The Science and Technology Committee held a joint meeting today (Tuesday) with the Special Committee for Implementing Government Information Accessibility and Transparency to the Public, to examine whether government ministries have upgraded from fax machines to electronic mail and computerized services.
Transparency Committee Chairwoman MK Stav Shaffir presented data that emerged from an examination conducted by her office's staff, according to which: Out of 32 government ministries and bodies, 22 have an email for public inquiries, but only 11 ministries responded to inquiries by email. In other words, half of the ministries that have an email service did not respond to inquiries via it.
The inspection also revealed that the 10 offices that do not have email have computerized systems for contacting them as an alternative to email, but 4 of them do not allow you to attach a file as part of the inquiry.
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The chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, MK Uri Maklev, commented on the data: "An office that does not function digitally is also ineffective in other places. This is a service to the citizen that is part of a transparency process, and its absence directly leads to increasing gaps, when a person who does not have access to a fax machine - and there are quite a few of them - is simply stuck. We cannot ask the public to travel in reverse precisely in front of the government offices that are supposed to provide them with a service.".
MK Maklev concluded: "Our test will be in monitoring and following up on the streamlining and implementation of things. From now on, we will hold more focused discussions, in which we will examine each and every unit in light of its various services and their digital accessibility. Digital means are much more trackable, and we will ensure that monitoring is maintained until the desired results are achieved.".
Data from a practical test conducted for the various ministries was presented for discussion. Regarding ministries entrusted to Haredi hands, these are the results:
The Ministry of the Interior, headed by Shas Chairman Minister Aryeh Deri: the grade is 'V'.
The Ministry of Health headed by Minister Yaakov Litzman: Grade 'V'.
The Ministry of Religious Services headed by David Azoulay: Grade 'X''
