Recommendations for Actions Arising from the Egovernment Workshops in 2015-2016

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eGovernment: A Call to Action

Recommendations for actions arising from the eGovernment workshops in 2015-2016

SynthesisReport

DISCLAIMER

By the European Commission, DG Informatics, Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations.

The information and views set out in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the Commission. The Commission does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this study. Neither the Commission nor any person acting on the Commission’s behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Table of Contents

Preface

First workshop on new eGovernment Action Plan – July 2015

Second workshop on new EU eGovernment Action Plan – November 2015

Third workshop on new EU eGovernment Action Plan – December 2015

Multi-stakeholder event – March 2016

Workshop: eGovernment at regional and local level – September 2016

Supporting the implementation of eGovernment at regional and local level – November 2016

Main messages and synthesis of recommendations by topic

Main Messages

General recommendations and specific calls for action by thematic group

Awareness raising and engagement

Innovation and technology

Public service delivery

Cross-border mobility

Replication of solutions

Openness, transparency, trust and security

Funding

Role of European Commission

Participation and co-creation

eGovernment4EU on Futurium

Preface

The European Commission’s DG Connect organised a series of six workshops on the eGovernment Action Plan throughout 2015 and 2016. All of these workshops dealt broadly with preparations for and implementation of the new eGovernment Action Plan, but each workshop had its own specific focus, as follows:

to gather views and opinions from key stakeholders on their expectations from the new Action Plan;
to collect best practices, ideas and feedback on how to engage with stakeholders online;
to present and test the eGovernment stakeholder engagement platform and receive feedback on improvements;
to take stock of the previous stakeholder events in preparation for the new eGovernment Action Plan;
to show how the new eGovernment Action Plan is useful for all levels of public administration and how stakeholders will be engaged in its future evolution; and
to help regional and local public administrations implement the eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020.

The aim of this report is to extract the recommendations for action suggested by stakeholders at each of the events. The report works systematically through the workshops on a chronological basisand groups the recommendations in each of them by theme.In the final chapter of the report, some main messages have been extracted, followed by a synthesis of general recommendations and specific calls for actions in the thematic areas from all of the workshops.

First workshop on new eGovernment Action Plan – July 2015

The Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe, adopted in May 2015,called on the Commission to present a new eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020. In preparation for this, the European Commission’s DG Connect organised a workshop, the aim of which was to gather views and opinions from key stakeholders on their expectations from the new Action Plan.

The workshop also aimed to improve citizens’ and businesses’ experience when interacting with public administrations and to facilitate their relationship with government.

The discussions at the workshop were structured around three sessions:

Policy principles: with the aim of identifying the underlying principles for future public administrations and institutions in Europe to ensure a well-functioning Digital Single Market, a prosperous economy and the wellbeing of European citizens.
Key enablers: this session explored the basic elements that the new Action Plan should take into account in order to achieve its policy principles.
Strategic objectives: the aim here was to identify possible priority areas that can ensure that activities launched under the Action Plan will stimulate innovation and growth, reduce administrative burden, speed up service delivery and increase transparency and trust.

During the workshop, stakeholders made various recommendations for action in the three discussion areas.

Recommendations

Awareness raising and engagement

There needs to be a proper understanding of why public administrations should be improved and to examine how ICT-enabled public sector modernisation and innovation can help.
Efforts should be made to change the attitude of civil servants, to make them more open to innovation and less wary of technology.
A focus should be made on open data, citizen involvement, interoperability and the once-only principle, and to move away from a static five-year Action Plan towards a dynamic, flexible 'rolling' Action Plan.
To overcome barriers to innovation four design principles should be at the heart of the public sector: co-design and co-creation of innovative solutions; adopting new and collaborative service delivery models; embracing creative disruption from technology; and, adopting an attitude of experimentation and entrepreneurship.
It is necessary to catalyse an innovation movement to build energy and momentum in the public sector, analogous to how social movements are created and maintained.
There should be a programme to empower and network innovative public leaders through innovation workshops.
A specific awareness-raising campaign for the new eGovernment Action Plan would be a useful tool.
Personalisation is also a key driver in the private sector and this is something that can be embraced by the public sector also.
Civil society should be increasingly engaged in decision-making, particularly in Member States where there is no political appetite for change.
It is important that local administrations be shown what is available, rather than being told what to do.

Innovation

There should be a ‘right to challenge’ mechanism, which would give a public organisation, local government or even a Member State the ability to correct an exemption from an existing rule in order to create innovative solutions that are currently not possible.
There should be an Innovation Lab inside the European Commission, to foster more innovation within the work of the EC and to legitimise collective action.
There is a need for Innovation Single Contact Points in all Member States to provide organisations with fast, practical and low-cost assistance through a peer-led process.
There should be an instrument for technical assistance to Member States in replicating existing innovations via ad-hoc EU Innovation Delivery Teams.
There should be an Accelerator for Digital Innovation in public services via agencies with transformative potential, and a Public Sector Angel Fund to encourage more experimentation in public services.
To inform innovation, a Dynamic Innovation Toolbox should be developed for public managers and a European Citizen's Scoreboard where citizens can measure the performance of public services.
The Commission should make a call for proposals for innovation actions in the eGovernment area. In Horizon 2020 there are two instruments that can be used - pre-commercial procurement (PCP) and public procurement of innovation (PPI).

Public service delivery

Digitisation of existing bureaucratic administration processes should be avoided.
Public services should be user-friendly, digital, one stop-shops, intuitive fast, efficient and accessible.
Public administration should be open, transparent, collaborative, and involve citizens.
There is a need for public administrations to be more flexible and reactive and to respond to demand for services more adaptively if they are to keep pace with technological developments.
Invisible administration should not be the goal -the operation and implementation aspects of administration can be invisible, but the policy-making should be participatory, transparent and open.
Silos should be broken and smaller silos created based on a common set of elements - this process of disaggregation and re-aggregation is already being seen in the private sector.
Processes should be data-driven rather than institution-driven, so the data within a process should be broken down and then re-aggregated in the way that makes the most sense.
Rather than seeing ‘digital’ as a helpful tool, digital should be put at the heart of public services.

Cross-border mobility

Data and digital services should move seamlessly across borders and people should have the right to do business anywhere in the EU.

Openness, transparency, trust and security

Basic pre-conditions should be put in place, such as privacy/confidentiality, the right to exist digitally, the right to control access to personal data, security and so on.

Funding

Financing instruments could be streamlined to create a common pot of money for public administration modernisation.

Role of European Commission

The Commission should make a call for proposals for innovation actions in the eGovernment area. In Horizon 2020 there are two instruments that can be used - pre-commercial procurement (PCP) and public procurement of innovation (PPI).
EU institutions should provide the ICT tools needed for a horizontal social dialogue, and this dialogue can also be used as a basis for policy-making at local level.
The EU could play a role in creating the common components that Member States could reuse to build digital services, so they don’t have to be built from the ground up in each Member State.

Second workshop on new EU eGovernment Action Plan – November 2015

The aim of the second workshop on the new EU eGovernment Action Plan was to collect best practices, ideas and feedback on how to engage with stakeholders online. At the workshop, participants looked at how the European Commission's platform could best help to crowdsource ideas for the next eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020 and how eGovernment communities can contribute to this process.

The discussions at the workshop were structured around:

the public consultation on the eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020;
how to engage citizens online – examples and discussions.

Recommendations

Awareness raising and engagement

For public consultations, the three-language option is the best compromise between effectiveness and costs, but increasing the languages to the six main European languages would enable 80% of Europe’s citizens to respond in their native language.
The eGovernment Action Plan should address digital literacy and facilitate the lives of citizens, whatever their level of knowledge, their physical ability, or their economic situation.
Both digital and non-digital options should be provided for accessing government services.
It is necessary to engage with people using their preferred device and their preferred social media tool.
It is necessary to generate critical mass by using multipliers, using one simple message at a time, and using all available tools for engagement.
Use various channels to raise awareness - mix offline and online tools.
Any communication and marketing campaign should show what's in it for the citizen.
Create an exchange programme for civil servants, allowing them to exchange experience.
Face-to-face events should be organised – these can be organised digitally, through Skype and so on. These should involve the three main stakeholders – policy-makers, civil servants and citizens.
Use existing platforms to approach citizens, with a focus on big groups rather than small fragmented groups.
Co-promote at physical events and with other online consultations.
In order to maintain interest in the eGovernment4EU platform, a feedback system should be set up so that people know that their ideas are being listened to.

Replication of solutions

We should also think about digital municipality champions, who have done something successful that can be replicated in other Member States.
Use tools that bring people with a particular problem together with people that offer solutions, and see if this solution can be replicated in other contexts.

Participation and co-creation

Streamline the participatory channels that exist in the EU.
Control expectations from the eGovernment4EU platform, so that users are not disappointed.
Be aware that people may come to the eGovernment4EU platform with different interests – some might come because they have an idea, while others might be willing to work on existing ideas and others may just be willing to vote on ideas.

eGovernment4EU

The subsidiarity principle should be respected, but at the same time the eGovernment4EU platform should be seen as an aggregator of the different issues where not only high-level EU issues are addressed, but also issues of regional or local importance.

Third workshop on new EU eGovernment Action Plan – December 2015

One of the main purposes of this meeting was to present and test the eGovernment stakeholder engagement platform. While the previous workshop showed the concept of Futurium in general, the idea behind this workshop was to present what eGovernment4EU (on Futurium) involves in reality and hear the suggestions of stakeholders. It was a hands-on activity, offering participants the opportunity to explore the platform’s functionalities and provide feedback.

Recommendations

Awareness raising and engagement

Promotion of digital enablers should not be conducted in English only, but in all languages of the EU.
Civil servants, citizens and businesses alike need to be educated regarding the use of digital public services. There is also a need to develop skills around co-creation and service design.
It is important to change mind-sets on both sides - on the side of citizens and businesses, but also on the side of public administrations, to achieve a ‘breaking of the legacy’ and ‘changing the culture’.

Public service delivery

Be aware of the digital divide -not everyone will want to receive services digitally, and citizens should receive access to services in the format they require.
There is a need for open, collaborative service design, and mobile units, which are public administration units that go to those citizens that still want offline services.
To identify the best practices and solutions, best practices should be benchmarked at all levels (EU, national and local). It is necessary to promote dissemination, take advantage of existing frameworks, and to involve non-government and other organisations in this process.
Put in place co-creation mechanisms for public services and use open processes to evaluate and improve these services.
Create a central hub for the available information on digital public services, allowing people to find these services more easily.
Information about public services should be available as open data, using open standards.

Cross-border mobility

When it comes to language, the principle of subsidiarity should apply in the provision of cross-border public services, with the three main European languages offered as an alternative to the local language.
Work should be conducted to identify the main enablers of cross-border interoperability.

Openness, transparency, trust and security

To deal with cross border trust issues, a new tool along the lines of Trip Advisor should be developed. This would make it possible to benchmark digital cross-border services for citizens and business.
Public sector information provisions should be harmonised and standardised and be presented in a user-friendly manner for all stakeholders.
More emphasis is needed both at the EU level and at national level on open source and standards. It is also very important to have common legal frameworks.

Participation and co-creation

Apply co-creation mechanisms for the redesign of the eID dimension of the Europe Citizens’ Initiative to make it more effective.
The process of responding to requests from stakeholders should be transparent and it should be possible to track the information flow.
To create a participatory culture and incentivise stakeholders to participate in policy-making, it is recommended to introduce motivation mechanisms and platforms at EU and local level and to involve participation processes in the procurement domain.
Successful processes and infrastructures are not sufficiently reused in the domain of participation and co-creation. Use of existing processes and structures that have proved their effectiveness, such as the Wikipedia process, should be increased, or crowd sourcing models should be initiated.

Replication of solutions

It is not possible to build a thousand digital enablers, so it is important to prioritise.
There should be an action to promote common solutions. These common solutions should be based on open software and open services. This action should also create transparency about the use of these solutions.

Futurium

Pay greater attention to labelling/wording. The use of the word ‘problem’ was perceived to be negative. It would be better to start by filling in a form directly, without selecting one of four categories. If categorisation is necessary, then this should be done in the form, as a drop down list
Improve the editing / formatting options.
Users should not be required to provide tags, the system should be able to harvest keywords/tags instead.
Users should know that the actions they input are part of a larger process. They should be able to track what has happened to their proposal once it has been submitted.
Suggested fields to be used in the form are:

What is your proposal about (50 words);
Describe your proposal and the offered recommendations (500 words);
What are the issues you are trying to address (500 words);
Who would benefit from your idea (e.g. EU, national, local level);
Provide any examples or references relevant to the proposal (with upload function, for text and documents – optional);
Would you be interested in joining a forum or a working group?

Voting could be more differentiated and used forprioritization: issues that get the most votes and are rated highlycould be prioritised. If hundreds of people submit problems, there is a need for a way to cluster them around common themes. This is something that the platform could support automatically or manually.
It is very important to provide early feedback on the relevance of problems.
On a more practical level, the fact that the ‘add’ button is to the right, when ‘add text’ appears one the left (without being able to click on ‘add text’) is confusing.
Rank the issues that received the highest number of comments on the homepage, so that users can see the most relevant ones.
When you enter a user’s profile, you should be able to see what comments and issues they created, and so on.
It is unnecessary to receive notification that you have commented yourself.
It would be helpful to be able to reply to an email without going to the website, to publish from the email into the platform.
It is not necessary to have to put in a title for the replies in the comments, this is time consuming.
The order of events in the events tab does not respect 24 hour chronology, later event are shown first if they are entered earlier.
The platform should allow you to change tabs without informing you that you are editing – an alert should be put in place.
Options should be included for the title field in the comments, because if you start with a phrase, this is captured – it would be better to have a mandatory title.
For the search function – it should be possible to use keywords rather than tags.
There should be more social media options – for example the ability to share comments, discussions, issues or documents.
Gamification could be used to encourage engagement – for example the principle of kudos – to encourage people to be more active.
There should be a distinction between the different comments – whether they are an idea, just a comment, a best practice, etc.
A short ‘work through video’ could be provided to promote the platform.
Posting a comment on the platform should be as simple as posting a comment on Facebook.
It could be interesting to know what the main categories of issues to be addressed are.
It would also be good to have your country's flag next to your name this could also be used for statistics and language options. If tags are used, a cloud tag could be integrated.
At the beginning you should have to identify yourself as a citizen, a civil servant, etc.
It should also be possible to conduct mini-polling and surveys – which would allow you to mine statistics.

Multi-stakeholder event – March 2016

The main purpose of this event was to take stock of the previous stakeholder events in preparation for the new eGovernment Action Plan. The event started with the presentation of two studies: ‘Towards faster take up of new eGovernment services’ and ‘Analysis of the value of new generation of eGovernment Services’.