What are the specific challenges now? All public organisations are facing the same challenges, but they are, to an ever lesser extent, able to engage individually. Firstly, digitisation enables them to adapt themselves to the expectations and needs of citizens and businesses, rather than to their own internal processes and rules.
This has been the fundamental principle of the policy of digital government since the turn of the century, but it is very difficult to put it into action.
In recent years, bit by bit and policy by policy, an information government has been formed, 'without the need for an overriding vision or monitoring on the level of the political leadership' (WRR 2011: 194) A lack of proper organisational and institutional embedding can cause problems requiring a great deal of attention, time and money from the government. Consider, for example, persistent errors in information flows, unsafe systems, faltering services and the wasting of taxpayers' money due to lack of ICT expertise (Temporary Commission ICT 2014: 201). In addition, when the government fails to set clear frameworks or long-term goals for digitising society, it can also damage public confidence in the government as a reliable and proper adminis-trator and user of information.
Time and again, new services prove difficult to realise. The current way the government operates is at odds with how digital solutions can be best developed. Political decision making involves many steps and focuses on preventative risk manage-ment: everything must work perfectly right from the start - and for everyone - (ICT 2014 Temporary Committee). In many places, a completely different approach has now been experimented with, one in which the development of digital solutions consists of a continuous process of small steps (Brown et al. 2014; Stephen et al. 2011). This hypothesises another form of risk management, in which the possibility of interim adjustments is the fundamental principle. The scaling of successful products is also limited because it encounters a fragmented public administration in which the various governing bodies and policy columns each have
overtaken on all sides, with the result being that the public function of these facilities may come under pressure (Sustainable Growth Study Group 2016).
For ICT companies, digitisation is still big business, and will remain so in the future (Pollitt 2010: 44). Over approx. the past ten years, the governments of economically advanced countries spent more than 1% of GDP on information technology (Dunleavy et al. 2006: 1). Market operators are important players in the further digitisation of the government. In the sixties and seven-ties, governments often pioneered digital applications and developed expertise. Nowadays, they are dependent on large, often multi-national, ICT providers (Dunleavy et al. 2006). This situation is a major obstacle to the digital transformation of the government. Public organisations are contractually bound to the parties who build and manage their (custom) systems. These actors autonomously dictate spending growth with multiple new software releases and substantial licensing costs. Public organisa-tions are also obliged to carry out regular re-tendering. This complicates the transition to government-wide service sharing and the use of cheaper standard solutions that are currently available for sale on the market. Precisely these types of solutions carry the promise of better service at lower costs on average - even for the government (Fishenden and Thompson 2013).
Nevertheless, the question is whether this will ultimately provide sufficient coherence between digital government strategies and governance on the objectives of the Digital Government (Digiprogramma 2015: 41). For example, several crucial building blocks for the digital government are still in development. Also, the public sector lacks a collective, strategic, long-term vision on the future of the current generic digital infrastructure (GDI), one which encompasses the whole sector, and regarding the applica-tions in terms of policy development, service provision and enforcement which this GDI should support (Zegveld et al., 2016 ).
One of the building blocks is a easily-accessible, high-quality system of data registrations. Streamlined information management is needed for a government which wants to make best use of data. The government, however, cannot blindly follow the example of the major internet companies, which have obtained large amounts of data on almost every citizen without obtaining any explicit consent. It is precisely in the public sector - which makes use of very large amounts of data - that the government must set a good example through the responsible use of data (OECD 2014). A good example of multiple use of data is the pre-filled tax return which, apart from in the Netherlands, is also common in Sweden and Norway. We don't see enough of these types of services.
An important first step was taken for structural funding with the government's decision on 24th February this year concerning the implementation of the fundamental principles for sustainable financing arrangements for the GDI. However, for facilities outside the GDI, the overall view is that the funding is frag-mented, ad hoc and insufficiently focused on the long term. This is detrimental to the management, maintenance and renewal of digital government facilities. In practice, each facility is funded separately, and often by many parties, all at the same time.
This is a time-consuming process that hinders progress towards digital government. In addition, there are insufficient resources for innovation while the pace of technological development remains high and government facilities run the risk of being