eGovernment benchmark 2019 : empowering Europeans through trusted digital public services : executive summary

Digital technologies increasingly place new demands and expectations on the public sector. Realising the full potential these technologies hold is the key challenge for governmental organisations. In eGovernment, that potential is on the one hand in optimising the supply of online public services in line with user's needs, and on the other hand in increasing the usage of those services. The eGovernment Benchmark is a yearly monitoring instrument of the EC to provide insight into the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in the public sector. The measurement evaluates the maturity of online public services in terms of user centricity, transparency, and use of key enablers. It also brings the dimension of cross-border service delivery, which is a truly European metric. The European front-runners in eGovernment are Malta, Estonia and Austria. These countries score highest in terms of overall maturity. Latvia, Lithuania and Finland follow close behind. In general, countries in the southeast of Europe score below the EU28+ average of 65%. There is a gap between the leaders and laggards in eGovernment in all four Top-level benchmarks of 42 p.p. Though this gap is sizeable, it has been narrowing in the last few years.