E-government and local service delivery: the case of Italian local governments

The purpose of this chapter is to assess the current status and level of technology in providing on line services among larger Italian Municipalities (MUs) by presenting the results of a survey conducted by the researcher among all MUs with a population in excess of 40,000 inhabitants. Furthermore, the analysis also aims to assess the perceptions of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) with regard to the impact of e-government on the provision of services. The survey results show that MUs are generally using Internet to support interaction with different constituents and with different levels of technology. MUs have been developing all 4 stages of online service provision but higher levels of sophistication (transaction and integration) are primarily associated with the following types of LG interaction: government-to-employess and government-to-government. CIOs argue that little achievement has been obtained so far in terms of efficiency while ICT usage is facilitating access to better quality information. Lessons learnt and policy implications are presented