‘EXPERTS’ AND E-GOVERNMENT

Abstract

This paper argues that as e-government has increasingly come to dominate the policy agenda for the delivery of public services it has simultaneously acted as a fundamental mechanism for increasing the power and influence of ‘experts’: i.e. the IT consultancy industry and its supporters within government and public services. The result is the emergence of a power loop in which consultants occupy influential positions in government and public policy circles and then act as powerful agents in promoting the development of both e-government ‘solutions’ and the technology and expertise these require to ‘deliver’ the promised outcomes. This creates further opportunities for shaping and controlling e-government policy and for more ‘experts’ to enter the e-government environment, thus increasing the power and influence of the ‘consultocracy’. The loop is thus self-perpetuating and, more importantly, enduring, due to the ideological and cultural environment that surrounds and underpins it. The paper concludes by arguing that while it was, and remains, the case that there are legitimate reasons why the consultancy industry has a role in government and public services, the extent of the power and influence of the industry and its supporters in the e-government policy domain, and over the technological capability on which e-government depends, poses significant questions as to whose interests the industry best serves. Furthermore, whether this is detrimental to the development of best value/cost effective systems to deliver public services, and whether the basis and extent of these relations undermines the credibility and legitimacy of the policy process, and thus of democratic governance generally, remains an open question.

Keywords:

• e-government
• power
• policy-making
• IT and management consultants
• the politics of technology

Acknowledgements

My thanks to the anonymous referees who provided supportive and extremely constructive comments on previous drafts of this paper, as well as suggestions for further research (one of which is cited above). Any errors that remain are my own.

Notes

‘All Permanent Secretary posts; other posts in departments which satisfy all of the following criteria: have a JESP score of 18 or more, have a pay range within the top three pay bands, and where the post reports directly to a Permanent Secretary or is itself the Head of a department or agency; and specialists and Special Advisers of equivalent standing’ (ACOBA 2006, p. 21).

At the time of the final revision of this paper in July 2008, ACOBA had not published its ninth report covering the period 2006–08.