Widespread interest in the information society - Prime Minister's Best Practices Award attracts plenty of entries

By the time the deadline of 10 September 2004 came round, a total of 266 entries had been registered for the Prime Minister's Best Practices Award and the competition for high-quality Internet services in public administration, organized by the Ministry of Finance.

The competition for the Prime Minister's Best Practices Award is seeking practices that promote the Information Society and presenting prizes to the best ones it finds. As part of the competition process, a quality contest is being organized for Internet services in public administration. The prizes will be awarded by Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen at a special event to be held in November.

The most popular sections of the competition turned out to be training and studies, social welfare and health, and electronic commerce. A total of 68 Internet services from central government, local authorities and public administration have been entered in the competition and these will be assessed using a set of criteria for public Internet services that was published in the spring.

The entries for the Best Practices Award can be viewed at www.tietoyhteiskuntaohjelma.fi/parhaatkaytannot and a list of the Internet services entered in the public administration Internet services competition can be found at www.laatuaverkkoon.fi.

The idea of giving prizes for best practices is to increase public awareness of good practices that already exist, promote the spread of good practices associated with the information society throughout the entire community, and encourage innovation and further development of current practices. It is to be hoped that the competition will also make it easier for innovations to reach an international market.

The purpose of the public administration Internet services competition is to showcase top-quality Internet services and solutions that are functional and useful from the point of view of citizens. High-quality services, such as improved user-friendliness, will increase the use of Internet services and boost productivity in the provision of services in the public sector.

The good practices and high-quality Internet services that do well in the competition will be actively marketed in Finland and abroad.

Further information: Ville-Veikko Ahonen, Administrative Officer, Prime Minister's Office, tel: +358 9 1602 2364 and Marjukka Ala-Harja, Special Adviser, Ministry of Finance, tel: +358 9 1603 3231.

Further information on the Government Information Society Programme, the Information Society Council and the Prime Minister's Best Practices Award is available at: www.infosoc.fi.

Further information about the competition for high-quality Internet services in public administration, plus a list of entrants and judges, is available at: www.laatuaverkkoon.fi. (in Finnish and in Swedish).