Do Local Government Websites Meet The Minimum Criteria To Serve Their Purpose?

Despite the fact that Romania has one the highest number of IT professionals per capita in Europe and one of the fastest Internet speed in the world, the application of e-government in the Romanian public administration is still in its early development, and the country ranks poorly in most digital governance rankings. The local administration website is the most known e-governance tool promoted in Romania. Our aim is to investigate whether these tools meet the minimum criteria to increase citizen participation and governmental accountability as well as to build public trust. Taking as a framework the evaluation method used in the Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide study (Holzer et al, 2016), we propose three criteria for our assessment of the websites: Content and Usability; Services and Security; Citizen Engagement. These three criteria incorporate the essential components that assist local government in its ability to function in the most effective and efficient way. For each of these components, our research applied 8 to 18 measures and each measure was coded on a scale of five points (0, 1, 2, 3,4).Using a randomized sample of cities, town and communes, we analyze 343 websites and generate an average and a composite score for each one. Although Romanian local public administration made a significant progress in embracing information and communication technology to diversify communication channels with citizens, our study suggests that most websites of local governments are underdeveloped in terms of citizen participation and usability criteria. The study concludes that Romanian local governments need to dedicate more effort and resources in website development to meet the minimum criteria needed to provide citizens with the ability to seek and receive administrative services. Keywords: E-Governance, Local administration, Romania