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GCN Home > April 3, 2000 issue

Lax e-gov efforts create divide, report says

Despite the potential benefits of a digital government, it has not become a priority for most policy-makers, a new report from the Democratic Leadership Council’s Progressive Policy Institute says.

The report, Digital Government: The Next Step to Reengineering the Federal Government, recommends creating a governmentwide chief information officer, investing $500 million annually on cross-agency projects and boosting funds for agencies’ digital applications.

“Most information technology applications have focused on improving the efficiency of existing operations or providing one-way information dissemination, instead of fundamentally changing the way business and citizens interact with government,” said the report, issued late last month.

“As a result, another kind of digital divide is emerging—between government, which is only moving tentatively into digital operations, and the commercial sector, which is moving at Web speed into electronic commerce.”

The report is online at www.dlcppi.org/tech/digitalgovernment.htm.



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