The joint use of processes and services is the key to efficient and effective e-government. eGraz, the e-government platform of the City of Graz, is an open, producer-independent and universal framework, the generic approach of which enables swift and cost-effective implementation of on-line procedures. It is components-based and contains all the required e-government services. It takes no more than a few hours to transform each procedure into a transactional e-government service by way of virtual processes. A Business Process Engine controls the automated and process-based handling of recurring tasks. Ready-made standard processes reduce the modeling effort required for the procedures. The existing architecture allows for the integration of components of any producer and thus constitutes the basis for a Shared-Service Network. In order to perform the tasks required for cooperation management, a public-private partnership was set up, which is now mainly handling processes for Austrian municipalities.

Policy Context

Based on the eEurope 2005 action plan, the ’2005 e-Government Campaign 2005’ was launched in Austria, focusing on the preparation of an ’e-Government Roadmap’, the passing of a special e-Government Act and the improvement of the technical infrastructure. At the same time, e-government working groups were set up, made up of representatives of the Federal Government, the Federal provinces, cities/towns and municipalities (“BLSG working groups”) and striving towards joint and harmonized action. In these working groups, technical recommendations (communications architecture working group, style guide working group, working group on integration of procedures, …) and the legal framework (for the electronic file, data protection, …) were prepared. The e-Government Master Plan of the City of Graz provides for the clearly-defined goal of not only complying with legal provisions (Austrian e-Government Act, Austrian Signature Act, Austrian Signature Regulation, Austrian Regulation on e-Government Sectors Delimitation, Austrian Data Protection Act, etc.), but also of strictly observing the recommendations and results prepared by these working groups. Through this general concept, eGraz can be used universally and was furthermore awarded the Austrian e-Government quality seal. Another clearly-defined target of the Graz e-Government Master Plan, the barrier-free structure of eGraz, enables access to all groups of the Austrian population hand-in-glove with the e-government terminals provided in the Service Centers and the multi-media terminals operated by Telekom Austria. (“eGovernment i2010 Initiative” eInclusion). The action plan drawn up in the framework of the i2010 Initiative focuses on the further development of electronic official services, and the Austrian Government Program (2007-2010) provides that the citizens of all Austrian municipalities have reliable access to all e-government procedures at Federal, provincial and municipal levels and that procedures are handled electronically end-to-end. This target and the development of an “e-Government Resource Network (eGRN)” can be implemented by way of the cooperation model.

Description of target users and groups

eGraz is a platform which is integrated in the on-line presentation of the authority in question and on which all e-government services are based. Citizens and the business world are the direct users of the services. When put to productive use in the City of Graz, these services are directly available to the 300,000 inhabitants living in Graz as well as to 380 large businesses and some 2,500 SMEs. To date, more than 20,000 procedures have been handled via eGraz in the City of Graz. The e-government strategy laid down in the Austrian government program assigns cities, towns and municipalities the role of a front-office for all procedures involving the authorities, no matter if they fall within Federal, provincial or local competence. Eventually, this makes all Austrian citizens a direct target group. Consequently, this target group will - especially in connection with the EU Services Directive - embrace all EU citizens and companies. Offers set up for citizen participation will not only provide users with services, but also with enhanced participation via the platform. This makes also the political arena a direct target group. As conventional back-office specific applications are replaced by e-government applications, also those employed in administration are part of the target group. In Graz, this group accounts for some 2,000 people which are involved in procedural activities. For eGraz, the basic platform for the respective e-government offer, all 2,359 Austrian cities/ towns and municipalities as well as all the other authorities are regarded as a target group in terms of cooperation management. In this process, they do not only act as users of platform services, but also as providers of services. As a potential service provider, the IT industry is a part of the target group.

Description of the way to implement the initiative

For the City of Graz, innovative strength is a key factor in reaching stable investment prospects. Thinking ahead into the future and developing adequate strategies is an integral part of the ´Grazer Steuerungsmodell (GSM)´, the Graz Steering Model. This model enables uniform steering of the entire administration of the City of Graz, and is also used as an interface to contract the short-and-medium-term strategic goals of all specialized areas between politics and administration, which are displayed in a balanced scorecard. In terms of e-government, a master plan was drawn up, and in order to boost innovative strength there was intense cooperation with Fachhochschule Joanneum, the Graz-based University of Applied Sciences. e-government will set the course for the administration of the future. Networks linking different service areas will be decisive for the activities of the administrative authorities. Based on the multi-channel approach, local front offices will be developed further in a way that is geared to the citizens' needs, and the services will be produced in a comprehensive structure of resources-sharing. For this, we need swift and affordable implementation of e-government, with all developments being based on reusability and thus on broad usability as well as on active control and performance of cooperation tasks. For this purpose, cooperation was started with the working groups of the ´Digital Austria´campaign, laying down Austrian e-government standards.

Technology solution

In order to develop a cooperation model, a separate project was set up with the governet.at association, which was the basis for the foundation of GPE (Government Projekt-Entwicklungs-Gesellschaft, a government project-development partnership) in the form of a PPP, which is responsible for cooperation-management tasks. URLs: www.fh-joanneum.at www.digitales.oesterreich.gv.at www.e-gpe.com Multi-channel issues: The electronic forms provided by eGraz can be directly accessed on the Graz e-government-platform (egov.graz.gv.at) and also are linked from various Internet-sites. Citizens will get direct access to the forms when clicking on the description of services of the website of Graz (www.graz.at), at www.help.gv.at (virtual guide to Austrian Authorities and Institutions, Winner of Award2003) and also on websites of associations and other institutions. The trade-information-system of Wirtschaftskammer-Österreichs (WKO), the Austrian Federal-Economic-Chamber, is directly linked to eGraz. Here, the data of business-registration applicants are collected once and transferred to eGraz, where the process of business registration is started. For some procedures, there are separate forms for the concerned officers-in-charge, meaning that the handling of procedures is always the same, no matter if the procedure is started with the electronic application filed by the citizen or with data collection performed by the officer-in-charge. In order to grant also citizens without PC or Internet-connection access to eGraz, the Service-Centers of Graz have been equipped with e-government terminals. Here, it is also possible to help citizens with their electronic application, if need be. In addition, there are multi-media terminals all over Austria, which are operated by Telekom Austria and offer free-of-charge access to the websites of Austrian authorities. This gives citizens without PC/Internet connection an additional opportunity to handle e-government procedures. An Austrian e-government working group has also dealt with the subject of safe electronic delivery and prepared the concept of dual delivery. This enables the delivery of an official document via a component – either in a safe format and electronically, including an electronic certificate of delivery, or, if the addressee can not be reached electronically, by sending it through the post. At eGraz, this component can be accessed by all specific applications of the administration of the City of Graz.

Main results, benefits and impacts

Graz offers 200 products backed by 600 services, and is intending to offer some 120 electronic procedures. The selection is based on the criteria of ´boosting efficiency in administration´ (weighting: 65%) and ´usefulness for the citizens´ (35%). For most of the procedures, specific applications support the officers-in-charge. The key targets provided by the e-Government Master-Plan were the ´swift and least-cost implementation of e-government‘ and ´stable investment prospects`. Directly extending specific applications by e-government functions was discarded for being too complex right from the start. Instead, a platform was developed which serves as a generic framework, offering virtual processes for the electronic handling of business-processes and containing all e-government basic-services required for this purpose. The connection with the specific applications was realized via decoupled, generic back-end connectors. The key asset of this approach is that each business process can be treated as a simple order-delivery process. This allows a reduction of process analysis to the interfaces required for ordering and delivery, eliminating the influence of process-inherent differences on electronic processability. So, it will take only a few hours to create fully transactional e-government-services for any service. Additionally, this approach considerably reduces the organizational effort to introduce e-government. Assuming that services are exclusively used in Graz, the effort (estimated 1,000 person-days) for the extension of specific applications was reduced by half. Based on this approach, the e-government platform of Graz was extended by a so-called Business-Process-Engine. The aims driving this extension were a closer integration of actual business processes with the platform and the associated acceleration and quality improvement of procedures, coupled with an eventual efficiency boost. This solution has allowed for an automated, process-based handling of frequently recurring tasks, such as the query of central registers. By shifting these activities away from the original business process to the platform, original processes are shortened and thus accelerated. As opposed to “normal” process automation, the process modules located at platform level can be combined with any information system within the specialized departments. By providing process templates, the effort to develop an ´eGraz´-based e-government-procedure is reduced to three steps: -Configure the form, -Assign a process-template, -Assign a back-end-connector. Currently, Graz is handling roughly 15,000 procedures every year via the platform, and the proportion is strongly increasing. At the same time, some 40,000 procedures are handled by conventional processes. To provide stable investment prospects, the platform’s architecture is based on components which are easily interchangeable. So, services offered by any provider can be integrated in the platform. This warrants its universal nature and makes the platform an ideal basis for Shared-Service-Networks. The basic services which rely on defined Austrian standards are, by definition, universally valid. So a cooperation model was developed, offering each authority the opportunity to make use of all the requested services against payment of the respectively charged usage fees, and also enabling each authority and the IT-industry to provide services for which ROI is generated as a result. This ´Exchange-Platform´ requires active cooperation management, for which a company was set up as a public-private-partnership. Its tasks are: identifying of demand situations, assessing concepts and solutions, assuming services as a licensee, bringing about product/multi-client-capability, warranting legal security, initiating development-partnerships, further developing basic-services and acting as the licensor of services-providing. Providers are subject to the principle of cost recovery, users save time and costs for development and cover the initial costs as well as costs for the cooperation-management. The company’s business plan yields a fast break-even and a high ROI generated after only a few years, allowing for reinvestment in novel developments. (Attachment ´folder_egraz.pdf`) Innovation: - The generic concept of ´eGraz´ allows for the re-use of processes, specifications, services and applications at all levels of Austrian administration. This enables the broad use of public-sector developments and the IT industry. The speed at which e-government is being implemented is boosted considerably while costs are cut significantly. - A comprehensive network of e-government resources is being supported. Significant cuts of development costs and the generation of return on investment through the contribution of proprietary developments yield innovation capital which can be used for the benefit of the citizens and the economy.

Return on investment

Return on investment: Not applicable / Not available

Track record of sharing

-In the framework of the Austrian EU presidency, the high-level conference “e-Government for all Europeans” was held in Vienna from February 9-10, 2006. The City of Graz was the only Austrian local authority to be invited by the organizers to present its e-government model, i.e. the ´eGraz concept´, at this conference. The Austrian citizen-card concept was presented to the delegates on the basis of a procedure specifically developed for the conference via the Graz e-government-platform by using a signature card. Due to the nature of the concept of ´eGraz´, this could be realized very smoothly. In the spirit of e-Inclusion, an efficient procedure devised by the City of Graz was presented by a physically challenged person (attachments ´tourismfolder.pdf´, ´mobilitydisability.pdf´) -An international exchange of experiences was held with Banja Luka (23/09/2005: presentation at the 2nd Exit-Center-e-government-seminar entitled "EU Good practices in eGovernment at local level, An Austrian Case, City Government of Graz", 07/02/2007: visit of a delegation from Banja Luka: lecture on and presentation of the on-line-services) as well as with delegations from Slovenia and Czech Republic. -Exchange of experiences in the framework of our membership of KGSt, a local-government association, with the board of KGSt in April 2007 -Presentations held in the framework of international e-government-conferences (ICEG) in 2005, 2006, 2007 -Presentations held in the framework of Austrian e-government-conferences in 2005, 2006, 2007 -e-government-trainings all over Austria: the test-procedures (application, official decision) of the Graz e-government-platform are an official part of the Austrian Federal Chancellery’s e-government training courses. -Cooperation and exchange of experiences at the level of the bodies of the Österreichischer Städtebund, the Austrian Association of Towns and Cities, as well as of the working groups of the ´Digital Austria´ campaign. -Local partnerships with the municipalities surrounding Graz in the framework of the “Urban+”-EU-project.

Lessons learnt

-Economic development of e-government By the innovative use of technology, e-government can be implemented swiftly and cost-efficiently. Linked to ready-made process templates, the generic services platform reduces the implementation effort required for an e-government procedure to three steps (form - process - back-end). -e-Government gives administration processes a new set-up By the extraction of recurring processes into a joint process and services platform, original business processes are streamlined and accelerated. -Sharing of resources requires active cooperation management The joint use of processes and services goes hand-in-glove with necessary tasks, for which the public sector is nowadays lacking the resources and the necessary skills. Each authority can make use of the platform and the requested services against payment of the respectively charged usage fees, all the authorities and the IT industry can provide services, for which Return of Investment can be generated as a result. The tasks which have to be performed in this context are: identifying demand for services, assessing concepts and solutions, assuming services as a licensee, bringing about product and multi-client capability, warranting legal security, initiating development partnerships, further developing basic services and acting as the licensor in the provision of services. In order to perform these tasks, a company was founded in the form of a public-private partnership, the business purpose of which is the promotion and operation of Shared-Resources Networks.

Scope: Local (city or municipality)