Great uncertainty in the municipalities

Employees in German administration see a need to catch up when it comes to implementing the Online Access Act (OZG) in their local authority. This is the finding of a recent survey by management and technology consultancy BearingPoint.

The Online Access Act (OZG) was passed in August 2017 and stipulates that all administrative services in Germany must be available digitally via a citizen portal within five years.

To this end, the federal and state governments must merge their administrative portals into a joint portal network. In the future, citizens will be able to use an individual user account with electronic identification to complete administrative tasks from their computers.

The municipalities are to be involved by the Länder. In addition, the central municipal associations are members of the IT Planning Council and are thus represented in projects. They accompany the implementation of the OZG and bring in the concerns of the municipalities. It is therefore important that the OZG is prioritized.

However, about a quarter of respondents (23 percent) indicated in the survey that little attention is paid to implementing the OZG in their own municipality.

In addition, 42 percent of survey respondents perceive the importance of the Online Accessibility Act in making the municipality more citizen-friendly as low or somewhat low.

"This finding is concerning and should lead to the definition of clear content goals for implementation for each service or bundle of services"

Jon Abele, Partner and Head of Public Services at BearingPoint, comments.

Administrative staff see the adaptation of existing processes and organizations (81 percent), budget (45 percent), and employee motivation and availability of IT solutions and IT infrastructure (42 percent each) as the biggest challenges in implementing the OZG.

Employees get a raw deal when it comes to digitization

The success of this ambitious digitization project depends on the enthusiasm, understanding and expertise of those involved. Yet staff often seem to be left out: 77 percent of respondents said that HR management was not a focus of their municipality's work in implementing the OZG.

Jon Abele on this:

"Many municipalities are only concerned with digitizing individual processes in order to meet the requirements of the legislature.

However, every digitization project should pursue specific substantive goals, such as shortening throughput times, increasing citizen satisfaction, or increasing economic efficiency.

These goals should be pursued vigorously in implementation. However, in order to achieve these goals, employees must also be consistently trained, which is often neglected.

But if you don't take your employees with you now, you can't expect digital management, let alone better management - because a competent workforce is the basis of a successful change process."

There is also a lack of knowledge among many administrative employees about the specific requirements placed on their own municipality by the Online Access Act.

About half of the respondents do not know what the implementation of the OZG will mean for the municipality. In addition, many municipalities feel let down:

Fifty-five percent say their municipality does not feel sufficiently involved in state and federal activities, and only 16 percent believe their current IT service provider is at all well prepared to implement the OZG.

According to the survey, the municipalities would like to see clear and binding agreements, reliable commitments, clear responsibilities and standardization from their responsible state administrations.

65 percent also say they would like to see software-as-a-service offerings from the federal government, FITKO (Federal IT Cooperation) or the lead states.

Asked what they think optimal collaboration at the state level should look like, respondents primarily express a desire for more transparency, open-source software, and regular exchange and stronger networking within the state administration.