An important obstacle to effective progress towards digital inclusion is that relatively little is known about the scope and value of the impact achieved through the provision of ICT-mediated government and public services. This makes it difficult to justify significant investment in new e-services, either before or after the event. In October 2009, the i2010 High Level Group observed that: “[t]he social impact of ICT is still a basically unexplored area at the European level” and suggested that work was needed “to look at different aspects affecting life of citizens”. A similar view was taken in a review of progress of the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan, which observed that whilst member states shared a perception of the benefits of digital inclusion, they had difficulties in substantiating those perceptions.
EGOV4U is a 3-year pilot project funded within the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework (CIP) of the European Commission (EC). Partners within the EGOV4U Consortium are implementing and developing over 30 local ICT projects, each providing flexible, personalised, multi-channel services targeted at citizens who are socially disadvantaged and at risk of social exclusion. These diverse projects provide a valuable testing ground upon which to develop, implement and evaluate an ‘impact evaluation framework’, which is intended to be a significant contribution to the challenge of evaluating the longer term and wider impacts of ICT-mediated multi-channel government and public services. Development and deployment of the EGOV4U Impact Evaluation Framework is organised as a distinctive work package within the larger project and is being carried out by the OU team of researchers.