 2002 and will include an electronic procurement facility for the public service, which will provide facilities for the publication of procurement opportunities, providing downloadable tender documentation, publication of results of procurement competitions, documentation on general procurement requirements and facilities for on-line submission of tenders.
In addition my Department is contributing to the work of the REACH agency and is working with the OASIS, On-line Access to Services Information and Support, project in the improvement of access to information. Internally, an e-strategy is being developed which covers the cross departmental role played by my Department and the internal systems that can be enhanced to deliver services to clients in a electronic form.