E-government development in Croatia: ICT infrastructure, management, and human capital at local level

Various studies and surveys focus on critical factors for a successful e-government and e-services implementation at a local or a national level. Many of those critical factors can be placed within three important areas: ICT infrastructure, management issues, and human resources. This paper presents the results from a survey which was sent to the representatives of the local government in Croatian cities. The respondents in our survey were mostly employees of the city administration who were responsible for e-government and e-services development: IT managers, heads of related departments etc. With our survey we investigated the current state of city administration regarding e-government, as well as ICT infrastructure, Internet/e-mail availability to employees, LAN/WAN/intranet status, ICT related education policy, etc. In addition, we wanted to identify various obstacles on the path to modern e-government implementation at the local level. Among other survey results, our study indicated that in 2009 only 18% of the surveyed cities had a formal plan or strategy regarding e-government or e-services implementation. Also, only 26% of local governments which participated in the survey had at least one e-government solution implemented. Finally, only 31% of the surveyed cities provided at least some education for their employees regarding e-government implementation.