E-government in practice : an analysis of Australian local government websites

Local governments play an important role in moving forward towards the vision of a connected and responsive e-government. Although the vast majority of Australian local governments maintain Internet sites, are their websites effective to deliver government information and services? To answer this question, it is imperative that we evaluate the effectiveness of the information and services provided by government websites at the local level. This paper attempts to develop sets of criteria for evaluation of government websites at the local level and apply these to the 14 local government websites in the Great Western Sydney region in Australia. The objective of the research is to assess the current status of the different aspects of the local government websites