Aki Alanne
email: aki.alanne@tut.fi

Pasi Hellsten
email: pasi.hellsten*@tut.fi

Samuli Pekkola
email: samuli.pekkola@tut.fi

Iiris Saarenpää
email: iiris.saarenpaa@tut.fi

Three Positives Make One Negative: Public Sector IS Procurement

Keywords: public sector procurement, information systems procurement, case study

The requirement specifications are centric in the IS acquisition process, also in public sector. In addition to the regulatory factors multiple stakeholders are often involved in the procurement process. Yet their expertise varies and is often limited to a narrow sector or a specific field. For this paper, we conducted a single case study on an IS acquisition in a middle-sized city. The function nominated a project manager for the project, with little if any prior experience of IS or of their acquisition. The counterpart in the CIO's office had that knowledge but had little domain knowledge about the requirements. The third party involved was the Procurement and Tendering office. Having specialized in serving the variety of functions in that particular field, the specific areas become inevitably omitted. All three parties argued that their requirements specifications were good, if not great. We observed how such a trident, having reported successful completion of their duties, still missed the point. The tendering resulted in little short of a disaster; two projects were contested, and lost in the market court.

Introduction

Public procurement refers to the acquisition of goods and services to the public sector organizations [START_REF] Hommen | Public procurement and innovation: towards a taxonomy[END_REF]. In IS context, public sector organizations differ fundamentally from private organizations [START_REF] Caudle | Key information systems management issues for the public sector[END_REF]: they have to simultaneously acquire the best possible IS and comply with public procurement regulations [START_REF] Moe | Limits of public procurement: information systems acquisition[END_REF]. This is not, however, easily accomplished [START_REF] Moe | Challenges in information systems procurement in the public sector[END_REF].

In the public sector, a major hindrance in the way to successful IS acquisition is the lack of know-how in the acquisition process [START_REF] Moe | Research on Public Procurement of Information Systems: The Need for a Process Approach[END_REF]. It can cause severe consequences. For example, the vendor might not be knowledgeable what the customer really wants and/or needs, while the customer might assume the vendor is offering a strange solution, creating ungrounded mistrust towards the vendor. Incompetent, inexperienced, or careless preparation and construction of the requirements result, most likely, foreboding tendering and procurement [START_REF] Johansson | Requirement Specification in Government IT Procurement[END_REF]. Even though the acquisition process is successfully completed, there might be repercussions and unexpected consequences. For example, it is not uncommon that the party having lost in the competition may use these obscurities to complain about the proceedings to the market justice. This may halt the entire procurement process, so that no organization is able to reach its goals or gain desired advantages.

These simple examples highlight that IS procurement is a complicated process. Studies focusing especially on public sector procurement have also pinpointed the challenges. In addition to "typical" challenges of exceeding schedules and budgets or failing the objectives, public sector specific challenges such as specifying the requirements early on for tendering [START_REF] Moe | Research on Public Procurement of Information Systems: The Need for a Process Approach[END_REF], [START_REF] Moe | Limits of public procurement: information systems acquisition[END_REF], and coping with the conflicting needs and objectives of different stakeholders [START_REF] Boyne | Public and private management: what's the difference?[END_REF]- [START_REF] Virtanen | Team leaders' perceptions in the renewing of software production process[END_REF] are common. Even though these problems are well known, IS literature on public procurement seems to be lacking theoretical foundation and empirical evidence [START_REF] Moe | Challenges in information systems procurement in the public sector[END_REF], [START_REF] Johansson | Requirement Specification in Government IT Procurement[END_REF]. In the literature, the process of public sector IS procurement is often described in rather simplified fashion, or the focus is on one particular task, not on the process on general level [START_REF] Moe | Research on Public Procurement of Information Systems: The Need for a Process Approach[END_REF]. Similarly, with few exceptions, the stakeholders involved are considered often on organizational level -even though there may be several distinct parties within each organization, or the focus has been one specific stakeholder group [START_REF] Rowley | e-Government stakeholders-Who are they and what do they want?[END_REF]. As Moe and Päivärinta [START_REF] Moe | Challenges in information systems procurement in the public sector[END_REF] put it: "more research is needed on issues such as stakeholder management and on balancing different goals without asking for more than is needed. The interplay between procurers and vendors in public procurement has not previously been much researched. " (p. 318).

To answer this call, we conducted a qualitative, in-depth case study [START_REF] K L E I N A N D | A s e t o f p ri nc i p l e s f o r c o nd u c t i ng a nd evaluating interpretive field studies in information systems[END_REF], [START_REF] Yin | Case study research: Design and methods[END_REF] of a public procurement process where multiple stakeholders are participating in the procurement process in its different phases. The project personnel were very confident that they had one of the best requests for tenders they have ever made, yet the case resulted in a disaster. We will thus answer to following question: "How stakeholders participating in the public procurement influence the tendering?" In this paper, we will thus reveal the complex process behind public procurement and identify the stakeholders and their roles. This allows us to better understand the challenges, analyze the issues leading to the problems and potential success, and explain how those emerge in practice.

The paper is organized as follows. First, related research on public procurement, its challenges, and stakeholders is shortly illustrated. Second, research settings, methods, and findings are presented. Finally the findings are discussed and conclusion drawn.

Related Research

Public procurement refers to a process of acquiring goods or services for government or public organization through buying or purchasing [START_REF] Hommen | Public procurement and innovation: towards a taxonomy[END_REF]. It differs from the private sector procurement, even though the differences may not always be radical [START_REF] Caudle | Key information systems management issues for the public sector[END_REF], [START_REF] Boyne | Public and private management: what's the difference?[END_REF]. For example, the ownership of the private business lies within a limited number of entrepreneurs and/or shareholders while the public organizations are collectively owned by members of political communities, individuals in the society [START_REF] Boyne | Public and private management: what's the difference?[END_REF]. Furthermore, public organizations are typically funded mainly by taxation. They are thus less likely to be affected by the changing market forces than, for example, stock listed private organizations [START_REF] Flak | Stakeholder governance: Adapting stakeholder theory to e-government[END_REF]. Similarly control mechanisms vary between public and private sector. While the economic system defines the constraints for private organization, public organizations are affected by rules imposed by political means. In addition, public organizations seldom have direct competitors offering similar services [START_REF] Boyne | Public and private management: what's the difference?[END_REF]. Information systems as the subject of procurement is different than more standardized goods or services [START_REF] Moe | Challenges in information systems procurement in the public sector[END_REF]. The organization acquiring the system must often consider alternatives that may not be simply comparable or their differences easily evaluated. Also a standard system seldom fits with the public organization's needs so customization is almost surely needed. Outsourced development obviously stresses this issue, and calls for intensive cooperation and communication as the external stakeholders may not be familiar with the context. This nevertheless applies to internal parties as well. For example CIO's office may not be able to understand the use context. Consequently systems requirements may neither be clear at the beginning or in early phases of the procurement, e.g. in tendering, yet the scope and requirement related decisions must already been made [START_REF] Saarinen | Procurement strategies for information systems[END_REF]. The procurement process itself, payment model and standard government contracts holds several pitfalls and limitations. If those are too rigid, they will limit the vendors' interests to make tenders, and further to engage in the projects. This would, in turn, reduce competition, and provide less viable options for the customer organization. In other words, this will not allow the procurer to get the optimal price or quality [START_REF] Moe | Limits of public procurement: information systems acquisition[END_REF], [START_REF] Doshi | The new OGC guidance: The future roadmap for government IT procurement[END_REF]. Procurement process itself and tendering are highly regulated. For example, in EU and EEA countries the call for tenders must be publicly, either nationally or EU wide, announced when certain threshold values at the acquisition are exceeded. Particularly public sector related problems are the lack of in-house experience and competence about the acquisition in general, poor understanding about the IS or technology, or the lack of resources to create high-quality and valid specifications [START_REF] Moe | Limits of public procurement: information systems acquisition[END_REF]. Especially in IS procurement, the requirement specification is a crucial element, which is nevertheless very challenging to compose. Due to the regulations and pre-determined procurement process, the requirements need to be specified before announcing the request for tenders. Under the circumstance they are often done without a clear idea about what are the possibilities of different alternatives [START_REF] Moe | Challenges in information systems procurement in the public sector[END_REF]. This makes it possible that the acquisition or its' scope are incorrect. The result may even prove to be that a wrong system is acquired [START_REF] Moe | Limits of public procurement: information systems acquisition[END_REF]. This proactive determination of the requirements and scope causes difficulties in finding a suitable assessment and evaluation criteria [START_REF] Moe | Challenges in information systems procurement in the public sector[END_REF]. In the words of Moe and Päivärinta [START_REF] Moe | Challenges in information systems procurement in the public sector[END_REF], "transparency for ensuring fair competition between vendors is clearly a public-sector-specific challenge; private firms can be more pragmatic on these issues" (p.316). In the public sector, multiple different stakeholders with divergent and conflicting objectives are often involved [17, p. 4]. This makes the procurement inherently complex. Abovementioned characteristics frame this; numerous stakeholders have a variety of wishes, needs and objectives, all waiting to be satisfied [START_REF] Boyne | Public and private management: what's the difference?[END_REF]. Stakeholders participating in the public projects are, however, case-specific and unique, or only partly the same to each situation. This makes the application of general frameworks for analysis difficult. This has been a motivation for different stakeholder studies [START_REF] Flak | Analyzing stakeholder diversity in G2G efforts: Combining descriptive stakeholder theory and dialectic process theory[END_REF], [START_REF] Pan | Information systems project abandonment: a stakeholder analysis[END_REF]. Still it should be noted that public organizations often have other identical entities to cooperate with, e.g. other municipalities [START_REF] Moe | Challenges in information systems procurement in the public sector[END_REF]. The number and variety of stakeholders within and across the organizations make public procurement challenging. Their demands and objectives may be in conflict with each other. Satisfying all of them may not be possible, or at least requires much additional effort. In addition, public organizations themselves tend have more ambiguous goals, practices and responsibilities [START_REF] Boyne | Public and private management: what's the difference?[END_REF], [START_REF] Pan | Information systems project abandonment: a stakeholder analysis[END_REF]. Consequently different IS features may be treated differently, as the parties may understand their work tasks, divisions of labor, and responsibilities dissimilarly, or even the objectives or focus points may differ between the supplier and the buyer. For example, the parties may not have a unified view on organizational boundaries and related responsibilities. In addition, there are at least three types of organizational goals to consider, namely regulatory, commercial, and socio-economic. Pursuing all these may lead to conflicts, while overemphasizing one at the cost of others may have adverse effects. [START_REF] Erridge | Public procurement, public value and the Northern Ireland unemployment pilot project[END_REF], [START_REF] Thai | Public procurement re-examined[END_REF] The accuracy and level of detail of the requirement specification is also linked to the stakeholders' conflicting interests. For example, the procurer side prefers and strives for a complete and clear specification, while the vendors would like to have more freedom in order to present their qualities and possibilities not mentioned in the request [START_REF] Moe | Challenges in information systems procurement in the public sector[END_REF], [19]. Technically speaking, the procurement gets difficult and complicated when the target system needs to fit with the customer's current IT portfolio. The integration and compatibility of different systems has been identified as a challenge as public organizations have multiple systems bridging a wide range of sectors and services [START_REF] Moe | Challenges in information systems procurement in the public sector[END_REF] and little knowledge how to articulate this [START_REF] Lemmetti | Understanding Enterprise Architecture: Perceptions by the Finnish Public Sector[END_REF]. Defining project success is challenging. There is no universal definition for success, but the evaluation of different features varies between the viewpoints [START_REF] Al-Turki | An exploratory study of ERP implementation in Saudi Arabia[END_REF]. For example, the features denoting success include the project's timely delivery or staying within the budget frames. However, these features judge whether the project is successful only in a simplified manner by observing the procedure and effects of procurement [START_REF] Hsu | Impacts of ERP systems on the integrated-interaction performance of manufacturing and marketing[END_REF]- [START_REF] Spathis | Assessing the benefits of using an enterprise system in accounting information and management[END_REF]. The success may also be defined by using other measures. For example, improved organizational information integration, better decision making, and improved inter-organizational communications and/or decreased operational bottlenecks (ibid.). The question remains whether the absence of any one of these factors is enough to declare the project a failure. There may be distinguished different levels of success [START_REF] Heeks | Information systems and developing countries: Failure, success, and local improvisations[END_REF] or, according to a more pessimistic view, an inevitable failure [START_REF] Gargeya | Success and failure factors of adopting SAP in ERP system implementation[END_REF]. Despite previously mentioned studies on stakeholders, much work is still to be done. Moe [START_REF] Moe | Research on Public Procurement of Information Systems: The Need for a Process Approach[END_REF] suggests that there is a need for research on how different stakeholders manage and cope with potentially conflicting interests. Flak et al. [START_REF] Flak | Analyzing stakeholder diversity in G2G efforts: Combining descriptive stakeholder theory and dialectic process theory[END_REF] conclude that the dominant approach of putting the focal organization, i.e. the service procurer, in the nexus of stakeholders is insufficient when the conflicts are addressed. Future work should thus incorporate the relationships between all stakeholders involved in the project. On the other hand, due to lack of research, more focus should also be put on the vendor in the procurement process, for example in its tendering phase [START_REF] Moe | Research on Public Procurement of Information Systems: The Need for a Process Approach[END_REF].

The single case study [START_REF] Yin | Case study research: Design and methods[END_REF] behind this paper focuses on a social welfare sector of a city of over 200 000 inhabitants. The sector of social services, Home care unit, lists over 830 000 visits and treatment cases a year with over 2000 clients. The clients have various needs; some need attention only in delivering the medication whereas others need more concrete assistance such as heavy lifting, cooking, and handing out medication. Some clients need multiple daily visits while others require less attention. The clients are scattered around the city (surface area 689,6 km² divided into four care areas). Similarly to clients, the employees, i.e. the nursing staff, have different limitations. Some are entitled to hand out medication while others may not be permitted to do heavy lifting. The employees are divided into mutually supplementing teams. The complexity of the settings presents the management with challenges. It became suggested that modern ICT might offer a solution to these. Before the procurement process started, at the beginning of every work shift, the nurses had to visit the central office to receive the latest information about the route of the day, the clients to be visited, keys to their houses, etc. During the home care process, the nurses may receive urgent calls, so they adjust the route accordingly. The shift ends by visiting the office to leave the keys and to report the day. Until recently, a person has been employed to monitor the daily situation and to plan the route and activities. As IT was perceived to ease the planning and execution of these tasks, the CIO's office decided to act. The procurement project begun. The city uses a so-called purchaser/provider -model in its acquisitions. This model means effectively that the actual provider of the services, i.e. Home care unit, does not concern so much whether and how much care is needed for their individual clients as there is an organization to define the needs. This consists of health care, welfare and social service specialists. They visit the possible client in his/her house to study and to define the circumstances and the specifics of the need for care. When they have drawn a plan, they place an order for the care, and leave it with the Home care unit, which then takes the matter as a part of their routine. The qualitative data was collected by semi-structured interviews. First the key persons for the IS procurement project were suggested by our contact person. Further interviewees were invited by their suggestions, i.e. snowball sample was used [START_REF] Atkinson | Accessing hidden and hard-to-reach populations: Snowball research strategies[END_REF]. In total eleven interviews, listed in Table 1, were conducted face-to-face at the case organization premises. All the interviews were recorded and transcribed. The interview themes covered issues related to initiation of the project, available resources and stakeholders, contracting and legal agreements, procurement process and communication, and the evaluation of the success. The data analysis followed interpretive research approach [START_REF] Walsham | Doing interpretive research[END_REF]. Two researchers went through the material several times to gain an overview of the procurement process, stakeholders involved, and different challenges, and to gather all relevant details. Process diagrams and stakeholder maps were drawn to visually aid the interpretations. These visual maps were further Due to the size of these visualizations and space limitations, they are omitted from this paper. Finally the findings were compared to the literature.

Findings

As a public sector organization in European Union, the case organization has to obey the Act on Public Contracts declaring that all acquisitions exceeding the sum of 30 000 Euros, a call for bids is to be placed in a public forum. Then all interested parties are able to inspect the bids, and a place a tender if found appropriate. The process how the procurement is initiated and how the proceedings happened is described next.

The procurement project roughly follows the generic public procurement process [START_REF] Moe | Research on Public Procurement of Information Systems: The Need for a Process Approach[END_REF]. The project was initiated by a business unit (see Table 2). An initial project idea was proposed to the city's CIO's office. The initiative was stored in a centralized repository for initial projects and project ideas to be evaluated later. Each year, after the city's annual budget is released, the repository is reviewed. The projects were assessed and graded according to several criteria, such as criticality and cost-benefit analysis, and the number of citizens affected when the system would be in use. The evaluation was done by the development and steering group for the welfare services. The group constituted members from CIO's office and stakeholders from different functions related to welfare services. CIO's office decided that a pre-study is needed before final proposal acceptance. A third party consultant was hired to conduct it. CIO's office reviewed their report, and development and steering group officially sanctioned the actual project. A coordinator from the CIO's office, and a steering group were thus appointed. The steering group consisted of the coordinator from the CIO's office, and decision makers from both the purchaser and the provider functions. A project team was also set. In addition to the project coordinator, a person from the Home Care Unit was appointed as a project manager.

".. they set off to find a project manager, while the CIO's office's project coordinator was already working on the project plan.." [Project manager, Home care unit]

The project manager from the Home Care Unit was a civil servant with no prior experience of IS outside the actual use or their acquisition, who, in her own words, "hopped onto a moving train". With some support from the CIO's office, the project manager started to write a detailed requirements specification document for the call for bids.

"..as the pre-study was there.. with some preliminary requirements.. We started the actual project hastily with the requirements matrix.." [Project manager, Home Care Unit]

The requirement specification work proceeded. The project was first divided into two sub-projects; a system for workflow optimization and tasks related to division of labor, and secondly an electronic door opening system to grant the nursing staff entrance into the buildings without bunch of physical keys. Even though the projects were treated separately, they were tightly connected as the systems were supposed to be integrated. An agreement specialist with a good grasp of tendering from the CIO's office was then consulted if his/her expertise was needed. The tendering specialist argued that sometimes, in some projects, the process and the outcome of the tendering competition is clear from the beginning:

"..sometimes it is possible to know already at the beginning that a complaint will be filed as qualitative measures are not easy to define in a manner that they leave no room for argumentation or objection" [Agreement specialist, CIO's office]

In this case, no such possibility was deemed likely, although there were signs that should the decision not favor a certain party, there might be repercussions.

"..plaintiff's contract in another area was discontinued. We knew that if this vendor does not get chosen now, they will file a complaint no matter what. And so they did." [Agreement specialist, CIO's office]

The call for bids was published in a public forum. In due course, the bids were received, and an acquisition decision was made. A small company (50 employees, in September 2013), claiming to be able to provide the features in the needed scope for the best price, was selected as an enterprise system provider. However, a complaint was filed in market court due ambiguity in requirement specifications. Similarly an electronic door system provider was chosen. However, the timing was unfortunate as there was a shift in the dominant design [START_REF] Suarez | Battles for technological dominance: an integrative framework[END_REF], [START_REF] Abernathy | A dy namic model of process and product innovation[END_REF] of the handheld appliances and the technologies used for this type of operation. It turned out that the technology (Symbian) upon which the applications were designed for, was becoming obsolete.

"Providers had not developed software for any other system but Symbian and both of the providers announced how long it will take to develop them.." [Project manager, Home Care Unit] Both sub-projects were consequently put on a hold, one for the complaint and the other for technology change, until new directions were identified and assessed. The providers evaluated the significance of the technological change to their products (the optimization and electronic door system), and expressed their will to develop their product further as alternative technologies were recognized.

The negotiations continued. The door opening system provider announced that they could not be able to deliver the systems for the agreed price nor with required features.

"..we didn't have a glue that then the providers don't actually know how to count all their expenses for a fixed price, and then compete so brutally that they, on a way, give underpriced tenders so that they are not committed to the win tendering.." [Agreement specialist, CIO's office]

The original winner declined to sign the contract. After lengthy negotiations with the winning party no solution was found. The city thus signed a contract with the second runner-up. However, then the original winner filed a complaint. For the door opening system, the city appealed to higher legal assistance about the decision. However, due to time pressures, a solution was needed immediately. Again the door opening systems was promoted with the second runner-up on a provisional agreement. Later also this received sentence in favor of the plaintiff declining the city the possibility to continue with the provisional actions.

The enterprise system tendering would have needed to be re-opened. However, as the city owned shares of National Centralized Purchasing organization (NCP), this gave the city a chance to evade public procurement process as the NCP had done the competitive bidding in forehand on behalf of the municipalities. They were thus able to acquire the sy stem through the NCP from the original w inne r, the one they preferred, without tendering and violating the procurement ruling.

However, its optimization solution did not meet the city's needs and requirements. NCP is an integrator of various services offered to all public sector organizations. NCP's expertise and experience is on procurement in general with offerings based on general level specifications, not on any particular field of operations. Even inside in a municipality, there are dissimilar processes, practices, needs, and requirements. For example even though the work of Home care unit is controlled by the law and is basically the same in every municipality, the cities have different process models and needs for route optimization. Obviously also the size of the municipality and the number of the users and customers of the future system varies. In our city, the system was expected to optimize the routes, users, and customer incidents well beyond the number of cases which it was tested and found suitable. The optimization algorithms were not entirely on a level that was needed and advertised by the producing company. In other words, the complexity of the optimization and the systems requirements differ significantly between the cities.

"Depending on the geographical features of the city, route optimization and logistically reasonable route is, for some cities, more important issue in planning a care person's day than for others. For some cases, the most important feature is the person's primary care person. Between the boundaries, there are various whishes depending on the city's operations ideology and how efficiently they want to use their resources" [Project Manager, Supplier/Vendor] The process in public bidding turned out to have unexpected outcomes; market court interpreted the law and declared both cases for unjustified and unlawful for the city. The interpretation is not always unambiguous, but leaves room for individual reading of the situation. This skill of preparing for the tendering is to be trained, but seldom can it be fully obtained without having paid the dues.

Discussion

There were several challenges in the project. The most significant ones are: lack of individual skills and knowledge about the acquisition, the complexity of the acquisition network and the number of participating stakeholders, difficulties in allocating the most suitable resources for the project, and the ambiguity of the overall tendering process and legislation.

The number of stakeholders in the city alone was large. Three main entities were Home care unit and the project manager, CIO's office and the coordinator, and the Procurement and tendering office. The project manager knew the work of home care unit and their needs by heart. Yet she was not knowledgeable about IS in general or its acquisition. Meanwhile the coordinator knew IS, technologies, technical terms, and something about the procurement, but he was not the domain specialist. Procurement and tendering office knew how to run through procurement projects, but knew nothing about home care or dedicated IS. This means that although the participants had all vital knowledge, it was scattered across the network of actors. The lack of individuals' skills on different areas was expected to be compensated by the group work. But, the lack of skills in cooperating in this manner prevented knowledge sharing. The problems in knowledge sharing and group work were multiplied by the lack of resources. All but one of the stakeholders were working in other projects, and even this person had duties from the 'real job', so they were running the acquisition project as part-time. Hence, reviewing the documents, requirements, bids, and tenders was most likely done in hurry, with an extensive trust on others that they are able to spot possible mistakes and traps. Yet, as the comprehensive understanding about the acquisition process and its objectives was missing and fragmented across three parties, it was impossible to do this. The lack of knowledge about the acquisition was severe. The ambiguity of the tendering process and legislation was also evident. Before the call for bids w as out, even before the firs t call for market court, all the city 's interviewees claimed that this would be a success case without any problems. Yet there were not only one, but two plaintiffs, one for both areas of acquisition. Why such surprises? Retrospectively speaking, as no one had a holistic understanding about the case or how it will proceed, all the city's participants believed, from their individual viewpoints, that this is a clear, easy assignment. External incidents, such as technological change or a cancellation of earlier contract, resulted in urgent and unexpected pressures to readjust and change the acquisition process one way or the other. Due to time pressures and lacks of knowledge and skills, the parties were not able to prepare and react appropriately and accordingly. These findings are not novel in general level. Earlier literature review points out that all of these have been identified earlier [START_REF] Moe | Challenges in information systems procurement in the public sector[END_REF], [START_REF] Moe | Research on Public Procurement of Information Systems: The Need for a Process Approach[END_REF], [START_REF] Moe | Limits of public procurement: information systems acquisition[END_REF], [START_REF] Boyne | Public and private management: what's the difference?[END_REF], [START_REF] Pan | Information systems project abandonment: a stakeholder analysis[END_REF], [START_REF] Erridge | Public procurement, public value and the Northern Ireland unemployment pilot project[END_REF]. Yet, as the case illustrates, there are finer level of details here. Instead of generalizing the customer as one organization, there are several smaller sub-organizations within the customerorganization. Similarly to customer-vendor relationship, also these sub-organizations have their own skills and resources, perhaps even objectives, which evidently have an impact on their collective work. In this case, although the coordinator, the project manager, and the Procurement and tendering office, among other stakeholders, were all working together towards a common goal, their inadequate cooperation and knowledge sharing led to fragmented views on the acquisition project. Three positives became one negative. Some lessons can be drawn:

The project manager's role is crucial to the success of the outcome. The zest and energy the person makes or breaks the case.

Acquiring appropriate knowledge and skills is not an evident or easy task. It is not enough just to gather the expertise together, but to utilize it in a manner that different areas complement each other comprehensively, without forgetting the overall picture.

The stakeholders form a complex network. Understanding and exploiting this network and its skills and expertise requires special attention. Very easily some essential party is forgotten or ignored, making it difficult to gain the essential understanding or resources.

The acquisition project has to be prepared for external incidents. This means change management, in all possible forms, and risk management practices have to be in place. Change management is particularly problematic in public sector procurement where legislation steers the process.

Benchmarking the technology needs to be done in identical situation. Although this is easier to say than do, the use of optimization algorithms in smaller scale situations did not reveal the scalability problems. There are some limitations there. First, this is a single case study. This means that our findings are context specific. In different cases these issues may emerge differently. More research is thus needed. Second, the study was conducted in Finland which is known for its strict attitude for following the rules. Hence, in some other countries, pending the Act on Public Contracts and making the corners straight may ease the situation. However, this would most likely create new challenges. Nevertheless, cultural and country specific issues cannot be ignored.

Conclusion

We have presented a case where it is believed that nothing could go wrong, and all goes wrong. Our point is not to tell yet another failure story, but to show that good intentions could result in bad outcomes if the intentions are not properly executed. This execution is not an easy task. In public sector procurement the number of stakeholders and the network they form complicate knowledge sharing, communication, and collaboration. Without purposeful activities, it becomes impossible to gain a holistic view from different fragments. Very easily three positive opinions become one negative outcome. The complexity of the situation is thus emphasized. Even though all the actions when writing the call for bids were done bythe-book, latter external incidents and their unexpected outcomes were not in that book. No one was prepared for them. The paper makes a theoretical contribution by focusing a little studied situation: public sector IS procurement and groups of stakeholders. By illustrating how they cooperate, or actually lack the cooperation, results in unsatisfying outcomes. This has not been studied before. Practitioners benefit the paper by learning these mistakes and issues. Future work could benefit from adopting a stakeholder approach as it has been proven useful both in private sector and in e-government studies [START_REF] Flak | Stakeholder governance: Adapting stakeholder theory to e-government[END_REF], [START_REF] Poon | Investigating ERP systems procurement practice: Hong Kong and Australian experiences[END_REF].

Table 1 .

 1 The interviewees and their organizational positions.

	Interviewees organization	Interviewees position
	CIO's office	Agreement specialist
	CIO's office	Coordinator
	Home care unit	Project manager
	Home care unit	Care person

Table 2 .

 2 The actions in the project

	Actions	Participants
	1. Original idea of the solution	Home care unit
	2. Proposition of the idea	Home care unit supervisor
	3. Filing the proposition	Coordinator, CIO's office
	4. Preliminary evaluation of the solutions	Outside consultant appointed by the CIO's

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to our interviewees at the municipality and friends and colleagues for their constructive comments. The study was partly funded by Tekes -Finnish Funding Agency for Innovations and participating organizations, partly by Academy of Finland, grant #259831.


Ann-Sofie Klareld
email: ann-sofie.klareld@miun.se

Proactivity Postponed? 'Capturing' Records Created in the Context of E-government -A Literary Warrant Analysis of the Plans for a National e-archive Service in Sweden

Keywords: Archives, E-government, Literary Warrant, Records Continuum Model, Records Management

ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

Managing official records correctly is crucial from a democratic perspective. To 'capture' and preserve public records facilitates access, traceability, and reusetoday as well as in the long term. Yet measures for proactive records management are often perceived as being outside core business [START_REF] Asproth | Förvaltning och medborgarskap i förändring : etablerad praxis och kritiska perspektiv[END_REF] and too resource demanding [START_REF] Eastwood | Reflections on the goal of archival appraisal in democratic societies[END_REF], which can be the reasons why these measures are often postponed to the future. Existing routines developed to ensure appropriate official archives management are largely based on a paper administration, where records are 'captured' using manual strategies such as stamps with the date of arrival, registration in a records management system, and preservation in filing cabinets. In recent years scanning has been used to facilitate access, usability and preservation. However, e-government introduces unique possibilities and challenges: it is not enough to 'digitize' documents and present information in formats which resemble A4 sheets.

E-government is defined by the EU as "the use of information and communication technologies in public administrations combined with organizational change and new skills in order to improve public services and democratic processes and strengthen support to public policies" [START_REF]The Role of eGovernment for Europe's Future[END_REF]. The goals of e-government are generally thought to be of concern for the state administration as a whole, to be realized through collaboration and coordination, rather than addressed by single agencies and departments on their own [START_REF]IT-standardiseringsutredningen, Den osynliga infrastrukturenom förbättrad samordning av offentlig IT-standardisering[END_REF]. This requires a holistic approach to information management. 'Capturing' records created in e-services needs to be developed, where registration ideally should be performed automatically, and archives management needs to be adapted to suit the current conditions. Digital information has the potential to become a valuable asset for citizens as well as other actors and agencies external to the public administration.

This paper aims to contribute to international research on archives in the context of egovernment by highlighting the importance of proactivity. The aim is also to inspire others to conduct research in the area of electronic records management within egovernment by showing that this is a highly relevant and interesting topic. The case studied is the current plan to develop a national e-archive service in Sweden. This context is used as an example to discuss how archives management can support the goals of e-government and facilitate proactivity. A special focus is 'capture', since according to the records continuum model this is a vital part of holistic recordkeeping. A literary warrant [START_REF] Duff | Harnessing the Power of Warrant[END_REF] study of national regulations is used, and therefore relevant legal, administrative, and archival conditions are explained briefly to make the paper comprehensible to readers unfamiliar with Sweden. Similar studies could be made in other contexts to gain insight on the relationships between existing legal frameworks and planned technical and administrative solutions.

The holistic concept of the archive, as used in this paper, implies that rather than being seen as going through different linear phases ('active', 'semi active' and 'archival'), records are viewed as existing in a continuous flow, which may 'begin' with the archives creation at the public agency and 'continue' to the long term preservation at an archival authority [START_REF] Jörwall | Det globala minnet: nedslag i den internationella arkivhistorien [The global memory: examples from the international history of archives[END_REF], yet may also 'start' at the archival authority and 'continue' on through use and re-use to administrative, cultural or personal uses [START_REF] Mckemmish | Archives : recordkeeping in society[END_REF].

Research problem

American archivist David Bearman described 'capture' as one of two major problems in relation to records management: "(...) two of the greatest moments of risk, at capture and access, are outside the scope of many "archival preservation" models" [START_REF] Bearman | Moments of risk: Identifying threats to electronic records[END_REF]. Egovernment poses new challenges and possibilities for managing and preserving official records, thus increased knowledge is needed about how current technical and organizational developments affect recordkeeping, archives management and egovernment.

This paper uses Sweden as a case study to discuss the universal problem of 'capturing' records created in the context of e-government. 'Capture' is to some extent regulated in Sweden through demands on registration, and cannot be described as entirely left out of the archival preservation model, but despite its recognized importance there is no designated government authority with mandates and responsibilities for registration issues. In 2006 the report To preserve digital documents: Proposal for future orientation emphasized that it was fundamental to develop models, methods and routines for preparing digital information for long term preservation already at the point of creation [START_REF] Riksarkivet | Att bevara digitala handlingar Förslag till framtida inriktning[END_REF], yet nine years later there is still a long way to go before official records are regularly created in formats suitable for long term preservation. Similar situations can also be found in other countries around the globe. According to Mnjama and Wamukoya many public sector organizations in Africa lack procedures for managing electronic records, which may lead to the loss of valuable information resources [START_REF] Nathan | E-government and records management: an assessment tool for erecords readiness in government[END_REF]. Jaeger and Bertot have studied the information dissemination of the Obama administration and concluded that long-term access to information is an important part of transparency, but that the use of internet-enabled technologies, such as social media, can make preservation difficult [START_REF] Jaeger | Transparency and technological change: Ensuring equal and sustained public access to government information[END_REF]. In a study based on the Canadian government, Park et al. found that with the current e-government development comes a need to further systematize the capture of information using metadata architectures and standards [START_REF] Park | Running ahead toward interoperable e-government: The government of Canada metadata framework[END_REF].

The solutions which governments develop and employ to address the problems of capturing and preserving records created in the context of e-government will affect future transparency and access to information. The research question addressed in the paper is:

Do the current plans for developing a national e-archive service support the goals of egovernment and facilitate existing legal demands on proactivity?

Material and method

Managing material used in the study is primarily 1) the government's decision on how to implement a national e-archive [START_REF]Näringsdepartementet, Uppdrag att utveckla gemensamt e-arkiv [Mandate to develop common earchive[END_REF], and 2) an interim report authored by the responsible agencies [START_REF]En förvaltningsgemensam tjänst för e-arkiv -delrapport [A common management services for e-archives[END_REF]. Press releases and information from the website of the State Service Center are used as complement. The material was chosen as a suitable base for the study because it represents recent plans and discussions relevant for understanding how current developments may affect official recordkeeping and archives management.

The material was analyzed using literary warrant found in existing legal framework, mainly the Freedom of the Press Act [START_REF] Sfs | Tryckfrihetsförordning [The Freedom of the Press Act[END_REF]; the Archives Act [START_REF] Sfs | [END_REF]; the Archival Ordinance [17]; and the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act [START_REF] Sfs | Offentlighets-och sekretesslag[END_REF]. Literary warrant means to use authoritative sources such as laws, standards, codes of ethics, and professional best practices as theoretical frameworks of reference [START_REF] Duff | Harnessing the Power of Warrant[END_REF][START_REF] Mckemmish | Archival and recordkeeping research: Past, present and future[END_REF]. This method has previously been used by the University of Pittsburgh Electronic Recordkeeping Project to study the professional and societal endorsement of the concept of the recordkeeping functional requirements. An important result of the project was Wendy Duff's compendium of statements describing the requirements for records or recordkeeping systems [START_REF]Functional Requirements for Evidence in Recordkeeping: The Pittsburgh Project 2004[END_REF]. Literary warrant defines the requirements for capturing, maintaining, and using records over time [START_REF] Pearce-Moses | A glossary of archival and records terminology[END_REF].

This paper followed the literary warrant method with a specific focus on Swedish laws as the framework of reference, in particular the Archives Act, the Freedom of the Press Act, the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act and the Archive Ordinance because these include instructions about 'capture' and proactive management of public records. These laws are also an expression of the holistic concept of the archive as it is implemented in Sweden.

While the legal principles, for example regarding transparency, preservation, and privacy protection, remain the same in the context of e-government, the practical implementations may need to change to achieve the wanted results. It is therefore important to study current changes in relation to their legal and administrative context. The paper focuses especially on 'capturing' official records, which is why the second dimension of the records continuum model is used as a theoretical lens. According to the records continuum model, 'capture' is a crucial dimension of holistic recordkeeping [START_REF] Mckemmish | Archives : recordkeeping in society[END_REF], thus this dimension is useful for understanding current developments in the light of a holistic concept of the archive.

Related research

Researchers in the field of e-government have argued: "Records constitute an important corner stone of governance. As more governments are introducing e-government solutions, digital preservation turns into an important challenge" [START_REF] Kulovits | Archives and digital repositories in an eGovernment context: When the subsequent bird catches the worm in 13th[END_REF]. However, as recently as 2013 a survey by Scholl, said electronic records management is an area "of special interest and only appeal to a small sub-group of the EGR [Electronic Government Research] community" [START_REF] Sholl | Electronic Government Research: Topical Directions and Preferences[END_REF]. This paper argues that the area of recordkeeping is an important part of EGR since e-government is based on the access to trustworthy information. Sound recordkeeping and archives management are prerequisites for open government and transparency, which are two of the areas of interest that Scholl's study shows to be popular EGR topics [START_REF] Sholl | Electronic Government Research: Topical Directions and Preferences[END_REF].

Archiving and recordkeeping have been described as bothersome, unnecessary and bureaucratic, despite their actual importance for business [START_REF]Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap (MSB) och Riksarkivet, Vägledning för processorienterad informationskartläggning[END_REF]. Researchers in the field of archival science and information systems have even said that archiving can be seen as a 'necessary evil' [START_REF] Asproth | Förvaltning och medborgarskap i förändring : etablerad praxis och kritiska perspektiv[END_REF]. According to Canadian archivist Terry Eastwood who has studied the significance of archives in society, there is often little political will to invest resources in archives and records management. Eastwood also argues that it often is a challenge to explain the role of archives and archivists to political and administrative decision makers [START_REF] Eastwood | Reflections on the goal of archival appraisal in democratic societies[END_REF] and Maria Kallberg's recent doctoral thesis indicated that there is currently a lack of awareness as regards the need of proactive recordkeeping [START_REF] Kallberg | The Emperor's New Clothes' recordkeeping in a new context[END_REF].

Transactions registered with the help of e-services can be seen as records created in a 'grey zone', since it is unclear who is responsible for archiving records created in an integrated e-service, therefore a proactive approach and regulation of responsibilities by clear agreements before an e-service is designed has been recommended [START_REF] Asproth | Förvaltning och medborgarskap i förändring : etablerad praxis och kritiska perspektiv[END_REF].

Informatics researchers have argued that more research is needed about systems development in the context of e-government [START_REF] Karlsson | Förvaltning och medborgarskap i förändring : etablerad praxis och kritiska perspektiv[END_REF].

The discipline of Archives and Information Science has much knowledge to offer on issues related to electronic records management. According to American archivist and scholar Richard Pearce-Moses there is no clear-cut boundary separating the "paper era" from the "digital era", and therefore there is a point in seeking knowledge in traditional theories: "Much of archival knowledge transfers directly to the digital era, and established principles give us insight into solutions" [START_REF] Pearce-Moses | Janus in Cyberspace: Archives on the Threshold of the Digital Era[END_REF]. This study is based on the assumption that traditional theories and principles of official archives management are transferrable to the context of e-government, but that practical management needs a clear proactive stance to meet the requirements of use, preservation, and access. As Canadian archivist Terry Cook has argued, archivists need to shift their focus from the physical objects to the originating context where records are created, since the archival paradigms of the 'custodial age' are obsolete in the electronic environment [START_REF] Cook | Electronic Records, Paper Minds: The Revolution in Information Management and Archives in the Post-Custodial and Post-Modernist Era[END_REF].

Holistic recordkeeping and the importance of proactivity

There are two major established methodologies in the archival world: the life cycle approach, which assumes that recordkeeping is the result of objective business activities and follows a predictable timeline, and the records continuum approach, which views it as "(…) a continually interacting and evolving set of contingent activities with individual, institutional, and societal aspects" [START_REF] Mckemmish | Archival and recordkeeping research: Past, present and future[END_REF]. The holistic approach as represented in the records continuum model corresponds to the goals of egovernment: information should be (re)usable also to actors outside the context in which it was originally created. This poses new demands on proactivity: "In today's administration agencies are expected to streamline their information management with the support of automated case processes and e-services. For the agencies, it is important to have tools for information governance that contribute to both efficiency and legally secure handling. Issues of management, preservation and disposal should be addressed already at the stage of planning and defining requirements. A proactive approach should permeate the authorities' information-and records management" [29, my translation].

Bearman has described the dimensions of the records continuum model with the words event, documentation, risk and societal. In the first dimension a record is created as the trace of an event. In the second dimension the event is "witnessed" by a system and the transaction becomes evidence. In the third dimension the record is appraised using risk assessment criteria by the organization that created it and is destroyed or preserved. In the fourth dimension society gives meaning to the record by institutionalizing it [START_REF] Bearman | Item level control and electronic recordkeeping[END_REF].

The first three dimensions focus on the organizational management of records while the fourth focuses on reproduction and access. The fourth dimension can be seen as a way of describing the discourse that surrounds the whole process of archiving. Records are always created in the first dimension but exist in all dimensions simultaneously. Considerations of the different characteristics of the model affect choices of rules, software, and work processes.

A core component of the holistic approach is that records are given a context. This can be ensured through registration, which is a way of 'capturing' the information by connecting it to the setting in which it is used. 'Capture' implies that a record, by being communicated or connected to other records, becomes part of a chain of events (for example case administration). Through 'capture', records can be shared, accessed and understood: "(…) metadata elements needed to make the context of the document known are added and the record is able to be referenced or drawn upon by others" [START_REF] Reed | Reading the Records Continuum[END_REF].

In other words, the crucial evidential value of an official record is obtained in the second dimension. Public agencies are often required to ensure that their transactions are documented, or as Bearman says: "witnessed". Being able to guarantee the accuracy of official information is crucial for the trustworthiness of the public administration and not least becomes important if a dispute should arise. Ensuring that records belonging to the same case are registered, searchable, and accessible makes it possible to understand how the case has been handled and upon what grounds a certain decision was based. In a digital environment this demands proactive measures. When the Swedish Tax Authority developed their e-archive solution they demanded that it should meet the requirement to first archive cases, and then administer them, thereby emphasizing the importance of proactive recordkeeping. Archiving at the point of creation was seen as a prerequisite to fulfill the legal requirements [START_REF] Standéus | The e-Archive project at the Tax Authority[END_REF]. This approach is, however, far from usual, and though public agencies' business systems, e-mail systems and web servers currently hold substantial amounts of official information (Larsson, 2012; Riksarkivet, 2010), it doesn't automatically mean that the information is 'captured' as part of an archive.

Research context

The Swedish concept of the archive is often described as holistic. It is constructed after the principle of transparency in government businesses: citizens have a constitutional right to access official records from the point of creation or arrival at a public agency, unless the information is confidential due to official secrecy, personal integrity, or other specified reasons [START_REF] Sfs | Tryckfrihetsförordning [The Freedom of the Press Act[END_REF]. This requires searchability, which is why official records should be registered as soon as they arrive or are created [START_REF] Sfs | Offentlighets-och sekretesslag[END_REF] and accessibility, hence registration should take into account its importance for effective archiving, using materials and methods appropriate to the needs of archival permanence [START_REF] Sfs | [END_REF]. There is no equivalent to 'record' and 'archive' in the Swedish language, both are referred to as 'allmän handling', a term that can be translated to 'official record'. The Archives Act stipulates that "the archives of an authority are composed of the official records created through its activities [START_REF] Sfs | [END_REF]. Consequently an archive can consist of both 'active' records still used by the organization, and 'inactive' records that are preserved.

Records created or received by Swedish public agencies are to be preserved, kept in order and handled in ways that ensure: 1. The right of free access to public records; 2. The information requirements of the public jurisdiction and administrations; and 3. Research requirements" [SFS, 1990:782 as translated by 33]. Official records should be assigned metadata explaining : 1) when the record was created or received, 2) registration number or other designation, 3) sender or receiver, and 4) in brief what the record concerns [START_REF] Sfs | Offentlighets-och sekretesslag[END_REF]. The traditional way to do this is through a 'diarium' or registry, and by manually adding metadata to the records. 'Diarium' is not a juridical term in the manner of 'registry' or 'registering', but is indirectly explained in the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act [START_REF] Sfs | Offentlighets-och sekretesslag[END_REF] as a continuing register of the records which have arrived or are created at a public agency. The basic meaning of 'e-diarium' is 'electronic registry', yet the term increasingly tends to imply integrated solutions for case-and document management where registration is only part of the functionality [START_REF] Riksarkivet Eard | Delprojekt 1 (DP1) inom e-arkiv och e-diarium (Begreppsdefinitioner) Ordlista [Subproject 1 within e-archive and e-diarium (Concept definitions) Glossary[END_REF]. There are currently no binding regulations saying that public agencies should incorporate this functionality into their business systems, yet contextualization is required since citizens not only have the right to know which information public agencies preserve, but also how it has been used [START_REF]Offentlighets-och sekretesskommittén, SOU 2002:97 Ordning och reda bland allmänna handlingar[END_REF].

National recommendations for how e-services should be developed do not include considerations of the legal requirements to preserve and provide access to official records. Yet adherence to the close connection between records management and archiving becomes increasingly important in the context of e-government, and it has been discussed several times by different authors that the mandates of archival authorities (for example the National Archives) could include supervising the registration of official documents [START_REF] Wessbrandt | Förstudierapport om framtidens elektroniska arkiv[END_REF][START_REF] Hofman | Willing to change : the Swedish National Archives at the threshold of the digital age[END_REF][START_REF] Riksarkivet | Förstudie om e-arkiv och e-diarium Rapport[END_REF]. This is however not the case today.

The Swedish National Archives has a double role, being a cultural heritage institution and at the same time an administrative actor with powers to supervise and advise state public agencies on matters concerning archives management. According to its mandate the National Archives is required to "promote the development of methods for the production, preservation and availability of documents as part of government development" [39, my translation]. It has, however, proved difficult for the archival authority to keep up with technological development. A survey made in 1998 by two Dutch experts showed that existing policies and strategies related to digital preservation were conducted at an operational level, based on issuing constitutions and lacked a coherent vision, leading to confusion and uncertainty of public agencies concerning delivery of digital material [START_REF] Hofman | Willing to change : the Swedish National Archives at the threshold of the digital age[END_REF]. A report written in 2006 said the National Archives strove to cater for archival requirements by assisting public agencies already at the beginning of their system development processes [START_REF] Riksarkivet | Att bevara digitala handlingar Förslag till framtida inriktning[END_REF]. However, four years later a survey showed that only 5 % of the public agencies had a strategy for taking care of their e-records and although 21% of the authorities had some form of system for preservation, none of these had an export function that enabled transfer to another system or e-archive [START_REF] Riksarkivet | Förstudie om e-arkiv och e-diarium Rapport[END_REF]. At the time of writing, digital archives management, as in many other countries, is still a notable practical problem for public agencies.

When Swedish public agencies started to deliver information from IT systems to the National Archives at the beginning of the 1970s, digital preservation was seen as primarily the concern of archival institutions. The Archives Act of 1991 however emphasized the responsibility of public agencies as part of their statutory archival activities. The Archives Act is a framework law and consequently it is up to each public agency to implement it in practice in such a way that it suits their respective business. However, while the legal framework assumes that each agency keeps and controls their own records, current political goals point to a future where information is shared and used by more than one actor [START_REF]Med medborgaren i centrum. Regeringens strategi för en digitalt samverkande statsförvaltning [With the citizen in the center[END_REF].

Plans for a national e-archive service

A recent government decision has made the State Service Center (SSC) and the National Archives responsible for developing a national e-archive solution for state public agencies. The State Service Center is a public agency under the Ministry of Finance, established in 2012. It offers services related to payroll administration, financial management and e-commerce to other agencies [START_REF]Om oss[END_REF]. A pre study report concluded that implementing a common e-archive would result in considerable cost savings compared to each public agency creating their own [START_REF] Aspenfjäll | Förstudie Statens servicecenter e-arkiv och e-diarium[END_REF]. A number of public agencies are nominated to pilot the e-archive service once it is in place.

Archives management is formed in relation to ideals regarding how society should be organized, what good governance means and how official records should be used. This currently includes the goals of e-government. The Swedish national e-archive service is meant to make it easier and cheaper for public agencies to preserve and provide access to information about the state administration. It is described as: "(…) a necessary component of the technical infrastructure of e-government, and a prerequisite for a digitally collaborative administration", which will become part of the state's long-term information management [43, my translation]. An interim report states that "A joint management service for e-archives is part of the necessary infrastructure for a sustainable e-government and a long-term information supply for the state as a whole" [START_REF]En förvaltningsgemensam tjänst för e-arkiv -delrapport [A common management services for e-archives[END_REF]. It also aims to facilitate openness. A press release from the Industry Ministry has stated: "Transparency is a cornerstone of our democracy. E-archives can mean greater transparency and better access to information for the general public, journalists and researchers [13, my translation]. The e-archive service will be the first service developed within the government's Digital step, an investment intended to facilitate citizens' and companies' contacts with the public administration through public eservices, which will provide digital meetings as a complement to personal meetings, the main principle being: "digitally wherever possible, and personal where needed" [START_REF] Näringsdepartementet | presenterade regeringens nya utvecklingsprogram, Det digitala steget [Anna-Karin Hatt presented the government's new development[END_REF]. The e-archive is planned to function as a 'middle archive', which means a repository where official records are to be preserved in a standardized way before transfer to the final long term preservation at the National Archives [START_REF]Gemensamt e-arkiv ger samhället miljonvinster [Common e-archive saves society millions[END_REF], in other words it will hold 'semi active' records.

An interim report from the State Service Center on the implementation of the e-archive service stated that public agencies have a tendency to postpone the demanded measures to facilitate long term preservation and instead prioritize their daily business. This is described as a problem which each agency needs to address. But despite stating that "waiting to take care of information means more rather than less expenses" [14, my translation], notwithstanding the risk of losing information, the authors argue against developing a national e-registry simultaneously as the national e-archive. Paradoxically it is however concluded that: "In the long run, it would be a great advantage for the civil service as a whole if the SSC was able to offer a comprehensive concept for the authorities' case and document management where information with the status archived can be directly transferred to the e-archive service" [14, my translation]. Such a comprehensive concept would require the inclusion of an e-registry system.

Analysis and discussion

Common services such as the national e-archive studied in this paper are often intended to contribute to the goals of e-government and make the public administration more efficient. The Director General of the State Service Center has said in an interview: "Today it is a costly and time-consuming process to deliver records from each agency to the National Archives for final archiving. Economies of scale with an intermediate repository become very large" [46, my translation]. Using the service however demands preparatory work to ensure that records that are not worthy of long-term preservation and should have been destroyed are not delivered into the e-archive [START_REF]Uppdrag e-arkiv[END_REF]. Failing to take control of the entire archives management process risks counteracting the interoperable, collaborative administration which is the goal of e-government. The government's decision on a national e-archive service says legal obstacles, economic considerations and reuse of information must be taken into account before implementation [START_REF] Sweden | Näringsdepartementet, Uppdrag att utveckla och använda en förvaltningsgemensam tjänst för e-arkiv [Assignment to develop and use an administration common service for earchive[END_REF], yet nothing is mentioned about the actions needed before records are transferred to the earchive, though this will require considerable time and effort on behalf of the consumer agencies [START_REF]En förvaltningsgemensam tjänst för e-arkiv -delrapport [A common management services for e-archives[END_REF].

According to the new process-based archival description standard, issued by the National Archives in 2008, and meant to be implemented by 2013, all public agencies should represent their information in a classification scheme, aimed to give an overview of the records and to facilitate management and searchability [START_REF] Riksarkivet | Föreskrifter om ändring i Riksarkivets föreskrifter och allmänna råd (RA-FS 1991:1) om arkiv hos statliga myndigheter [Regulations amending the National Archives regulations and general advice[END_REF]. A holistic, proactive approach is advocated: "Information management and archives should not be seen as two separate areas. There are advantages with creating common structures for registering, archival representation and, not the least, security classification. Archival representation should be used as a control instrument in the information management of public agencies" [49, my translation]. However, although e-services are often said to facilitate open government it is far from usual that registration or archiving are included as functions. A case can be administered using several different e-services. The functionality of business systems and the interdependencies between records will not follow into the e-archive [START_REF] Sambruk | eSamhället och arkivet Elektroniskt Bevarande etapp 2 Slutrapport [eSociety and the archive[END_REF], thus these must be documented before transfer. Citizens are to be able both to follow a case in real time, and subsequently go back and review a chain of events [17]. In cases where information is continually and automatically updated it becomes even more important to capture the information upon which decisions are based. If not, it can prove impossible to recreate a chain of events.

The records continuum model recognizes the social and political role of archives management, showing how a record can be read and interpreted differently depending on the context [START_REF] Reed | Beyond Perceived Boundaries: Imagining the Potential of Pluralised Recordkeeping[END_REF]. Paper records are often described as physical objects while digital records are seen as intangible and primarily logical, but though there might seem to be profound differences between the 'real' and the 'virtual' world, the two are intertwined. Australian scholar Frank Upward, who created the records continuum model, has said: "Even when they are captured in a medium that can be felt and touched, records as conceptual constructs do not coincide with records as physical objects" [START_REF] Upward | Structuring the records continuum -part one: postcustodial principles and properties[END_REF]. An example is the driver's license which functions as a record and proof of identity because the information it holds can be verified in relation to the archives of the issuing agency and of the national population registers. In the context of e-government such interrelations become increasingly complex.

Official archives management is affected by business organization and formal relations between creating agencies and archival authorities, both currently undergoing changes.

In 2002 the Publicity and Confidentiality Committee suggested a new law on the management of official records, and argued that the National Archives should be given the mandate and responsibility to supervise the whole information management process at public agencies [START_REF]Offentlighets-och sekretesskommittén, SOU 2002:97 Ordning och reda bland allmänna handlingar[END_REF]. A later report commented: "(...) the formulations can be considered to give an indication that the archival authority should get a say in the very beginning of the administration process" [START_REF] Wessbrandt | Förstudierapport om framtidens elektroniska arkiv[END_REF]. Despite similar formulations since then, and clear regulations stating that official records should be registered [START_REF] Sfs | Offentlighets-och sekretesslag[END_REF] and connected to case management where applicable, the challenge of preserving context is notably absent from the discussions concerning the national e-archive service. More emphasis is put on issues regarding efficiency and information sharing. The interim report analyzed in this paper refers to the 'life cycle' of e-records which is noteworthy given that the legal framework presumes a holistic concept of the archive.

Archive services have traditionally been seen as more of a support function than as a regulatory function. Digital records require another approach. Caspar Almalander, the project leader of eARD (e-archive and e-diarium), a nationwide project focusing on transfer of information between any and all information systems though developing a set of Common Specifications for Government Agencies (FGS) [START_REF] Riksarkivet | The e-Archive and e-Diarium Project, eARD[END_REF], has stated that archives and e-government are closely connected and requires changes in the way records are managed: "Archives are the engine of e-government. Therefore, we must move from ownership to leadership" [54, my translation]. However, previous research and government reports show that although it is the responsibility of public agencies to manage their official information, many lack knowledge regarding archives management and require advice and guidance. These problems could be tackled with a clear proactive stance from archival authorities and development projects. The current plans for developing and implementing a national e-archive service however seem to lack loyalty to the holistic concept of the archive, according to which 'capture' is a prerequisite for successful archives management. Resources have been allocated to nationwide projects focusing transfer and preservation of official information, but issues regarding registration attract less attention.

The Pre study report on the future of electronic archives from the State Treasury said that it should technically be fully possible to complete most existing systems to fulfill reasonable demands on electronic archiving: "The key is to identify early the electronic archives evolving needs, both short and long term, and to take them into account at the design of new procedures and the specification and procurement of additional IT support" [36, my translation]. Ten years later a similar remark was made in a report from a National Archives-related project: "A consistent registration, with similar structure and metadata, provides conditions for reliable information management, searchability and an easier transmission to the e-archive" [55, my translation]. The same report however also said changes should be implemented as operational systems are developed or replaced with new systems or services: "The harmonization of e-diaria may be seen as a long-term process, as it may cause considerable work with the adaptation of operational systems. But as systems evolve or are replaced there will be opportunities to make demands to get it right from the beginning" [55, my translation].

Official information is often described as a social common resource. Public agencies are requested to increase their publication of open data to the benefit of citizens, companies and organizations. As a consequence, archival management needs to be developed accordingly: "Archives reflect not just technologies (…) but also the changes in culture that accompany changing technology" [START_REF] Lubar | Information Culture and the Archival Record[END_REF]. Technical solutions and administrative routines should be developed in the light of the existing legal framework and considerations related to costs, legality and efficiency [START_REF] Sfs | Förvaltningslag[END_REF], issues which egovernment development aims to support.

Concluding remarks

The research question addressed in this paper was: Do the current plans for developing a national e-archive service support the goals of e-government and facilitate existing legal demands on proactivity?

Despite the literary warrant supporting 'capture' as a crucial part of holistic records management, the national e-archive project has chosen to exclude a national e-diarium (e-registry) from their work. Developing a national e-archive service without simultaneously discussing these issues could be a step away from the holistic concept of the archive toward procedures which are less suitable in the context of egovernment and that risks contributing to a decline in adherence to existing legal and theoretical frameworks.

Suggested solutions for implementing a national e-archive service would likely be different if 'capture' of records was emphasized as a prerequisite for using, sharing and preserving official information. If implemented according to the existing plans and suggestions, 'capture' risks taking place at the end of a 'lifecycle' rather than at an early stage as part of holistic recordkeeping. Preparations for e-archiving risk becoming costly without a proactive approach and resulting in archives that fail to contribute to the goals of e-government. Transparency and openness are also at risk if proactive records management continues to be postponed to the future.