What citizens want out of government 2.0, and the benefits for public sector organisations

Accenture has released a new report, Web 2.0 and the Next Generation of Public Service (PDF), which highlights four key things that citizens around the world want from government 2.0.

They are,

• Improved social and economic outcomes.
• Balance between choice and flexibility on the one hand and fairness and the common good on the other.
• Higher levels of engagement, meaning educating and enrolling the public as co-producers of value.
• Improved accountability and transparency.

The report also outlines the benefits to public sector organisations of using Web 2.0 with multiple value propositions, including,

• Enabling more effective social networking, citizen engagement and collaboration with the community.
• Providing rich Internet applications for the community—information and services that are more personalized, faster, easier to use and able to be delivered through multiple channels (such as Internet and phone).
• Enabling effective collaboration and teamwork — especially among disparate teams and across agencies.
• Providing a presentation development tool for internal staff that offers higher productivity than the Web alone can provide.

The report goes on to provide a public value framework for governments to use when evaluating Web 2.0 technologies,

The Accenture Public Service Value Governance Framework helps public service organizations deliver high performance by providing an important model for public service executives to use in evaluating Web 2.0 technologies in terms of their ability to generate positive social outcomes, to serve the common good, to engage the public as co-producers of public value and to improve accountability and transparency.