Portugal Climbs to 3rd and 4th in European Online Availability of Public Services Ranking

Portugal’s figures, which were higher than the average for the countries in all the groups considered in 2006 for the two indicators, are now far above these averages.

Of further note is that Portugal had already seen significant improvements from the end of 2004 to 2006 in these indicators, when it overtook Spain, Ireland, Iceland and Italy in Sophistication of Online Public Services and also Germany in Full Availability of Public Services.

In this way, within a short period of less than 3 years between the 2004 and 2007 evaluations, Portugal saw a quantum leap in each of the indicators from 16th to 4th and 15th to 3rd place respectively in the corresponding rankings for the 30 EU27 countries + Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, that is to say, it jumped from mid table to the group of 3 or 4 countries at the top.

The European Commission released the data from the last Online Availability of Basic Public Services Assessment on 20th September 2007, which corresponds to observations carried out in April-May 2007. The following figures show results for the two indicators.

It is worth noting that Portugal achieved 90% in both indicators.

The 20 basic public services surveyed in these studies are grouped in two areas based on whether they are designed for citizens or companies. Portugal had already achieved the maximum possible value (100%) in services for companies both in the sophistication and the full availability indicators. This was only achieved by one other country – Austria

Sophistication of Online Basic Public Services Ranking, 2007.

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Source: Capgemini report prepared for the Directorate-General for the Information Society and Media of the European Commission, Sept. 2007.

Full availability ranking of basic public services online, 2007.

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Source: Capgemini report prepared for the Directorate-General for the Information Society and Media of the European Commission, Sept. 2007

The evaluation immediately before was published in June 2006. Prior to this evaluation, there were four others, all in the month of October – in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. These three evaluations covered the EU15 countries and three more countries: Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.

Despite attaining a good position in October 2001, Portugal saw its position progressively erode from October 2001 to October 2004 to then recover the lost ground in both indicators in the 2006 and 2007 evaluations.

In merely two years from 2005 to 2007, this recovery has enabled Portugal to retake 2nd place, which it held among the EU15 countries for both indicators (sophistication of services and full online availability) in 2001, after slipping to 11th place in the EU15 between 2002 and 2004. This major recovery, which was finally observed in April-May 2007, essentially stemmed from the steps carried out in the scope of the Connecting Portugal Action Plan, which is part of the Technological Plan and was launched at the end of July 2005, when coordination of eGovernment actions was the responsibility of Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), from 21st February 2005 to 1st May 2007.

In the 2007 evaluation report, Portugal is flagged as the country that improved the most from 2006 to 2007 (”fast mover”), also improving in this regard on the previous period from 2004 to 2006, when it was the 5th highest-rising country in the aforementioned indicators.

Change in the Full Online Availability of Basic Public Services Ranking in the EU15

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Source: Capgemini report prepared for the Directorate-General for the Information Society and Media of the European Commission, Sept. 2007

Change in Portugal’s position in the Online Availability of Basic Public Services in the EU15

Alternative access:
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Source: Capgemini report prepared for the Directorate-General for the Information Society and Media of the European Commission, Sept. 2007

Evaluation report on online availability of basic public services (4,27 MB)