On 30 November from 9:30 am to 11:00 am, join the BLSI Virtual Breakfast - a series of morning online sessions focusing on different aspects of digital-ready policymaking. This time we will present a new tool developed by the European Commission – the Digital-ready Checks. Find out what it is and how it can support policymakers in the policy drafting process.
During the event, our team will present a demonstration version of Digital-ready Checks. Among other things, our speakers will delve into their national-wide approach on similar tools, particularly we will explore Germany’s example. Whether you are a policymaker, legal professional, IT specialist, or simply curious about the future of digital governance, share your insights on similar instruments and engage in thought-provoking discussions.
When is it taking place?
30 November 2023, 09:30–11:00 am CET
How can I register?
Click here to register!
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Our sincere appreciation goes to the attendees for their active participation and our speakers from Germany: Jakob Häußermann (DigitalService Germany) and Katharina Berndt (Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community - BMI). The key highlights of the event and the presentation can be found below. You can watch the recording here.
Germany’s approach to digital-ready policymaking (Jakob Häußermann, DigitalService Germany, and Katharina Berndt, BMI)
In this session, our speakers from the DigitalService and BMI presented an approach taken in Germany to support policymakers in including considerations on the digital dimensions of the new regulations:
- Digital-ready laws lay the basis for a proactive and modern state which offers its citizens application free and automatized services. The aim is for federal laws to be more easily implemented, so that political goals can be achieved promptly;
- The federal government outlined in the 2021 Coalition Agreement the need to improve the quality of laws and regulations and committed to examine the possibility of their digital implementation early in the legislative process. This approach was confirmed in the German government’s digital strategy, in a cabinet decision of August 2023 and in the National Regulatory Control Councils Act.
The approach taken by German administration articulated in three different work streams:
- A set of guidelines that policymakers need to follow when designing and drafting new policies and regulations. Such guidelines have a two-step approach: a small number of questions through which policymakers can self-assess whether the regulation has a digital dimension or not. In case of a positive response, the policymaker is provided with additional supporting material that guides them through the 5 German principles for digital-ready policymaking and provides methodological support, e.g. for visualisations.
- Designing and developing different methods and user-friendly tools for creating regulations, in particular making use of visualisations. They support the alignment of different actors and organizations at different levels of administration and facilitate the identification of data flows and of logical inconsistencies.
- Supporting such mindset and cultural change in policymaking through human-centered services. They provide support to policy teams via email, phone, and online consultations – with a walk-in policy, in addition to participative workshops on selected regulatory projects.
The service has been active since January 2023, this has resulted in:
- 72 regulations or laws out of 87 going through the digital-checks in Germany, with a general application rate of 83%;
- 9 workshops involving more than 160 participants from 12 different ministries, engaging in regulatory work 61 support requests answered from more than 10 ministries.
The first effects after 10 months of active service are already visible:
- The removal of written form requirements from some legislation;
- Enabling the reuse of data collected as a result of a legal requirement. The removal of barriers in the automatisation of some processes due to the increased clarity of rules and concepts. An increase in the use of visualisation for a better understanding of data flows or to facilitate the communication with implementation authorities. In the 3rd quarter of 2023, almost 30% of relevant new digitally-relevant regulations had already used visualisations.
The approach taken to develop such a service offering is iterative and currently focusing on:
- The development of user-friendly tools that help policymakers to visualise new regulations;
- The set up of an interdisciplinary task force with both engineering and design competencies that help policy teams in their work.
The digital-ready checks at the European Commission
In this session, Unit B2 from the Directorate-General for Digital Services (DIGIT) presented the first iteration of the digital-ready checks at the European Commission and a user journey.
- The digital transformation is a political priority for the European Commission and digital-ready policymaking supports that priority.
- A digital-ready policymaking support service, currently in piloting phase, aims to provide advice and raise awareness about including the digital dimensions at an early stage of the policy process within the European Commission;
- This also involves the developments of supporting tools such as the digital-ready checks at the European Commission (DRC@EC).
The digital-ready checks' main objectives are:
- Assessing the digital-readiness of a policy;
- Proposing a set of actionable recommendations to improve the digital-readiness of a policy and directing to the relevant services that can support a user in the process;
- Identifying the mandatory digital requirements of Better Regulation that need to be addressed;
- Assessing the need of an Interoperability Assessment and/or an ICT Impact Assessment for such policy.
After an initial internal testing phase, the team received some initial feedback, such as:
- To develop a user journey to visualise the policy design process (as the one demonstrated during this session);
- To simplify and provide more explanation on the terminology contained in the checks;
- To shorten the survey by adopting a two-step approach – as done in Germany;
- To suggest a set of more actionable and easily understandable recommendations;
- To transform the tool into a living survey that would allow for an interactive approach.
Presentation and recording
You can download the below files containing the speakers' presentations and Q&As. You can find there the complete version of the digital-ready checks@EC. If you have any feedback, please do not hesitate to contact us!
You can watch the recording here.
Next steps
The session provided our Digital-ready Policymaking Team with valuable insights to shape our future activities. We thus look forward to seeing you at our next Virtual Breakfast session!
Details
09:30 – 09:45 | Welcome & Introduction
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09:45 – 10:05 | Germany’s approach to digital-ready policymaking With the beginning of this year, the German government introduced a digital-readiness check for new regulations at federal level. In this session we will give a brief introduction to the scope and methodological approach. We will share insights from almost one year of digital-ready policymaking ‘in practice’. |
10:05 – 10:15 | Q&As We will invite you to share your questions and ideas on Germany’s approach |
10:15 – 10:45 | The digital-ready checks@EC We will explain the rationale for developing the digital-ready checks@EC and demonstrate the tool |
10:45 – 11:00 | Conclusions and next steps |