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New Danish e-government strategy focuses on managerial aspects

The Danish Government launched on 17/02/2004 an ambitious new e-government strategy for the period 2004-2006. The main goal of the strategy is to achieve a highly effective, customer-focused public sector capable of delivering top quality services to citizens and businesses.

eGovernment News – 19 March 2004 – Denmark – Policy/Strategy

(Many thanks to Gail Watt for passing this along- Russ)

The new strategy, which was elaborated by the government in cooperation with the country’s regional and local authorities, calls for a change of focus. Indeed, the strategy points out that enhancement of organisational and managerial aspects – rather than a primary focus on technology – is more than ever a key element for the delivery of a modern public sector. The document also highlights the need to evaluate concrete project outcomes, as investment in e-government must deliver measurable improvements in the quality of public services. Thus, the strategy sets a number of concrete goals to be reached by public authorities in the coming years.

The new strategy confirms the previous distribution of roles and responsibilities: while the country-wide Project e-Government creates joint frameworks and solutions capable of securing the realisation of the e-government vision and supports cooperation across public entities, the responsibility for realising specific strategic goals lies with the individual public bodies.

The strategic vision for the country’s e-government development has been summarised in the following short statement: “Digitalisation must contribute to the creation of an efficient and coherent public sector with a high quality of service, with citizens and businesses in the centre”. In order to materialise this vision and monitor the progress of its realisation, the Danish strategy created five “Signposts”. Attached to each signpost are a number of specific priority objectives to be reached, as summarised below:

* Signpost 1: The public sector must provide coherent services with citizens and businesses in the centre. By the end of 2006, at least 60% of citizens and 95% of businesses should use e-government services, and the level of user satisfaction with such services must have increased.

* Signpost 2: E-government must result in improved service quality and the release of resources. By the end of 2006, at least 75% of all digitalisation projects should release resources, and at least 25% should do so on a large scale.

* Signpost 3: The public sector must work and communicate digitally. By the end of 2006, at least 80% of all public authorities should receive at least a quarter of all documents sent by other public authorities in digital form, and at least 60% of all public authorities should be able to communicate securely in digital form with other public authorities, citizens and businesses.

* Signpost 4: E-government must be based on a coherent and flexible infrastructure. By the end of 2006, no more than 15% of all public authorities should state that the absence of common public sector solutions and standards is a significant obstacle, and at least 1.1 million digital signature certificates should have been issued to citizens, businesses and civil servants.

* Signpost 5: Public sector managers must lead the way and ensure that their own organisations are capable of realising the vision. By the end of 2006, no more than 20% of public authorities should state that lack of allocation of resources for work with digitalisation is a significant obstacle.

In order to support the fulfilment of these strategic objectives, the Danish authorities have identified a number of “Focus Areas”, i.e. areas that need to be improved in order to facilitate the successful delivery of e-government projects. To date, the focus has been on the provision of infrastructure items such as standards, solutions and portals. In the coming years, however, the focus will be on harvesting the gains generated by these investments. The identified focus areas are as follows:

* Secure realisation and measure results: e-government must produce added value for users, public authorities and civil servants and that value must be measurable in terms of service improvements, cost reductions and increased user and staff satisfaction.

* Strengthen management and skills: public sector management and staff must possess the necessary skills and incentives.

* Renew organisation and corporate culture: IT must not merely support current tasks and services, as processes must be simplified and automated with a view to providing the greatest possible user satisfaction for the smallest possible use of resources.

* Improve communication and knowledge sharing: across the boundaries of public bodies and towards citizens and businesses.

* Develop incentives and financing: because investments in e-government cannot necessarily be paid back during the same budget year (and the original investors are not necessarily those who will reap the benefits), it is important to examine the entire business case and provide a number of simple financing models that address these problems.

* Enhance the infrastructure: Although Denmark is well on its way to constructing a coherent technical and legal infrastructure for e-government, there are still areas to be improved such as legislative issues surrounding data sharing and, from a technical point of view, the need in a number of areas for a common language, which will require that the data formats used by the individual authorities conform to a common, open, national standard.

Speaking at the launch of the new strategy, Danish Minister of Finance Thor Pedersen said: “We wish to support and strengthen the digitalisation, which creates an effective and coherent public sector. Therefore, together we have – across the state, counties and municipalities – to find new opportunities to create this coherence. The new strategy is an important step in the right direction”.

© European Communities 2004
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