Devolution is very important for the sustainability of different initiatives related to e-governance having top-down approach. Centralized verses decentralized e-government is as much debatable issue as the conventional government issue i-e centralized verses decentralized. While devolving political, administrative, and fiscal processes to the grass root level, it is important that the e-governance process model is also appropriately devolved. This paper presents a framework of devolution for e-governance by applying high level enterprise architecture principles and incorporating a decentralized business model. The proposed framework provides guidelines to prepare devolution plan for e-governance

1. Devolution of e-Governance among
Multilevel Government Structure
Kashif Farooq
Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS),
Pakistan
Presented at
IT-Innovations 2006, November 19-21, 2006, Dubai

2. Objective
This paper presents
a framework of devolution
for e-governance

3. Issues
 Centralized e-government
 Decentralized e-government
 Devolution
 Top-down
 Political, administrative, fiscal

4. Why Devolution in e-Government?
 How should responsibilities for e-government establishment be divided
among the various levels of government (national, regional, provincial,
and local)?
 To what extent should a program be centralized (i.e.,run at a national
government level) versus decentralized (i.e., run at local government
level)?
 Which government agencies will be involved, e.g., education, health and
tourism agencies will be the partner of G2C: Government to Citizen
portal?
 Should there be individual efforts to provide an Electronic Service Delivery
(ESD) or the need of collaboration of agencies?
 To what extent should a program make use of citizens and other non-
government resources?
 To what extent should technical staff and consultants be integrated
within a single organization and inter-organizations?

5. Centralized Initiatives
 Typical characteristics
 all IT functions centralized in one organizational unit
 generally limited IT costs but less effective
 impacts IT governance by providing a generally tight
governance model that is easy to enforce.

6. Decentralized Initiatives
 Typical characteristics
 policy is required for
 decision making, project management, portals, services, funding,
revenue collection and operations
 distributes IT functions between the various divisions or
organizations
 generally has a high coordination cost
 IT governance is focused on the coordination effort
between central and local activities

7. Federated Initiatives
 Typical characteristics
 usually considered the blend of centralized and
decentralized approaches
 key decisions are collectively made and then standardized
across the enterprise
 competencies are decentralized at strategic business
units/levels, with knowledge sharing across the enterprise
 generally, high IT costs but more responsive to business
needs
 governance is typically done through committees, with a
large potential for sharing across different areas

8. “Core-Periphery Approach”
“that attempts to reconcile the
∗ push of centralization
∗ with the pull of decentralization.
It does this in two ways:
First, through integration
∗ drawing the centralized and decentralized approaches together into
some kind of unified or compromise approach.
Second, and more commonly, through division
This accepts that
∗ This accepts that both centralized and decentralized approaches will be
found, and
∗ then attempts to set some demarcation lines that will keep the two
separate, thereby allowing both to be accommodated”
Richard Heeks “The Core-Periphery Approach to Management of Public Information Systems” IDPM, University of
Manchester, UK, 1999, Published in: “Government IT”

9. Proposed Framework: (1)
Devolution of e-Government
Based on
Core-Periphery Approach

10. Proposed Framework: (2)
 Scale of devolution depends upon
 the size of the country,
 its resource base,
 human capacity, and
 governance style.
 There are two types of devolution
 e-government devolution among multilevel government
structure
 portal devolution among different agencies or
departments

11. Proposed Framework (3)
Vertical portals (Vortal): In multilevel government
Federal structure, a centralized portal providing services to all
governments that are the responsibility of lower level
Horizontal Portals government may be named as vertical portal. Like one
centralized G2C portal provides services to all local
governments
Horizontal portals (Hortal): Portal of
Decentralized Level 1
Vertical Portals
Vertical Portals
a particular government agency that
State/Province have not any vertical (multi level
1 to n government) structure like foreign
Vertical Portals
Vertical Portals
Horizontal Portals and defense office are the
responsibility of Federal government,
so it may be named as horizontal
portal
Decentralized Level 2
Local
1 to m
Horizontal Portals
VERTICAL AND HORIZOTAL PORTALS IN MULTILEVEL GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE

12. Proposed Framework (4)
 Salient features
 Devolution of vision, strategies, policies, standards and
laws
 Devolution in enterprise architecture (EA)
 Benchmarking of devolving parameters at each level
 Portal devolution: A vertical portal needs devolution
among different levels of governments and their agencies

13. Mapping of Proposed Framework on Zachman Framework
What How Where Who When Why
Planner’s Devolution Plan Vertical & Horizontal devolution of project Contextual
View Role of different governments and their agencies
Owner’s
Decentralized Workflow Model Conceptual
Arrangements negotiations & collaborations among governments
View
and their agencies
Detail Planning Logical Representation of access privileges of
Designer’s Logical
agencies Infrastructure planning breakdown (by regional
View authorities) planning of decentralized HR Regional promotion &
Outsourcing plans
Builder’s Decentralized Role in Development Physical
View Decentralized configuration mgt for each stakeholder
Role of agencies in Infrastructure establishment Capacity building
Integrator’s Decentralized Role in Deployment Integrated
View Configuration, Testing, QA, Integration results Access privileges
coded to control access to specific platforms and technologies
User’s View Operational Devolution: Personnel and key stakeholders Functioning
working within their roles and responsibilities, Execution of CRM,
Feedback, Change Request, Benchmarking
Data Function Network People Time Motive

14. Proposed Framework (4)
 Federal Level
 National: Vision, strategies, policies, standards and laws
 Federal Enterprise Architecture
 Federal Vertical Portals (Vortal)
 Federal Horizontal Portals (Hortal)
 Benchmarking of decentralized levels
 Parameters: Implementation of all vertical portals, EA maturity, horizontal
portals of decentralized levels, ICT Infrastructure and human resource
development, awareness and promotional activities
 ICT Infrastructure facilities
 ICT skill development plans (within organization and for general public),
awareness and bridging the digital divide
 Outsourcing policy (ICT Infrastructure, Development and Services)
 e-Governance devolution plan for lower decentralized level

15. Proposed Framework (5)
 Decentralization Level 1 (State or province) 1 to n
 Level 1: Vision, strategies, policies, standards and laws
 It must be shadow vision, strategies and standards of Federal
 Enterprise Architecture that must be aligned or the shadow of federal
EA
 Decentralized role federal vertical portal or virtual office assigned in
federal devolution plan
 Decentralized configuration and customization of federal vertical portal
 Efforts for the promotion of services of federal portals
 Horizontal portals of this level (must be distinct from federal portals
means no duplication)
 ICT Infrastructure facilities
 ICT skill development plans (within organization and for general public),
awareness and bridging the digital divide
 Outsourcing policy (ICT Infrastructure, Development and Services)
 e-Governance devolution plan for lower decentralized level

16. Proposed Framework (6)
 Decentralization Level 2 (Local Level) 1-m
 Level 2: Vision, strategies, policies, standards and laws
 It must be shadow vision, strategies and standards of federal level and
decentralized level 1
 Enterprise Architecture that must be aligned or the shadow of upper level
and federal EA
 Decentralized role for federal & level 1 vertical portal assigned in federal &
level 1 devolution plan
 Decentralized configuration and customization of federal & level 1 vertical
portal
 Efforts for the promotion of services of federal & level 1 vertical portals
 Horizontal portals of this level (must be distinct from federal & level1 portals
means no duplication)
 ICT Infrastructure facilities
 ICT skill development plans (within organization and for general public),
awareness and bridging the digital divide
 Outsourcing policy (ICT Infrastructure, Development and Services)

17. Conclusion
 In this paper we have
 proposed a framework for devolution of e-governance
based on “Core-Periphery” approach that defines
devolution of e-governance as the
 push of centralization through integration and
 pull of decentralization through division of responsibilities to
electronic service delivery, and
 attempts to set some demarcation lines that will keep the two
separate, thereby allowing both to be accommodated
 At the end we have mapped this framework on to
the Zachman framework.

18. Thank You