Stages of maturity

E-government initiatives progress in five distinct stages, according to Accenture. Each stage, which the company calls "maturity plateaus," is defined by a common set of achievements and objectives.

The five categories are:

Service transformation: Treating e-government initiatives as part of a wider service transformation, with changes in organization, processes and technology across agencies.

Mature delivery: Grouping services and setting up portals that reflect the interests of customers. This plateau includes intra-agency relationships and collaboration across different levels of government, where appropriate.

Service availability: Creating basic portals and having the drive to make as many services available as quickly as possible. There are some sophisticated transaction capabilities implemented and some cross-agency cooperation with the initial focus on the customer.

Basic capability: Having a central plan, a legislative framework and a broad online presence. A number of "quick-win" transaction capabilities are rolled out with revenue-generating sectors leading the way. Other agencies take initial steps based on the lessons of the early adopter agencies.

Online presence: Having an online presence where information is published but there are few services available from a few early adopter agencies that have made the investment in the infrastructure necessary to carry out these services.