eGov Programmes

Objectives Web Services as the strategic technological enabler for cross-agency integration in the public sector.

Introduction:

The Government Web Services Exchange (GWS-X) is a central platform that enables the real time sharing of information and services among government agencies via web services. It also opens up the possibility of similar collaboration with the private sector in a secured environment.
 

Programme Details:

For all programmes to be added in, private or public agencies are allowed access after an authentication process. New services are then integrated into the Government Web Service Exchange (GWS-X), for them to be consumed by external party.

The first phase was completed in FY2006, where the technical platform was developed. The Government Web Service Exchange (GWS-X), and management framework/ policies to position Web Services as the strategic technological enabler for cross-agency integration in the public sector. 62 simple data Web Services (target deployment was 60 web services) have since been deployed by more than 10 public agencies to facilitate single-purpose exchanges of data relating to businesses, companies, licensing and land.

The next phase of development has been completed in FY10 to achieve the following objectives:

Implementation of composite government business Web Services, so that commonly used WOG contents on citizens and businesses can be centrally aggregated for sharing in the public sector via a single point (e.g. a ‘Citizens Transactions common Web Service' which centrally aggregates in real-time the transactions of a citizen across multiple agencies, so that the citizen can view all his transactions with the government at the My.eCitizen portal); and

Encourage agencies to embrace the use of Web Services as the preferred means for application-to-application integration, and to develop and deploy Web Services that will have high impact on operational efficiency and WOG service delivery by co-funding the Web Services development costs. These simple web services may also contribute as important sources for the composite business Web Services; and

Implement next phase of the technical platform with new capabilities (such as support for business processes workflow and Web Services transactions management) to support composite business Web Services that pull together business activities from different agencies and/or the private/ people sector to deliver a service of higher business value.
 

Benefits

Agencies enjoy economies of scale by leveraging on the composite business Web Services and the new Web Services provided by other agencies. They do not need to re-develop similar Web Services to aggregate information across different agencies.

Composite business Web Services model presents opportunities for service transformations that will enhance our service delivery. With one mouse-click, customers would be able to transact real-time with different government agencies and private companies.