ABSTRACT
The wave of information systems rolling across all aspects of government administration has brought change in its wake. This chapter looks at governmental responses to the change, by examining four consequences of using information systems to carry out governmental tasks. First, it examines the pressure that information technology places on governmental agencies to innovate. The pressure to innovate bears a cost: the cost of carrying out previously impossible tasks, or existent tasks to a greater capacity. The second section examines trends in government expenditure on information technology. The third section examines the central government agencies that have been used to regulate and control the use of information technology by departments and agencies. Finally, information technology has been promoted by enthusiastic modernists as an integrative tool which facilitates inter-agency working; the remainder of the chapter examines efforts by both governments to develop a technological infrastructure, through the co-ordination of separately developed computer applications.
