E‐government Service Innovation in the Scottish Criminal Justice Information System

The paper features an original case study of integration of the Scottish criminal justice information systems, charting the ten‐year history of the project. After briefing referencing international e‐government experience, it critically assesses e‐government in the UK, arguing that following an auspicious start laying infrastructure, e‐government now focuses on cost‐saving process improvements and is less successful at inter‐organisational integration and citizen interactions, responding poorly to the challenges of interactive Internet (Web2) and service interoperability. Surveying literature on the use of project management techniques, it argues that popular e‐government tools prescribe closed innovation when more open innovation frameworks (Chesbrough, 2006) may be appropriate to e‐government. Two themes emerge: that the nature of e‐government project management is closed rather than open and secondly, that e‐government is often inadequately conceptualised in technical and organisational terms.