Governments have begun to close the gap between political rhetoric and reality as they bring their e-government visions to life, but they aren't there yet, according to the second annual global e-government study by Accenture.

Accenture's report, "Rhetoric vs. Reality -- Closing the Gap," surveyed 22 countries and found they still have a long way to go. The countries were put in four categories, Innovative Leaders, Visionary Followers, Steady Achievers and Platform Builders. Accenture categorized Canada, the United States and Singapore as Innovative Leaders, which means they have completed less than half of the work required to develop and provide fully mature online government, both in terms of service and delivery models. All three nations have introduced nationwide portals to provide citizens a single point of access to government. Canada secured its leading positioning as a result of the government's adoption of a cross-agency approach to e-government. This approach is intended to make it easier for citizens and businesses to interact electronically with government. Understanding and use of e-government is moving up the maturity curve, although it has a long way to go. Only in rare instances, such as Ireland's Revenue On-line System, can businesses transact with government via the Internet. Sites posted by Norway, Australia, Finland, Netherlands and the United Kingdom were classified as Visionary Followers, demonstrating both a high number of services online and moderate sophistication. New Zealand, Hong Kong, France, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Germany and Belgium are categorized as Steady Achievers, as they offer a large breadth of services with significant opportunity to mature their service level and delivery model. Japan, Brazil, Malaysia, South Africa, Italy and Mexico are labeled Platform Builders with low levels of online service, positioning them well to develop a coordinated cross-agency Web presence.