Requirements on Cross-Agency Processes in E-Government: The Need for Reference Model

Abstract

A big challenge for governments all over the world is to deliver secure, reliable, transparent and accountable services to their citizens and businesses. Effective and efficient service delivery requires the orchestration of business processes going beyond the border of single agencies. Little is known about how to orchestrate these cross-agency service-delivery processes, and consequently governmental decision-makers are looking for support in designing such processes. This paper investigates the applicability of two existing reference models, the Workflow Reference Model and the extended SOA reference model, to guide the development of cross-agency process orchestration. Although these reference models contain important elements, we found that these models they do not provide support for issues like ensuring correct and in-time service-delivery processes, secure information sharing and transparent and accountable processes.