Academic literature on the topic 'Public Governance, Performance management, local area, System Dynamics'

The 12345 hotline service has become a widely accepted smart city governance system of citizen contact with the local authorities in Beijing and has enabled leaders to handle public complaints more effectively. However, there have been few studies on the performance of the 12345 hotline. This study, taking Beijing city as the study area, explains how this system improved urban problem management and the degree of improvement in different urban problem categories. First, we studied the quantity distribution of 12345 cases and the public’s top concerns. Then, based on the VAR model, we analyzed the specific dynamic influence process and degree of 12345 cases on UGMS cases, which reflect urban public problems. The main findings of this research are as follows: (1) Illegal parking/charging problems and issues with the city’s dirty conditions were the two primary concerns of the public. (2) The 12345 system hampered the increase in urban public problems with a lag of 3–5 days. (3) Exceptionally, for the construction management and market regulation categories, the hotline cases had no active effect on urban problem management. This paper can help city authorities to assess the strength and weakness of the 12345 system and decide on improvement plans for urban management.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the reasons behind the difficulties in implementing proper participatory environmental and water governance systems in the metropolitan region of Brasilia, Brazil. Design/methodology/approach – This work is a result of a the qualitative analysis of documents and reports of local participatory arenas in Brasilia, and is complemented by a set of 13 interviews held between November 2009 and March 2010 with a variety of actors involved in the promotion of sustainability in the region. Findings – The findings reveal that impediments to the good performance of environmental governance in the Federal District are a consequence to two main factors: institutional framework poorly transferred from the national level and incompatibility between the set of regulations and local electoral power dynamics. Research limitations/implications – As a consequence of the deliberate choice of one specific case, the conclusions of this paper may erroneously overemphasize the perils of participatory local governance rather than its potentials. Practical implications – By identifying a series of mechanisms that threaten positive partnerships between governments and civil society at the local level, this work serves as an important tool for public managers and civil society to engage in more fruitful partnerships. Originality/value – The paper provides a power-based analysis of a case of ineffectiveness of participatory mechanisms. In doing so, it also demonstrates that policy planning must be analysed from a variety of perspectives, and often involve coalitions that cut across the traditional state-society divide. The identification of the mechanisms behind the creation of these obstacles constitutes the originality and value of this paper.

Topicality. The dominance in the national economy of resource-intensive multifield technologies and the lack of a sound public policy governing the formation, accumulation, storage, recycling, disposal and disposal of waste has led to a critical situation characterized by the further development of environmental threats. The slow pace of adoption and implementation of legal norms regarding the introduction of innovative technologies by types of economic activity, the inefficient use of the nature of resource potential and the unpreparedness of the business environment to intensify the introduction of the innovative model of the "green" economy lead to deepening the ecological crisis and aggravation of the socio-economic situation in society. After all, the high level of waste generation and low rates of their use as secondary raw materials have led to the fact that in Ukraine, in the industrial and municipal sector, significant volumes of solid waste accumulate each year, of which only a small part is used as secondary material resources, the rest fall into landfills. This fact determines the need for reform and development, taking into account global experience of the entire legal and economic system that regulates the use of natural resources, since the difference in the situation in Ukraine, as compared with other developed countries, lies in large volumes of waste generation and lack of infrastructure for handling them. . The "green" economy is an inalienable and effective tool for activities in all areas of life, namely in the areas of transport, agriculture, waste management and energy. This is not only an opportunity but a compulsory development path for all countries and states, including the EU member states..Aim and tasks. The purpose of the article is to determine the instrumental principles of regulation and to ensure the economic development of the process of environmentalization of the national model of the "green" economy. In order to achieve this goal, the study of the genesis of theoretical concepts concerning the ecologization of the development of the national model of the green economy, the determination of normative and legal instruments for enhancing the establishment of the principles of cleaner production and the substantiation of the scientific provisions regarding the development of the organizational and economic scenario for the development of the national green economy model are presented.Research results. The institutional principles of ecologization of the development of the national model of the "green" economy are considered. It is determined that further economic growth depends on the formation of an effective innovation policy of the state, based on the latest scientific and technological achievements and the transfer of environmentally sound technologies; ensuring the transfer of scientific research into resource-saving, knowledge-intensive, small and non-waste technologies, competitive goods and services, and activating processes for the formation of an ecologically oriented business environment in accordance with the global challenges of world development. It is substantiated that at the present stage it is important to ensure maximum full realization of the economic potential of regions in the strategy of formation of high-performance ecological-economic system, which is possible only at the expense of the implementation of the course of the "green" economy. The directions and priorities of development of secondary resource use are determined, taking into account both modern real possibilities and long-term economic, social and environmental interests of society; wide introduction of public-private partnership, cooperation and cooperation in central and local executive authorities, local self-government bodies; scientific, technological and methodical provision of waste management on an innovative basis; a significant increase in the role of regions and civil society in the reform of waste management; provision of financing and implementation of certain measures to further improve the management of waste management on a traditional basis. Three groups of tools have been formulated to promote resource-efficient low carbon economic development, as well as to monitor the transition process: imperative, economic and dispositive tools.Conclusions. It is substantiated that the institutional mechanisms of institutionalization of the process of environmentalization of the Ukrainian national green economy model can be considered: the dynamics of institutional and legislative and regulatory reforms in Ukraine regarding the implementation of the green economy model in the state policy mechanism, the development of state and regional governance institutions, the transformation of social relations and modification of administrative management with saturation of its ecological dominant and development of measures for priority determination their segments of environmentalization of national development. It is determined that the concept of the development of the "green" economy should determine the economic component that cements the growth of economic potential in the sectoral section of the state, the social component that serves as the basis for improving the life support system of Ukraine and the ecological component that forms the basis for implementing an environmentally sound policy of the state. The said confirms the urgency and importance of the institutional provision to enhance the process of environmentalization of the Ukrainian national green economy model, which should include the main legislative regulations of the state environmental policy and the international tendencies of ecologization of social development on the basis of the "green" economy.

AbstractPerformance is a fundamental tool that improves results oriented on public administration. Performance management applications have become very popular in public institutions over the past 20 years. Direct accountability to the political institutions and the public is ensured by defining the performance of public administrations according to their organizational goals and objectives. Local governments are using performance management practices to assess the quality of public services offered. In the United Kingdom, performance management practices at the local level were promoted under the leadership of the central government. However, there cannot be a certain standardization or stability in performance management applications. The Best Value (BV) regime was applied primarily in England and Wales. The system was later applied in Scotland in 2003. In 2002, Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) Programme was introduced. Wales preferred to stay outside of this program. The Wales Programme for Improvement (WPI) has adopted self-assessment and holistic assessment. After 2009, the cost-effectiveness of local services was evaluated through comprehensive area assessments. This practice was abolished after 2010, adopting a governance approach based on the common negotiations of local actors. This study aims to evaluate the performance measurement systems applied in the local area in the United Kingdom.

The globalisation processes are expanding, making all the subjects of the global functioning system interdependent on each other. One of the pros of globalisation is the possibility to exchange goods and services between the subjects either on the global or regional levels. Such an exchange of goods and services is considered international trade. International trade is carried out in the forms of exports and imports. International trade influences any region’s economic functioning, including dynamics and volatility of economic growth as well as labour market performance. Public administration includes state governance (executed by the state authorities), regional and local governance (executed by the regional and local bodies of state power) and public governance (carried out by the non-state entities, NGOs, etc). The subject of international trade public administration to be paid attention at in this research is the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Ukraine, which is a non-governmental non-profit self-governing organization that unites legal entities and citizens of Ukraine registered as entrepreneurs, as well as their associations, on a voluntary basis. The regional structure of chambers of commerce includes the central Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Ukraine and 25 regional Chambers. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Ukraine a member of the International Chamber of Commerce and the World Federation of Chambers as well as the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry. The public administration of international trade effectiveness has been evaluated through its indirect impact on the regional performance in general. The amounts of Gross Regional Product for the regions of Ukraine and their shares of the Gross Regional Product have been visualised, analysed and compared. The subjects to use the research itself and its results have been defined and the prospects as well as the further research development limitations have been stated.

This paper deals with the recent reform-oriented measures in the area of national local policies. The just begun local autonomy in Korea now faces opportunities as well as serious challenges. The new developments are divided into four categories: 1) local politics and autonomy; 2) recent consolidation of local governments; 3) distribution of Government functions ; and 4) financial arrangement. The first section involves difficulties of independent local politics and local autonomy under strong culture of centralism. Local political elites are basically dependent upon the national politicians and the nomination as a candidate for local position is directly influenced by the central political machinery and national politicians. The last local election was severely hurt by national political issues. In addition, local animosities among several regions helped turn the political arrangement back to the old one, furthering the dependency of local politics. Nevertheless, it is evident that a new climate for autonomous governance in local society becomes high-spirited. The second section discusses the strength and weakness of the recent consolidation measures of local government which has been carried out nationwide. Majority of the lower - tier (basic) local governments' boundary have been expanded resulting in 230 local governments in number from 265. The upper-tier (widearea) local governments, whose number is 15, has readjusted their specific boundaries only. It may be claimed to facilitate managerial economies but technical efficiencies of specific local service delivery cannot be improved easily. To the worse, the consolidation cannot guarantee the healthy growth of local democracy. The third section deals with the bureaucratic struggle of government task redistribution after the introduction of local autonomy system. Because there is no clear principle of the division of labour between the three tiers of governments, bureaucratic politics takes larger share of the redistribution game. Although some tasks as been transferred to the local governments, the process seems very slow and the structure is not favorable to the local governments which are in weak position in the tug of war. The last section discusses the recent developments in the area of local tax, central-local financial coordination system in terms of central-local configuration. There are many skeptics who doubt whether local governments will have access to the administrative talents and financial resources essential to run the affairs of the country in truly decentralized way. In fact, there are relatively serious weaknesses in the financial management competence of local government officials. Decentralization advocates, however, assert that local financial resources should be expanded from the present 55% of total government sector money so that local governments carry out their present functions and tasks sufficiently.

The role and character of state institutions and the public sector are more directed to be oriented towards the community. This condition initially occurred in various developed countries, which then spread to developing countries. Of course, many factors caused this to happen, such as the economic and financial crisis of the state. Public administration reform towards public service is important enough to get attention and treatment as soon as possible. The dynamics of society as a social force cannot be ignored in the system of control and public accountability, both in service delivery and in the implementation of development. The purpose of this study is to find out the New Public Service paradigm as a new concept in administrative reform in the education, health and economic sectors of the local government. The results of the study indicate that public services in the education, health, and economic sectors of today's society are facing a trend towards the development of regional governance as a result of globalization and regional autonomy. In the management of local government, a change and renewal is needed so that the government can always accommodate the needs of change in society and enable public administration to reorganize people's lives. One of the trends in the need for public bureaucracy to reform is that local government bureaucracies must be more open in relation to the public interest. In other words, the local government bureaucracy can become more flexible so that it can more easily adapt to changing circumstances. With the administrative reform towards public service, it is hoped that it can encourage the realization of good governance, improve performance and improve unhealthy administrative practices.

Recent Trends and Future of Fog and Edge Computing, Services, and Enabling Technologies Cloud computing has been established as the most popular as well as suitable computing infrastructure providing on-demand, scalable and pay-as-you-go computing resources and services for the state-of-the-art ICT applications which generate a massive amount of data. Though Cloud is certainly the most fitting solution for most of the applications with respect to processing capability and storage, it may not be so for the real-time applications. The main problem with Cloud is the latency as the Cloud data centres typically are very far from the data sources as well as the data consumers. This latency is ok with the application domains such as enterprise or web applications, but not for the modern Internet of Things (IoT)-based pervasive and ubiquitous application domains such as autonomous vehicle, smart and pervasive healthcare, real-time traffic monitoring, unmanned aerial vehicles, smart building, smart city, smart manufacturing, cognitive IoT, and so on. The prerequisite for these types of application is that the latency between the data generation and consumption should be minimal. For that, the generated data need to be processed locally, instead of sending to the Cloud. This approach is known as Edge computing where the data processing is done at the network edge in the edge devices such as set-top boxes, access points, routers, switches, base stations etc. which are typically located at the edge of the network. These devices are increasingly being incorporated with significant computing and storage capacity to cater to the need for local Big Data processing. The enabling of Edge computing can be attributed to the Emerging network technologies, such as 4G and cognitive radios, high-speed wireless networks, and energy-efficient sophisticated sensors. Different Edge computing architectures are proposed (e.g., Fog computing, mobile edge computing (MEC), cloudlets, etc.). All of these enable the IoT and sensor data to be processed closer to the data sources. But, among them, Fog computing, a Cisco initiative, has attracted the most attention of people from both academia and corporate and has been emerged as a new computing-infrastructural paradigm in recent years. Though Fog computing has been proposed as a different computing architecture than Cloud, it is not meant to replace the Cloud. Rather, Fog computing extends the Cloud services to network edges for providing computation, networking, and storage services between end devices and data centres. Ideally, Fog nodes (edge devices) are supposed to pre-process the data, serve the need of the associated applications preliminarily, and forward the data to the Cloud if the data are needed to be stored and analysed further. Fog computing enhances the benefits from smart devices operational not only in network perimeter but also under cloud servers. Fog-enabled services can be deployed anywhere in the network, and with these services provisioning and management, huge potential can be visualized to enhance intelligence within computing networks to realize context-awareness, high response time, and network traffic offloading. Several possibilities of Fog computing are already established. For example, sustainable smart cities, smart grid, smart logistics, environment monitoring, video surveillance, etc. To design and implementation of Fog computing systems, various challenges concerning system design and implementation, computing and communication, system architecture and integration, application-based implementations, fault tolerance, designing efficient algorithms and protocols, availability and reliability, security and privacy, energy-efficiency and sustainability, etc. are needed to be addressed. Also, to make Fog compatible with Cloud several factors such as Fog and Cloud system integration, service collaboration between Fog and Cloud, workload balance between Fog and Cloud, and so on need to be taken care of. It is our great privilege to present before you Volume 20, Issue 2 of the Scalable Computing: Practice and Experience. We had received 20 Research Papers and out of which 14 Papers are selected for Publication. The aim of this special issue is to highlight Recent Trends and Future of Fog and Edge Computing, Services and Enabling technologies. The special issue will present new dimensions of research to researchers and industry professionals with regard to Fog Computing, Cloud Computing and Edge Computing. Sujata Dash et al. contributed a paper titled “Edge and Fog Computing in Healthcare- A Review” in which an in-depth review of fog and mist computing in the area of health care informatics is analysed, classified and discussed. The review presented in this paper is primarily focussed on three main aspects: The requirements of IoT based healthcare model and the description of services provided by fog computing to address then. The architecture of an IoT based health care system embedding fog computing layer and implementation of fog computing layer services along with performance and advantages. In addition to this, the researchers have highlighted the trade-off when allocating computational task to the level of network and also elaborated various challenges and security issues of fog and edge computing related to healthcare applications. Parminder Singh et al. in the paper titled “Triangulation Resource Provisioning for Web Applications in Cloud Computing: A Profit-Aware” proposed a novel triangulation resource provisioning (TRP) technique with a profit-aware surplus VM selection policy to ensure fair resource utilization in hourly billing cycle while giving the quality of service to end-users. The proposed technique use time series workload forecasting, CPU utilization and response time in the analysis phase. The proposed technique is tested using CloudSim simulator and R language is used to implement prediction model on ClarkNet weblog. The proposed approach is compared with two baseline approaches i.e. Cost-aware (LRM) and (ARMA). The response time, CPU utilization and predicted request are applied in the analysis and planning phase for scaling decisions. The profit-aware surplus VM selection policy used in the execution phase for select the appropriate VM for scale-down. The result shows that the proposed model for web applications provides fair utilization of resources with minimum cost, thus provides maximum profit to application provider and QoE to the end users. Akshi kumar and Abhilasha Sharma in the paper titled “Ontology driven Social Big Data Analytics for Fog enabled Sentic-Social Governance” utilized a semantic knowledge model for investigating public opinion towards adaption of fog enabled services for governance and comprehending the significance of two s-components (sentic and social) in aforesaid structure that specifically visualize fog enabled Sentic-Social Governance. The results using conventional TF-IDF (Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency) feature extraction are empirically compared with ontology driven TF-IDF feature extraction to find the best opinion mining model with optimal accuracy. The results concluded that implementation of ontology driven opinion mining for feature extraction in polarity classification outperforms the traditional TF-IDF method validated over baseline supervised learning algorithms with an average of 7.3% improvement in accuracy and approximately 38% reduction in features has been reported. Avinash Kaur and Pooja Gupta in the paper titled “Hybrid Balanced Task Clustering Algorithm for Scientific workflows in Cloud Computing” proposed novel hybrid balanced task clustering algorithm using the parameter of impact factor of workflows along with the structure of workflow and using this technique, tasks can be considered for clustering either vertically or horizontally based on value of impact factor. The testing of the algorithm proposed is done on Workflowsim- an extension of CloudSim and DAG model of workflow was executed. The Algorithm was tested on variables- Execution time of workflow and Performance Gain and compared with four clustering methods: Horizontal Runtime Balancing (HRB), Horizontal Clustering (HC), Horizontal Distance Balancing (HDB) and Horizontal Impact Factor Balancing (HIFB) and results stated that proposed algorithm is almost 5-10% better in makespan time of workflow depending on the workflow used. Pijush Kanti Dutta Pramanik et al. in the paper titled “Green and Sustainable High-Performance Computing with Smartphone Crowd Computing: Benefits, Enablers and Challenges” presented a comprehensive statistical survey of the various commercial CPUs, GPUs, SoCs for smartphones confirming the capability of the SCC as an alternative to HPC. An exhaustive survey is presented on the present and optimistic future of the continuous improvement and research on different aspects of smartphone battery and other alternative power sources which will allow users to use their smartphones for SCC without worrying about the battery running out. Dhanapal and P. Nithyanandam in the paper titled “The Slow HTTP Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Attack Detection in Cloud” proposed a novel method to detect slow HTTP DDoS attacks in cloud to overcome the issue of consuming all available server resources and making it unavailable to the real users. The proposed method is implemented using OpenStack cloud platform with slowHTTPTest tool. The results stated that proposed technique detects the attack in efficient manner. Mandeep Kaur and Rajni Mohana in the paper titled “Static Load Balancing Technique for Geographically partitioned Public Cloud” proposed a novel approach focused upon load balancing in the partitioned public cloud by combining centralized and decentralized approaches, assuming the presence of fog layer. A load balancer entity is used for decentralized load balancing at partitions and a controller entity is used for centralized level to balance the overall load at various partitions. Results are compared with First Come First Serve (FCFS) and Shortest Job First (SJF) algorithms. In this work, the researchers compared the Waiting Time, Finish Time and Actual Run Time of tasks using these algorithms. To reduce the number of unhandled jobs, a new load state is introduced which checks load beyond conventional load states. Major objective of this approach is to reduce the need of runtime virtual machine migration and to reduce the wastage of resources, which may be occurring due to predefined values of threshold. Mukta and Neeraj Gupta in the paper titled “Analytical Available Bandwidth Estimation in Wireless Ad-Hoc Networks considering Mobility in 3-Dimensional Space” proposes an analytical approach named Analytical Available Bandwidth Estimation Including Mobility (AABWM) to estimate ABW on a link. The major contributions of the proposed work are: i) it uses mathematical models based on renewal theory to calculate the collision probability of data packets which makes the process simple and accurate, ii) consideration of mobility under 3-D space to predict the link failure and provides an accurate admission control. To test the proposed technique, the researcher used NS-2 simulator to compare the proposed technique i.e. AABWM with AODV, ABE, IAB and IBEM on throughput, Packet loss ratio and Data delivery. Results stated that AABWM performs better as compared to other approaches. R.Sridharan and S. Domnic in the paper titled “Placement Strategy for Intercommunicating Tasks of an Elastic Request in Fog-Cloud Environment” proposed a novel heuristic IcAPER,(Inter-communication Aware Placement for Elastic Requests) algorithm. The proposed algorithm uses the network neighborhood machine for placement, once current resource is fully utilized by the application. The performance IcAPER algorithm is compared with First Come First Serve (FCFS), Random and First Fit Decreasing (FFD) algorithms for the parameters (a) resource utilization (b) resource fragmentation and (c) Number of requests having intercommunicating tasks placed on to same PM using CloudSim simulator. Simulation results shows IcAPER maps 34% more tasks on to the same PM and also increase the resource utilization by 13% while decreasing the resource fragmentation by 37.8% when compared to other algorithms. Velliangiri S. et al. in the paper titled “Trust factor based key distribution protocol in Hybrid Cloud Environment” proposed a novel security protocol comprising of two stages: first stage, Group Creation using the trust factor and develop key distribution security protocol. It performs the communication process among the virtual machine communication nodes. Creating several groups based on the cluster and trust factors methods. The second stage, the ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography) based distribution security protocol is developed. The performance of the Trust Factor Based Key Distribution protocol is compared with the existing ECC and Diffie Hellman key exchange technique. The results state that the proposed security protocol has more secure communication and better resource utilization than the ECC and Diffie Hellman key exchange technique in the Hybrid cloud. Vivek kumar prasad et al. in the paper titled “Influence of Monitoring: Fog and Edge Computing” discussed various techniques involved for monitoring for edge and fog computing and its advantages in addition to a case study based on Healthcare monitoring system. Avinash Kaur et al. elaborated a comprehensive view of existing data placement schemes proposed in literature for cloud computing. Further, it classified data placement schemes based on their assess capabilities and objectives and in addition to this comparison of data placement schemes. Parminder Singh et al. presented a comprehensive review of Auto-Scaling techniques of web applications in cloud computing. The complete taxonomy of the reviewed articles is done on varied parameters like auto-scaling, approach, resources, monitoring tool, experiment, workload and metric, etc. Simar Preet Singh et al. in the paper titled “Dynamic Task Scheduling using Balanced VM Allocation Policy for Fog Computing Platform” proposed a novel scheme to improve the user contentment by improving the cost to operation length ratio, reducing the customer churn, and boosting the operational revenue. The proposed scheme is learnt to reduce the queue size by effectively allocating the resources, which resulted in the form of quicker completion of user workflows. The proposed method results are evaluated against the state-of-the-art scene with non-power aware based task scheduling mechanism. The results were analyzed using parameters-- energy, SLA infringement and workflow execution delay. The performance of the proposed schema was analyzed in various experiments particularly designed to analyze various aspects for workflow processing on given fog resources. The LRR (35.85 kWh) model has been found most efficient on the basis of average energy consumption in comparison to the LR (34.86 kWh), THR (41.97 kWh), MAD (45.73 kWh) and IQR (47.87 kWh). The LRR model has been also observed as the leader when compared on the basis of number of VM migrations. The LRR (2520 VMs) has been observed as best contender on the basis of mean of number of VM migrations in comparison with LR (2555 VMs), THR (4769 VMs), MAD (5138 VMs) and IQR (5352 VMs).

The supply and demand management of rural public transport has gained an important place in Iran, given its decreasing trend over the last decade. Accordingly, an effective approach is to analyze stakeholders’ opinions in this field to identify the effective local solutions for increasing the share of this transport method. The used methodology was to design a mixed questionnaire, a part of which included fuzzy pairwise comparison, while, in its first layer, the variables were classified using rotary analysis. In the other two sections of the questionnaire, the respondents were asked to express their opinions regarding the questions in the form of qualitative and words cloud. According to the inquiries made from the users in 20 selected terminals of Iran providing services to more than 85% of rural passengers, the indicators were weighted and divided into two groups based on the rotary analysis. The weighted results obtained from the users’ opinions revealed that the safety, dynamics of incentive policies, and traffic system performance in the rural transport had the highest effects on the micro- and macro-level indicators. In the second section, based on the qualitative questions, a multivariate linear estimation model of the number of rural passengers was constructed. Moreover, in the third section, the users’ suggested keywords focused on policy-making, travel time optimization, quality of services, and safety. Both the second and third sections had an acceptable agreement with the pairwise comparisons. Given the vast area of Iran and the distance between the population centers in the country, the obtained solutions to increase the share of public rural road transport included reducing the desirability of travel with private cars in short rural distances through interaction with industrial towns around metropolises, along with providing such areas with special services to attract passengers to rural transport with occupational goals.

Unqualified Opinion (WTP) is the audit opinion that will be issued if the financial statements are considered to provide information that is free from material misstatement. This opinion became the dream of all local governments and even become a major performance indicator for the Inspectorate area. Nevertheless, the acquisition of the WTP opinion is still found to be contradictory to the welfare conditions of the people. This study qualitatively seeks to examine the need for an examination of financial governance that also includes indicators of people’s welfare. The hermeneutic method is used to analyze the welfare audit discourse that needs to be carried out by BPK so that each rupiah of local government expenditure is beneficial for the improvement of people’s welfare as well as in harmony with the WTP opinion obtained. The results of the research indicate that BPK needs to include welfare audit in the process of local government financial audit from planning, implementation, to reporting activities that concretely support the achievement of public welfare. Thus, the philosophical management of state/ regional finances is used openly, responsibly, and as much as possible for the welfare of the people can be realized. From the internal side of local government, it is necessary to strengthen the internal control system, as well as strict supervision from the Inspectorate. Keywords: Society Welfare Audit, Hermeneutical, Unqualified Opinion, Government External Audit Abstrak Opini Wajar Tanpa Pengecualian (WTP) adalah opini audit yang akan diterbitkan jika laporan keuangan pemerintah dianggap memberikan informasi yang bebas dari salah saji material. Opini ini menjadi idaman seluruh Pemerintah Daerah bahkan menjadi indikator kinerja utama bagi Inspektorat daerahnya. Namun demikian, perolehan opini WTP tersebut masih ditemukan berkontradiksi dengan kondisi kesejahteraan rakyat. Penelitian ini secara kualitatif berupaya mendalami perlunya pemeriksaan tata kelola keuangan yang juga mengikutsertakan indikator kesejahteraan rakyat.Metode hermeneutik digunakan untuk menganalisis wacana audit kesejahteraan yang perlu dilaksanakan oleh BPK agar setiap rupiah belanja pemerintah daerah bermanfaat bagi peningkatan kesejahteraan rakyat serta selaras dengan opini WTP yang diperoleh. Hasil penelitian menunjukan pemaknaan bahwa BPK perlu memasukkan audit kesejahteraan dalam proses pemeriksaan keuangan pemerintah daerah mulai dari kegiatan perencanaan, pelaksanaan, hingga pada pelaporan yang secara konkrit mendukung pencapaian kesejahteraan masyarakat. Dengan demikian, filosofis pengelolaan keuangan negara/ daerah dipergunakan secara terbuka, bertanggung jawab, dan sebesar-besarnya untuk kemakmuran rakyat dapat diwujudkan. Dari sisi internal pemerintah daerah, diperlukan penguatan atas sistem pengendalian internal, serta pengawasan yang ketat dari Inspektorat. Kata kunci: Audit Kesejahteraan Rakyat, Hermeneutika, WTP, Pemeriksaan Eksternal Pemerintah

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are playing an increasingly vital role in the daily lives of all communities by revolutionizing their working procedures and rules of governance. ICTs offer a unique opportunity for governing elite to overcome the crisis of representative democracy, as ICT and the Internet empower civil society to play its role more effectively and facilitate the performance of governments’ main function-serving the people who elect them (Misnikov, 2003). In the realm of government, ICT applications are promising to enhance the delivery of public goods and services to common people not only by improving the process and management of government, but also by redefining the age-old traditional concepts. Community networking groups and local government authorities are well placed to campaign for greater inclusion for all members of the community in the information society. Possible areas to target include the provision of technology at low or no cost to groups through community technology centres or out of hours school access. There are many possibilities and local government must take a significant role in these activities (Young, 2000). Information society is based on the effective use and easy access of information and knowledge, while ICT for development (or ICTD) is not restricted to technology itself but focusing on manifold development and diverse manifestations for the people to improve their well-being. ICTD has deep roots in governance, is part of governance and has effects on governance patters and practices at both central and local level. By recognizing these facts, UNDP focuses on technologies to end poverty at WSIS Cyber Summit 2003, and emphasizes on ways that new technologies can help lift more than one billion people out of extreme poverty (UNDP, 2003). Apart from the four Asian IT giants (Korea, Rep., Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, China, and Japan), most of the Asian countries have fallen under the “low access” category of the Digital Access Index. This has also been referred in the WSIS Cyber Summit 2003, until now, limited infrastructure has often been regarded as the main barrier to bridging the digital divide (ITU, 2003). Among the countries with ICT spending as share of their GDP, Sweden, UK, The Netherlands, Denmark, and France (8.63, 7.97, 7.39, 7.19, and 6.57% respectively during 1992-2001) remain at the top (Daveri, 2002, p. 9), while countries like Bangladesh, Greece, Mexico, Niger, and many more remain at the bottom (EC, 2001; ITU, 2003b; Miller, 2001; Piatkowski, 2002). In a similar research it has been found that in terms of average share of ICT spending GDP, New Zealand, Sweden, Australia, USA, and UK (9.3, 8.4, 8.1, 8.1, and 7.8% respectively during 1992-1999) were among the highest (Pohjola, 2002, p. 7), though most of the countries in the Asian and African regions remain below the average of 5%. The disadvantaged communities in the countries staying below average in ICT spending seem to be lagging in forming appropriate information-based economy and eventually fall behind in achieving proper e-government system. The e-government system in those countries need to enhance access to and delivery of government services to benefit people, help strengthen government’s drive toward effective governance and increased transparency, and better management of the country’s social and economic resources for development. The key to e-government is the establishment of a long-term dynamic strategy to fulfill the citizen needs by transforming internal operations. E-government should result in the efficiency and swift delivery and services to citizens, business, government employees and agencies. For citizens and businesses, e-government seems the simplification of procedures and streamlining of different approval processes, while for government employees and agencies, it means the facilitation of cross-agency coordination and collaboration to ensure appropriate and timely decision-making. Thus, e-government demands transformation of government procedures and redefining the process of working with people and activities relating to people. The outcome would be a societal, organizational, and technological change for the government and to its people, with IT as an enabling factor. E-government should concentrate on more efficient delivery of public services, better management of financial, human and public resources and goods at all levels of government, in particular at local level, under conditions of sustainability, participation, interoperability, increased effectiveness and transparency (EU, 2002). ICT brings pertinent sides more closely by prioritizing partnerships between the state, business and civil society. A few East European countries have became economically liberal with the high level of foreign direct investment per capita and at the same time became ICT-advanced regional leaders in terms of economic reform. These countries also present the region’s most vivid examples of partnerships and collaboration. They have clearly manifested the importance of the public-private partnerships, transparent bottom-up strategies, involvement of all stakeholders, total governmental support, capturing economic opportunities, and enabling electronic mediated businesses, responding to the challenges of globalization.