Implications of Legal and Organizational Issues for Urban Digital Government Development

Anthony M. Cresswell Theresa Pardo Center for Technology in Government University at Albany, State University of New York

A Discussion Paper Prepared for Foundations of Electronic Government in America's Cities: A Multi-Disciplinary Workshop

Convergence of Legal and Organizational Issues in Urban Digital Government Development

This paper discusses implications of the convergence of legal and organizational issues in the context of developing and implementing digital government projects in large urban settings. By the convergence of legal and organizational issues we refer to two important aspects of urban government: (1) the close relationship between legal/policy structures and the way government is organized and functions, and (2) the way the legal/policy elements interact with organizational dynamics and work cultures to influence digital government projects (and government activities generally). It is our contention that convergence in the organizational and legal/policy context is a powerful determinant of how these projects develop and how likely they are to succeed. Therefore the understanding of this convergence and related dynamics is critically important to planning and designing both policy to promote digital government and particular digital government projects themselves.

This perspective is a result of experience gained in a combination of activities undertaken by CTG over the past 6-7 years. Over this time period CTG has undertaken over 20 information technology projects with state and local government, several of which have involved urban governments. Most recently we have worked with New York City government agencies, together with state agencies and local service providers, in two digital government projects. This experience provides rich examples, included below) of this convergence and how it impacts the development and success of these projects. In addition the Center and center staff have conducted formal research and published a number of research reports and papers on this general subject (see for example, (Cresswell, Pardo, Dawes, & Kelly, 2000; Dawes, 1995; Dawes, Pardo, Connelly, Green, & McInerney, 1997; Pardo, 1998; Thompson, Connelly, & Cresswell, 2000). Taken together, this research and practical, field-based experience form most of the basis for this discussion. In addition, however, there is a small but growing body of other research that supports this basic perspective (see, for example, (Bloomfield, Westerling, & Carey, 1998; Mahler, 1997; Milward & Provan, 2000; Provan & Sebastian, 1996)).

Our discussion of the convergence focuses on legal/policy and organizational issues that at present seem to be the most important in terms of impacts on digital government initiatives. On the legal/policy side we focus on:

Many of these legal/policy issues have obvious implications for the organizational side as well. In addition, the organizational issues include:

Each of these issues, as well as many instances of convergence, has been a factor in one or another of the CTG projects we use below to illustrate the impacts.

These issues and their related problems have implications for digital government in terms of both development and research agendas. It seems to us critically important that digital government planners and developers recognize and adequately understand these issues and their implications. Therefore efforts to promote attention to these issues in strategic planning and project design should be part of digital government program and policy development. However recognizing and understanding these issues depends on the related conceptual tools and knowledge or theory base available to planners and developers. They should therefore be prominent in the research agenda related to digital government as well.

Creating New Ways to Share Information in The New York City Government

Information Technology (IT) is a crucial factor in the New York City's operations. Forty-three mayoral agencies operate numerous information systems that support the City's administrative and service programs. These programs and agencies employ over 130,000 people and are worth about $35 billion a year -a city budget that is larger than the budgets of many countries. Improving information sharing across such a large and disbursed range of agencies, in this case information about IT, was the core challenge in this project.

Central versus Decentralized Control

Until recently, the City's IT-related work was very decentralized. Each agency determined how to meet its own needs. Recognizing that in order to realize the promise of digital government significant changes in how the City developed and implementing technologies policies. Today, the City's technology policies and strategies are set by a Technology Steering Committee (TSC) established in 1998 by Executive Order. The Steering Committee is charged with "coordinating and integrating information technology systems among City agencies" and with "effective implementation of automated solutions at all levels of City government." The Steering Committee members are the Commissioner of the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DOITT), who is the Chief Information Officer for the City and serves as the TSC's Chair, and the Directors of the Mayor's Office of Operations(MOO) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Issues of Scale and Complexity

The TSC is responsible for developing and implementing a city-wide technology strategy, for approving the technology plans of city agencies, and for promoting standards, working groups, and other methods to address IT projects and issues that have city-wide implications. The Office of Technology was set up within DOITT to support the Steering Committee, identify best practices in IT use and management, and serve as a clearinghouse for information to agencies. Its major challenge is the collection, categorization, analysis, coordination, and dissemination of a vast amount of information regarding NYC's current and future information technology resources and needs, including:

Much of this information is already available, but resides in various locations throughout the City government. Typical practice had been to bring information together on an ad hoc basis to be used to make decisions about a particular project. The challenge faced in the City is implementing the new policy structure and managing the organizational issues which emerged in that implementation. This challenge is compounded by the fact that little practitioner knowledge or literature is available to guide the City in its efforts to develop an policy and organizational structure that will facilitate the move to digital government. The City had to deal with many policy and organizational related challenges including existing stove-pipe program structures, the conflict between centralized and decentralized control, divergent cultures, and political turbulence.

Although the process identified a number of Web-based applications that would support the goal of broad-based knowledge sharing, the policy framework in place in the city resulting in conflicting goals. Agency staff recognized the value in developing tools to share information, the centralized network staff, however, saw things somewhat differently. A very stringent security policy prohibited most city employees from ready access to the Internet. Internet-connected workstations in the agencies were generally not connected to the City's internal communications networks to prevent both external hacking and internal misuse. While web-sites would be useful solutions for some topics, such as information about IT products and services, they were simply not feasible. In addition, like many large governments, more than one e-mail system was in use so no agency could communicate readily with all other agencies, making e-mail a poor choice for sharing information.

Staff from both operating and oversight agencies worked together for the first time in a subsequent one-day workshop to identify priority issues and to establish work groups to formulate action items that address them. As the project made the transition to this "best practices" or solutions finding phase, the oversight and operating agencies began working together in joint working meetings. In some areas, oversight agencies took the lead, in others staff from the operating agencies played central roles.

Stove-pipe Program Structures

The Executive Order mandated a new structure that centralizes IT decision making in the TSC. The goal is to ensure that IT decisions take advantage of the expertise of staff from all three agencies. Information that in the past was used only by one agency must now be shared. While the paper file system might have worked in one agency working in isolation, it does not support collegial decision making or citywide planning. The goal of this new policy was to overcome or reduce the barriers to change and innovation that had been created as a result of the old policy framework which decentralized control for many aspects of information and information technology decision making, while keeping a tight reign on a range of related decisions.

Within the operating agencies, IT directors and their staff struggle with the effect of the stovepipe structure in place as well as the multiple levels of policy. They often made decisions without knowing what was taking place in other agencies or in other organizations that may face (or have solved) similar problems. In addition, they collected and reported information to multiple levels of management and a number of oversight agencies whose operations were usually not coordinated. These "overhead" activities take a considerable amount of effort which diverts energy away from core operations. Even outside organizations, like federal and state agencies, contractors, and nonprofit service providers, were affected by these conditions. Multiple contacts, handoffs, and interpretations add time and cost to these relationships on all sides.

DOITT joined the Using Information in Government Program at the Center for Technology in Government to change this reality. The City project leader expressed their philosophy in this way, "The best way to break the stovepipes of information is to give people access to each other across the board. You can do this not only for IT but for other professions within the City--for the lawyers, the fleet managers, the human resource managers, and so on."

Divergent Cultures

From the earliest planning, it was clear that organizational history and culture would be as important as the ability to create and share new knowledge resources. From the outset, the TSC leaders needed to make a strategic choice. While OMB and MOO are clearly oversight organizations, DOITT has a dual mission in NYC. It is both an oversight agency and a service provider. The IT planning and budgeting process (in which DOITT plays an oversight role) is a primary source of information about the city's IT infrastructure, experience, and applications. That information is used to make executive decisions and city-wide resource allocations. Yet, that same information could be used in new ways to serve the needs of the agencies. Because DOITT was the lead agency in this project, it could have followed either an oversight strategy or a service strategy. The divergent cultures that advocated for each of these strategies had to be identified and balanced. Many of DOITT's responsibilities require a oversight strategy, however, to build a new city-wide resource to support electronic government through a program of information and resource sharing, a service strategy had to be adopted. The investment of effort to ensure that a service strategy was adopted included both attention to the internal DOITT staff in terms of orienting them to this strategy, and in convincing the agencies that a service oriented collaborative approach would be used. The operating agencies initially expected an oversight frame of reference would predominate, but in fact DOITT pursued the project as a service to agencies. Early discussions and workshops were critical points for clarification about DOITTs motivation and intentions. The needs that emerged from these discussions included: ·

The identified needs reflected the challenges agency staff face in trying to communicate across agencies about their efforts or to gather knowledge from other agencies who have experienced similar challenges. Agency staff could see that a number of technological vehicles could be used to reduce the barriers to coordination, communication, and knowledge sharing created by the organizational structure.

Political Turbulence

In the midst of the issues faced by agency leaders and staff, the turbulence of the political environment raises concern about how long the new policies will govern operations in the City. In 2001, New York City residents will elect a new mayor, who, like Mayor Giuliani, will be limited to two four-year terms. The full effect of that turbulence is unknown, but is already being felt. As early as the early spring of 2000 executive staff at the agencies were beginning to consider their options for moving on. The Assistant Commissioner in charge of the project with the Center left City service in the summer of 2000.

Creating a Homeless Shelter Information Management System

Each night in New York State nearly 29,000 homeless people receive emergency shelter and support services. The 6,400 families and 10,000 single adults require assistance in dealing with their immediate incidence of homelessness as well as assistance in dealing with a variety of other problems including domestic violence, alcoholism or substance abuse, poor parenting skills, mental illness, and a lack of education or employment skills. Many lack the skills to maintain their own housing.

New York State and its localities spend millions of dollars and devote substantial effort in providing both housing and services to these homeless single adults and families. The Bureau of Shelter Services (BSS) manages the temporary housing services program in New York State. The program is comprehensive in that it determines eligibility and need for services, provides case management, direct services, and referrals to outside service providers. The cost to federal, state, and local government programs for the homeless in New York State is estimated to be $350 million annually, of which $130 million is spent on service programs.

Eighty percent of the homeless population in New York State resides in New York City, and Westchester and Suffolk Counties. BSS has regulatory oversight responsibility for all not-for-profit and local government service providers that receive financial support from the State.

Professionals in the field believe the various service programs they provide to homeless people reduce public assistance costs by helping people achieve independence. But there is little evidence to either support or challenge this belief. Program managers do have quarterly aggregated statistical reports from shelter and service providers regarding the numbers of people being served for payment purposes. However, information about service effectiveness is mostly anecdotal.

The Center for Technology in Government (CTG) worked with the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), BSS, and the New York City Ad Hoc Technology Committee to devise an integrated system that will help government and non-profit organizations manage homeless services and evaluate their effectiveness. The outcome of this project was the creation of the Homeless Information Management System (HIMS) which is a prototype that draws upon data from multiple existing case management systems and financial systems.

BSS faced and overcame many challenges in their efforts to implement a state-wide centrally administered program whose primary service area included a major urban environment. Stove-pipe structures at both the state and city levels of government, divergent cultures, and centralized versus decentralized control were all issues. In addition, BSS faced challenges from the multiple layers of government policies and increased complexity resulting from the inclusion of non-profit providers in the system.

Stove-pipe Structures

State and local program managers need consistent and complete data across service programs and over time to determine the most effective mix of services for a particular client population. The issue facing these managers is the stovepipe structure which has emerged as a result of policy decisions. The use of non-profit service providers complicates the effort to draw data for system-wide analysis. The decentralized and local control approach has resulted in a gap in the information that is required to assess the effectiveness of programs. This necessary data resides in various separate systems or in paper records that are not integrated. As a result, it is unclear whether self-sufficiency, reduced recidivism, reduced dependence on public assistance, and improved overall life skills are being systematically achieved.

Multiple-layer Government Policy Frameworks

In NYC, BSS must balance the demands of multiple layers of oversight and control. BSS shares their regulatory role with the New York City Department of Homeless Services (NYC DHS) for those providers that also receive funding from the City. Although there are a few City-operated programs, the overwhelming majority of service providers are not-for-profit organizations. Some are very small operations serving only a few people or families at a time. Others are major programs of large well-established organizations like the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross. Outside New York City, county social services agencies have similar responsibilities to oversee shelter and service programs.

Hollow State Programs and Complexity and Multi-layer Policy Frameworks

Shelter providers are in the human services business. Their staff interact daily with people who have a variety of personal problems and needs. Many are trained social workers and a strong ethic of client confidentiality pervades the provider community.

One of the first challenges the Bureau faced was concern from the shelter providers that existing policies would not protect their clients' confidentiality if they shared case management data with BSS. This concern dominated early discussions. During the course of the project it became clear that the providers were unaware of the stringent requirements and protections already in use by OTDA for other client-oriented systems such as the Welfare Management System. These are based on the New York State Social Services law which requires the agency to protect client confidentiality and limit or prohibit the use of data outside the program for which it is collected.

 In this context, several specific concerns emerged. One had to do with unique populations. For the majority of providers, sharing data meant the release and use of client demographics such as name, social security number, age, and address. The Domestic Violence shelter providers had quite different concerns than the rest. Since their clients are in danger of being assaulted or otherwise harmed by people who know them, the most confidential information had not to do with their identity, but with their physical location.

Sharing information that linked a particular client to a particular shelter was therefore of great concern to these providers. The group came to understand the different kinds and levels of data security would be necessary to account for these important differences among programs. In this case, all agreed that the facility information and address had to be masked to protect the location of the client.

Multi-Layer Government Policy Frameworks and Stove-pipe Structures

 Although the concept of HIMS began to gain acceptance among the service providers, it also faced serious problems in obtaining the support of other state agencies. The Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS), the Department of Health (DOH), the Department of Labor (DOL), the Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS), and the Division of Parole also provide services to the homeless population. They have similar difficulties in assessing the impact of the services they provide. These agencies recognized that participating in HIMS might provide them with access to more comprehensive information. However, they were concerned about the same restrictions of sharing data as the local shelter providers. In general, client data cannot be shared without the client's consent. Some agencies receive blanket consent at the point of service application, but others do not.

To further complicate matters, OTDA is one of several agencies created in the 1997 breakup of the former Department of Social Services (DSS). As a result, health care information about homeless clients, once collected and maintained by DSS, had become the province of the Health Department. OTDA and BSS did not have automatic access rights to the Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) even though the MMIS system itself is linked to and relies on data from OTDA''s Welfare Management System (WMS). BSS has made progress, but not yet succeeded, in securing cooperation from DOH and other agencies by negotiating rules, interpreting existing agreements, and assessing how aggregated data might overcome issues of confidentiality.

Hollow State and Standards and Control

The challenge was not only in obtaining the data but also in finding commonality among the data elements. The design team needed to understand how the data was collected, what similarities existed among the data sources, and how the data was going to be aggregated in the new system. This required business rules and standards for the new integrated system as it related to the questions the new system hoped to address. While this seemed easy at the beginning, the true complexity emerged as the team wrestled with such seemingly simple terms as 'age,' 'ethnicity,' and 'admit-date.'

For each data element, the team had to agree on common definitions and consider how these definitions would affect the inclusion or exclusion of data elements into the integrated system. Each decision made needed to be revisited with each additional data source. These questions helped define the business rules that shaped the system. While they were easily addressed from either a data management or a technology perspective, the more global policy perspective was both more difficult and more important. It not only provided the policy framework for the entire system, but also assured that the system would provide data that would support informed decision making.

Provider organizations are structured in several ways. Some providers are single-site facilities, others are part of a large corporate non-profit organization. Not surprisingly, the extent of investment in development and use of data standards varies from one organization to the next. Some have extensive case management systems, others less sophisticated systems, and still others only manual paper records. Each provider has a different data dictionary and naming convention for specific data elements. And, each has individualized business rules that dictate what types of data are collected for each element.

For example, the fieldname ADMITDATE exists in multiple provider databases. In one provider's system, ADMITDATE refers to the day a client entered the shelter, while in another the ADMITDATE was used for both the date a client entered the shelter and the date a room or facility assignment changed. For the second provider, a client might have multiple ADMITDATE entries. Since ADMITDATE is used to calculate a client's length of stay in a shelter, the difference in these two rules is important. Length of stay information is used to calculate payments and determine recidivism rates.

Conclusion

The DOITT case illustrates the challenges of implementing digital government from within an urban environment. The BSS case illustrates the challenges of implementing a digital government initiative when a major urban environment is involved. Both cases provide opportunity for highlighting the need to study and learn more about what occurs in urban environments engaged in digital government initiatives.

These issues and their related problems have implications for digital government in terms of both development and research agendas. It seems to us critically important that digital government planners and developers recognize and adequately understand these issues and their implications. Therefore efforts to promote attention to these issues in strategic planning and project design should be part of digital government program and policy development. However recognizing and understanding these issues depends on the related conceptual tools and knowledge or theory base available to planners and developers. They should therefore be prominent in the research agenda related to digital government as well.

References

Bloomfield, P., Westerling, D., & Carey, R. 1998. Innovation and Risk in a Public-Private Partnership. Public Productivity and Management Review, 21(4): 460-471.

Cresswell, A. M., Pardo, T. A., Dawes, S. S., & Kelly, K. 2000. Partnership Effectiveness in Public Sector Information Technology Innovation. Paper presented at the Academy of Management, Toronto.

Dawes, S. 1995. Interagency Information Sharing: Expected Benefits, Manageable Risks. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 15(3): 377-394.

Dawes, S. S., Pardo, T. A., Connelly, D. R., Green, D. F., & McInerney, C. R. 1997. Partners in State-Local Information Systems: Lessons from the Field. Albany, NY: Center for Technology in Government.

Mahler, J. 1997. Influences of Organizational Culture on Learning in Public Agencies. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 7(4): 519-541.

Milward, H. B., & Provan, K. G. 2000. Governing the Hollow State. Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory, 10(2): 359-379.

Pardo, T. A. 1998. Reducing the Risks in Innovative Uses of Information Technology in the Public Sector: A Multidisciplinary Model. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University at Albany-SUNY, Albany, NY.

Provan, K. G., & Sebastian, J. G. 1996. Interorganizational Cooperation in Community Mental Health: A Resource-Based Explanation of Referrals and Case Coordination. Medical Care Research and Review, 53(1): 94-119.