Introduction

1. Effective e-Government Process Monitoring and Interoperation: A Case Study on the Removal of Unauthorized Building Works in Hong Kong

2. Introduction • Governments are looking for ICT to facilitate process co-ordination to improve service delivery • Typical characteristics • Complaints • Urgency • Monitoring of process • Case study: Removal of unauthorized building works in HK • serious problem • requires much resources and monitoring effort • Technical solution • Event-driven process collaboration (HICSS36) • Alerts (HICSS37) • Web services

3. Background • Building Ordinance - all building works require prior approval of plans and consent to commence works from Building Department (BD) - without approval => unauthorized building works (UBW) • As at 2003, more than 700,000 UBW • BD determines to remove UBW to safeguard public interest

4. Typical Workflows Procedures for cost recovery from owners Government contractor (GC) completes the removal works Procedures for enforcing s.24 orders BD certifies and makes payments to GC Identify buildings with UBW from complaints, large-scale operations and walking surveys BD issues Demand Notes (DN) to owners for cost recovery Conduct site inspection Yes BD issues a DN settled? compliance letter No Issue advisory No Yes Any serious BD serves an s.33 certificate to the debtor letter or no further Issue s.24 order defects? and registers the s.33 certificate with action the Land Registry (LR) BD refers a case (with unpaid balance >= pre-defined limit) to Department of Justice Yes Conduct Has the s.24 Issue compliance (DoJ) for recovery. DoJ will consider , where order been compliance letter appropriate, legal proceedings for the cases complied with? inspection BD issues and registers Yes with the LR a Debt settled? BD may consider Refer the case to the default Memorial of prosecution works consultant (DWC) Satisfaction action at the same No time DWC submits his supervision BD requires LR to notify it of any future proposal to BD dealings on the subject property BD/DoJ issues final warning letter before DWC supervises the expiry of time limits for legal action government contrctor to carry out the removal works BD/DoJ conducts final review 1 year before expiry of time limits for leagla action BD issues compliance letter to discharge the s.24 order BD proceeds to write off the debts BD to recover costs from owners

5. Requirements Overview Blitz contractors Default Works Contractor Site inspection team Collect information on UBW & provide inspection result Collect information on UBW & provide survey/inspection reports Collect information on UBW & provide supervision proposal Internet Monitor progress and workflow of UBW removal Confirm compliance with s.24 order Buildings Department Collect debt details Provide basic information of UBW Building owners and their contractors Provide ownership details Department of Justice Complainants The Land Registry

6. Existing problems • Monitoring process is very resources consuming and human intensive. • Records are kept on different paper-based files. • Exchange of data/information are mainly in paper format. • Cannot keep track of the necessary actions and generate reminders / alerts.

7. System Architecture & Design Land Registry Employees Department of Justice Internet Contractor Building Records Alert Status Information Management Monitor System System Building Collaboration Condition Process Information Enactor System ECA Rules, Scheduling Rules, Web Services Interface Inspection Record Event Event Repository, Event Subsciption System Adapter List Timer Contractor Requirement Monitoring Enforcer System

8. Event-driven process collaboration • Event-Condition-Action Rules On event if condition then action An event occurs, it triggers some rules. The condition parts of the rules will be evaluated. If condition is satisfied, the action part, which is a workflow, will be executed.

9. Enactment requirements (1) • Fulfill the workflow functions: • assign tasks to agents (people/systems) • retrieve information needed to complete a task • remind agents about their parts

10. Enactment requirements (2) Example • upon input of a complaint case, retrieve an approved building plan from BD’s legacy system, then notify the unit head.

11. Enforcement Requirements (1) • Facilitates exception detection and handling • Monitor becomes active only when an exception occurs • Exceptions: failure to find an agent for a task, failure to get information, missed deadlines, etc. • Temporal events, generated by timer, to detect non-fulfillment of action by a deadline

12. Enforcement Requirements (2) Example: Within N days after the expiry of S.24 order, a compliance inspection has to be performed.

13. Alert Management System • Responsible for sending alert messages, receiving reply, maintain alert status and logging information • Urgency of alert is a function of time

14. Web Services • Example Retrieve ownership details of the UBW from Land Registry

15. Process integration: Identification of UBW to issue of S.24 order Hotline Center UBWMS Unit head Inspection Team Retrieve approved Record a compliant Conduct building plan, S.24 preliminary review orders, etc. Yes Works approved? No Conduct site inspection Yes No Removal and complete action being insepction report taken? No Existence of UBW? Yes Endorse the Issue advisory letter recommendation for removal Retrieve ownership details from Land Registry Notify the result to Generate Removal the complainant Order (s.24 order)

16. Summary • Web services enables collaboration among service partners • ECA Rules in workflow process to fulfill enactment and enforcement requirements • AMS to monitor urgent and important tasks • Benefits to users, management and system developers

17. Future Work • Defining and allocating new responsibilities of different stakeholders – who handle what at different urgency levels • Capturing the engineering expertise for classifying urgency from the existing human process to the automation • Integrate disparate channels for reporting UBW in a call center portal • Applicability to other e-government and public administration applications • Workforce management • Security and privacy issues

18. Question and Answer Thank you!