E-governmental services in the Baltic Sea Region

This paper will present results of the surveys and new trends which were related to e-governmental issues. A common understanding of e-government is usage of ICT means in the public sector for delivering information and services to its customers and enterprises. The objective is improvement of public services and strengthening democratic processes. E-government is a popular topic in the political agenda throughout the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) with all countries having ICT development strategies, policies or agendas. However, often are missing goals for thematic developments which would take into account the needs of potential users. The structure of the paper is ordered to present firstly, the overall objectives of e-governance and e-services. Secondly, the data about the satisfaction level of enterprises for e-services is given. As there are not many comparable results available about the needs of the enterprises, the paper is based on two main sources. One of the important outcomes of the LogOn Baltic project was to provide empirical data about satisfaction level of enterprises with existing eservices and about the needs for new services. The aim of the INTERREG III B project LogOn Baltic was to present solutions for improving the interplay between Logistics and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) competence and spatial planning, strengthening the small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) competitiveness in the BSR. The ICT-related results of the LogOn Baltic project provide an overview of the existing ICT structures and services in the BSR, mainly based on a web-based scientific survey with nearly 1,100 responses. A second source is the survey on the satisfaction level with public services among enterprises in Estonia in the City of Tallinn, which shows similar trends with the LogOn Baltic project. The third part of the paper introduces some case studies on innovative e-services in Estonia and Germany together with the European initiative for the BSR to improve e-services for companies.