Performance Assessment in e-Government:

From A Strategic Perspective

Performance assessment in e-Government initiatives has received considerable attention of

research on the matter. Gartner(2000), Silcock(2001), Zhou(2001), Layne and Lee(2001),
Moon(2000), Pearce ( 2004), UN (2004) etc have all linked performance to stage where e-
Government stands. However, these studies focus on processes than performance metrices as
such. Dibakar Ray et all ( A Study of e-Government Readiness of Indian States, E-Government :
Macro Issues , R K Mitra(Edited), used a similar process methodology to assess performance of
Indian States in e-Government. However, a strategic perspective is essential to uncover the
inner nexus of e-Government applications and the domain where they can be best applied .
Such a contextual perspective of strategic analysis was so far not received adequate attention
in literature on the subject. Mitra and Gupta( A contextual perspective of performance
assessment in e-Government : A study of Indian Police Administration(GIQ25, 2008) argued for
a set of performance indicators to be derived from the contextual perspective of the domain
 Performance Assessment in e-Government: From
A Strategic Perspective
• Indian Police administration was the focal research domain by the
researchers.
• It was noticed that existing performance metrices were mostly routine and
ritualistic and have hardly any strategic nexus with key functions of the
domain.
• The standing operating procedures for measuring performance included a
set of inspections and meetings by designated authorities and the basis
was an age old legacy based routine exercises many of which lost relevance
with time
• Table 1 explains some of the hitherto existing performance indicators and
the manner of capturing them
EXISTING PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
Table 1

Heads Indicators Performance Limitations

Parade Turn out Discipline Ritualistic
Station Diary and Maintenance Adherence Procedural
other Registers
Malkhana Maintenance Property handling Format Oriented
Inspections Numbers Prevention of In transparent
Crimes

BC List Numbers of Check ….Do……. Useful but no

scientific
management
Crime Registers Crime Prevention Incidents Statistical, open to
manipulation
Unnatural deaths Inquests Detection Routine

Pending Length of time Promptness Manipulative and

Investigations tendency to
downplay
Summons and Numbers, types, Service,
 Performance Assessment in e-Government: From
A Strategic Perspective
• A scrutiny of the existing indicators revealed following shortcomings
Mostly routine and procedural in nature
Subjective and ritualistic
Format oriented and more of records and registers checking
 The Bureau of Police Research and Development, a think tank on
police research, was engaged in replacing age old performance
indicators with a set of new metrices which are more realistic and
follow from key domain functions
 The new metrices were derived from a new set of contextual
perspectives of police functions
 Performance Assessment in e-Government

• Some of these perspectives and proposed metrices of performance were

Call Management : response time, accessibility and presence to be
measured by indicators like number of helpline calls received, time taken
to respond, per centage of calls responded to, number and nature of calls
received, time taken to reach the spot, time taken to restore confidence
etc. These indicators were representative of internal efficiency essentially
and also public satisfaction
Public Order Management : public lives saved, public properties
protected, the way incidents of public order were managed, the number
of public protests if any against police
 Performance Assessment in e-Government: From
A Strategic PerspectiveS
• Crime Management : incidents of crime detection, crimes solved,
promptness in investigation, conviction rate etc having bearing on internal
efficiency and public satisfaction
• Traffic Management : Orderly flow of traffic, number of traffic violations,
fines levied, number of road accidents, alcohol driven drunken driving cases
etc.
• Custody Management : crimes while in custody, custodial deaths,
complaints of brutality, details of investigation against custodial treatment,
NHRC cases and findings
• Costs Management : costs of handling crime management, public order
management, traffic management etc
 Performance Assessment in e-Government: From
A Strategic Perspective
• Public satisfaction management : media reporting, community
relations, counselling, senior citizen care, recovery of lost assets etc
• Derived from aforesaid perspectives, it was possible to determine
three indicators. These indicators corresponding to the new set of
performance perspectives that the researchers relied on can be
summarised as under

Call Management, Crime Management and Public Complaint Management : Internal

Efficiency
Public Order management, Custody Management, Public Satisfaction Management :
Public satisfaction
Physical and emotional health of personnel, pride in uniform, gender equality,
Training, working conditions at Police stations etc : Employees satisfaction
 Performance Assessment in e-Government: From
A Strategic Perspective
• Derivation of Indicators
Internal Efficiency
Time per job( crime or potential order resolution) : indicator of internal efficiency
Number of police hours per incident : indicator of internal efficiency
Time spent on completion of formalities bearing on conviction : indicator of internal efficiency

Public Satisfaction
Better cooperation from public : indicator of public satisfaction
Frequent public interactions : indicator of public satisfaction
Transparency of operations : indicator of public satisfaction
Adverse media reports : indicator of public satisfaction
 Performance Assessment in e-Government: From
A Strategic Perspective
Employee Satisfaction

Number of police staff reporting sick : Employee satisfaction

Number of police staff applying for leave
Number of grievances filed
Number of disciplinary cases
Number of commendations
Positive media reports on police
: Employee satisfaction
: Employee satisfaction
: Employee satisfaction
: Employee satisfaction
: Employee satisfaction
 Performance Assessment in e-Government: From
A Strategic Perspective
• A strategic task ahead was to relate each of the performance
indicators to a particular window of e-Government applications
• Following typology was proposed
Window of e-Government impacting organisational work processes like networking, integration
across sub units, molecularization, process redesign, one stop nonstop operations : Internal Effect
Window of e-Government

External Effect Window of e-Government would refer to accessibility, transparency, services delivery,
community empowerment
Acceptance Window of e-Government refers to acceptance of new work processes driven by e-
Government internally
 Performance Assessment in e-Government: From
A Strategic Perspective
• The following hypothesis was put to test:

Internal Effect Window drives : Internal Efficiency

External Effect Window drives : Public Satisfaction

Acceptance Window drives : Employee Satisfaction

Crime and Non Crime Functions : Going into the
domain

• In order to measure impact of e-Government via three windows , police functions

were required to be put through more rigorous analysis
• It was found that police functions have two distinct verticals : crime and non crime
• Crime related functions are mostly those relating to investigative processes like
crime scene analysis, collection of evidences, forensic analysis, establishing modus
operandi etc and all such functions are confidential in nature and are embedded
into internal processes. They are all contingent upon internal efficiency of police
functions
• Non crime functions, on the other hand, are more public and community related
services and will have direct bearing on external effects
Crime and Non Crime Functions : Going into the domain

• The following Table will clarify the distinction:

Crime Functions
Registration of a crime
Crime analysis
Criminal detection
Law and order
Crime prevention
Intelligence gathering
Evidences gathering
Forensic reports
Testimony before the court
Non Crime Functions
Response to complaint and query
Background and character verification
Police clearance
Help line
Facilitation centres
Community policing
A questionnaire was devised to collect data
District Police Chiefs were the respondents(N=156).
Correlation was carried out to test the association between crime, non crime and total applications of e-Government
Correlation Analysis : Findings
• Correlation between e-Government applications and employees satisfaction was found to
be positive. This implies that employees found e-Government applications useful in their
work process and no opposition as such. It can be concluded that more and more
applications of e-Government would contribute to their satisfaction and hence performance
• The correlation between public satisfaction and e-Government applications was found to be
positive and more so for crime functions which means progressive e-Government
applications in crime management would lead to higher public satisfaction and public image
of police. The non crime functions of police have more public interface and it was expected
that correlation between non crime functions and e-Government applications would be
higher but findings revealed that crime functions and e-Government applications have
higher chance to contribute to public satisfaction. This could be perhaps the extent of non
crime functions is still minimal as compared to crime functions and people relate police
performance more to crime functions.
Regression Analysis : Findings
• At next stage, we proceed to conduct regression analysis to see if e-Government applications contribute to internal efficiency, employee
satisfaction and public satisfaction. Tables below summarizes the statistical findings

Determinant of employee satisfaction by e-Government applications in crime and non crime functions
Independent Variables Dependent variables : impact on employees satisfaction
Application area :Non Crime Beta Simple r t value
0.18* 0.18* 2.85
* Significant at0.05 level
Determinant of public satisfaction by e-Government applications in crime and non crime
Independent variable Dependent variable : impact on public satisfaction
Application area : Crime Beta Simple r t value
0.22** 0.22** 2.84

• ** Significant at 0.01 level

•.
Regression Analysis : Findings
• Analysis did not prove any significant contribution of e-Government
applications to internal efficiency. Field level inquiry revealed factors
like minimal level of use of e-Government applications in basic
organizational units like Police stations, lack of hardware and software
and low level IT skill are hindering proliferation of e-Government
applications in police functioning
• E-Government in crime functions contribute less to employees
satisfaction than non crime applications. This is essentially due to the
fact that non crime jobs, by definition, appear more gratifying due to
less strain, more public interface and hence tend to satisfy local
citizenry big way. Police men find such activities more satisfying.
Regression Analysis : Findings
• On public satisfaction, e-Government applications in crime functions
are found to have contributed to public satisfaction although earlier
we found positive (significant )correlation between public satisfaction
and both crime and non crime police functions. Regression analysis
does not establish that that non crime functions contribute
significantly to public satisfaction. A plausible explanation is that non
crime functions are nor very well understood by people. People tend
to associate police functions with crime or criminal situations. A
murder receives larger public attention than an on-line clearance
system.
Synthesis and Policy Implications
• The findings help us to infer a number of anchors for policy formulation.
• Although research could not establish any significant contribution of e-
Government applications to internal efficiency, the most plausible
interpretation could be limited range and extent of usage of e-Government
applications in police administration. Despite the advent of e-Government
applications thanks to some enterprising Police Officers, these bottom up
approaches could not be institutionalized and the contours of their application
remain at the initial stage of evolution of e-Governance. The policy thrust could
be speedy penetration of e-Government penetration at all levels particularly at
basic organizational units , that is, police stations. Another area is building IT
capability particularly at the levels of Constabulary. Mere hardware and
applications installations without back up of training will be of little impact.
Synthesis and Policy Implications
• The higher mean value of crime application areas of e-Government
with t value(significant at 0.01 level) that crime areas of e-
Government applications are more , however lack of any significant
relation between internal efficiency and e-Government applications
indicate that the flagship crime software at that time called CCIS had
more emphasis on data storage, absence of any DSS, absence of
vernacular interface made its impact insignificant on internal
efficiency
• Research revealed that there was a systemic need to re engineer the
entire police functions processes
Towards Process Modelling of Police
Functions
• A process model, by definition, is a description of a process
conforming to specified functional requirements that would enable
to pursue and accomplish desired cotcomes
• A conceptualised process model conforming functional requirements
for the domain of police(under study) is depicted in next slides
Process Model of Functions of Police
Dynamics of Operations : Crime and Non Crime

System

Domain
Mapping Fns

Investigation Conviction Resource Delivery

s

Representation of functional aspects of domain

Maturity of Processes : Process Engineering
Method
• Progression in maturity of processes domain specific can be viewed as
follows

Enhanced for
performance
Organised
Architecture
Defined and standardised
Identified and
managed

Initial Process Progression in maturity of processes

Adaptation
• Software behaviour is orchestrated and modified with progression in
maturity
• Such a process engineering method(PEM) will certainly enable right fit
of e-Government applications in relevant domain of police functions
Synthesis and Policy Implications
Apart for PEM, following enablers need to be dovetailed for enhanced
performance of e-Government applications in police functions
 Skill Development
• Developmental support and incentives to use IT
• Availability of hardware and peripherals
• Legal acceptance
• Use of vernacular
• System security
• Authorization by senior functionaries