International Journal of Electronic Government Research

Volume 19 • Issue 1

A Framework for Public

eServices Transparency
Rui Pedro Lourenço, University of Coimbra, Portugal*
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3910-1418

ABSTRACT

Different aspects of government transparency have been analyzed by the research community, but
no structured framework was found concerning public eServices transparency. This article considers
transparency from a service users’ point of view and outlines a framework rooted in a systematic
literature review, complemented by a selected literature analysis on the fields of eServices quality
and public sector values. The framework defines the concept of ‘public eServices transparency’
and characterizes the information that should be made available, according to different service user
profiles. The aim is to assist practitioners from public administration to develop eServices and scholars
to assess existing eServices transparency.

Keywords
eGovernment, Online Information, Public Digital Services, Public eServices, Transparency, Services

INTRODUCTION

It is possible to trace back the concept and practice of government transparency for more than 250 years
(Meijer, 2015). Unsurprisingly, there is by now an extensive body of literature on the topic (Cucciniello
et al., 2017) which include an abundance of transparency definitions (Bannister & Connolly, 2011),
complemented by different dichotomies, categorizations, and varieties of transparency (Fung, 2013;
Heald, 2006). A common characteristic of the many transparency definitions is that they encompass
three elements: an observer, an object and a method for observation (Oliver, 2004).
Citizens are usually considered the observer seeking to access information about public
administration organizations’ internal workings. The goal is to “open up the working procedures
not immediately visible to those not directly involved to demonstrate the good working of an
institution” (Moser, 2001, p. 3) or, more specifically, to foster “the disclosure of information by an
organization that enables external actors to monitor and assess its internal workings and performance”
(Grimmelikhuijsen & Welch, 2012, p. 2).
The object of transparency may be an organization as a whole, a specific object or a specific
activity (Cucciniello et al., 2017), such as policy-making processes and activities (Brunswicker et al.,
2019), budgetary information (Birskyte, 2019) or financial information (Puron-Cid et al., 2019). In
this context, assessment studies usually adopt, adapt or create an analysis framework which establishes
a set of (information) items that should be available online (Lourenço, 2015) and use the framework
to assess the degree of online transparency.
Regarding the means or method to disclose information, information and communication
technologies (ICTs) became an important driver of transparency (Bertot et al., 2012; Meijer, 2015). The

DOI: 10.4018/IJEGR.317415 *Corresponding Author

This article published as an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and production in any medium,
provided the author of the original work and original publication source are properly credited.

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Internet, in particular, has had such an impact on (traditional) transparency that the term e-transparency
was coined (Bannister & Connolly, 2011), and government transparency often became “equaled to
information on a government Web site” (Meijer, 2015). As a consequence, there has been a push for
more open government data to be released (Nikiforova & McBride, 2020), with a positive impact on
eGovernment services adoption (Mensah et al., 2021), alongside other factors influencing adoption
(Alryalat et al., 2015; Mensah et al., 2022; Rana et al., 2012, 2015, 2017; Rana & Dwivedi, 2015).
This article addresses the transparency of public digital services (eServices) or e-government
services. While eGovernment may be broadly defined as “the use and application of information
technologies in public administration to streamline and integrate workflows and processes, to effectively
manage data and information, enhance public service delivery, as well as expand communication
channels for engagement and empowerment of people” (United Nations, 2014, p. 2), examples of
such services include online income tax filing, goods and services tax filing, or passport application
filing (Sharma et al., 2021). And while providing these online services usually relies on websites and
portals, nowadays different technologies are being used, such as mobile technology (mGovernment)
and social media (Al Najjar et al., 2019; Alryalat et al., 2017; Hebbar & Kiran, 2019, 2022).
From a citizen (service user) perspective, digital services may become a kind of black box: once
a service is initiated there may be no way to see what is happening inside it and all that remains is to
wait for its completion (Sabucedo et al., 2009). In a nutshell, eServices transparency simply means
citizens can look inside the service black box.
eGovernment research theories and constructs do not seem to explicitly include transparency (Rana
et al., 2011). Nevertheless, this is a relevant research topic since transparency has been considered one
of seven innovations in digital public services (J. Bertot et al., 2016a) and, by the “transparency by
design” principle, systems should “ensure that data is disclosed to the public for creating transparency”
(Janssen et al., 2017). More recently, an analysis of 100 research articles concluded transparency is
a relevant design criterion for public e-services (Hübl & Šepeľová, 2022).
But, despite its importance, transparency is seldom considered in association with eServices
assessment. The maturity assessment framework for (local) government Web Electronic Services
(Panayiotou & Stavrou, 2019) considers 64 variables, organized into 5 top-level clusters including
‘e-Services’ and ‘Democracy,’ but does not take transparency into account. Pina and Torres (2019)
analyzed the disclosure of 108 items on Spanish Central Government agencies’ websites but none
was related to eServices transparency. Another assessment framework (Bearfield & Bowman, 2017)
includes a ‘Digital government’ indicator but provides no further detail concerning the data expected
to be disclosed about ‘City services, request for services.’ And the assessment model used in the
Municipal Transparency Index (da Cruz et al., 2016) considers 76 indicators, including one ‘Online
Citizen Request and Tracking system’ which simply assesses whether or not such a system is available.
The European eGovernment Benchmark (European Commission, 2018) does consider seven
items to assess its ‘Transparency of service delivery’ sub-indicator, as part of the ‘Transparency’
top-level benchmark. However, some of these items cannot be considered as part of an effort to make
eServices more transparent (e.g., ‘Save as draft’), while others are too generic e.g. ‘Service performance
information available’). Finally, the E-Government Service Delivery Quality Framework (Corradini et
al., 2009, 2010) proposes three levels of “e-service delivery transparency”, No Transparency (“citizens
completely unaware of the process execution”), Activity Aware (“process tracking mechanisms”)
and Role Aware (“specification of an activity responsible”), which are still somewhat generic. Other
research efforts focus on assessing transparency concerning a particular dimension of digital public
services, such as algorithmic systems and corresponding decisions (Saldanha et al., 2022).
In sum, despite these research efforts, there is no comprehensive framework concerning public
eServices transparency, including a workable definition of the concept and a comprehensive description
of the type of information that should be disclosed.
This conceptual article aims to fill this research gap. Specifically, the main goal is to develop
and propose a comprehensive public eServices transparency framework answering two important

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research questions: what is meant by ‘public eServices transparency’? And what information should
be disclosed to make an eService transparent?
To answer both questions and develop a public eServices transparency framework, this article
begins by laying out the principles and perspective considered (next section). The proposed framework
(section A Framework For Public eServices Transparency) results from a systematic literature review
(section Systematic Review Analysis) complemented by a directed analysis of eServices quality and
public sector values literature (section eServices Quality And Public Sector Values Literature Analysis).

THE FRAMEWORK PRINCIPLES AND PERSPECTIVE

The concept of service has been described in the literature according to different perspectives, including
one that contrasts services with goods and perceives services as an activity, characterized by intangibility,
inseparability, and heterogeneity (Lindgren & Jansson, 2013). The “e-“ prefix means that some sort of
technology is used in association with at least one of three major service components: the service request
is initiated by digital means (the hallmark of an eService), its internal processing is (at least partially)
supported by an information system, and (at least) some part of service delivery (e.g. notification) is
given through digital means upon completion. Among the many definitions proposed in the literature
(Taherdoost et al., 2012) this work will consider an eService “as the provision of interactional, content-
centred and electronic-based service over electronic networks” (Taherdoost et al., 2012, p. 75).
When applying the adjective ‘public’ to ‘services’ different interpretations are possible (Lindgren
& Jansson, 2013). On the one hand, the expression ‘public services’ may simply mean that services
are provided by public organizations. Another possible interpretation is that the service is entirely
funded and provided by a private organization, but it is intended to be used by the public. Lindgren
and Jansson (2013, pp. 10–11) further differentiate between private and public services by associating
the latter with three characteristics, namely the public ethos (“public organizations, at least indirectly,
work for all citizens”), the lack of exit (“usually operate in a monopolized or some sort of compulsory
situation”) and the role of the users (“a user of public services … cannot be viewed merely as a
consumer but first and foremost as a citizen … [with] … certain constitutional rights which have
to be ensured”). Finally, the provision of services by public organizations is also guided by a set of
duty-oriented values, service-oriented values, and socially oriented values (Bannister & Connolly,
2014) which will be further detailed in section 5.2.
To clearly distinguish between different interpretations, in this article the expression ‘public
eServices’ refers to “the services provided by public organizations to citizens … either directly or
by financing private providers” (Lindgren & Jansson, 2013, p. 8). Therefore, public eServices are an
integral part of eGovernment initiatives, “typically deal[ing] with intangible goods such as exchange
of information to receive permits, disbursements, register tax or similar” (Lindgren & Jansson, 2013,
p. 166). The adoption of digital technologies transformed traditional local and global public services
making them more efficient, transparent and reliable (Hübl & Šepeľová, 2022).
As it is common in eGovernment transparency studies, citizens are usually considered the
observer or external actor seeking to access information about public administration organizations’
internal workings. Studies on online transparency assessment of public organizations (e.g. (Lourenço,
2013)) frequently adopt a taxpayer (provider of resources needed for public organizations to function)
or constituent (that elects his/her political representative) point of view. This, according to an
accountability principal-agent-based model, establishes the obligation for public officials to report on
the usage of public resources and answerability to the public to meet stated performance objectives
(Armstrong, 2005; Behn, 2001; Wong & Welch, 2004). This public accountability perspective focuses
on disclosing information about resources used, outputs produced, or process efficiency.
In the context of this article, citizens are still the primary recipients of transparency but in their
capacity as digital public services (public eServices) users. From the citizens as clients or service
users’ perspective, information about the resources used on eService production may be considered

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irrelevant as long as the service itself is executed following agreed public values (e.g., equity), and
expected standards of service/quality. As such, transparency in this context is about the possibility
to “monitor and assess its [eServices] internal workings” (Grimmelikhuijsen & Welch, 2012, p. 2)
and expose “the inner workings of government” (Bannister & Connolly, 2011, p. 24). This means
that when users initiate an administrative process using an eService, this eService acts as a kind of
black box and the purpose of transparency will be to look inside the black box.
To guide the selection of information to disclose it is important to additionally distinguish
between transparency and information. While transparency requires access to information, not all
information release efforts equate to transparency. For instance, National Statistical Offices release
large amounts of information (or more precisely, data) but that does not make them automatically
more transparent unless it is information about their inner processes (resources used to gather and
process data, for instance). It is simply their mission to produce and divulge such statistical data.
Additionally, releasing information about office operating hours, facilities location, or contacts may
be helpful for organization clients, but it does not meet the criteria for being considered transparent
such information is not about the organization’s internal workings.
In accordance with these principles, and the focus of this work, the framework will consist of
two major components:

• A definition of ‘public eServices transparency.’

• A list of information (items) that should be available online as part of ‘public eServices
transparency.’

RESEARCH APPROACH

The research approach adopted in this work is exploratory, resulting in a framework for public eServices
transparency. It is rooted in a systematic literature review on the topics of eServices and transparency,
complemented by a selected literature analysis on the fields of eServices quality and public sector values.
The systematic review of the literature was conducted as a first effort to answer both research
questions (What is meant by ‘public eServices transparency?’ What information should be disclosed
to make an eService transparent?). The search for relevant articles, summarized in Figure 1, was
conducted on July 2021 using two search interfaces: Google Scholar and B-On1.

Figure 1. The systematic search process

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Six independent searches were performed on each interface using one expression for digital service
(‘digital service,’ ‘eservice,’ ‘e-service,’ ‘electronic service,’ ‘eGovernment service,’ ‘online service’)
always combined (AND) with ‘transparency.’ Search filters were set up to include only articles written
in English and published in academic journals or conference proceedings since 2000, and results were
ordered by relevance. In the case of B-On, a full page of results (50) was considered for each search
which yielded a total of 247 unique records. In the case of Google Scholar, three pages of results were
considered for each search (20 records on each page) which yielded a total of 310 unique records.
All records (557) were stored in a unique repository and 62 were excluded: 40 were duplicated
references, 4 were not written in English, and 18 references were not published in either academic
journals or conference proceedings.
The remaining 495 references were subjected to several rounds of analysis concerning their
relevance for this work. In some cases, the reference to digital services and/or transparency was merely
contextual (e.g., “The Reality of Social Inclusion Through Digital Government”). In other cases,
although digital services or transparency themes were indeed addressed, the article did not contribute
to answering either research question. In the end, 39 research articles were selected for final analysis.
Additionally, the eGovernment Benchmark 2020 (European Commission, 2020) and the
E-Government Survey 2020 (United Nations, 2020) reports were considered for analysis. The latter
identifies “promoting transparency and accountability within the public sector” (United Nations,
2020, p. 25) as a trend in online transactional services but it does not specifically address public
eServices transparency. Therefore, only the European Commission Benchmark (2020) was considered,
resulting in a total of 40 articles selected for analysis (Section 4). The qualitative content analysis of
these articles was done inductively, involving several rounds of “open coding, creating categories
and abstraction” (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008, p. 109), resulting in a preliminary framework.
Results from two major research areas were also considered to complement the systematic review
analysis: eServices quality, since the framework adopts a service user perspective on transparency,
and quality is an intrinsic eService characteristic; and public sector values, because public services
operate within a specific value-set (compared with the private sector) which may influence when what
information to disclose. One comprehensive literature review for each area (Bannister & Connolly,
2014; Sá et al., 2017) was analyzed (Section 5). The preliminary framework was further refined and
complemented by adopting a more deductive qualitative content analysis approach since it was “based on
earlier work such as theories, models, mind maps and literature reviews” (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008, p. 111).

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW ANALYSIS

Main Research Themes

The 40 articles were clustered according to six main research themes, as shown in Table 1.
All these themes are closely connected, and it is difficult to make a sharp distinction between
them. As expected, most articles (11) focus directly on eServices (design and implementation issues/

Table 1. Research themes addressed

Research theme N. of articles

eServices 11

Service quality and citizens’ satisfaction 10

eGovernment (in general) and eGovernance 9

Privacy, personal data use and trust 6

Business process models, interoperability, semantic-based approaches 3

Algorithms and decision-making process 2

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guidelines, digitalization process, …) and, since public eServices are at the core of eGovernment,
9 articles were clustered as eGovernment research. But it is interesting to note that an even larger
number of articles (10) address eServices transparency in the context of service quality, confirming
this a relevant research theme to consider when developing the framework (see section 5.1).

What Is Meant By ‘Public eServices Transparency’?

The analysis of the 40 articles revealed several expressions being used in the literature that associate
eService and transparency, as listed in Table 2.

Table 2. Expressions that associate ‘eService’ and ‘transparency’

Expression used Definition/characterization

Transparent digital public “Critical question regarding the delivery of transparent digital public services: Can citizens know
services about how decisions about their services are made by government?” (J. Bertot et al., 2016a, 2016b)

Transaction transparency “Transaction transparency may include cost effectiveness, communication for a cancelled or
incomplete transaction and providing receipt or acknowledgement immediate to a transaction”
(Bhattacharya et al., 2012)

[Service] Transparency “Ability of the PA to make citizens aware of the delivery process in terms of activities and people in
charge of its execution and governance.” (Cognini et al., 2014)

[e-service delivery] “Ability of the administration to make citizens aware of the delivery process” (Corradini et al., 2009)
Transparency

Process tracing and activity- “Ability of the administration to make citizens aware of the delivery process and its execution state”
aware transparency (Corradini et al., 2010)

Service-delivery transparency “Degree of transparency concerning the performance of governments with regard to the delivery of
services to the public and businesses” (Cucciniello et al., 2015)

[Service] Transparency “Truly open access to the availability of information to the public and clarity about the information”
(Ekaabi et al., 2020)

[Process] Transparency “… make processes transparent through open up previous internal and closed processes” (Göbel &
Cronholm, 2016)

Transparency of the service “…availability of information about status and progress of service transaction life cycles.” (Gouscos
delivery process et al., 2007)
ToS (Transparency of Service)

[Administrative processes] “…administrative processes should be understandable, citizens and businesses should get the right to
Transparency monitor the administrative procedures that involve them, to understand the decisions …” (Limba &
Gulevičiūtė, 2013)

Transparency of service delivery [indicator] “measuring whether public services provide clear, openly communicated information
about how the service is delivered.” (European Commission, 2020, p. 58)
[indicator intended to] “assess the extent to which public administrations inform users about the
public service itself, setting expectations on timeliness, process and delivery for citizens and
entrepreneurs from the moment a user request a service until the service is delivered” (European
Commission, 2018, p. 41)

Other expressions were found which do not directly address public eServices transparency but
are somehow related, as listed in Table 3.
Finally, expressions were found which were not explicitly defined or characterized. Instead, the authors
describe their broad characteristics. These expressions include “transparency of the service” (Weerakkody
et al., 2019), “procedural transparency” (Margariti et al., 2020), “transparency of actions” (Sá et al.,
2016), “system operation transparency” (Stančić et al., 2017), “service level transparency” (Voss, 2000),
“transparency quality” (Corradini et al., 2010) and “algorithmic transparency“ (Kim & Moon, 2021).
The analysis shows the term transparency is used in different ways when applied to (public)
eServices, but no common definition for public eServices transparency was found.

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Table 3. Other, related expressions and definitions

Expression used Definition/characterization

Decision-making “Extent to which the users perceive the underlying reasoning of the decision-making
transparency process” (M. Li, 2011)
Privacy information “privacy information aspects provided to users to ensure an understanding required to
transparency evaluate online privacy assurance and performance” (Agozie & Kaya, 2021)
Information-use “the extent to which an online firm provides features that allow consumers to access
transparency the data collected about them and informs them about how and for what purposes the
acquired information is used” (Karwatzki et al., 2017)
Transparency-Enhancing “A conceptual means of informing users of online data services about how their personal
Tools (TETs) data are processed” (Murmann & Karegar, 2021)

What Information Should Be Disclosed To Make An eService ‘Transparent’?

Most articles specifically refer to one or more information items which should be disclosed as part
of eServices transparency efforts. Table 4 lists such items, organized in broad categories.
Not every article identifies which specific information should be disclosed to increase eServices
transparency. In some cases, articles simply make generic statements such as “make processes
transparent through open up previous internal and closed processes” (Göbel & Cronholm, 2016).
Usually, these information items contribute to complementing the concept of eServices
transparency considered in the article. But, in some cases, the opposite seems to occur since there

Table 4. Information items available as part of transparency efforts

Information Articles

Personal data handling: How and which data is collected, (Agozie & Kaya, 2021; Janic et al., 2013; Karwatzki et al., 2017;
for what purpose, how is it stored and processed Murmann & Karegar, 2021)

Personal data access: How and what personal data is (Agozie & Kaya, 2021; Janic et al., 2013; Lips et al., 2010; Sari et al.,
accessed, shared, or disclosed by whom and to whom 2019; Stančić et al., 2017)
(including public officials, other agencies and third parties)

Process progress: Tracking, status monitoring and progress (Bayona & Morales, 2017; J. Bertot et al., 2010; Ekaabi et al., 2020;
of service requests (applications) European Commission, 2020; Foley & Alfonso, 2009; Gouscos et al.,
2007; Karna & Gupta, 2012; Khan et al., 2020; Y. Li & Shang, 2020;
Lips, 2010, 2012; Lips et al., 2010; Ntaliani et al., 2010; Ramessur,
2009; Sabucedo et al., 2009; Safiullin et al., 2020; Stančić et al., 2017;
Venkatesh et al., 2016; Voss, 2000; Weerakkody et al., 2019) (Cognini et
al., 2014; Tan et al., 2013)

Service completion: Notification for service completion (Bhattacharya et al., 2012; European Commission, 2020)
(successful, unsuccessful, cancelled, incomplete)

Activities: Which activities, tasks and administrative (Cognini et al., 2014; Corradini et al., 2009, 2010; Limba & Gulevičiūtė,
procedures are part of the service (already carried on and 2013)
that need to be completed)

Public officials: Who is responsible for the service and/or (Cognini et al., 2014; Corradini et al., 2009; Karna & Gupta, 2012)
for each task, activity, or procedure

Decisions: Who made them, which algorithms, data and (Kim & Moon, 2021; M. Li, 2011; Limba & Gulevičiūtė, 2013)
models were used, what were the premisses to reach the
final decision, and how is the decision justified

Complaints and inquiries: Which complaints and inquiries (Sari et al., 2019; Venkatesh et al., 2016)
were made, and what is their status (answered, solved, ….)

Delays: What caused delays and at what point in the process (Cognini et al., 2014; Karna & Gupta, 2012)
(activities, tasks) they have occurred

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is a mismatch between the concept and the information items associated with it. For instance, the
eGovernment Benchmark ‘Transparency of service delivery’ indicator, adopted by the European
Commission benchmark (2020), considers whether the ‘Save as draft?’ functionality is available for a
public eService. Likewise, Bertot and colleagues (J. Bertot et al., 2016a, 2016b) link transparent digital
public services to a critical question: “Can citizens know about how service decisions are made by
government?”. To illustrate their concept, the authors consider a case where the existence of directories,
meeting agendas, committees’ composition, video libraries and blogs is a sign of higher transparency.
Yet another set of articles associate the concept of public eServices transparency with public
accountability. This means disclosing information about service performance (Cucciniello et al.,
2015; European Commission, 2020) or transaction cost-effectiveness (Bhattacharya et al., 2012). But
while accountability may be an important goal of transparency, it is essentially directed to citizens
as providers of public resources (interested in its good use).
Table 4 clearly shows eServices transparency is strongly associated with the possibility to track
the progress of service requests. There is also a significant number of references to the need to know
how personal data is handled (collected, processed, used, …) and some references to inform about
the activities included in the service, the public officials that handle the requests, the need to justify
and explain decisions, the status of complains or the cause for delays.

Three Dimensions Of Information Disclosure:

Individual, Reference And Aggregated
The analysis also suggested three dimensions of information disclosure. In general, the information
associated with eService transparency concerns what is happening, and can be observed, to an
individual service request. We will refer to this dimension as ‘individual [service] observed
information’ and it is directed towards an actual service user (information recipient).
But even if a particular user can observe how his/her service request is progressing, how does he/
she realize there is a delay (Cognini et al., 2014) in the process, for instance? If one service request
took 30 days to be processed was this excessive or was it expected considering the complexity of the
underlying administrative process? To detect a delay (and ask for a justification) the user needs to
have a benchmark or reference to compare with. Therefore, for each eService and each category of
‘individual observed information,’ public organizations should also disclose ‘reference information.’
This ‘reference information’ may be considered as part of the eService design specifications
(planned or expected performance, features, …), and it is primarily directed at potential (future)
service users. Examples of ‘reference information’ found in the articles include disclosing expected
process duration, delivery timelines and maximum delivery times in the eGovernment Benchmark
(European Commission, 2020), estimates about the processing time for different kinds of e-government
transactions (Tan et al., 2013), statements about the purpose for which data is collected (Agozie &
Kaya, 2021; Karwatzki et al., 2017), or information about “how service providers claim to handle
user’s personal information” (as opposed to “how service providers actually handle user’s personal
information”) (Janic et al., 2013). The distinction between ex-post transparency (“information on how
personal data have been processed”) and ex-ante transparency (“how personal data will be processed
in the future”) made by Murmann and Karegar (2021) further illustrates this distinction between
‘individual observed information’ and ‘reference information.’
Finally, we may also consider a third dimension for each information type and for each eService
type, ‘aggregated observed information,’ which reflects all service requests. This may be, for instance,
the average or maximum time a specific type of eService is taking to completion. This ‘aggregated
observed information’ may be used by the public (information recipients) to assess whether services
are meeting their standards and specifications by comparing it with the ‘reference information.’ And
actual eService users may use this ‘aggregated observed information’ before their service request, to
form more realistic expectations about what will happen, or after service completion to, once again,
identify any deviation vis-à-vis other similar services.

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eSERVICES QUALITY AND PUBLIC SECTOR VALUES LITERATURE ANALYSIS

To further complement the list of information items in Table 4, two major research areas were
considered. The goal was not to identify new quality dimensions or public sector values but to rely
on already published comprehensive literature reviews and identify which dimensions and values
would suggest new information items to include in the framework.

eServices Quality
Sá and co-authors (2017) developed a comprehensive model to evaluate the quality of online local
government services, comprising 32 dimensions (assessment criteria) divided into four domains,
which extensively synthesizes contributions from previous research.
‘Transparency’ itself is one of the dimensions proposed by Sá and co-authors (2017) in the
‘Management’ domain. Although this reinforces the link between service quality and transparency,
which further justifies using service quality literature as a foundation to develop the framework, the
description provided (“Clear reports and indicators are available for all provided services” [Sá et al.,
2017, p. 417]) does not suggest any specific item of information to be disclosed.
Among the other dimensions in this domain, the following were considered relevant:

• ‘Process Management,’ regarding the way public administration internal administrative processes
are handled (the ‘inner workings’ of eServices).
• ‘Capacitation,’ regarding the role, capabilities and qualifications of public officials involved in
administrative processes.
• ‘E-Participation,’ regarding how service users’ opinions and suggestions are collected and
processed, and how they impact (improve) eServices.

Within the ‘Services’ domain, which includes dimensions such as ‘Variety of Offered Services’
and ‘Customization,’ the following were considered relevant:

• ‘Deadline Compliance’ and ‘Processing speed,’ which both refer to the time-related aspects of
administrative processes.
• ‘Privacy’ and ‘Interoperability,’ which refer to how personal data is handled, consulted and
shared among public organizations.
• ‘Complaints’ and ‘Customer Support,’ which, like the ‘E-Participation’ dimension, concern the
way complaint and customer support mechanisms operate, how their inputs are processed and
how they impact eServices.

The third domain, ‘Quality of Information,’ comprises two dimensions. The first one, ‘Task
Information’ (“information that allows the citizen to find and carry out a service request”), is certainly
essential for users to initiate any online service, but it is not related to the eService ‘inner workings’
(transparency). And, while all information released should adhere to ‘Information Quality’ principles
(second dimension), it was not considered relevant to derive information items for the framework.
The fourth domain, ‘Technical Quality,’ comprises seven dimensions which focus solely on
eServices technical conditions which were not considered relevant to the framework.

Public Sector Values

The rationale to consider this research area is that making available information about the inner
workings of public eServices, thus improving its transparency, may originate in a desire to reinforce
one or several public sector values.

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As there is plenty of literature on public sector values, this article will resort to the comprehensive
typology proposed by Bannister and Connolly (2014), which categorizes values into three major classes.
Duty-oriented values broadly correspond to all “aspects of the duty of the civil servant to
government and to the state” (Bannister & Connolly, 2014), and include values such as ‘Responsibility
to the elected politicians of the day,’ and values of a more personal nature, such as ‘Integrity and
honesty.’ However, while relevant, none of these values suggests specific information items to be
included in the framework. Other values, such as ‘Proper use of public funds’ or ‘Efficient use of
public funds’ are related to the way civil servants (mis)use public resources and are relevant from
a public accountability perspective towards citizens (Lourenço, 2015). But, from a service user
perspective, what matters is whether and how the service was delivered (within the expected deadline,
for instance), regardless of how the resources were used.
Service-oriented values broadly correspond to “the responsibility of public administrators to
provide a high level of service to the citizen in the same manner as a commercial company would
provide good service to a customer or client” (Bannister & Connolly, 2014). ‘Transparency’ is included
in this category, thus reinforcing the relevance of defining an eService transparency framework.
However, the authors do not provide any specifics or guidance about what type of information should
be disclosed to reinforce eService transparency. The same applies to ‘Respect for the individual’ and
‘Service to the citizen in his or her different roles’ (which refer to technical issues). ‘Effectiveness’ and
‘Efficiency’ values, closely related to a “Proper stewardship of public funds” (Bannister & Connolly,
2014, Table 3) and the (mis)usage of public resources, were also not considered as already discussed.
Socially oriented values include both Hood’s theta values (1991) – honesty and fairness – and
broader social goals such as ‘Accountability to the public.’ Since accountability requires transparency,
the eServices transparency framework may be used as an enabler of public accountability processes.
However, as a broad public value, ‘accountability’ does not suggest specific information items to be
included in the transparency framework. The same applies to other values, namely ‘Inclusiveness,’
‘Respect for the citizen,’ ‘Protecting citizens from exploitation,’ and ‘Protecting citizen security.’
Having analyzed all values Bannister and Connolly (2014) identified, the following ones were
considered relevant to developing the framework.

Table 5. Public sector values considered in the framework

Public Sector Value Transparency goal

Compliance with the law Allow users to assert whether internal administrative processes are
Due process conducted following all regulations and legal procedures
Responsiveness Allow users to assert how public organizations react to user inquiries
Related to the ‘Customer Support’ eServices Quality dimension
Justice, Fairness, Equality of treatment and Allow users to assert whether all service requests are being treated
access, Impartiality equally
Protecting citizen privacy Related to the ‘Privacy’ eServices Quality dimension
Consulting the citizen Related to the ‘e-Participation’ eServices Quality dimension

A FRAMEWORK FOR PUBLIC eSERVICES TRANSPARENCY

The framework’s first component is a definition of public eServices transparency, primarily based on
the ‘Transparency of service delivery’ eGovernment Benchmark indicator (European Commission,
2018, p. 41) and the transparency concept proposed by Grimmelikhuijsen and Welch (2012), as follows:

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The disclosure of information by public administrations to enable digital service users to monitor
and assess the service’s internal workings, both against the service reference and in comparison with
other requests, from the moment the service is requested until it is delivered.

This definition broadly identifies service users as the main information recipients, and the
framework proposes three dimensions of information to disclose (section 4.4):

• ‘Individual [service] observed information,’ directed towards actual and current service users,
allowing them to open the black box concerning a particular service request;
• ‘Reference information,’ which may be considered as part of the eService design specifications
(planned or expected performance, features, …), primarily directed at potential service users;
• ‘Aggregated observed information,’ which aggregates information from all service requests,
and it is directed to the general public (to assess whether services are meeting their standards
and specifications) and actual service users (to form more realistic expectations about what will
happen, and to identify any deviations vis-à-vis other similar services);

To complete the framework, Table 6 describes the information to disclose to achieve transparency
in public eServices, clustered into nine categories.
The categories presented in Table 6, and their characterization in the different dimensions, should
not be considered mutually exclusive since all information concerning eServices is closely related.
And, particularly in the case of ‘aggregated observed information,’ the characterization should be
considered more as an example of which information to disclose since different aggregations about
the same category are possible.
These categories should also be considered alongside the three phases of eService development
(Zaied, 2012): design, implementation and results. During the eService design phase and following
the “transparency by design” principle (Janssen et al., 2017), it is necessary to define exactly which
information should be disclosed for each category and each information dimension/purpose. The
design effort must also include the design of mechanisms to collect data and produce the ‘Individual
observed information’ and the ‘Aggregated observed information,’ preferably in an automated way.
Such mechanisms must be implemented during the next phase, embedded in the eService itself, and all
‘Reference information’ should be made available before initiating the results phase (when users start
using the eService). Then, as users begin using eService, both Individual observed information’ and
‘Aggregated observed information’ should be updated and made available. Finally, it is necessary to
monitor the whole transparency system and adjust it where necessary, be it in defining new information
to disclose and/or adapting the ‘Reference Information,’ for instance.

CONCLUSION

Public administration (governmental) transparency has been addressed in the literature from many
different perspectives. However, it seems no previous study addressed specifically public eServices
transparency in a comprehensive way. To help close this gap, this work set out to outline a framework
which addresses the following research questions:

• What is meant by ‘public eServices transparency’?

• What information should be disclosed to make an eService ‘transparent’?

An initial systematic literature review revealed several expressions and definitions were being
used that associate transparency and eServices. But, even when accompanied by an indication of
the actual information to disclose, such expressions were vague or, at most, focused on very specific

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Table 6. Information to disclose to achieve public eServices transparency

Category Sources2 Information dimension/purpose

Reference information Individual observed Aggregated observed

(e.g.) information (e.g.) information (e.g.)

Activities Activities [SLR] Which activities are included Which activities have How many service
in the process already been completed requests are currently
(including their results), waiting for each activity
which ones are being to complete
executed and which
ones are still waiting for
execution

Decisions Decisions [SLR] Which administrative Which decisions have been Which decisions were
Compliance with the decisions are part of made and their justification made in different service
Law [V] the process, including requests, and their
the applicable legal and justification
regulatory frameworks, and
the algorithms, data and
models which will be used (if
applicable)

Process Process progress How the different activities, Track the corresponding How the ongoing service
[SLR] tasks and decisions are administrative process requests are distributed
Service Completion organized into a process throughout its stages along the process of each
[SLR] (their sequence, conditions, (activities, decisions) service type
Process Management …)
[Q]
Due process [V]

Time Delays [SLR] What are the deadlines and Monitor the service Average and maximum
Deadline Compliance completion times defined for processing times and completion times for
[Q] each type of service request, therefore become aware of each service/activity type
Processing Speed [Q] as well as for each of the any significant deviation considering all service
steps involved in the related (delay) requests
administrative process

Public officials Public officials [SLR] Which public officials may Which public officials Which of the ongoing
Capacitation [Q] intervene in a service request, intervened in the service and finished service
their roles, responsibilities, request requests were distributed
and qualifications. among the different
public officials

Responsiveness Complaints and Which channels and Track complaints, feedback, Which complaints,
inquiries [SLR] mechanisms are available to and contributions, including feedback, and
E-Participation [Q] submit complaints, feedback, their consequences and contributions were
Complaints [Q] and contributions (as part of impact submitted and their
Customer Support [Q] participatory and consulting impact on service
Responsiveness [V] processes, for instance) delivery
Consulting the citizen
[V]

Personal data Personal data How and which data will be Track how and which data Which data, in which
handling handling [SLR] collected, for what purpose, was collected, for what processes, was not
and how is it stored and purpose, and how is it handled according to
processed stored and processed what was expected

Personal data Personal data access When, by whom, to whom Check when, by whom, to Which data was shared
access and Privacy [SLR] and for what purpose data whom and for what purpose (to whom, by who)
control Privacy [Q] associated with service data associated with across all service
Interoperability [Q] requests may be accessed their service request was requests, particularly
Protecting citizen and shared accessed and shared when data sharing was
privacy [V] not done as expected

Fairness Justice [V] Which policies will be Assure users their requests How submitted service
Fairness [V] used to determine service are being processed in the requests were processed
Equality of treatment order (e.g., first come, first order they were supposed according to the
and access [V] served policy) and which to, including across all policies in place (e.g.,
Impartiality [V] mechanism exists to enforce stages of the administrative their submission dates,
the policy (e.g., sequential process sequential process
process number) number, …)

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topics. The review was, therefore, further complemented by an eServices quality and public sector
values literature analysis to propose a comprehensive framework.
Nevertheless, despite the attempt to make a systematic and comprehensive research effort, there
were some limitations which may be addressed in future research. Other search engines and scientific
resource collections may be considered, as well as different search parameters (particularly the
keywords used). Also, other major research areas may be considered to complement the systematic
review results and help structure the analysis and synthesis. Such synthesis, and resulting framework,
may also benefit from the input of eGovernment and eServices experts.
The resulting framework is comprised of a definition for ‘public eServices transparency’
(answering research question 1) and a list of information categories to disclose as part of public
eServices transparency (answering research question 2). The framework also distinguishes between
different information recipients, with distinct information needs in the context of the same transparency
process and proposes three dimensions to consider in association with each information category:
reference, individual and aggregated information.
The contribution of this study is twofold. The proposed framework may support public officials
and decision-makers in determining the actual information items that should be available for each
eService as part of a global transparency effort. Hopefully, these decisions will be made while eServices
are being designed (transparency by design) thus avoiding the extra costs of late adaptations. Also,
the framework may guide benchmarking efforts concerning eServices transparency delivered by
different public administration organizations. In this case, it will be necessary to consider the specifics
of each eService available, define specific metrics to assess each information category, and define
how to aggregate individual results into a unique, global, indicator (as it is done, for instance, in the
European Commission eGovernment Benchmark).
In sum, developing the framework was just a first step as this was exploratory work. Further
research is needed to assert the framework’s applicability. Ultimately, its relevance will depend
on whether it is used to reduce the eServices black box culture and improve public organizations’
transparency as a whole.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work has been funded by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia,
I.P., Project UIDB/05037/2020.

COMPETING INTERESTS

All authors of this article declare there is no competing interest.

FUNDING AGENCY

This research was supported by the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. [Project
UIDB/05037/2020].

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Endnotes
1
An interface that uses an EBSCO search service that federates several collections including the ACM
Digital Library, Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, Current Contents (ISI), Elsevier,
IEEE, Sage, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Web of Science and Wiley (for a complete list see https://www.b-
on.pt/colecoes/)
2
Systematic Literature Review [SLR] / eService Quality dimension [Q] / Public Sector Value [V]

Rui Pedro Lourenço holds a BSc in Computer Science, a MSc in Information Management and a PhD in
Management Science (University of Coimbra). In January 2017 he was appointed Technical Advisor working at the
cabinet of the Minister of the Presidency and Administrative Modernization (Portuguese Government), a full-time
position held until February 2019. He is currently Auxiliary Professor at the Faculty of Economics and a research
member of CeBER (Centre for Business and Economics Research) at the University of Coimbra.He is the author
of several conference proceedings, scientific papers and book chapters on the topics of Public Administration
Digital Transformation (eGovernment; eGovernance), Digital Democracy (eDemocracy; eParticipation) and Open
Government, Open Government Data and Public Accountability.

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