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International Journal of Electronic Government Research, 8(3), 63-77, July-September 2012 63

Supporting Public Policy Making Processes with Workflow Technology: Lessons Learned From Cases in Four European Countries Aggeliki Tsohou, Brunel Business School, Brunel University, UK Habin Lee, Brunel Business School, Brunel University, UK Karim Al-Yafi, Brunel Business School, Brunel University, UK Vishanth Weerakkody, Brunel University, UK Ramzi El-Haddadeh, Brunel Business School, Brunel University, UK Zahir Irani, Brunel Business School, Brunel University, UK Andrea Kő, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary Tunc Medeni, TURKSAT, Turkey Luis Miguel Campos, PDM&FC, Lisbon, Portugal

ABSTRACT Workflow technology has been proven as an enabler for numerous benefits for private and public organizations. Including: cost reduction, efficiency savings in terms of time and cost, increased capability, faster processing, reductions in errors, and work iterations, service quality and customer satisfaction. Public sector has endorsed these benefits by adopting workflow management systems to support administrative processes, such as human resources management or claims processing. This technology is yet to be utilized to support the formulation of policy making processes to facilitate the participation of citizens in the policy making processes and increase their awareness on political issues. This paper Investigates the feasibility of adopting workflow tools for the support of decision making processes that lead to development of public policies, despite the variant institutional settings. To do so, public policy making processes from four countries were examined and analyzed. The results are explored further in the article. Keywords:

Decision-Making, Public Administration, Public Policy, Workflow, Workflow Technology

DOI: 10.4018/jegr.2012070104 Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

64 International Journal of Electronic Government Research, 8(3), 63-77, July-September 2012

1. INTRODUCTION In the effort to sustaining competitive advantage, reducing administrative burdens and/or enabling innovation in services and products provision, organizations often continuously attempt to optimize their various business functions. Within this objective, business process redesign and workflow management attracted the recent interest of researchers and practitioners in private and public sectors. Business process redesign or re-engineering is used to optimize specified business processes while workflow models support this transformation of business and information processes. Workflows can be defined as a collection of tasks organized to accomplish some business process while workflow management systems coordinate and streamline business processes. Among the main benefits of workflow tools, cost reduction and efficiency savings (time and cost reductions to complete a process), increased capability, faster processing, reductions in errors and work iterations, service quality and customer satisfaction have been reported (Georgakopoulos et al., 1995). According to the research and market 2011 survey “Workflow Management Systems Market 2010-2013” the adoption of workflow management systems has reduced the response time of processes by 20% and increased business productivity by an impressive 50%. Further, in this survey, workflow management services have been widely adopted in the private sector, especially in the financial and manufacturing sectors. Public sector also holds a significant share in the workflow technology adoption which is commonly combined with public reform initiatives; Schäl (1998) reported nearly 50% of workflow technology licenses for government and health care agencies at the United States and United Kingdom. While workflow technology has been widely adopted in the public sector, the use of this technology is mostly limited to supporting only back-end administrative business processes (Lee et al., 2011). Among the most common workflow applications for the public sector are a) claims processing and management,

b) bid and proposal routing and tracking, c) handling of customer service and complaints, d) grant and scholarship award, approval, and processing, d) human resource recruitment and hiring. Researchers have suggested to not restraining the employment of workflow tools only to the automation of administrative public processes. On the contrary, the adoption of workflow technology for the formulation of policy making processes is expected to reshape public policies by facilitating the participation of citizens in the policy making processes. However, developing a workflow model to support policy-making processes that can exceed national, local or even sector borders, remains a challenging issue. Can the public policy formulation processes be generically abstracted in a way that the produced models apply to the different political and institutional contexts? In this study we investigate the feasibility of creating a workflow model that can support the automation of public policy making processes exceeding the limitations posed by the context diversities. To do so, policy making processes within four countries are examined in order to highlight commonalities and distinctions. In sequence to this introduction, a definition of public policies is provided along with the advancements in policy making modelling approaches. Then we present our research setting and research methods applied. Afterwards, the analysis of collected data is given. The paper continues with a discussion on the findings and conclusions.

2. BACKGROUND AND STATE OF THE ART: MODELING PUBLIC POLICY FORMULATION PROCESSES In the broad sense public policies are perceived as everything that the governments choose to do and not to do about a public issue (Dye, 1972). A more detailed definition is given by Brooks (1989) who conceives public policy as “the broad framework of ideas and values within which decisions are taken and action, or inac-

Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.


tion, is pursued by governments in relation to some issue or problem”. It goes without saying that public policy making processes are taking shape and constantly transformed according to several macro and micro economic, historical, cultural and political influences, such as the political structures, institutional pressures, social values, worldviews, relationship between the policy makers and the stakeholders, available communication media, etc. (Rotmans et al., 2001). An analysis of public policies, their diversities and similarities has been dominant in the political science and political studies literature, especially within the European Union. The discussions focused on the possible European decision-making deadlocks driven by the variant political, geographical, cultural institutional and economic features (Heritier, 1999). Vice versa, the analyses also focus on the way that Europe affects domestic policymaking; Europeanization as called refers to the process by which domestic policy areas become increasingly subject to European policy making (Featherstone & Radaelli, 2003). A political analysis of the public policy formation processes is beyond the scope of this study which explores the diversities and similarities of public policies from a technical point of view in order to examine the feasibility of a workflow model that can support public policy making processes in various institutional settings. Sajjad et al. (2011) summarize several policy making processes models such as the Model for Participatory Decision-making Process (Renn et al., 1993), Hofferbert’s Model for Comparative Study of Policy Formation (Mazmanian & Sabatier, 1980), the Linear Model (Grindle & Thomas, 1990), a Conceptual Model for the Analysis of Policy-Making Process (Uslaner & Weber, 1975), the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) (Sabatier, 1988), the Bureaucratic Politics Framework (BPF) (Moe, 1990), the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (IADF) (an instrumental rational choice framework) (Ostrom, 1999), etc. However, as the authors of the study point out (Sajjad et al., 2011) these models have limitations on explaining how the stakehold-

ers of a specific policy interact and intervene to the policy formulation process. As already mentioned, this paper draws upon the belief that the adoption of workflow technology can reform public policy making processes by facilitating the participation of citizens. Having as a cornerstone the need for maximization of citizens’ participation and taking into consideration the limitations of the fore mentioned policy models, this paper employs for the analysis of policy design and implementation processes the model defined by Macintosh (2004). According to this, the design and implementation of public policies follows five phases: 1. Agenda setting: Establish the need for a new policy or the modification of an existing one and define what is the problem to be addressed. 2. Prior analysis: Define the challenges and opportunities associated with the given agenda item and produce a draft policy document. This phase may include gathering evidence and knowledge from different sources, understanding the context of the agenda item, develop different options, etc. 3. Policy creation: Ensure a good, workable policy document. This phase involves a variety of mechanisms such as formal consultation, risk analysis, undertaking pilot studies and designing the implementation plan. 4. Policy implementation: Development of legislation, regulation, guidance and a delivery plan to put in force the new or altered policy. 5. Policy monitoring: Review of the policy in action, research evidence and views of users. A loop back to stage one is possible according to evidence.

3. PROPOSED SOLUTION 3.1. Research Strategy and Settings In order to study the feasibility of creating a workflow model that is applicable to different



Table 1. Sample policy making processes for the study Country UK

Municipality Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council

Policy domain Urban planning

Process name Land use Local transport planning

Household management

Strategic waste development policy

Health and safety

Neighborhood/Community safety Crime prevention

Hungary

II district of Budapest

Turkey

Development control

Urban planning

Local government resolution preparation on parking zones and fee

VI district of Budapest

Restaurants opening time resolution

Budapest

Resolution on road repairing work

Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County, Municipality of Monok

Portugal

Environment


Social benefit and card resolution

XIII district of Budapest

Resolution on selective waste collection

Hungary, nationwide process

Resolution on co-payment on compulsory health insurance

XV district of Budapest

Preparation on smoking in playground

Budapest

Environment

Resolution on noise pollution of flights

Câmara Municipal da Trofa (Municipality of Trofa)

Infrastructure

Deployment of internet access points

Environment

Deployment of recycling centers

Economic development

Technologic park creation

Istanbul Pendik Municipality

Urban planning

Strategic policy-making Civic transformation Park construction New road opening White desk for processing citizen applications

Health and safety

Social support in case of flood emergency


Garbage collection

institutional contexts, this research analyses various policy making processes from three countries with the European Union and an associate member country. A quantitative method approach by administering a survey was employed in order to collect data relevant to public policy making processes in four countries: United Kingdom, Hungary, Portugal and Turkey. Managers from local public agencies, such as municipalities and local administra-

tive divisions, were the target policy makers. The public policy domains that emerged in the research are: 1. Environment: public policies with regard to regulation to preserve better environment. 2. Household management: policies related to planning permission, housing and social benefits, waste collection, etc.



Table 2. Policy making process description template Process header information Process ID Process name Process goals Process owner Triggering events The final output Procedural information Step

Actor/Role

Action

Input Form

Output Form

1 2 3 4 …

Figure 1. Policy making process map template

3. Urban planning: policies with regard to road/street maintenance, social places, parking places, etc. 4. Health and safety: policies related to antisocial behavior, crime prevention, etc. Table 1 summarizes the processes that were included in the analysis, the policy domains

as well as the public agencies in authority for each process. The survey was initiated at the beginning of March 2010 and lasted for two months. In order to facilitate the communication with the policy makers during interviews and optimize the capture of policy making processes, the researchers have established a process description template (Table 2) and a process map



model (Figure 1) to collect sample policy making processes in the four countries. After the first interviews with the policy makers, the researchers identified the sample processes and produced a draft of sample descriptions of policy making processes in respect. The draft process templates and maps have been presented to the policy-makers to ensure that the templates and maps accurately reflect the real world public processes and were revised accordingly.

4. METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH AND PRELIMINARY FINDINGS Each of the relevant processes was described according to the predefined template and the policy-making process map, and further analysed using the Macintosh (2004) model. As an example of the conducted analysis, this section includes a detailed analysis of the neighbourhood safety planning process for UK, restaurants opening time resolution process for Hungary, deployment of Internet access points throughout the municipality for Portugal, and social support for citizens in urgent need for Turkey.

4.1. Analysis of Processes from UK The policy making processes collected from UK public agencies consist of the policy domains urban planning, development control, neighborhood safety, waste management, local transportation strategy and crime prevention. As a sample of the analysis, the process of neighbourhood safety is presented. The objective of this process is to create new polices to make safer neighbourhoods. The process is triggered by new ideas expressed at the community consultations or raised by the central government. The policy making process description template depicts the tasks of the processes, their sequence and the roles at responsibility (Table 3). The process can be abstracted using the Macintosh model as follows: the two first steps of the process represent the ‘Agenda setting’ phase, steps 3 and 4 represent the ‘Prior

Analysis’ phase, steps 5 to 8 the ‘Policy creation’, steps 9-11 the ‘Policy implementation’ and finally the last step reflects the ‘Policy monitoring.’

4.2. Analysis of Processes from Hungary The local agencies and relevant policy making processes from Hungary were responsible for preparation of parking zones and fees, restaurant’s opening timings, noise pollution of flights, social benefit of cards, waste collection, road repairing work, preparation on smoking in playgrounds and co-payment on compulsory health insurance. As a representative process we select the process which regards the formulation of policies regarding the opening hours of restaurants. The process aims at resolving the conflicting interests of relevant stakeholders. The process incorporates the initiation of a new strategy or alteration of existing ones regarding restaurants’ operation hours, the ways to collect public opinion on the proposed policy and its final implementation with the target to resolve any conflicts of interest between restaurant enterprises and residents. The process is triggered by local government making a proposal for restaurants’ opening hours (Table 4). The policy making process description template follows. Similarly, the process can be abstracted using the Macintosh model as follows: the first step represents ‘Agenda setting’ and ‘Prior Analysis’, steps 2 to 5 represent the ‘Policy creation’ phase, steps 6 and 7 the ‘Policy implementation.’ It should be highlighted that no step can be related to ‘Policy monitoring.’

4.3. Analysis of Processes from Portugal The samples collected from Portugal derived from the municipality of Trofa and refer to the policy making processes for the deployment of Internet access points throughout the municipality, the deployment of recycling centers, and the creation of a technologic park. The process that is going to be presented is the formulation of strategy regarding the deployment of internet



Table 3. Neighborhood safety planning process description Process header information Process ID

Health and Safety: Community/neighbourhood Safety

Process name

Neighborhood safety

Process goals

Create new polices to make safer neighborhoods

Process owner

Inspector

Triggering events

New ideas from community consultations or central government

The final output

New policy implemented and monitored Procedural information

Step

Who does it

What happens

Input Form

Output Form

1

Safer neighborhood team

Creation of new policy idea

Existing policy documents

List of proposed amendments

2

Business control unit

Business control process – Change management invoked

Change management process documentation

Plan for change document

3


Information gathering

Input from neighborhood watch teams via periodic reports National and local policy documents

Consolidated report highlighting all significant issues

4


Draft to policy forum

Draft policy document

Commentary on draft policy document

5


Policy sent into consultation process Iterative process involving: ▪ Diversity impact ▪ Customer insight ▪ Segmented communities issues resolved, ▪ Employees consulted


Commentary on draft policy document from each set of consulted people

6


Consult with external partners such as 3rd sector to get joined up approach


Commentary on draft policy document from each set of external partners

7


Inputs from consultation process assessed and incorporated into policy as appropriate

Draft policy document. External commentaries

Assessment report. Amended draft policy document.

8

Change control board

Final evaluation and acceptance

Draft policy document Change management process documentation Change impact reports

Formal acceptance report. (If rejected process iterated from appropriate task above)

9

Senior command team

Senior command team approval

Policy document

Formal approval sign off

10

Police authority

Police authority approval

Policy document

Formal approval sign off

11


Commissioning implementation

Policy document

Policy document published

12


Monitoring and reporting


Formal and informal feedback. Public perception questionnaires.



Table 4. Restaurants’ opening time resolution process description Process header information Process ID

Urban planning: Restaurants’ opening hours

Process name

Restaurants opening time resolution

Process goals

To reach a consensus among conflicting interests (habitants and companies)

Process owner

Mayor with political responsibility, Administrative manager with professional responsibility

Triggering events

Local representatives order on restaurants opening time resolution

The final output

Local government resolution on restaurants opening time resolution Procedural information

Step

Who does it

What happens

Input Form

Output Form

1

Local government professional committee (II. district)

Local government professional committee collect relevant regulation and prepare a pre-proposal of local government resolution on restaurants opening time (draft version)

1. 2005. CLXIV. Law on Business 2. 4/1997 (I. 22.) Edict on operating restaurants, shops and business 3. Budapest resolution on restaurants opening time 20/2009. (VI. 29.))

Draft version of local government resolution on restaurants opening time for Local Representatives Assemble

2

Local Representatives Assemble

Local representatives discuss draft version of local government resolution on restaurants opening time

Draft version of local government resolution on restaurants opening time

Harmonised version of local government resolution on restaurants opening time

3

Administration department

Collection of residents’ opinions

Harmonized version of local government resolution on restaurants opening time

Residents’ opinions

4.

Administration department

Processing residents’ opinions

Residents’ opinions (raw form)

Processed residents’ opinions

5

Local government professional committee (VI. district)

Refining local government resolution on restaurants opening time considering residents’ opinions

Processed residents’ opinions; Harmonized version of local government resolution on restaurants opening time

Refinement version of local government resolution on restaurants opening time considering residents’ opinions

6


Voting by local representatives on refinement version of local government resolution on restaurants opening time

Refinement version of local government resolution on restaurants opening time considering residents’ opinions

Voting outcome about refinement version of local government resolution on restaurants opening time

7


Local representatives pass a local government resolution on restaurants opening time

Voting outcome about refinement version of local government resolution on restaurants opening time

Final resolution on restaurants opening time



access points. It is worth highlighting that in this instance the process was initiated by citizens who requested by the Mayor the deployment of internet access points (Table 5). With an examination of the process we can conclude that ‘Agenda setting’ is performed in step 1, ‘Prior analysis’ is conducted by steps 2 to 5, ‘Policy creation’ by steps 6 to 9, ‘Policy Implementation’ by steps 10 to 14. The ‘Policy Monitoring’ phase is not reflected at any step.

4.4. Analysis of Processes from Turkey The collected process samples from Turley include policy formulation for social support for citizens in urgent need (such as natural disasters), processing of citizens’ complaints and requests, garbage collection, urban planning and new roads and libraries, and strategic planning for municipality activities. The process of social support provision is further discussed (Table 6). The differentiation of this process is that the ‘Agenda setting’ step is realized by the event triggering the process itself, which is the natural phenomenon. Steps 1 and 2 refer to ‘Prior analysis’, step 3 to ‘Policy creation,’ step 4 to ‘Policy implementation,’ and the final step to ‘Policy monitoring.’

5. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS From the examination of the policy processes collected from UK, the number of stages which involve the participation of government officials and citizens exist before a running policy is amended or a new policy were introduced. In this respect, these processes show commonalities among the stages although they belong to different policy domains; for example there are triggering events which grab the attention of government official’s first, there is development of options and alternatives for policies, reviews and analysis and public consultation in all processes. This leads to an extremely iterative process consisting of preparation of issues and alternative options. As the process

starts to roll, and a set of options and alternatives are gathered, public is invited to participate with their opinions. These public opinions are filtered into documents that are accepted or further analysed. A draft version of a prospective policy is developed, it further goes through a chain of analysis by the policy makers and soon it takes the form of a final document with initial feedback from both the government officials and the public. Before the final policy can be made once again public consultation and officials recommendations are considered for potential amendments to the final policy. Soon after that political authority accepts or restart process at most pertinent stage, a final policy is published for citizen’s access. The policy making processes collected from Hungary are very similar to the ones from UK with some differentiations in the number of stages involved. Citizens’ participation to the creation of a new policy or amendment of existing one remains a crucial factor. Following the identification of an issue the local government practitioners usually develop draft versions of possible options and alternatives and afterwards, the local administrative body consults citizens for their opinions. Once the feedback is collected from the citizens, then the local administration analyses it and updates the policy accordingly. The updated version is forwarded to local representatives for their analysis and review. Once an initial draft of prospective policy is made, it is set for local representative’s voting. A final policy document is created after consideration of the voting and then it is publicly announced. The samples collected from Portugal, from the municipality of Trofa show a variety of stages involved. The drivers that initiated the policy making processes are variant; citizens’ requests, national legislation or ideas of government officials. In all cases after the process is initiated the government agency creates a task force that will deal with the issue in respect. The task force identifies potential options and solutions and publicly announces calls for proposals for their implementation. The submitted proposals are evaluated and the selected one is adopted.



Table 5. Deployment of Internet access points throughout the municipality process description Process header information Process ID

01

Process name

Deployment of Internet access points throughout the municipality

Process goals

Deployment of Internet access points across the municipality

Process owner

Strategy Development Unit

Triggering events

Request by a group of citizens in the form of a letter delivered during a scheduled meeting with the city mayor and the technical infrastructure deputy

The final output

Deployment of free network of internet points across the municipality Procedural information

Step

Who does it

What happens

Input Form

Output Form

1

Group of citizens

Requested a meeting with the city mayor and infrastructure deputy

Letter containing request from citizens regarding implementation of a free network of internet access points delivered to city officials

Addition of the issue in the monthly city council meeting agenda

2

City council

Decision to create a task force responsible for studying the impact (economical, social, other) of implementing the request from citizens

Letter presented by citizens detailing request for the deployment a network of internet access points [city council meeting agenda topic]

Internal directive for the city council

3

Task force

Preparation of Cost- benefit analysis study

Internal Directive for the city council

Set of requirements for the costbenefit analysis study

4

Task force

Formal contacts with potential suppliers of technology (hardware and software) required to implement the service

Requirement List (technical, social, economical)

Final report on cost-benefits analysis delivered to city council

5

City council

Analysis of the Report provided by the Task Force Decision to use budget from the infrastructure department for the execution of the work

Final report on Cost-Benefits analysis delivered to city council

Decision to launch a public procurement request for the implementation of system. Selection of Evaluation criteria and technical evaluators of proposals to be received

6

Office of the mayor

Official launch of public procurement

Decision to launch a public procurement request for the implementation of system

Legal and technical documents supporting the procurement

7

Office of the mayor

Reception of proposals and subsequent delivery to expert evaluators selected previously

None

Folder with of all proposal submitted

8

Expert evaluators

Evaluation of proposals

Folder with of all proposal submitted

Ranking of all proposals received and technical evaluation based on evaluation criteria defined

9

Office of the mayor

Selection of supplier to implement system

Ranking of all proposals received and technical evaluation based on evaluation criteria defined

Final Evaluation of proposals sent to all suppliers that submitted proposals

10

Office of the mayor

Adjudication of work

Final Evaluation of proposals

Legal binding contract between parties

continued on the following page



Table 5. Continued Process header information 11

Task force

Acceptance of work

Technical documents provided by Supplier Selected for the implementation of system

Legal Binding document between parties

12

Office of the mayor

Add issue to the city council meeting agenda

None

Addition of the issue in the monthly city council meeting agenda

13

City council

Decision to officially deploy the system and inform public

Meeting agenda

Internal directive allowing the public announcement of the internet access points through the municipality

14

Office of the mayor

Public announcement (using multiple advertising mechanisms)

Internal directive

Marketing campaign and network of internet points across the municipality

Table 6. Social support provision process description Process header information Process ID

02

Process name

Social Support in case of flood emergency)

Process goals

Social support for citizens in urgent need

Process owner

Social Work Unit

Triggering events

Applications as 1st party Citizens, or 3rd parties in behalf of them, Event Scene Investigation by Municipality

The final output

Provision of Social Support to Citizens Procedural information

Step

Who does it

What happens

Input Form

Output Form

1

Units in the field (unit of applied works)

Data collection, detection on the spot

Event that require urgent attention (flood)

Applications event scene investigations

2

Social work unit or related units

Evaluation of applications (considering legislation, budget, history of applicant)

Applications event scene investigations

Assessment report and recording

3

Upper management (office of mayor)

The approval and determination of quality/quantity of support

Assessment report and recording

Decision and directive and recording

4


Provision of support

Decision and directive

Social support

5


Strategic policy development and update

Decision

Activity report

Similarly the samples collected from Tur-

key begin with a triggering event from the local



government bodies or citizens who demand a change to an existing policy or the development of a new one. Afterwards, the respective government body issues an assessment report, which consists of opinions from citizens and municipalities, initial analysis, suitable solutions and options. The upper management evaluates the assessment report and advances affirmative decision on the issue. This is then transformed into a final version of policy relating to the agenda by the unit of responsible local agency. In this paper we have examined public policy making processes with the perspective to explore their commonalities and differentiations in distinct public agencies, public domains, local and national contexts. Twenty five public policy making processes have been analysed from four countries. Our purpose was to investigate if the public policy formulation processes can be generically abstracted despite the different political and institutional contexts. It can be concluded from the enclosed analysis that the policy making processes in the four countries have common tasks and sequence of steps, which can be abstracted according to the Macintosh Model. The analysis also reveals that three categories of triggering events appear: citizen complaints, new legislation and periodic review of policy issues. Additionally, it is derived that especially in the cases where policies attempt to resolve conflicts of interests among different groups of citizens balanced citizen participation becomes more crucial. Similarly, in these cases citizens have stronger demand on transparency of the policy making process. Moreover, the analysis reveals that although much attention is given to the collection of evidence and information, the creation of alternative options and the implementation of a new policy, little attention is currently given to the final stage of a policy formulation, which the policy monitoring. This analysis has several practical underpinnings. First, we noticed in all contexts a lack of any structured workflow to support the decision making process and a lack of any supporting information technology. As a con-

sequence, the decision makers and the citizens are not provided with the ability to track the decisions taken and the documents generated, preventing transparency in the policy making process. Second, despite their differences, the processes of variant institutional settings show commonalities with respect to their phases: an event triggers the process, the local government agents develop alternative options and an iterative process of public consultation and review follows. A draft policy is formulated which further goes through a chain of analysis until it gets a final form that integrates the feedback from government and citizens. We may conclude that workflow technology benefits for the public administration exceed the support of back-office operations as currently is limited to. Workflow tools can be used to support the automation of public policy making processes despite the contextual variations. Using workflow technology for supporting policy-makers tasks to formulate public policies is expected to increase citizens’ awareness of political issues and facilitate a well-informed participation of citizens in these processes through the automatic delivery of relevant policy issues into their lives.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work is partially supported by UbiPOL (Ubiquitous participation platform for Policy making) (EU ICT-2009-248010 STREP project). The authors would like to thank the project’s partners for supporting the development of this work, as well.

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Aggeliki Tsohou is a Senior Research Fellow at Brunel Business School. Her research interests include e-government systems, information security and privacy management, security risk analysis, and security and privacy standards. She is a co-author of more than twenty research publications in international scientific journals and conferences of her interest. She is an Editorial Board Member for the Internet Research Journal and the Information Management & Computer Security Journal. She has served on the Program Committee of four international conferences and as a Reviewer in more than twenty international scientific journals and conferences in the e-government and information security field. She has been involved in the FP7 European Projects CEES and UbiPOL, and also, in several Greek government-funded R&D projects in the areas of information and communication systems security.



Habin Lee is a Senior Lecturer at the Brunel University Business School, UK. He was an active member of EU FP5 and FP7 projects and was a project leader of several BT projects to transform their mobile business processes using a light-weight agent platform. He is the winner of two international research awards (GIGA Excellence Award in Workflow Management and IET Innovation Award). He has published more than 50 peer reviewed research articles in international journals, conferences and book chapters, including IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, IEEE Pervasive Computing, Management Science, Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, and Expert Systems with Applications. Karim Al-Yafi is a software engineer and business analyst. He is currently a Research Fellow in Brunel University Business School. He is involved in the FP7 European Project UbiPOL as a technical researcher, mainly occupied with the requirements analyses, system design, and the design and implementation of the policy making workflow engine. His main research interests include the use of multi-agent simulation to evaluate the employment of mobile technologies in service enterprises. He has presented his research through multiple academic conference research papers, notably at the IEEE International Workshop on Enabling Technologies. Vishanth Weerakkody is a full time faculty member in the Business School at Brunel University, UK. He holds a MSc in ‘Business Systems Analysis and Design’ from City University in London and a PhD in ‘Business Process and Information Systems Reengineering’ from the University of Hertfordshire. His current research interests include public sector process transformation and change, technology adoption and diffusion in the public sector and electronic government, and he has guest-edited special issues for leading journals and edited a number of books on these themes. He is the current Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Electronic Government Research. Ramzi El-Haddadeh is a full time faculty in the Business School. He holds a PhD in Networks QoS and MSc in Data Communication Systems. His current research interests include technology infrastructure adoption and evaluation in addition to information security management and electronic government. He has guest-edited a number of special issues of international journals, and co-chairs sessions on information security and trust in the public sector at international conferences. Zahir Irani is the Head of Business School and a member of Senate at Brunel University (UK). He has co-authored a teaching text-book on information systems evaluation, and written over 200 internationally refereed papers and received ANBAR citations of research excellence. He is on the editorial board of several journals, as well as co-and-mini-track chair to international conferences such as AMCIS, HICSS and EMCIS. He has received numerous grants and awards from funding bodies that include EC FP7, EPSRC, ESRC, Royal Academy of Engineering, Australian Research Council (ARC), QinetiQ, Department of Health and EU. He is the Editor-inChief of both the Journal of Enterprise Information Management and Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy.



Andrea Kő graduated from ELTE (Eötvös Lóránd University of Budapest) in 1988 and has an MSc in mathematics and physics. She achieved a PhD in computer science in 1992. Her research interests include systems design, information management, intelligent systems, management and design of ontology. She participated in several R&D projects including SAKE (Semantic-enabled Agile Knowledge-based e-Government), GUIDE (creating a European standard for interoperable and secure Identity Management Architecture for eGovernment), ADVISOR (creating knowledge based system for the human resource management domain), COBIR (developing an intelligent system supporting IT audit and control activities), the Certified-EU-Manager Leonardo da Vinci pilot project, TELEPIAC (implementation of knowledge and software repository to support electronic commerce and development of a reference electronic shop). She has published numerous papers in her field. Tunc Medeni is a full-time researcher in Turksat and also affiliated to various academic institutions as a part-time staff. He was awarded a PhD degree from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), Japan; his MS degree from Lancaster University in the UK; and his BS degree from Bilkent University, Turkey. He has contributed to various (close to 60 in number) conference presentations, book chapters, and journal articles in his interest areas such as knowledge management, cross-cultural learning, and e-government. He has been awarded scholarships and funding from Nakayama Hayao Foundation, JAIST, Japanese State (Mombukagakusho) in Japan, Lancaster University in UK, and Bilkent University in Turkey for his education and research activities. Luis Miguel Campos received his BTech from IST (Instituto Superior Técnico – Lisbon) in 1992, his MS and PhD in Information and Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine in 1995, and 1999 respectively. Currently Dr. Campos leads the software development team at PDM&FC and serves as an expert evaluator for the European Commission in the ICT. Previously, he worked as a faculty member at the University of California Irvine and at NASA. He has published dozens of papers in international conferences in areas as diverse as Parallel Computing, Agent-Based Computing, and resource management in Distributed Systems, Simulation Theory and Cluster Computing.
