Benchmarking Asia’s best government departments

By Jianggan Li | 17 August 2011 | Permanent link | 0 comments

“We are a little surprised and absolutely delighted that Asia’s inaugural Government Technology Awards received 212 nominations from 14 countries for the nine separate award categories.” We wrote this in the September 2007 issue of the magazine as we announced the shortlist of that year’s inaugural FutureGov Awards.

The awards have certainly grown since them - and if you haven’t submitted your nomination yet - please tell us your most proud projects/achievements over the last year. Nomination information can be found on the Official FutureGov Awards web site.

The editorial team at FutureGov are in a very privileged position to be able to watch the development of the region’s public sector from the vantage point of the magazine - but nothing gives us more insight in to the real world developments occuring within government, education and healthcare organisations than the annual review of nominations for the FutureGov Awards. It was out of our desire to formally recognise the very best of Asian public administration that the Awards were born - and the funny thing is, once you push a good idea down the slope it just continues to gather momentum. In 2008 we received 455 nominations; in 2009 we received 550 nominations - and last year, we hit a staggering 765 nominations from the wider Asia Pacific, including a significant number of nominations from Australia and Korea for the first time.

Although the competition is certainly fierce, happily we have also been able to increase the number of awards categories - ensuring that this year more agencies than ever before will be publicly recognised. There will be 22 awards winners this year - and for the first time each winning agency will receive a scholarship to attend a FutureGov Academy training course in 2012.

In the first year (2007), the winners for the nine categories came from Hong Kong, India, Korea, Singapore, UAE. I remember vividly the passionate speech Clarence To, the charismatic Assistant Commissioner (Information Systems) of Hong Kong Police, made after receiving the Wireless Government awards for their third generation command, control and communication system.

With 28,000 unfiormed officers and 6000 civilian staff, it is not hard for one to imagine why the Police Office near more than 200 people to work in its telecommunications department. Wireless & mobility is again a hot topic, enabled by better network and more capable devices.

First year’s Technology Leadership Award went to Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS), for its Inland Revenue Interactive Network (IRIN) programme, which helped push Singapore’s tax e-filing rate to 92 per cent, reduce cost of collection to US$0.64 cents per dollar, and improve value added per employee from US$67,000 in 2003 to US$93,000 in 2006. Since then, IRAS has pushed the e-filing rate up to 96 per cent.

While Singapore has been performing very well in FutureGov Awards throughout the years, largely owning to its relentless quest for innovation and excellence, they are not the only one shining. In the very first year Korea, India and UAE also bagged trophies from the ceremony.

Fast forward to last year (2010), and Korea and Sri Lanka were the biggest winners, each taking home three awards. China demonstrated that it is a rising power when it comes to public administration and took home two awards - and Taipei City Government also took back an award to Taiwan. Overall, last year’s winners came from 11 countries - a real testament to the breadth of the awards.

While the full list of past year winners can be found here, I have a few vintage copies of the December 2007, December 2008 and December 2009 issues, where the awards are reported in detail. It’s available for our new government readers on first come first serve basis. please write to me at jianggan.li@alphabet-media.com

I look forward to reviewing this year’s nominations alongside my other members of the judging committee, all of whom are distinguished currently serving or former public servants. I wish you all the very best of luck!