Digital Citizenship (IT0022)

This action aims at providing citizens and businesses with the main tools needed to digitally interact among themselves and with the State. In addition to the goals of effectiveness, efficiency and cost- effectiveness, the goal is to obtain greater transparency in administrative processes, especially in those involving payments, and more generally to promote the evolution of citizenship towards the digital dimension. The workshop “Government as a Service” will effectively help pursue this goal. The project will develop low-cost advanced cloud services and gradually provide them to all public administrations, partly using EU funds. A single modern and user-oriented portal relying on the best international practices is indispensable to rationalize the supply of digital public services and drastically reduce their cost. • For Citizens: a) more user-friendly digital services; b) availability of innovative online services; c) improved quality of life. • For Businesses: a) simpler payments; b) greater transparency; c) availability of innovative online services; d) simplified relation with PA. • For Public Administrations: a) simplification of processes b) better services through data analysis; c) greater confidence; d) encouraging the use of digital services. ñ For everybody: reduction of transaction costs for public services and increase of digital skills.

Commitment 6. Digital citizenship

Commitment Text:

This action aims at providing citizens and businesses with the main tools needed to digitally interact among themselves and with the State. In addition to the goals of effectiveness, efficiency and cost- effectiveness, the goal is to obtain greater transparency in administrative processes, especially in those involving payments, and more generally to promote the evolution of citizenship towards the digital dimension.

The workshop “Government as a Service” will effectively help pursue this goal. The project will develop low-cost advanced cloud services and gradually provide them to all public administrations, partly using EU funds. A single modern and user-oriented portal relying on the best international practices is indispensable to rationalize the supply of digital public services and drastically reduce their cost.

· For Citizens:

a) more user-friendly digital services;

b) availability of innovative online services;

c) improved quality of life.

· For Businesses:

a) simpler payments;

b) greater transparency;

c) availability of innovative online services;

d) simplified relation with PA.

· For Public Administrations:

a) simplification of processes

b) better services through data analysis;

c) greater confidence;

d) encouraging the use of digital services.

· For everybody: reduction of transaction costs for public services and increase of digital skills.

Specific objectives

· Providing citizens with user-friendly tools to access online services.

· Reducing costs for PAs when providing digital services.

· Simplifying the online service delivery process.

· Encouraging citizens and Administrations to use digital tools for delivering services.

· Ensuring security and lawfulness of online services.

· Gradually enhancing the availability of online services delivered by PA.

· Making electronic payments available.

Responsible institution: AgID

Supporting institution(s): All

Start date: January 2015                                         End date: December 2016

Commitment Aim:

This commitment aimed at creating a single modern and user-oriented portal to rationalize the supply of digital public services, facilitate payments for services used by citizens and drastically reduce their costs.

Status

Mid-term: Unclear

Language of the commitment was vague which made it difficult to assess properly.  The commitment contained a wide range of initiatives that belong to other national initiatives, most being already in place before the adoption of the Plan. The objectives of this action are very generic (“providing citizens with user friendly tools to access online services” or “simplifying the online service delivery process”) or mandatory by law (“Ensuring security and lawfulness of online services). Therefore, this objectives can also be difficult  to measure, as any innovation can be considered in principle a deliverable of this action. Only few of these actions are ongoing. Given the lack of clarity and indication of specific deliverables for the assessment of this commitment, IRM researchers found this commitment to be of unclear completion. Please see the mid-term report 2014-15 for more information.

End of term: Limited

Based on information and data made available to the IRM researchers by government officials, there was limited progress on the implementation of some of the actions listed in the text of commitment. According to the government’s self-assessment report, this commitment includes the Public System of Digital Identity (Sistema Pubblico d'identità Digitale or SPID), the electronic invoicing towards the Public Administration (fatturazione elettronica), the electronic payments to the PA (pagamenti elettronici), and the General Register Office (Anagrafe Nazionale della Popolazione Residente). AgID is responsible for all these activities, which are all included in the Masterplan for digital growth of Italy released on November 2014. None of the described activities show a meaningful connection with the commitment. However, the Public System of Digital Identity (SPID) has seen further progress since the mid-term report. It was launched in March 2016 with a series of pilot projects with local and central administrations, including INPS, Revenues and Customs Agency, Inail, regions of Tuscany and Emilia Romagna e the municipality of Venice.

Did it open government?

Access to information: Did not change

Civic participation: Did not change

Public accountability: Did not change

By providing a single user-oriented portal relying on the best international practices, the government aimed at improving the supply of digital public services and reducing their costs. However, there are no clear indicators of how this portal has been implemented. From information and data made available to the IRM researchers by government officials about some of commitment’s actions, no changes on the quality of information disclosed to the public or on the opportunities that might have been created for participation were evidenced. In addition, due to the lack of clarity around the scope and level of implementation of most of the actions, the IRM researchers have not been able to assess whether any opportunities to hold officials answerable to their actions were created.

Carried forward?

As for the part of the commitment related to SPID, it has been included in the next action plan. Commitment 29 called Italia.it of the third action plan falls within the scope of commitment 6 of the previous one as its stated goal would be to facilitate the relationship between citizens and government through a fully integrated and user-friendly system accessible via a unique digital identifier represented by SPID. While it was carried forward, this commitment relates to e-service activities, which are potentially useful but due fall outside the scope of OGP relevance. In this regard, this type of activities might be included in other initiatives different than the OGP action plan.