Agendas too scattered

Study by the University of Vienna recommends a digitalization authority

According to a study by the University of Vienna, authorities could become more efficient through more digitalization. (symbolic image)

(Bild: stock.adobe.com)

A study conducted by the University of Vienna on behalf of A1 recommends setting up a "Digital Council" to act as a coordination and advisory body. In a second step, this should be developed into a digital authority. The authors of the study emphasized on Tuesday that the digital agendas are currently split between eight different departments, with the people involved working in "specialist silos" and not cooperating sufficiently with one another.

The administrative landscape in Austria has grown historically and is highly fragmented. "They tend to work alongside each other rather than with each other, but if you want technological progress, you need cooperation," said Katja Hutter from the University of Innsbruck at the presentation of the study. In order to break out of these "vertical specialist silos", an institutional pooling of digital expertise is needed.

Georg Serentschy (Serentschy Advisory Services GmbH) added that the "Digital Council" should serve as a "further development body" with a "claim to experimentation". Such a council would currently be located in the Ministry of Finance. After three years at the latest, the council would then be transformed into an authority, according to the study.

In this authority, one group of experts would advise stakeholders, another would plan and possibly implement funding projects, the third would act as a think tank with strategic planning tasks for the government and other stakeholders and provide advisory and coordination functions for decision-making bodies. The fourth unit is to perform regulatory tasks, i.e. also be equipped with decision-making and enforcement powers. There should be a close exchange between the four areas.

Danes and Finns lead the way
"Best practice examples" can currently be found in Denmark and Finland, where the Ministry of Finance acts as the control center, as well as the Netherlands, where the digital agendas are currently located in the Ministry of Economic Affairs. None of the countries have their own "digital ministry". "If you look at what is happening in Europe and globally, I am quite optimistic," said the third author, Nikolaus Forgó, in response to a question about the likelihood of such an authority being implemented.

Florian Tursky recently handed over the digital agendas to Claudia Plakolm - both from the ÖVP.

(Bild: APA/EVA MANHART, Krone KREATIV)

The event at the A1 headquarters was opened by Neo-Digitalization State Secretary Claudia Plakolm (ÖVP). Plakolm also emphasized once again that digitalization is a cross-cutting issue. "I know that a successful digital transformation of our economy, our society and also our administration is of enormous importance" and will determine "whether we can maintain and expand our prosperity or whether we fall behind countries such as China or the USA."

More efficiency through IT
Digitalization should be used in administration to increase efficiency and make administration more transparent, emphasized the State Secretary. Austria is making good progress with eGovernment: more than 2.6 million people use ID Austria, around 600,000 digital driving licenses, 300,000 digital registration certificates and 220,000 digital proofs of age have been uploaded. In total, there are currently around 220 digital administrative services. Plakolm said that this puts Austria at the forefront within the EU. She sees "room for improvement" in digital file management, especially in the justice system.

According to Plakolm, cooperation is already working well. On the one hand, through the federal-state-city-municipality cooperation, and on the other, through the "Chief Digital Officers" that exist in every ministry to improve cooperation between the ministries. However, the best regulation is useless without the willingness of the population: "We can have the most digital administration, the most automated official channels and the most networked data network. If people don't know how to use them and don't trust the digital services, then none of this is worth anything." One focus in the coming months will therefore be on the digital skills offensive.