Assumptions and background of ICT OVS management

This chapter summarises selected key assumptions and foundations for successful and effective ICT management at the level of the office and its individual solutions. Therefore, this chapter is the starting point for the subsequent chapters dealing with the different levels and processes of ICT management in the OVS.

In order for an ICT service to fulfil its purpose (to provide ICT support) effectively, the following prerequisites must be in place (provided), which are the same at all levels of government, differing only in breadth of scope and depth of detail:

• competencies, meaning powers and responsibilities, and the respect and influence associated with them,
• motivation - i.e. objectives, principles, rules, quality and success measures
• institutions, organisation, functions, processes and services
• resources (technological, financial, personnel, knowledge),
• methods and tools for resource and service management
• organisational stability and continuity
• the possibilities and tools for internal promotion of the results and work offerings of their department
• partners,
  • clients within the OVS (customers of ICT services)
  • the management and authorities of the office
  • central management and senior coordinating bodies
  • suppliers and operators of solutions and services
  • professional organisations and communities and others.

In order to ensure the smooth performance of the ICT function of the OVS, or its department or public corporation, the following basic premises must be ensured:

1. Key roles and responsibilities - Clearly establish the authority and responsibilities of the ICT unit or its managers and rank and file. In particular, it is necessary to focus on the key relationship between the ICT service provider and its customer, or internal customer (subject guarantor). The management level of the ICT OVS (ministries, corporations) must have the management tools to be able to actively coordinate ICT services at its own and departmental level, to issue governing acts, methodologies and frameworks that facilitate management and coordination.
2. The levels of management (coordination) and accountability - ICT management with local accountability to the leadership of their office (at the appropriate level of the public administration hierarchy) must be effectively and efficiently supported by central coordination from corporate (departmental) and central authorities. The technical manager of one ISMS must be supported by the head of the authority's ICT unit.
3. Measures of ICT performance and quality of its management - Clear, measurable, transparent and understandable indicators of the success of change and performance of managed ICT must be set and used for transparent assessment of ICT performance and quality of management to the management of the OVM, and tools and methods for their presentation must be set up.
4. Architecture layers - the life cycle of the ISVS (functional unit) at all its layers, both business services, application ICT services, and services of the shared technology and communication infrastructure of the OVS and the State, must be respected in the management of the Office's ICT,
5. A holistic approach - when managing each individual change or requirement (of an information system or its service) for a specific customer, it is always necessary to perceive the context and needs of the whole, i.e. in particular of the authority itself and all its components, the eventual founder and the whole public administration, or the EU, and to create an environment that enables quick and correct decision-making taking into account these facts (impact analysis).
6. Adequate resources - it is necessary to understand ICT as a necessary and mandatory support without which the performance of public service agendas would not be possible, and for which improvement and cost reduction it is necessary to invest in ICT services accordingly (adequately) and to use the benefits of ICT and to evaluate them regularly and objectively.

As in the construction industry, where all major cities have a Chief Architect's Office in addition to the building authority to oversee compliance with the city's master plan, eGovernment CR has its Chief Architect to oversee the development and enforcement of the NAP. Just as there are a number of uniform industry regulations governing the construction of buildings, e.g., statics, fire safety, sanitary facilities, compliance with sanitary parameters, electrical wiring, etc. of buildings, there are uniform regulations, standards, and architectural patterns for eGovernment.

Just as the zoning plan clearly defines geographically where the residential zones will be, where the industrial or leisure zones will be, where the roads will lead and defines binding architectural principles for them (roof pitches, orientation of ridges, number of storeys, etc.), the NAP defines such architectural principles for the national eGovernment. And just as the approval of buildings verifies adherence to the approved design, the acceptance of ICT developments must verify adherence to the design that has been approved.

The development of the NAP as well as the supervision of compliance with the rules contained therein and compliance with the current ICR is ensured by the OHA. It assesses and issues opinions on all ICT plans and projects to entities obliged under Act No. 365/2000 Coll. or under Government Resolution No. 899/2015 Coll.

The acquisition, creation, management and operation of public administration information systems in the Czech Republic must also have appropriate system supervision. Similarly to architecture oversight, the systemic oversight of the management of ICT in the public administration is fully within the competence of the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic.

This coordination and oversight has not yet been institutionalized in the MoI in the corresponding department (unlike OHA in the case of architecture), see also Introduction. Therefore, for the duration and for the purposes of the digital transformation of the public administration of the Czech Republic and the corresponding ICT support, this supervision was partially substituted on the basis of the Government Resolution No. 259 of 15 April 2019 on the Implementation Plans of the "Digital Czech Republic" programme, by which the Digital Commissioners of the Central Administrative Office were newly established within the individual ministries. They are, in addition to the relevant Minister, co-managed by and report to the Government Commissioner for Digitalisation and IT.

The specific powers and duties of the Digital Commissioner are specified in a document issued by the RVIS and included in the Knowledge Base.

In the long term, a combination of coordination from both institutions is needed:

• Line management of continuity of services, knowledge, methods and standards, quality and performance by the ICT Management Unit of the MoI (KMU) and
• Programme management of major (strategic) transformational changes by the Government Commissioner for Digitalisation and IT, supported by the eGovernment Department (OeG), the Office of the Chief Architect (OHA) and the Programme and Project Portfolio Management Unit (O3P¹⁾), currently missing but needed to support the Digital Czech Republic programme.

The development of ICT support for public administration and the digital transformation of VS in general are expected to benefit public administration in two key areas, in addition to the value for the end clients of VS services (citizens and businesses), such as increased attractiveness of services, shorter timeframes, reduced costs for clients, etc:

• reduction of IT unit costs, i.e. improvement of the price/performance ratio, or a much faster increase in the scope, quality and security of IT services than the increase in budget expenditure on them, in particular by removing duplication and moving to more efficient, shared services (e.g. eGovernment Cloud); and
• a significant reduction in the cost of the actual performance of public administration services through their computerisation, i.e. reducing the consumption of human and material resources or shifting them to areas of public administration that have been underperforming, whose need is growing or emerging.

The ever-increasing demands on the scope of IT services, their quality and security mean that the overall cost of IT services will not (cannot) decrease. At the same time, it must be respected that achieving all of these benefits is an investment, i.e. the expenditure must first increase by the cost of the measures implemented, so that it can subsequently decrease by that much more (in the case of an investment in savings).

ICT management must include awareness of these objectives and control of the management methods and means to achieve them, including ICT cost management methods and methods to measure the benefits of change.

In several places in the document, the MDICT mentions the use of so-called programmes and projects for programme funding purposes, while stating that to manage the introduction of change (of any scale) all programmes and projects must be aligned, i.e. they are still the same change programmes in both views.

The financial sources outside the government budget are in most cases development funds and technical assistance funds. These funds are mostly EU Structural Funds. These funds are used to finance the EU's regional and structural policy objectives, or mainly to increase the economic development of European regions. Financial support from the funds is distributed through so-called operational programmes, which determine the focus of support for a given region or sector (e.g. transport, agriculture, digital transformation and ICT, etc.). The methods and approach to applying and managing the programmes are covered in great detail in the methodologies developed by the individual promoters, who produce these in line with EU policies. It is impractical and impossible for the MoICT to deal in detail with extra-budgetary funding.

In order to draw funds from the state budget, it is necessary to respect the deadlines for drawing up and approving the state budget, i.e. to apply the claims to the plan not only in the necessary structure but also within the set deadlines. Within the deadlines, financial reporting should be set up in such a way that there is, as far as possible, an early prediction with problems in the spending (under/over spending).

A public contract for the acquisition or modification of an information system from the CIO's perspective usually includes several parts related to the actual acquisition or modification of the information system, the provision of services related to the support of the operation and maintenance of the information system and its development, or other types of support, such as user support. It is therefore essential to be clear when preparing the relevant procurement whether these required needs are to be covered by the common framework of a single procurement procedure, or whether they are to be covered in parallel with another procurement procedure, or whether they are covered by an existing contract already in force.

If the information system requires the acquisition of subparts e.g. HW or other technology components that are necessary for proper operation, it is strongly recommended to compete them together with the information system. Failure to do so may result in an unpleasant situation where all parts required for the operation of the information system itself are not properly or timely tendered and procured. In a situation where it is not possible to compete all components in their entirety, or where shared technological components are used which will be procured as part of another public procurement, it is then recommended to limit the risks involved with the departments preparing and implementing the public procurement, especially by ensuring continuity or concurrence of individual public procurement contracts - such cooperation is also discussed in Collaboration with other departments of the Authority and eGovernment.

In view of the type and regime of the public procurement ²⁾, and thus the financial limit, it is imperative to be prudent and to anticipate in the preparation of the contract the development or support requirements that may affect the possibilities of future use of the funds resulting from the awarded public contract (the actual subject of the contract).

For the purposes of further development and modification, and in particular with regard to the Vendor Lock-in issue, it is necessary to include in the tender conditions qualitative evaluation criteria (technological neutrality, supplier segmentation, acquisition of code rights, diversification of development and operational platforms, etc.) appropriate measures that will not make it impossible to compete such requirements in the future in an orderly and component-isolated manner. Requirements requiring modifications in other information systems must be taken into account in the preparation of the procurement procedure and the relevant departments must be consulted to determine whether such requirements are covered by other existing procurements or whether they must be dealt with under this procurement.

Complications related to procurement that may arise:

• The duration of a mainly open, above-the-limit procedure for supplies or services (increased procedural effort).
• Complications during the tendering procedure (possible low number of tenders or bidders' objections)
• No tender or no winner and necessary repetition of the lot

Managing the processes of purchasing investments and services in accordance with the provisions of the Law No. 134/2016 Coll., on Public Procurement, as amended (also referred to as the "PPA") is one of the fundamental constraints and difficulties of ICT management due to its complexity and the need to re-compete contractors after a 4-year performance period.

In future editions of the MIRCT, basic recommendations on the application of the ZoZVZ in ICT will be issued and information on best practices, guides and tools for this area will be continuously updated in the Knowledge base.

Management control, together with internal audit, is part of an organisation's internal control system, which is a subset of financial control regulated by Act No. 320/2001 Coll., on financial control in public administration and on amendments to certain acts, as amended (hereinafter also referred to as "Act No. 320/2001 Coll.") and its implementing Decree No. 416/2004 Coll, No. 320/2001 Coll., on financial control in public administration and on amendments to certain acts (Act on financial control), as amended by Act No. 309/2002 Coll., Act No. 320/2002 Coll. and Act No. 123/2003 Coll. (hereinafter also referred to as "Decree No. 416/2004 Coll.")

Management control is defined in Article 3(4)(a) of Act No. 320/2001 Coll, control "provided by the responsible senior staff as part of the internal management of the public administration body in the preparation of operations before their approval, in the continuous monitoring of the operations carried out until their final settlement and accounting, and in the subsequent examination of selected operations as part of the evaluation of the results achieved and the correctness of management"³⁾. The audit thus has the following four phases:

• preliminary control before the obligation or claim arises,
• a preliminary check after the commitment or claim has been made,
• interim control, and
• follow-up control.

They perform ex-ante control at different stages:

• the principal of the operation,
• the budget manager, and
• the Accounting Officer.

Interim and ex-post controls may then be carried out by the same or other authorised persons.

In the performance of the management control, the following should be applied (they are described in more detail in the relevant decree⁴⁾ and which specify the facts to be checked at a given stage of the control):

• approval,
• operational,
• evaluation, and
• review procedures.

It is quite common that on the issue of management control, it is often argued by ICT units that their mission is the operational, technical and development activities of ICT for which these units were established and that the implementation of management control is for them only and only an administrative burden that does not bring anything useful and as such this activity is neglected and marginalised. However, management control is a legal obligation and must not be neglected in any way; on the contrary, it must be integrated into the service so that it is one of its natural and most important activities. The following are some recurrent weaknesses, but the list is not exhaustive and is intended to guide the implementation of management control and thus avoid inconveniences and critical errors in financial management.

These are therefore the following errors and weaknesses :

• insufficient management control arrangements,
• ambiguous definition of powers and responsibilities in the exercise of management control,
• implementation of expenditure without management control,
• approval of a financial operation by an unauthorised person,
• inadequate implementation of ex-post controls,
• late submission of accounts and reimbursements,
• improper procurement,
• insufficient keeping of conclusive records of all operations and controls carried out,
• insufficient communication of significant risks, serious weaknesses and corrective actions taken.

Given the cost of ICTs, the question of their reasonableness, achievement of the declared objectives and compliance with the 3E principles ⁵⁾ should be carefully checked retrospectively.

Further factual and technical additions will be included in future editions after consultation with the professional public.

In the same way that the methodological management of the individual VS agencies falls under the substantive ministry and the management and provision of eGovernment platform services falls under the Ministry of Interior, within the individual OVS the performance of VS agencies must fall under the agency-specific departments of the authority.

On the other hand, the scope of activities of the ICT units of the authorities must be only the proactive provision of information support for the correct, secure and quality performance of the VS agendas. It follows from the above that ICT services are one of the so-called operational or support services of the Authority, providing services on the basis of requests received. It further implies that:

• the agency-substantive departments of the Authority are in the role of ICT clients, they are the substantive administrators of the ISVS application and provide the ICT unit as technical administrator with the substantive assignment⁶⁾ and the necessary cooperation in the implementation and operation of the solution, including feedback from users, as they have detailed procedural knowledge of the agenda, related legislation, links and consequences,
• ICT unit - in the role of ICT service provider and technical administrator of the ISVS solution, is divided into at least three basic interchangeable units, (ICT management, ICT operation and ICT development), which provide services to each other, but which have a common responsibility towards the contracting authority (the subject administrator), i.e. must have one main representative and his "staff". These basic units are further subdivided into at least the following specialised roles:
  • Operations - commodity acquisition and management, communications, administration, operational and business monitoring, SLM and SLA negotiation, OLM and OLA, UC management, operational processes and tools.
  • Cybersecurity - oversight, monitoring, Law. KB, CLOUD, SIEM, IDM, PIM/PAM, vulnerabilities, risks and more.
  • Development and Development - client relationship, digital services, projects, computerization, idea management, strategy and its changes - maintenance of action plan, etc.
  • Architecture and Standardization - creation and maintenance of architecture and concept, creation and maintenance of standards (excluding security) in collaboration with other ICT departments, co-host of strategies and action plans (CIO is the owner), co-host of idea management, innovation carrier.
  • Method, application and process support for agendas and systems - AIS/IS analysts with knowledge of methods and processes, key users, legislative experts with ability to legal algorithmization and definition of legal requirements from ICT position. These may preferably be included in the structure of specialist departments.
  • Departmental Coordination - if the ICT has a mandate to coordinate the department it may have (and is more than appropriate) a specific unit for this activity.
  • CIO Support - organisational, administrative, economic, legal and other support to the ICT lead (i.e. CIO).
  • Information Support - the ICT Services Unit provides information support to the digital services of the CIO / the performance of CIO agencies, i.e., operates and develops "their" agency information systems (also referred to as "AIS"), or the internal operational information systems of the office, as required and directed by the department.

It is desirable that changes in financial management are made, i.e. that the department becomes the budget holder and the operation orderer for the expenditure of ICT solutions supporting "its" agendas, i.e. following the adage "he who orders, pays".

The ICT unit does not necessarily have to perform these functions with its own staff, but can be assisted by an organisation set up for this purpose - in public administration, e.g. state-owned enterprises (NAKIT, CENDIS, SPCSS,…). However, it is always the responsibility of the ICT unit that orders this service from the organisation to the subject administrator.

The simplest way to implement an effective division of duties and rights in an office for the purpose of providing information support for the execution of public administration agendas is to establish the key roles of ISVS or operational system management as listed below.

Detailed descriptions of the responsibilities and rights of these and other identified roles in the processes of managing the development and delivery of ICT services will be included in future editions and in the Knowledge base after discussion with the professional community. In particular, these roles are:

• The ISVS (service) administrator - the OVS (its department), which is often empowered (by the competence law, within the authority by the organisational regulations) as the so-called agenda manager to ensure the performance of a public administration agenda or an internal operational function/service, including its adequate support by ICT services.
• Technical administrator of ISMS (services) - office or department responsible for satisfying the requirements of a professional unit (substantive administrator of ISMS) for ICT support of its agenda with the services of the corresponding ISMS or operational IS.
• ISMS (service) provider - the office or department de-facto (real, actual) operating the ISMS or operational system that provides the ICT services for the agenda for the operational function.

The key four complementary roles to the above, applied particularly in planning and implementing changes to information systems are, see the following quadrangle figure:

• Procedural Owner, the change owner - most often the role is assumed by the subject matter manager or sponsor.
• Enterprise architect and solution architect.
• Project Manager
• Legislative Unit - the unit that has expertise in the legislation that is being amended. It also serves to ensure that the wording is correctly written according to the legislative rules

It is important to note that a legislative department can only legislate changes that the department is responsible for.

Under optimal target conditions, all of the above roles (and their positions) are part of the (large) substantive administrator unit, or are part of the office management "staff" and a shared service for the (smaller) IS substantive administrator. The Solution Architect role can be further subdivided into:

• Business Solution Architect (analyst) is (should be) part of the subject matter manager's unit,
• IT Solution Architect is (should be) in the ICT unit.

Based on the breadth of the Authority's agenda, central departmental coordination of architecture, it is permissible (recommended) to break down architectural roles in more detail. See NAR and Knowledge base for principles and examples of breakdown.

Managing the ICT of an office means not only to allocate competencies within the ICT unit, but also to determine its competency interface with other operational/supporting units of the OVS. This requires an act of management at a higher level than that of the head of the ICT unit. Optimally, this interface should be issued by the management of the authority in the form of an internal management act that includes the ICT competence matrix and is in line with the business layer of the Enterprise Architecture of the authority. The purpose of the competency matrix is (not only for the ICT area) to eliminate possible conflicts of competencies of roles and departments, which are based on different sources (from binding legislation to internal management acts of the Authority).

In addition to the roles and departments that are superior to the ICT unit listed in the previous chapter, the ICT competence matrix of the Authority should also include the superior and subordinate external institutions, but in particular the following internal OVS departments:

• Security Unit - in particular the Cyber Security Manager, if established outside the ICT Unit, and the OVS Physical Security Unit or other security units within the OVS,
• Legal and legislative unit - especially in terms of appropriate legal formulations in public procurement and contracts, including contracts for outsourced ICT services, copyright (licensing) law, procurement of expert and legal opinions, and in the field of legislation, certainly cooperation in the field of drafting and amending laws so that there is strict compliance between technical possibilities and legal formulations of laws and sub-legal norms. Mutual symbiosis in the implementation of legal declarations and technical algorithmizations in IS/AIS and ICT services, brings secondary cost-effectiveness and timeliness in the implementation of legislative measures in the form of ICT solutions,
• Public Procurement Unit - methodological, substantive, legal and interpretative support in relation to the PPL and representation outside the office in relation to supervisory and other bodies in the field of public procurement (Office of the Public Procurement Supervisor, SAO, Ministry of Finance, Audit Committee of the Council of Ministers, other government groups and committees)
• Financial and Property Units - primarily concerned with planning, financing and management of property, both in terms of substance, law and timing,
• Personnel and Payroll - primarily in the areas of training, motivation and stabilisation of internal staff,
• office architecture department - Enterprise architects, central process analysts,
• Cybersecurity - Cybersecurity Architect and Cybersecurity Auditor,
• internal audit unit and
• Publicity and Communications + Press Officer.

For more information on the ICT unit's cooperation with other departments, see also Collaboration with other offices and eGovernment departments.

As a basis for the design of a detailed competence matrix of the Authority, it will be possible to use the sample ICT competence matrix contained as one of the tools in Knowledge base.

Further substantive and technical additions will be included in future editions after consultation with the expert community. 

ICT management procedures in the OSS must respect the currently applicable responsibilities of the different management actors. Specifically, this means implementing tailored management processes:

• the nature of the authority - different procedures for state administration authorities, local government authorities, other public authorities,
• according to the organisational level of the authority in the hierarchy of public administration,
• depending on the nature of the change and the severity of its impact on both the infrastructure of the public administration and the digital services of the public administration and data.

The only correct setting of competences is one that respects the classification of the OVS simultaneously into:

• the level according to financial management and the exercise of the rights of the grantor; and
• the organisational hierarchical level of management of individual public administration agencies and their ICT support.

In addition, it is important to correctly perceive and take into account the coordinating role of the central bodies which, by virtue of the Competence Act and according to the decision of the Government of the Czech Republic, are responsible for the central management and coordination of ICT development in support of eGovernment, i.e. in particular the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic, the Government Council for the Information Society and the Government Plenipotentiary for Digitisation and Information Technology.

A more detailed description of the characteristics and model of the above mentioned levels of governance and a description of their factors relevant for ICT governance is provided by Knowledge base of the ICT governance of the MoS of the Czech Republic.

The ICT OVS unit, as its very important operational capability, has an architecture in all its horizontal layers and vertical motivational domains, see the domain model of architecture in NAR.

In order to describe and understand the required ICT capabilities and their delivery, it is necessary to know and use models of the current and future state of the ICT department architecture. In doing so, it is very useful to draw on the international libraries of best practices (standards) and reference models for the ICT departments of the SCS, which will be progressively published in the Knowledge base.

To be completed after discussion with the expert community and published in the following issues of MŘICT and updated continuously in Knowledge base.

To be added after discussion with the expert community and published in future issues of MŘICT and updated continuously in Knowledge base.

As in all disciplines, in ICT VS a prerequisite for good governance is the knowledge and publication of the declared indicators (criteria) against which the results, i.e. the success of governance, are assessed.

The indicators for the evaluation of ICT VS are both national - contained in eGovernment strategy documents, and international, both cross-cutting best practice indicators (such as COBIT) and sectoral indicators for the informatisation of public administration and society as a whole.

Important national ICT performance indicators

• metrics to the ICCR objectives
• ICT Benchmark, as part of the benchmark for operational professions (property management, accounting, procurement and others).

International ICT performance indicators

• COBIT

International eGovernment performance indicators (indices)

• DESI - EU index,
• UN index and
• OECD index.

More information on the various available and recommended indicator systems, including tools for their practical application, will be maintained in the Knowledge base on an ongoing basis.

All management of ICT services for the delivery of public administration services and the operation of the Authority is carried out at four layers of architecture and service accountability, in order from the top:

• the business layer of the performance of the Authority's public administration services and the performance of the Authority's internal operational services,
• the information systems services layer, also called the application and data layer, providing application services to directly support the performance of business services,
• IT technology infrastructure layer, providing mainly platform technology services of computing power and storage space for applications,
• the communication and physical infrastructure layer, providing services for the location of technological elements and their interconnection with the external eGovernment network and the Internet.

This structure reflects the differing managerial and legal responsibilities for service delivery at each layer and is matrix-perpendicular to the responsibility of the Authority as a whole for each individual ISMS, which as a logical information system and functional unit is distributed just across these four layers of mutually supporting services.

The unambiguous cross-cutting responsibility for the services of each layer must be reflected in the respective positions and roles in the Authority, which are mainly the activities and procedures described in management at the level of the ICT OVS unit and cooperation with other units of the Authority and eGovernment.

Each IS and each ICT service is part of an OSS, the overall context of which must always be taken into account when making decisions. The whole of the OSS, like the whole public administration, or conversely any of its smallest parts, such as a single ICT department, can be most simply described as follows:

A model of a single view of all elements of public administration and each of its components.

The figure shows a depiction of the single model and its overall description within the public administration and each of its components, with the top level depicted in the symbolic form of a cube as a developed model.

All the internal and external activities of the OVS (blue office dimension) are designed to provide public administration services to the surrounding environment (yellow cloud) through a defined "official" interface of communication between the private and public environments. For this approach, the OVS needs a clear motivation why to provide services in a certain scope and in a certain way (orange dimension). To ensure this, it needs all the resources, which are people, knowledge, assets, institutional (legal) and financial security (green dimension).

Naturally, part of the above is the IT department itself, including its processes and ICT services in blue, its people, data, HW and SW, its budget in green and its rules, regulations and concepts in the orange part of the picture.

Time is also considered an important aspect, but this is not included in the model. As such, time flows objectively and independently and cannot be allocated or appropriated. However, the correct handling of time is an integral part of planning and management processes, and is an integral part of management decisions, and in many ways influences (positively and negatively) the priorities of all implemented and future changes.

A more detailed view of the overall office model is shown in the following Figure. Complete information on the overall model is published and maintained within NAP in Knowledge base

In accordance with the above model, the following applies⁷⁾ that the basic and necessary resource of VS in general, and thus of ICT services and eGovernment, is people. People who have knowledge, information and skills. But to be able to apply them, they must have: appropriate technologies and tools, assets, secured funding, and competences and motivation appropriate to the position/position held.

Similarly, the shaping of an authority's activities (what, how, why and how well it does) is the resultant of 4 interrelated motivational aspects:

• strategy (medium and long term strategic direction and management),
• performance and quality (management through measurable and pre-defined indicators),
• security (management of risk and vulnerability mitigation measures),
• compliance with regulations (law (including Community law), internal regulations (internal governing acts), sustainability rules and 3Es).

Public service performance also includes its cross-cutting management capability, comprising in particular the sub-capabilities corresponding to each of the components of motivation. From another perspective, these can be divided into:

• management; and
• oversight and control (governance)⁸⁾ , ⁹⁾.

All of the above aspects form a logical functional whole, in the case of failure or absence of one, eGovernment is only partially functional, by a geometric series of non-functional aspects it can then become completely dysfunctional.

In addition to technology, data and personnel, the OVS unit providing ICT services (whether outsourced or in-house) must have sufficient financial resources from the OVS budget.

For reasons of greater efficiency, the clients of the IT services (subject administrators, methodologists, legislators, etc.) should respect the time factor in their requests and assignments - i.e. deliver requests well in advance and respect deadlines for the final date of change implementation based on realistic and achievable scopes submitted by the specialist ICT services.

In summary, it can also be said that in today's very dynamic and electronically changing society, it is the IT department that is the bearer and implementer of the expected changes and benefits, its role cannot be further reduced and its budget reduced. The natural and organic increase of the ICT budget and other corresponding ICT resources should be seen as an investment in obtaining these benefits, whether in obtaining new qualities of public administration services, in achieving cost savings in the performance of these services or in saving unit costs in the performance of ICT services, see also Premises and background of ICT management.

Therefore, it is necessary to approach many ICT planning and management activities with this awareness of the investment in benefits and to use proportionately the ex-ante methods** (effective assessment of investment before expenditure), which are emphasised in this document.