Oslo

Bringing citizens closer to the state: e-government and e-governance

Client: Brønnøysund Register Centre (BRC), operator of Altinn, Norway’s cutting-edge web portal
Objective: Could Altinn serve as a platform for improving e-government throughout Europe?
Team: Kristof Claesen (Belgium), David Kaverud (Sweden), Jasmijn Lodder (Netherlands), Roxane Schwandt (Luxembourg) and Veronica Vecchio (Italy)

Public administrations in the 21st century have increasingly turned to the Internet in efforts to manage their relations with the private sector and reduce administrative burdens. However, e-governance in Europe still faces considerable challenges. After significant investments in appropriate technological infrastructures, the focus has gradually shifted towards user‐centred solutions, creating a “single point of access” for both businesses and public authorities.

Our client, the Brønnøysund Register Centre (BRC), operates Altinn, a Norwegian web portal that holds one of the best track records in Europe for improving communication and reducing bureaucracy for businesses and government. Altinn is unique in that it offers a one-stop-shop solution, assembling all forms and documents needed for electronic dialogue, and that it is based on extensive back-office cooperation between different government agencies. This makes Altinn technologically and organizationally innovative: a best practice for public administrations across Europe.

Our task was to investigate whether the Altinn solution could also serve e-governance objectives outside of Norway. For this, we researched possibilities in different European Union Member States, as well as on the EU-level itself.

We first divided the EU Member States into five categories based on a set of e-governance benchmarks and chose two countries – representative for their respective categories – for in-depth research. Our recommendations for these case studies are:

• Belgium: An all-encompassing approach is not likely to be successful. Instead, Altinn could initially be applied to the services offered by a particular department. As such, the benefits of the system will be demonstrated, possibly serving as a stepping-stone for further development. Interest for Altinn has been shown and the main focus should thus be on raising awareness for Altinn and getting the right people to know the system.
  
  
• Hungary: Start an open dialogue with Hungarian authorities and stress the advantages of an advanced e-governance system as well as the organisational solution of Altinn. Currently, the main barrier to e-governance development is the lack of ICT infrastructure. Nevertheless, businesses have been prone to use existing services and are therefore likely to welcome an Altinn solution.
  
  Secondly, we found that the one-stop-shop solution as well as the inter-agency cooperation of Altinn could be highly beneficial in the application procedures for EU funding, especially for SMEs:
  
  
• EU-level: Create a one-stop-shop solution that guides applicants automatically to the fund they need and standardise the application forms. Create a step-wise screening process modelled on the new European Personnel Selection Office system, where the system tells applicants at what point which information needs to be provided. Altinn will allow for the different departments involved in EU funding to work together under one portal, thus improving allocation, monitoring, and evaluation. In the European Commission, the Secretariat General, due to its central position, would be best suited for handling the implementation. Political support is best achieved by getting an “issue champion” in the College of Commissioners.