Speech by Mr. Alan Wong, Director of Information Technology Services at the Hong Kong Management Association's IT Management Club - June Luncheon Meeting on
06 - 06 - 2002

Mr. Lee, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good afternoon! I am pleased to be invited to the IT Management Club Luncheon Meeting and have the opportunity to meet with some of your club members. Today I would like to share with you our vision in building an E-Government and how the Government manages IT in the Information Age.

One of the Key Result Areas under our Digital 21 Strategy is to ensure that the Government leads by example in the use of IT. Our vision is to build an efficient and effective E-Government that not only improves the quality of the Government services but also improves efficiency and optimises the use of limited resources. And our strategy is to transform the Government's internal operations and public service delivery via electronic means in a customer-centric way and in a one-stop-shop approach as far as practicable.

Clear targets have been set for building an E-Government. We have set a target for providing e-option, that is the option to obtain the service through electronic means, for 90% of the public services that are amenable to the electronic mode of service delivery by the end of 2003. At present, over 70% of such services already have an e-option.

We will proceed with flagship E-Government projects that can bring significant benefits to the Government and the community. We are making good progress in these flagship projects, including the Electronic Service Delivery (ESD) Scheme which I'm sure many of you have come across or used. We have already put more than 120 services from some 40 departments and agencies on-line through this scheme.

On the business front, we have set up an Electronic Tendering System (ETS). By subscribing to the service of ETS, users can download tender documents, submit queries on tenders and even submit tender offers. Our target is to carry out 80% of Government purchases through electronic means by the end of next year.

We have also implemented five key Government-related trade documents through Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) services, and are extending EDI services to cover submission of cargo manifests for air, sea and rail carriers. We are studying the feasibility of E-Trade, a "single window" for the businesses to communicate with the Government electronically in the import, export and transshipment of cargoes, as well as in the clearance of port formalities by the associated carriers.

Through the collective efforts of our bureaux and departments, we have made steady and notable progress in E-government. Our ESD Scheme has won an international Award last year, while our ranking in a leading survey of E-governments has improved in the past year. But there are still many challenges ahead. One of our key tasks is to instigate culture change among the civil service to embrace the paradigm shift in the Information Age.

E-Government is an on-going process of government transformation. We will adopt a 3R's Approach - Re-organisation, Re-engineering and Re-prioritisation, to review and improve the quality of our service delivery and operational efficiency. We will transform the delivery of IT systems and services in Government in several dimensions -

All these transformations will not focus on the technology, but on the people. To ensure management teams in the Government appreciate the use of IT and carry out fundamental e-business transformation, my department is assisting them in the establishment of IT Management Units (ITMUs) to step up the pace of infusing IT and e-business best practices in their planning and operations. We believe there is room for bureaux and departments to assume much greater ownership of IT and blend IT with their core support services. So far we have already established over 20 ITMUs and we will work with more bureaux and departments to establish their ITMUs in the next year or two.

Besides institutional changes, we have also streamlined our IT project delivery process. Traditionally, our typical IT projects are made up of five distinct phases - Project Request, Feasibility Study, System Analysis & Design, Implementation and Review. In order to speed up the project delivery timeframe, we have already advised bureaux and departments to exercise flexibility and combined phases whenever appropriate.

To assist bureaux and departments in enhancing their readiness and capability to develop E-Government, we operate a wide range of central infrastructure support services and facilities. We are carrying out a number of enhancements to the Government's IT infrastructure which include improving the accessibility to computer facilities in the civil service, upgrading to broadband connections to the Government backbone network and establishment of a common transaction platform for electronic service delivery and G2E/G2G transactions.

To facilitate "seamless" integration of the Government applications, we are setting up an interoperability framework that contains the technical standards and specifications for system interfaces, infrastructural architectures, data exchange, etc. for bureaux and departments to follow when developing joined-up E-Government systems. The framework also provides the necessary reference for the private sector when building computer systems to interact with the Government systems. We expect to announce the details of the interoperability framework later this year.

Information Security is an important element of E-government. We have developed comprehensive IT security policy and measures to safeguard information integrity and security across and within Government systems. An Information Security Management Committee and an IT Security Working Group have been established to oversee information security and to help enforce the IT security policy within the Government.

Leveraging on the strengths of our infrastructure, we will strive for the exploitation and adoption of enabling technologies, such as wireless technologies, smart card technologies, and Internet2.

We are also keeping an eye on the development of the open source movement in the industry and welcome the broadening of product choices in the market. Our product choices will be based on technical and cost grounds including functionality, reliability, security, total cost of ownership including maintenance and training, and compatibility with peripheral and legacy systems.

E-Government is but one of the initiatives of the Digital 21 Strategy to maintain Hong Kong's competitiveness in the Information Age. To realise our targets, we need the concerted effort of the Government and the community as a whole. To this, I would like to commend the IT Management Club for your contributions towards nourishing the development of the IT profession and your efforts in promoting IT awareness in the community. I would also like to take this opportunity to appeal to all of you here, with your ability to influence or steer IT management decisions, to make the best use of our world class e-business environment for a better Hong Kong.

Thank You.

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