Ladies and Gentlemen,
(Presentation)
It was with great pleasure that I have accepted Microsoft’s invitation to be here today. In the next 20 minutes, I will share with you what are mine’s and the Portuguese Government’s guidelines to modernize Government, in a fast but solid way, leveraging on Information and Communication Technologies capacities.
(Slide 1 – Key Goals)
The aim to modernize a Government and a country’s public administration is only one: to serve citizens better. This means that citizens (families, companies, communities or individuals) have to be at the centre of all decisions that are taken, regarding changes on processes and infrastructures. As taxpayers, citizens must be considered the best clients Government and Public Administration do have. If this is the case, technology must be regarded as a powerful instrument for a great step forward on the relation between Government and citizens.
Modernization must mean investment, but an efficient investment, qualification, but a useful qualification, simplicity, but a convenient simplicity.
(Slide 2 – Critical Success Factors)
To reach that main goal – to serve citizens better –, government’s strategy for its modernization cannot forget some critical success factors:
• First, the strategy must be clearly “Citizen focused” which is very different from “Technology focused”;
• Second, it must address both the direct relation with citizens (what we may call the front office) and all the environment that is linked to that relation (which means government and public administration workers, namely the main qualifications and skills they have and those they should have, processes they run and those they should run, infrastructures they use and those they should use);
• Third, and relating to what I just said, areas where to invest must be carefully analyzed because, for sure, the best strategy will be to concentrate effort on just some key areas;
• Fourth, the strategy must consider quick wins and regular reports to the community as citizens confidence on this reform are a success factor itself;
• Finally, confidence and efficiency will be better achieved if, from the beginning, private players are invited to work together with Public Sector towards a single vision for the relation between Government, Public Administration and those they serve.
(Slide 3 – 2002-2006 Action Plan)
Current Portuguese Government was elected in March 2002 and immediately started thinking of the best way to address the need for modern government and public administration structures, within the context of a demanding Information Society.
The first important step had an immediate impact. I’m talking about the conscience of transversal positioning for both Information Society and Electronic Government regarding the effects on social and economic development. The corresponding political attitude was to assume these areas on my direct responsibility as the Minister Assistant to the Prime Minister of Portugal.
In order to rapidly take these items into practice, Portuguese Government created the Innovation and Knowledge Mission Unit, which got the development and implementation of an E-Government strategy as one of its top priorities.
Following that responsibility, and considering:
• Current situation in Portugal,
• E-europe 2002 and 2005 goals, and
• Portuguese Government strategy,
This Mission Unit proposed an Action Plan for 2002-2006, which was discussed with all Portuguese ministries and was submitted to Portuguese Council of Minister’s approval, becoming the main instrument of action for the development of a modern Government in Portugal. In the coming slides, I will present you the main guidelines of the areas of actuation considered on this Plan.
(Slide 4 – Citizen Focused Public Services)
Government and Public Administration must develop the services model to citizens considering new and different channels of contact and to services delivery, leaving to its “clients” the decision of the most suitable channel regarding their convenience. This can be only achieved if work methods and learning processes do change.
What are the gains of this radical change?
• For citizens, companies and communities, values such as comfort, convenience, simplicity, efficiency, participation and accessibility turn to be reality;
• For Government and Public Administration as a whole, efficiency, articulation, optimization of means, increase of transparency and development of a better image become also a real value;
• For public bodies in particular, orientation to goals, integration of services, support, internal efficiency and recognition on work and effort are the main achievements;
• Finally, for civil servants, better qualifications, autonomy and responsibility, tasks simplification and stronger motivation make clearly the difference.
The Citizen’s Portal will be the most visible output of all the work that will be done on this area. Citizen’s portal will have two fundamental parts:
• It will allow a fast, convenient, trustable and safe access, at any moment and in every place, to an important set of online public services, using all available electronic communication channels;
• It will give easy and fast access to the Portuguese State information available online and contribute to a more participative citizenship.
(Slide 5 – Efficient and Modern Public Administration)
A modern and efficient Public Administration must be based on a new paradigm for public management and managers: cooperation, qualification and permanent concentration on the citizen needs.
Regarding this domain, Portuguese Government will run a set of projects that will contribute to:
• A lighter, faster, more agile, Public Management which can be done through:
• More valuable Public Administration workers, which can be achieved through:
• A wide spread of Electronic Public Administration:
(Slide 6 – New Technological Capacity)
In order to provide Government and Public Administration with a national infrastructure that is adequate to the development of Information Society and contributes to the proximity between Government and citizens, this Government will take on the following measures:
• Definition of a global strategy for the national infra-structure of Public Administration;
• Implementation of a national infra-structure of communications that guarantees connectivity between different State entities and takes security concerns into account;
• Definition of the necessary mechanisms, assuring an easy and cost-efficient communication between systems and application of all Public Administration.
(Slide 7 – Rationalization of Communication Costs)
Public Administration communications have been managed without a global strategy and coordination. This has leading to unnecessary spending of resources, to a limited level of efficiency and to very high deployment costs. Implementing a new policy on this issue, Government will pursue the following objectives:
• Definition of common policies for a more efficient utilization of infrastructures and an easier communication between systems and applications;
• Promotion of scale economies in the development of architectures, because the majority of challenges regarding communications start to be faced by most of the entities;
• Development of a strong purchasing power or pressure on the market providers.
To make these objectives real, there will be a set of actions to be taken, namely:
• Adaptation of telecommunications structures to real needs (integrated vision of costs rationalization, considering questions of software, hardware, desktop, communications);
• Understanding telecommunications as a strategic asset on the process of modernization of Public Administration; and
• Contribution of telecommunications to the development of Information Society.
(Slide 8 – Efficient Procurement)
Portuguese Government thinks it is necessary to speed up the adoption of electronic procedures in the public procurement process and on the Portuguese economy, especially when taking into consideration Portugal’s disadvantage compared to other state members that have already defined a national strategy and are executing relevant pilot-projects.
This delay will be more evident when the preparatory work that has been developed in other countries start to give some good results that will bring cumulative competitive advantages to them.
This means that, considering the private sector to be the main driver for the development of Information Society, Government should assume a support role in order to promote an adequate environment for private investment and for Portuguese players’ skills to go forward. To achieve this, Government will act in different areas:
• Adoption process of electronic procurement to catalyze all national economy;
• Promotion of trust on the mechanisms of electronic acquisition to citizens and organizations;
• Implementation of the right technological infrastructure to support national needs, especially through the creation of a National Portal of Electronic Procurement;
• Development of a strong market, promoting quality of support services offer to the electronic procurement processes;
• Update the necessary legal environment for a fast and sustainable development of electronic procurement practices.
(Slide 9 – Services Close to Citizens)
Electronic Government goals must have a consistent and integrated expression to citizen’s point of view, mainly when considering the different levels of administration.
Implementing a Local Electronic Government strategy will emphasize the new positioning of citizens on public services policies: always at the core. Public municipalities, on their side, will develop efficient management models and will provide more adequate public services to citizens needs.
(Slide 10 – Promotion of Electronic Public Services Utilization)
This strategy will only have a structural impact in Portuguese society if citizens, companies and communities understand and feel a real increase on their life quality.
This means that electronic public services need to be widely promoted, which we intend to do through important communication initiatives that drive, I repeat, trust, convenience and simplicity to public services users.
(Slide 11 – In Images…)
We truly believe that, together with important initiatives we are developing towards the Information Society, these actions will strongly contribute for a better Government, meaning better and cost-efficient public services. As these services influence both State and Society, all these efforts will surely turn Portugal to be socially more consistent and economically more competitive, in a vision that can be better expressed with the following small video.
(Slide 12 – Thank You)
Thank you.