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eGovernment: A Call to Action

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

Synthesis Report

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.

© European Union, 2015. All rights reserved. Certain parts are licensed under conditions to the EU. Reproduction is authorized provided the source is acknowledged.

Table of ContentsPreface............................................................................................................................4First workshop on new eGovernment Action Plan – July 2015.................................5Second workshop on new EU eGovernment Action Plan – November 2015............7Third workshop on new EU eGovernment Action Plan – December 2015................8Multi-stakeholder event – March 2016........................................................................10Workshop: eGovernment at regional and local level – September 2016................12Supporting the implementation of eGovernment at regional and local level – November 2016.............................................................................................................13Main messages and synthesis of recommendations by topic.................................15Main Messages.......................................................................................................................................... 15General recommendations and specific calls for action by thematic group................................................15

Awareness raising and engagement............................................................................................................16

Innovation and technology...........................................................................................................................17

Public service delivery.................................................................................................................................17

Cross-border mobility...................................................................................................................................18

Replication of solutions................................................................................................................................18

Openness, transparency, trust and security................................................................................................18

Funding........................................................................................................................................................18

Role of European Commission....................................................................................................................19

Participation and co-creation.......................................................................................................................19

eGovernment4EU on Futurium....................................................................................................................20

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 basis and 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 2015The 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.

RecommendationsAwareness raising and engagement

1. 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.

2. Efforts should be made to change the attitude of civil servants, to make them more open to innovation and less wary of technology.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. There should be a programme to empower and network innovative public leaders through innovation workshops. 7. A specific awareness-raising campaign for the new eGovernment Action Plan would be a useful tool. 8. Personalisation is also a key driver in the private sector and this is something that can be embraced by the public

sector also. 9. Civil society should be increasingly engaged in decision-making, particularly in Member States where there is no

political appetite for change. 10. It is important that local administrations be shown what is available, rather than being told what to do.

Innovation1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. There should be an instrument for technical assistance to Member States in replicating existing innovations via ad-hoc EU Innovation Delivery Teams.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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

1. Digitisation of existing bureaucratic administration processes should be avoided. 2. Public services should be user-friendly, digital, one stop-shops, intuitive fast, efficient and accessible. 3. Public administration should be open, transparent, collaborative, and involve citizens. 4. 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. 5. 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. 6. 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. 7. 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. 8. Rather than seeing ‘digital’ as a helpful tool, digital should be put at the heart of public services.

Cross-border mobility1. 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 security1. 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.

Funding1. Financing instruments could be streamlined to create a common pot of money for public administration

modernisation.

Role of European Commission1. 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).

2. 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.

3. 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 2015The 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.

RecommendationsAwareness raising and engagement

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. Both digital and non-digital options should be provided for accessing government services. 4. It is necessary to engage with people using their preferred device and their preferred social media tool. 5. It is necessary to generate critical mass by using multipliers, using one simple message at a time, and using all

available tools for engagement. 6. Use various channels to raise awareness - mix offline and online tools. 7. Any communication and marketing campaign should show what's in it for the citizen. 8. Create an exchange programme for civil servants, allowing them to exchange experience. 9. 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. 10. Use existing platforms to approach citizens, with a focus on big groups rather than small fragmented groups. 11. Co-promote at physical events and with other online consultations. 12. 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 solutions1. We should also think about digital municipality champions, who have done something successful that can be

replicated in other Member States. 2. 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-creation1. Streamline the participatory channels that exist in the EU. 2. Control expectations from the eGovernment4EU platform, so that users are not disappointed. 3. 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.

eGovernment4EU1. 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 2015One 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.

RecommendationsAwareness raising and engagement

1. Promotion of digital enablers should not be conducted in English only, but in all languages of the EU. 2. 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.3. 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 delivery1. 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. 2. 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. 3. 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.

4. Put in place co-creation mechanisms for public services and use open processes to evaluate and improve these services.

5. Create a central hub for the available information on digital public services, allowing people to find these services more easily.

6. Information about public services should be available as open data, using open standards.

Cross-border mobility1. 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. 2. Work should be conducted to identify the main enablers of cross-border interoperability.

Openness, transparency, trust and security1. 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. 2. Public sector information provisions should be harmonised and standardised and be presented in a user-friendly

manner for all stakeholders. 3. 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-creation1. Apply co-creation mechanisms for the redesign of the eID dimension of the Europe Citizens’ Initiative to make it more

effective.2. The process of responding to requests from stakeholders should be transparent and it should be possible to track the

information flow.3. 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.

4. 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 solutions1. It is not possible to build a thousand digital enablers, so it is important to prioritise. 2. 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.

Futurium1. 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

2. Improve the editing / formatting options. 3. Users should not be required to provide tags, the system should be able to harvest keywords/tags instead. 4. 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. 5. 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?

6. Voting could be more differentiated and used for prioritization: issues that get the most votes and are rated highly could 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.

7. It is very important to provide early feedback on the relevance of problems. 8. 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. 9. Rank the issues that received the highest number of comments on the homepage, so that users can see the most

relevant ones. 10. When you enter a user’s profile, you should be able to see what comments and issues they created, and so on. 11. It is unnecessary to receive notification that you have commented yourself. 12. 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.13. It is not necessary to have to put in a title for the replies in the comments, this is time consuming. 14. The order of events in the events tab does not respect 24 hour chronology, later event are shown first if they are

entered earlier. 15. The platform should allow you to change tabs without informing you that you are editing – an alert should be put in

place. 16. 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. 17. For the search function – it should be possible to use keywords rather than tags. 18. There should be more social media options – for example the ability to share comments, discussions, issues or

documents. 19. Gamification could be used to encourage engagement – for example the principle of kudos – to encourage people to

be more active.20. There should be a distinction between the different comments – whether they are an idea, just a comment, a best

practice, etc. 21. A short ‘work through video’ could be provided to promote the platform. 22. Posting a comment on the platform should be as simple as posting a comment on Facebook. 23. It could be interesting to know what the main categories of issues to be addressed are. 24. 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. 25. At the beginning you should have to identify yourself as a citizen, a civil servant, etc. 26. It should also be possible to conduct mini-polling and surveys – which would allow you to mine statistics.

Multi-stakeholder event – March 2016The 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’.

Presentation of these studies was followed by an overview of the main outcomes of the public consultation on the new eGovernment Action Plan. The consultation was held between 30 October 2015 and 22 January 2016. The second part of the day involved a panel discussion between various stakeholders, who elaborated on stakeholders’ expectations for the new eGovernment Action Plan.

Recommendations

General1. eGovernment should be based on certain principles, such as the once-only principle, privacy by default, and digital,

cross-border and open by default, and so on. 2. All measures with the potential to improve eGovernment services should also be improved at the national level. 3. All public authorities, including cities, should be obliged to use European standards, unless they have a good reason

not to. Standards have to be global - there should be convergence of regional, national European and global standards. Standards should be tested against the impact they deliver.

4. Governments need to join the fight against the shortage in eSkills. This is a battle that governments, industry and civil society can wage together.

Awareness raising and engagement1. Policy instruments should accelerate the uptake of open government by addressing issues such as: unlocking the

potential of government assets; making government more transparent, improving policy-making through participation by citizens and business; and improving public services through enhanced collaboration between administrations, businesses and citizens.

2. Social media should be used to facilitate citizen engagement. The creation of a Commission social media platform is a possibility, as is the use of existing platforms.

3. The way the previous Action Plan was set up, with actions set up in advance, was not the optimal approach, because some actions lost relevance, while others increased in importance. For this reason a more flexible approach is required.

4. For eGovernment to work you need a couple of drivers, including leadership. What matters is having clear-cut goals – easily explained to all stakeholders.

5. We need incentives to encourage governments to steer the same course, but more rapidly, Also, to find a way to improve benchmarking, so that ‘laggers’ can learn from leaders, to achieve a more harmonised approach.

6. To engage young people it is necessary for eGovernment services to be mobile - young people get their first smart phone at 12, they live increasingly online. If you are not online, then you are irrelevant.

Public service delivery1. Factors hampering the delivery of public services include: public administrative bodies require the same information

to be provided more than once; a perceived lack of user-friendly services; services are not sufficiently personalised; and difficulty in finding relevant information.

2. Areas in need of improvement include: health related services; submitting tax declarations, enrolling in school and online procedures for setting up and running a business.

3. The issues that have digital aspects should be identified and clustered. There is a need for data valorisation clusters using open data. Identify the data holder and the stakeholder and put them together in a network.

4. It should be made clear that we are in a digital age and the provision of eGovernment services is a duty for cities, like street lighting.

Replication of solutions1. There needs to be a focus on reusing digital enablers. 2. We should look for more help from the IT industry - they know how to solve these problems, we don’t need to

develop everything from scratch.

Funding1. Open participative government should be made a precondition for all funding of projects.

Openness, transparency, trust and security1. Every project should be open from day one – open to people with similar problems, etc. so that the solutions are

available for reuse.

Role of European Commission1. The European Commission should set standards and ensure interoperability; contribute to the exchange of good

practices; lead by example; and push for the application of the once-only principle. 2. The Commission should make a lot of noise, benchmark, help governments to put the issue high on the political

agenda. 3. In the Digital Single Market strategy there is a need for authorities that are able to carry out inspections in the digital

world. There is a need for public data analysts, this a special skill profile – we need to train specialists. This is a task at the European level, because this sphere operates transnationally.

4. The EU should engage with Member States, to get them to lead by example. 5. The EU should work more with cities to help them to work towards an administration that is more open, with a

culture of shared governance based on co-creation, also raise awareness and foster knowledge.

Workshop: eGovernment at regional and local level – September 2016The 1st workshop since the adoption of the new eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020 was held on 20 September 2016. This workshop presented the new plan and focused on animating its implementation, in particular its dynamic aspects.

The workshop, which was jointly organised by the SEDEC Secretariat of the Committee of the Regions and the European Commission (DG CONNECT), aimed to show how the new eGovernment Action Plan is useful for all levels of public administration - European, national, regional and local - and how any stakeholders will be engaged in its future evolution. The workshop brought together public administrations and leading engaged citizens and businesses from across Europe, to create and discuss ideas for action.

RecommendationsAwareness raising and engagement

1. We need to look at how eGovernment influences us, and how we influence it. We also need to look at how eGovernment evolves – and what effect we have on its evolution – how we evolve with it, how eGovernment domesticates and controls us, and vice versa. We also need to look at how to achieve the right balance.

2. Education and digital skills are something that we all need to work on, to ensure that people have the skills to use technology, and can adapt to a labour market altered by this technology.

Public service delivery3. There are still big differences in access to high-quality and affordable Internet connections. This really needs to be

addressed, as we will not have development if we do not have the infrastructure in place to support it. 4. There should be a digital proximity counter at every local administration (i.e. parish level). 5. Personal contacts with public authorities should not be abolished. 6. If the infrastructure for the delivery of services is set up in such a way that it is modular and can be reused in different

contexts, then governments can decide whether they want to deliver the services or have others come in and create additional services.

Openness, transparency, trust and security7. It is necessary to find the right balance between security and openness. One possible solution for this is to put in

place routines for the classification of information, and to make more of an effort in assessing what sort of information should be secure, and what should be open.

8. There is a need for soft infrastructure initiatives that allow information transfer across national, regional and organisational boarders, such as eProcurement, eID and eSignatures. This infrastructure makes it possible to secure data that needs to be secured.

Participation and co-creation1. In order to involve citizens and businesses in the co-creation of services, it will first of all be necessary to generate

trust between stakeholders on both sides of the border. In generating trust, it is important to talk not only about infrastructure, but also about education and culture, and about information, communication and languages.

Funding1. What is really important at regional level is to have funding. If someone wants to implement one of the actions, their

main concern will be how much money it will cost, and how much money they will save by implementing it. We need to look for new ways to provide funding.

2. For eGovernment, or any other digital agenda, to be effective, it is necessary to have partnerships to create funding. 3. Sustainability should always be kept in mind. It is necessary to see whether there is a funding model that could make

sure that the service remains available over time, even if there is a change in local government.

Role of the Commission1. The Committee of the Regions should be included in the eGovernment Action Plan Steering Board, because this is not

only an issue for the Commission and the Member States, it is an issue for everybody.

Supporting the implementation of eGovernment at regional and local level – November 2016To help regional and local public administrations implement the eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020, a seminar was organised on 15 November 2016. The seminar presented the various funding mechanisms available for actions and discussed how to ensure alignment of these investments with the main priorities of the eGovernment Action Plan.

The seminar was organised for representatives of the European Commission, the European Parliament, Committee of the Regions, regional and local public administrations and managing authorities.

One of the expected results of the day is a guidance document including a wealth of links and introductions to funding mechanisms as well as a simple tool that administrations can use to assess whether their planned investment is in line with the principles and priorities in the EU eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020.

Recommendations

General1. Evidence-based policy-making could be used to show how co-creation can act as a catalyst for more data-driven

government. 2. It is recommended that Member States develop eGovernment strategies based on identified needs, with clear

objectives and assigned responsibilities and accountability.

Awareness raising and engagement 1. It is important to make the principles of the eGovernment Action Plan better known in public administrations at all

levels.2. More attention should be paid to the local level, perhaps by organising seminars, etc. closer to where the people are.

Webinars from Brussels are a good idea – but they should be widely advertised, so that more stakeholders are aware of them.

3. Share practices in one place and ensure better organisation in terms of the information that is available – better categorisation of information so that it is easily searchable.

4. LinkedIn groups could be useful for cross-country collaboration, allowing people to find each other and share knowledge and best practices and know what other people are doing in other parts of Europe.

5. It may be beneficial to organise a roadshow on eGovernment and the related instruments. 6. Be user-centric and involve citizens.

Public service delivery1. Don't delegate eGovernment projects.

Funding1. Don't finance just digitalisation (hardware & software) without business-process re-organisation and synchronisation

with administrative reforms. 2. Don't finance projects that develop basic services that are already available. 3. Select projects with a clear policy goal and in line with the Digital Agenda & Digital Growth Strategy. 4. Finance projects with a clear sustainability strategy. Think about the system, not the money– don't confuse means

and ends. 5. Innovation procurement principles should be applied. 6. Create a network of local contact points. For all Horizon 2020 calls there is a local contact point, perhaps that contact

point could cover other funding sources, not just Horizon 2020. In this way practitioners would have a better pool of calls to select from and the Commission would be able to get its message across better.

7. Perhaps organising more multi-stage applications is the way to go, for example, starting with small grants for networking and so on. This network could be built on to create a project in which scientists from partner cities could collaborate to create a real heavyweight project.

8. More information should be provided to managers, so they have a better understanding of all the programmes available.

9. Training should be provided on the funding mechanisms, and perhaps it might be beneficial to ’dumb down’ slightly the information that is available on funding. Perhaps people don’t need to, initially, have access to a huge amount of information – it might be best to provide access to a number of critical points, such as: theme/topics, target, action type, eligibility, specification and total budget.

Replication of solutions1. Think open source (share/don't reinvent) and re-use public sector information.

2. With respect to eID, having the hardware closer to the municipalities might help with the uptake of eID. It might also be useful to promote eID through use cases and success stories, showcasing the value of digital service infrastructure to end users in local regions.

Role of Commission1. The EC should consider the ICT implications of EU legislation. 2. DG CONNECT should have a more prominent role in the preparation of Working Programmes and of calls for

proposals with implications for eGovernment. 3. DG CONNECT and DG REGIO should work more closely to make sure that the negotiation and evaluation of

operational programmes under Thematic Objective 2 are in line with the principles of the eGovernment Action Plan. 4. It would be good if the Commission could provide some kind of recognition of the work that has gone into the

preparation of good proposals that do not receive funding, so that their work is not in vain.

Innovation1. It is very important to reap as much benefit as possible from technology through collaboration between central and

local government in order to have exchange of experience and best practice.

Cross-border mobility1. Border regions provide a good testbed for interoperability solutions and eGovernment convergence, so perhaps there

should be more focus there.

Main messages and synthesis of recommendations by topic

Main MessagesThere is a need for increased awareness of eGovernment solutions and increased engagement with stakeholders at all levels to promote these solutions and encourage their uptake.

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’

eGovernment should be based on certain principles, such as the once-only principle, privacy by default, digital, cross-border and open by default, and so on. Furthermore, Member States should develop eGovernment strategies based on identified needs, with clear objectives, responsibilities and accountability.

All measures with the potential to improve eGovernment services should also be improved at the national level. Furthermore, all public authorities, including cities, should be obliged to use European standards, unless they have a good reason not to. Standards should be global - there should be convergence of regional, national European and global standards. Standards should be tested against the impact they deliver.

Co-creation of actions is an important element in creating a sense of ownership of eGovernment solutions, and this process should involve all stakeholders. In particular, it is necessary to engage with civil servants and public administration workers, and to involve civil society.

ICT plays a key role in underpinning eGovernment solutions and, in order t o 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.

Data and digital services should move seamlessly across borders and people should have the right to do business anywhere in the EU. A focus should be put on identifying both the barriers to, and enablers of, cross-border mobility, in order to overcome the former and promote the latter.

To facilitate the uptake of eGovernment solutions, it will be necessary to replicate successful technological solutions, with a particular focus on the promotion of common solutions based on open software and open services.

The issue of trust and security is central to the successful roll-out of eGovernment services across Europe. To address this issue it is necessary to find the right balance between security and openness and to put basic pre-conditions in place, such as the right to privacy/confidentiality, the right to exist digitally, the right to control access to personal data, and so on.

There should also be a clear focus on sustainability and on funding projects with a clear sustainability strategy that makes sure that the service remains available over time. Furthermore, to improve the efficacy of eGovernment funding, funding instruments should be streamlined and actions targeted at increasing awareness of these instruments.

The European Commission has a central role to play in facilitating the roll-out eGovernment at national and regional level. The Commission should make a lot of noise around eGovernment, benchmark, and help governments to put the issue high on the political agenda. Policy instruments should be used to accelerate eGovernment uptake by addressing issues such as making government more transparent, improving policy-making through participation and improving public services through enhanced collaboration between administrations, businesses and citizens.

General recommendations and specific calls for action by thematic group During the course of the six workshops in 2015-2016, a large number of general recommendations and calls for specific action were made. These can be divided into 10 thematic groups:

Awareness raising and engagement; Innovation and technology; Public service delivery; Cross-border mobility; Replication of solutions; Openness, transparency, trust and security; Funding; The role of the European Commission; Participation and co-creation; and recommendations related to eGovernment4EU on Futurium.

The general recommendations and calls for action in each of these thematic areas are laid out below.

Awareness raising and engagement

The need for increased awareness of eGovernment solutions and to engage stakeholders at all levels in eGovernment processes was a topic that generated the largest number of recommendations across the six workshops. These consisted of both general recommendations aimed at raising awareness about the benefits of eGovernment, and specific recommendations for concrete actions to develop engagement tools and multipliers aimed at specific groups of stakeholders.

Awareness raising and engagement - General recommendations

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.

It is necessary to look at how eGovernment influences us, and how we influence it. There is also a need to look at how eGovernment evolves – and what effect we have on its evolution – how we evolve with it, how eGovernment domesticates and controls us, and vice versa.

It is important that actions be co-created with the involvement of all stakeholders – thereby moving away from the static five-year Action Plans of the past towards a dynamic, flexible 'rolling' Action Plan, in which there is a focus on open data, citizen involvement, interoperability and the once-only principle. In particular, an effort should be made to engage civil society in decision-making, particularly in Member States where there is no political appetite for change.

Within the topic of awareness raising and engagement, some sub-topics emerged that deserve to be highlighted separately, these are:

Engagement tools / multipliers

To achieve an increased awareness of eGovernment solutions and to engage with stakeholders at all levels, participants in the six workshops identified a number of engagement tools and multipliers, use of which will create the required critical mass for eGovernment:

A specific awareness-raising campaign for the new eGovernment Action Plan, which may include a roadshow on eGovernment and the related instruments. This and any other and marketing campaign should show what's in it for the citizen.

More attention should be paid to the local level, perhaps by organising seminars, etc. closer to where the people are. Webinars from Brussels are a good idea – but they should be widely advertised, so that more stakeholders are aware of them. LinkedIn groups could be useful for cross-country collaboration, allowing people to find each other and share knowledge and best practices and know what other people are doing in other parts of Europe.

Face-to-face events should be organised, through Skype and so on. These should involve the three main stakeholders – policy-makers, civil servants and citizens.

Personalisation is also a key driver in the private sector and this is something that can be embraced by the public sector also.

It is important that local administrations be shown what is available, rather than being told what to do. 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 platform, a feedback system should be set up so that people know that their ideas

are being listened to. Use various channels to raise awareness - mix offline and online tools. It is necessary to engage with people using

their preferred device and their preferred social media tool. Social media should be used to facilitate citizen engagement. The creation of a Commission social media platform is a possibility, as is the use of existing platforms.

There is a need for incentives to encourage governments to steer the same course, but more rapidly, Also, to find a way to improve benchmarking, so that ‘laggers’ can learn from leaders, to achieve a more harmonised approach.

To engage young people it is necessary for eGovernment services to be mobile - young people get their first smart phone at 12, they live increasingly online. If you are not online, then you are irrelevant.

Create an exchange programme for civil servants, allowing them to exchange experience and to become more open to innovation and less wary of technology.

Language 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. Promotion of digital enablers should not be conducted in English only, but in all languages of the EU.

Digital literacy and engagement Education and digital skills are something that we all need to work on, to ensure that people have the skills to use

technology, and can adapt to a labour market altered by this technology. So, 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. 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. Governments need to join the fight against the shortage in eSkills. This is a battle that governments, industry and civil

society can wage together.

Innovation and technology

The role of ICT in underpinning eGovernment solutions was highlighted throughout the workshops. Stakeholders felt that 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. It was also felt to be very important to reap as much benefit as possible from technology through collaboration between central and local government in order to have exchange of experience and best practice. To achieve this, a number of concrete actions were highlighted:

There should be a programme to empower and network innovative public leaders through innovation workshops. 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. 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.

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 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

In general, it was felt that there needs to be an improvement in how public services are delivered and that there is a need for public services to be user-friendly, digital, one stop-shops that are intuitive, fast, efficient and accessible. Public administration should also be open, transparent, collaborative, and involve citizens. A number of specific recommendations were made to improve the quality and delivery of public services and to make sure that public administrations are flexible and reactive, and able to respond to demand for services more adaptively and keep pace with technological developments:

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.

Be aware of the digital divide - not everyone will want to receive services digitally. Citizens should receive access to services in the format they require.

There is a need for mobile public administration units that go to those citizens that still want offline services. Create a central hub for the available information on digital public services, allowing people to find these services

more easily. Focus on areas in need of improvement: health related services; submitting tax declarations, enrolling in school and

online procedures for setting up and running a business. It should be made clear that we are in a digital age and the provision of eGovernment services is a duty for cities, like

street lighting. Service delivery infrastructure should be modular, so it can be reused in different contexts. Access to high-quality and affordable Internet connections really needs to be addressed, as we will not have

development if we do not have the infrastructure in place to support it. There should be a digital proximity counter at every local administration (i.e. parish level). Personal contacts with public authorities should not be abolished. Digitisation of existing bureaucratic administration processes should be avoided.

Don't delegate eGovernment projects.

Cross-border mobilityTo achieve the Single Market, it is important that data and digital services should move seamlessly across borders and that people should have the right to do business anywhere in the EU. A number of recommendations arising from the workshops addressed the issue of cross-border mobility:

Work should be conducted to identify the main enablers of cross-border interoperability. 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. Border regions provide a good testbed for interoperability solutions and eGovernment convergence, so perhaps there

should be more focus there.

Replication of solutions

The widespread uptake of eGovernment solutions will only be possible if effective technological solutions are successfully replicated across the EU. A number of recommendations for specific actions in this area were suggested during the workshops:

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.

We should also think about digital municipality champions, who have done something successful that can be replicated in other Member States.

There should be an action to promote common solutions based on open software and open services. This action should also create transparency about the use of these solutions.

It is not possible to build a thousand digital enablers, so there needs to be a focus on prioritising and reusing digital enablers.

We should look for more help from the IT industry - they know how to solve these problems, we don’t need to develop everything from scratch.

With respect to eID, having the hardware closer to the municipalities might help with uptake. It might also be useful to promote eID through use cases and success stories, showcasing the value of digital service infrastructure to end users in local regions.

Think open source (share/don't reinvent) and re-use public sector information.

Openness, transparency, trust and security

A key barrier to public acceptance of eGovernment solutions is the issue of trust and security and so, understandably, a number of recommendations at the workshops addressed this issue. Generally, it was felt that there is a need for basic pre-conditions in this area, such as the right to privacy/confidentiality, the right to exist digitally, the right to control access to personal data, security and so on. A number of recommendations for specific actions address the issue of openness 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.

Every project should be open from day one – open to people with similar problems, etc. so that the solutions are available for reuse.

There is a need for soft infrastructure initiatives that allow information transfer across national, regional and organisational boarders, such as eProcurement, eID and eSignatures. This infrastructure makes it possible to secure data that needs to be secured.

It is necessary to find the right balance between security and openness. One possible solution for this is to put in place routines for the classification of information, and to make more of an effort in assessing what sort of information should be secure, and what should be open.

Information about public services should be available as open data, using open standards. 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.

Funding

Effective funding will be critical to the roll-out of eGovernment and a number of recommendations were highlighted at the workshops aimed primarily at streamlining funding instruments, increasing awareness of these instruments and promoting the sustainability of projects funded.

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

Open participative government should be made a precondition for all funding of projects. For effective funding of eGovernment, or any other digital agenda, it is necessary to have partnerships. Sustainability should always be kept in mind. It is necessary to see whether there is a funding model that could make

sure that the service remains available over time, even if there is a change in local government. Finance projects with a clear sustainability strategy. Think about the system, not the money– don't confuse means and ends.

More information should be provided to managers, so they have a better understanding of all the funding programmes available.

Perhaps organising more multi-stage applications is the way to go, for example, starting with small grants for networking and so on. This network could be built on to create a project in which scientists from partner cities could collaborate to create a real heavyweight project.

Training should be provided on funding mechanisms, and perhaps it might be beneficial to ’dumb down’ slightly the information that is available on funding. There is no need, initially, to have access to a huge amount of information – it might be best to provide access to a number of critical points, such as: theme/topics, target, action type, eligibility, specification and total budget.

Create a network of local contact points. For all Horizon 2020 calls there is a local contact point, perhaps that contact point could cover other funding sources, not just Horizon 2020. In this way practitioners would have a better pool of calls to select from and the Commission would be able to get its message across better.

Innovation procurement principles should be applied. Don't just finance digitalisation (hardware & software) without business-process re-organisation and synchronisation

with administrative reforms. Don't finance projects that develop basic services that are already available. Select projects with a clear policy goal and in line with the Digital Agenda & Digital Growth Strategy.

Role of European Commission

The European Commission has a central role to play in the roll-out of eGovernment services, through benchmarking, placing eGovernment high on the policy agenda, engaging with Member States on this issue, and leading by example. Suggestions raised at the workshops where the Commission should focus its activities included:

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.

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).

The European Commission should set standards and ensure interoperability; contribute to the exchange of good practices; lead by example; and push for the application of the once-only principle.

In the Digital Single Market strategy there is a need for authorities that are able to carry out inspections in the digital world. There is a need for public data analysts, this a special skill profile – we need to train specialists. This is a task at the European level, because this sphere operates transnationally.

The EU should work more with cities to help them to work towards an administration that is more open, with a culture of shared governance based on co-creation, also raise awareness and foster knowledge.

It would be good if the Commission could provide some kind of recognition of the work that has gone into the preparation of good proposals that do not receive funding, so that their work is not in vain.

The EC should consider the ICT implications of EU legislation. DG CONNECT should have a more prominent role in the preparation of Working Programmes and of calls for

proposals with implications for eGovernment. DG CONNECT and DG REGIO should work more closely to make sure that the negotiation and evaluation of

operational programmes under Thematic Objective 2 are in line with the principles of the eGovernment Action Plan. The Committee of the Regions should be included in the eGovernment Action Plan Steering Board, because this is not

only an issue for the Commission and the Member States, it is an issue for everybody.

Participation and co-creation

Co-creation of actions is an important element in creating a sense of ownership of eGovernment solutions, and this process should involve all stakeholders. In particular, it is necessary to engage with civil servants and public administration workers, and to involve civil society. A number of recommendations were made at the workshops for actions aimed at facilitating and improving the participative dynamic, both with respect to the eGovernment Action Plan specifically, and the promotion of eGovernment solutions more generally.

Streamline the participatory channels that exist in the EU. 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.

Apply co-creation mechanisms for the redesign of the eID dimension of the Europe Citizens’ Initiative to make it more effective.

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.

Put in place co-creation mechanisms for public services and use open processes to evaluate and improve these services.

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.

In order to involve citizens and businesses in the co-creation of services, it will first of all be necessary to generate trust between stakeholders on both sides of the border. In generating trust, it is important to talk not only about infrastructure, but also about education and culture, and about information, communication and languages.

Evidence-based policy-making could be used to show how co-creation can act as a catalyst for more data-driven government.

eGovernment4EU on Futurium

The following recommendations related specifically to the eGovernment 4EU platform on Futurium and aimed at increasing the effectiveness of the platform and improving users’ experience.

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.

Control expectations from the eGovernment4EU platform, so that users are not disappointed. The process of responding to requests from stakeholders should be transparent and it should be possible to track the

information flow. 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.

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.

Pay greater attention to labelling/wording. The use of the word ‘problem’ is 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 for prioritization: issues that get the most votes and are rated highly could be prioritised. If hundreds of people submit problems, there is a need for a way to cluster them around common themes.

It is very important to provide early feedback on the relevance of problems. 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 have 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.