The end of the 20th century saw a rapid development of technology and the beginning of a true “information age”. The mass use of personal computers, constantly improved peripheral equipment, software with fabulously wide capabilities, as well as the popularization of the Internet, have made every institution open to contacts with the external environment. Phenomena of this kind have not bypassed public administration either.
Partially computerized administration
The Internet, based on the telecommunications network, already enables almost unlimited exchange of information today, regardless of the distance between the “communicating parties”. The vision of an Information Society and Global Information Infrastructure has slowly begun to become a fact. Sociologists point to several symptoms of this state of affairs: a decrease in material production at the expense of an increase in employment in services, an increasing share of external companies in the current operations of business entities, and the development of individual entrepreneurship. It is impossible not to relate analogous processes to the Polish reality. However, the client of the national administration often expresses dissatisfaction with the level of service. And all this because “citizen-friendly public administration structures worthy of an open information society” assume constant access for the citizen to the information they need “using ICT tools”. At least that is what the Strategy for the Development of the Information Society in Poland states. However, in the same document, we encounter the statement that: “government and local government administration use the achievements of ICT to a very limited extent”. This is not only a matter of finances, but in many cases (especially regarding administration in smaller centers) it is a matter of a lack of awareness of the benefits resulting from increasing citizen participation in public life. Computerized administration is not just remote contact between a citizen and the official responsible for handling a case. It is also the possibility for citizens to use publicly available computer stations in administration offices. For what does a citizen need? Not only to pass their case into the right hands, but also to understand the mechanisms of decision-making in their individual case. And it is impossible to understand these mechanisms without access to current regulations – starting from the highest-ranking legal acts and ending with local law regulations. Let us answer the question: does Polish public administration meet these standards? The answer can only be: “not at this moment yet”…
The article comes from the magazine “e-Fakty” 1/2004.