ASAN Service, established in 2012, has been so far very successful as a tool to increase the transparency of public in Azerbaijan.

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As a subordinate entity of the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, ASAN Service, established by a Presidential decree in 2012, has been so far very successful as a tool to increase the transparency of public administration and the efficiency of the delivery of public services in Azerbaijan. The ASAN Service experience can be an interesting example for other European countries, where e- Government programmes have been characterized by successes as well as by failures. The failures can be attributed to a lack of comprehensive strategies and to the absence of a clear leadership, leading to citizens’ growing discontent towards public administration. The aim of this paper is to assess the ASAN Service model in the current European context, in which governments are moving towards a modernisation in the public administration sector; and the introduction of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) is a powerful tool to redesign the processes for producing and delivering public goods. The assessment of this unusual and successful example of how public administration and public services have been modernised is used in the paper to understand the capacity of this model in view of developing and adapting it to other countries in the European neighbourhood and beyond. Vision aims at analysing best ways and practices to internationalise this model, which translates to transfer the model or a part of it to other countries, while improving the ASAN Service model itself with new ideas and suggestions.

The paper will be structured in the following way:

The first chapter will introduce an assessment of the current European context, concerning the development of public administration and the use of ICTs in governments and e-Government programmes. Italy and the United Kingdom will be used as brief case studies, as they symbolise two different models of public administration in the European Union (EU). In this first analysis, we will evaluate European e- Government programmes in terms of success and failure, by looking at the level of e-Government use, efficiency and impact throughout the EU and worldwide. In the second chapter, the entire case of ASAN Service will be examined with all its characteristics, such as its performance since its creation, its structure and its use of innovative ways and technologies for providing public services. The evaluation of the case studies in the first chapter will be helpful in understating the differences between models of public services delivery in EU countries and the ASAN Service model. The development and organisation of a few EU countries’ e-Government programmes will be analysed in order to better assess the performance gap between ASAN Service and services delivered through traditional means in the EU.

The countries presented (Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Slovenia and the United Kingdom) have been chosen for their relevance as they represent exemplary models of e- Government in the EU, with which Vision is familiar.