Series of webinars for the Western Balkan region on seamless public service delivery

 

Analysis and measurement of public service delivery is becoming more and more widespread, including in  Western Balkan administrations. For the user, accessing a service typically involves multiple contacts with more than one public administration, whether for a service they would like, are entitled to, or are obliged to receive in the case of registrations, permits, taxes, charges and duties. While individual public services can be assessed at specific points, a more dynamic analytical approach is to evaluate users’ experiences of ‘life events’. These are common, crucial moments or stages in the lives of citizens (e.g. having a baby, starting a job, buying, building, renting or renovating a property) or the lifespan of a business (e.g. starting and registering a business, hiring an employee, paying tax and social security contributions).

The fundamental point is to understand each event as a whole and as the citizen or business sees it, thus not being limited to administrative services only. This leads to the concept of end-to-end service delivery, whereby a request for service delivery with the administration is opened, processed and delivered at the same point of entry for the user, irrespective of how many individual public institutions are involved or how many back-office transactions take place to satisfy the request. Because of the growing importance and interest in the ‘life event’ approach, SIGMA organised a series of three webinars to present and discuss this topic.

 

 Webinar 1: Life events in public service delivery: what and how?

The first webinar (4 March 2021) highlighted the methodology of life events. What are they and how are they applied in practice? This webinar was a mixture of methodological presentations and practical public sector case presentations (Estonia, France, Belgium/Flanders) in which the lessons learned were presented and discussed.

>> Agenda

>> Presentations: Mr Hans Arents (Belgium) I Mr Mihkel Lauk (Estonia) I Minister Tamara Srzentic (Montenegro) I Ms Françoise Waintrop (France)

>> Video recording

Webinar 2: Life events in the context of once-only, interoperability and the Single Digital Gateway

After our first webinar, describing the context and concepts of end-to-end public service delivery, the second webinar (18 March 2021) addressed key digital building blocks and the founding principles (interoperability frameworks, common vocabulary, service catalogue, once-only principle) as important enablers for a seamless public service delivery. Conceptual building blocks and principles were presented and illustrated by practical approaches at EU (Single Digital Gateway, ISA2, CPS-AV, TOOP) and national level (Slovenia and North Macedonia).

>> Agenda I Conclusions and way forward (Mr Mihkel Lauk, Estonia)

>> Presentations: Mr Miguel Alvarez-Rodriguez (DG DIGIT, European Commission) I Mr Dietrich Düner (DG GROW, European Commission) I  Ms Rozalinda Stojova (North Macedonia) I Dr Ermo Täks & Prof Dr Kuldar Taveter (Estonia): Presentation 1; Presentation 2 I Ms Alenka Zuzek (Slovenia)

>> Video recording

Webinar 3: Invisible service delivery around life-events

The third webinar (1 April 2021) focussed on moving towards seamless service delivery. The idea is that public service delivery should evolve into an “invisible” public service, encompassing a life event in one comprehensive and smooth service (end-to-end). The life event services should require no more than one interaction between an individual and an institution and ideally be delivered fully automatically without any physical interactions.

>> Agenda I Opening remarks (Nick Thijs, SIGMA) I Conclusions (Mr Mihkel Lauk, Estonia)

>> Presentations: Ms Claudia Barroso (Portugal) I Ms Dragana Becic (Serbia) I Mr Bruno Monteiro (Portugal) I Prof Dr Kuldar Taveter (Estonia) I Mr Ben Welby (GOV Directorate, OECD)

>> Video recording