The online public services platform of the Barcelona City Council, working since April 2007, is intended to be focused on two types of customers with different interests and needs; citizens and companies.

The Barcelona City Council is one of the civil services that choose a fair bid on the research and development on internal processes and citizen services with the aim of improve the quality and accessibility of services and increase the effectiveness and efficiency in management. In conclusion, consolidate a civil service to be close to the citizen – without bureaucracy and administrative barriers – more efficient.

Since go live of the “Online public services Portal”, it was consolidated as a reference on online public services portals by the public administration in the State.

Deployed to navigate in a quick way (without queues, the paperwork handling will be handled in few minutes), easy way (the portal is easy to use and with help assistant) and comfortable feel (available any time and accessible from any device), the online public services Portal main aims of the provided solutions are:

§   Enable a new channel, the WWW, to make easy the paperwork handling of the citizens and companies

§   Simple and fast processes in Barcelona’s Council, through Citizen Folder and Companies or Entities folder, depending on the case

Two important features are user friendly and accessibility (AA given by W3C) and the online call center support service. It integrates the access to the telematic register, the payment methods, the repository of electronic documents and the digital signatures.

The new public services portal ("tràmits online") has access and information to more than 1.000 different procedures, municipal ones and also from other Government offices and let you finalize 90 administrative procedures that represent the 80% of the volume handled by Barcelona’s Council. The success of the Portal can be seen in the usage of the citizens and companies have done, actually more than 100.000 of administrative procedures requests per month.

The Portal let you navigate with authentication or without it as an anonym user. In the case the user is authenticated, the user get more functionalities tan the anonym user, like the access to Citizen Folder and Companies or Entities folder that has additional services. In both cases, the access has to be done with a digital certificate. The Citizen Folder can be also accessed with a user name and password given by the Portal with registration functionality.

Although it has been said to the Citizen Folder also it is possible to accede by user or password, it is a system that throughout the present year will be eliminated in order only using digital certificate. User and password have served as transition to the digital certificates unfolding in Spain and the habit-forming on the part of the citizens.

The Citizen Folder services aim to speed-up the processes and procedures between the citizens and the Barcelona City Council giving access to useful and interesting information.

In the same way, the Companies or Entities folder let speed-up the processes and procedures between the companies and the Barcelona City Council giving access to useful and interesting information related with the company.

Since Go live, the Portal is in constant evolution with the aim of improving and increasing the services available for citizens and companies.

Policy Context

Since last two decades, the Council of Barcelona has created a model of public management, the Barcelona’s Model, that includes an unify strategic vision, politic leadership, professional management, innovation, compromise/agreement, closeness to citizen, civic culture, citizen involvement and quality.

To sum up, the strategic framework of the new portal of paperwork handling has three main elements:

§   Electronic administration of Barcelona’s Model

§   Strategic plan of Information Technology 2004-2007, of Barcelona City Council

§   The regulatory ordenance of the electronic administration

The electronic administration aim is to give the tools needed by the administrations to manage in the most democratic way. Therefore, Internet is not the only channel, but the channel to make true the Barcelona’s Model of Electronic Administration.

By this way, the Barcelona City Council thinks the online public services portal is a solution to be implemented to innovate their production technology structure, either the internal processes management as well as the supply of services to the citizens with the purpose of improving the quality and accessibility of their services and increase the efficient and efficacy of management.

The “Barcelona Model”, a city strategy

 To obtain the approve of the e-Administration services by the social majority and turn it into the main channel for the relationship between companies, citizens and Public Administrations, is the main purpose of the “Barcelona Model”, a project initiated by the Barcelona City Council that had as a first phase the creation of a new online public services portal in the Internet.

The main objectives were the following:

§   Improve and increase the citizen services: citizen oriented council, able to satisfy citizen expectation and demands and adding value to accomplish. To do this, we have to tools: Integrated System of Citizen Services, and Internet - www.bcn.es

§   Look upon the internal processes and improve it: the innovative actions in the functionality of the organization are directed by efficient and efficacy: Intranet and Extranet.

§   A city and participation strategy: clear and open administration, integrated with the citizen when taking action.

 The main element to achieve the goals, apart from the development of technolgy tools, has been the content of the tools is useful for users and to be a real option and comfortable to do the job and processes that before do not need the help of ITC. This made a change of mind on the way of working and relationship in the administration.

Another important element that made up the strategy framework included in the online public services portal is the “Strategy Plan of the Information System 2004-2007” of the Barcelona City Council.

The Strategy Plan of the Information System 2004-2007 was designed to: use the technology to achieve the service aims, implement new applications and improve the existing ones, design a model the Information model of Barcelona City Council, enhancements on the actual platforms, renew the infrastructure and establish a new technology model following the new challenges. 

Finally, the new public services portal is one of the main parts of the Regulatory Ordinance for e-Government approved last 24 of March 2006. This Regulation is the first rule created On Site in Spain and inspired in the Law 11/2007, 22 of June, of the electronic access of citizens to the Public services.

The approval of a Regulatory Ordinance for e-Government determined a significant challenge milestone which was central to the construction of e-Government in the Barcelona City Council and possibly in Europe.

Description of target users and groups

Barcelona City Council has developed a new concept of municipal portal, by which aims that the Internet becomes the main channel of communication with citizens and businesses.

In this regard it is important to note that the potential population that can access, not only involves the citizens of Barcelona, as the information and services provided are useful to a wider audience.

Barcelona is one of the major European metropolises. With more than a million and a half million in the metropolitan area, Barcelona is the political, economic and cultural capital of Catalonia, and autonomous community located in the northeast of Spain, on the Mediterranean shores. Barcelona City Council is strongly involved in the e-Government process using the internet as an instrument to achieve three main strategic objectives: improve commitments to the inhabitants and expand them, develop a participatory strategy for the city and reconsider and improve internal management.

In order to identify the target collectives, the Barcelona City Council has conducted a rigorous analysis of demand, performing in-depth quantitative and qualitative, about the needs, knowledge and the tendency of citizens, businesses and managers to use the online channel for dealing with the Barcelona City Council.

The strategy followed by the City Council is a multi-channel communication, i.e. the base of the project is the consideration of a City Council available for everyone, anywhere. Based on data from 2007 one of every three procedures is performed over Internet. Here are the details of procedures taken by different channels: Telephone: 16.74%; Face: 47.06% Website: 36.21%.

Also it is a multitarget or multigroup. The different groups to target are:

§   Citizens: residents and non residents. Within these groups distinguish personalized services to immigrants, elder people, new residents in Barcelona, etc.

§   Companies registered in Barcelona: 110,000; self-employed registered: 120,000.

§   Middleman.

The new online public services portal is characterized by a strong component of customization through specific offers to each group (businesses, professionals and citizens) that allows the understanding of user needs.

An example of this level of customization for targeted groups is what the portal makes available to the citizens: the Citizen Folder. The Citizen Folder responds to the will of the City Council to facilitate the processing and improve transparency in relations with citizens. The citizen folder contains, in private and personalized environment, information about tax data and home address register of citizens of Barcelona to facilitate and speed up the formalities with the City.

It also allows access to the receipts of the Property Tax (IBI) and the Vehicle Tax (IVTM); to the state of taxes and fines, and the information of register (about residence, co-habitation or the electoral roll). Furthermore, Citizen Folder offers the possibility of doing different procedures such as local receipts or request register certificates.

Since 1995, all channels have increased the benefits and attentions. According to data from the Barcelona City Council, the website usage for year 2006 has increased 134% compared to the year 2003.

Description of the way to implement the initiative

The “Online public services Portal” project was organized in a number of phases, both with technical and organizational dimensions. A significant effort was needed in dealing with organizational issues and also on redefining the service concept and its exploitation scope.

The project was organized in five phases:  

• Phase 1. Demand Analysis:

•  
  • Surveys
  • Development of Statistical Studies
  • Review of existing procedures
  • Development of  Focus Groups
  • Validation by experts

• Phase 2. Definition of the view and design:

•  
  • Functional analysis and reengineering of procedures
  • Defining marketing objectives and strategies
  • Defining the new concept Processing Portal
  • Graphical design of the Portal
  • Design of the architecture and information
  • Design of the  Procedures Information System

• Phase 3. Development and Deployment:

o    Modelling

o    Development

o    Usability tests and accessibility review

o    Impact analysis

o    Change management

o    Deployment

• Phase 4. Change Management:  

o    Communication Plan

o    Training

o    Support

• Phase 5. Support:

o    Evolutional development

o    Incident resolution

So cross, Project Management and Quality Assurance were carried out.

(1) Effective coordination and decision-making

The implementation and management of the project “Online public services Portal” project was characterized by the effective expression and fulfillment of an institutional commitment in support of e-Government. That is reflected by the range of a combination of policies and plans, a major boost to investment in ICT and the implementation of new structures (organizational, technological and legal) for the management of the online services, which would facilitate the integration of the online Administration within the ordinary Administration of the City Council.

The highest political level also responsible for the entire municipal management machinery took over the strategic redefinition of the municipal website. Consequently, an e-Government Committee was formed with the engagement of councilors and directors from the different municipal areas, and the Editorial Commission for the website was revitalized.

The position of Deputy Managing Director, under the Municipal Managing Director, was created to oversee the new Department for Citizen Attention, the Department of Organization of Systems, the Municipal Institute of Information Technology, and also a new “Technical” Department for the Internet.

Between 2004 and 2007 the “Strategy Plan of the Information System 2004-2007” has sought the effectiveness and quality of service to citizens and the improvement of the internal management by using ICT. This is a project management model in which relations with the administration it is also improved (in both external and internal level).

The Strategy Plan of the Information System 2004-2007 meets a set of initiatives and projects that enhance the multichannel model of citizens service, deal with actions that respond to specific needs of sectors of the municipal administration and affect the renewal of the infrastructure and the information model of Barcelona City Council.

“Online public services Portal” project is part of the Strategy Plan of the Information System 2004-2007, in the section on e-Government, and meets all the points that have been discussed in the preceding paragraph.  

The “Online public services Portal” project was managed by the creation of different committees:

• Electronic Administration of the Barcelona City Council (CAEB)
• Management Committee
• Monitoring Committee
• Project Coordination Team

(2) Partnership strategy

Processing “Online public services Portal” project has been led by Barcelona City Council. Following are the departments and outside companies who have participated in the project:

§   City Council Departments: Municipal Treasury Institute; Municipal Institute of Urbanism and different departments’ solicitors of the procedures.

§   Barcelona City Council Directions: Direction of Internet Technology, responsible of the project; “Institut Municipal d'Informàtica (IMI)”, responsible of the technological solution, etc

§   Outside suppliers: Deloitte, project support; IBM, general coordinator; INSA, responsible of “Online public services Portal” deployment, etc.

(5) Multi-channel strategy

Following the aim of strategic management of channels of the City Council, the Online public services Portal includes three channels of service and processing fully integrated each:

• Face-to-face, at Citizen Attention Offices
• Telephone, by calling 010
• Internet: visiting www.bcn.cat/tramits

 (6) Knowledge management

The Barcelona City Council has tools to support knowledge management and the collect, transference, security and systematic management of the information, as well as systems designed to help making the best use of that knowledge.

Technology solution

The “Online public services Platform” technology is based on J2EE platform and uses a distributed and multilayer application model based on J2EE components and containers, namely the application is divided into components according to their function and each of the components that form the application will be distributed in a container that provides the execution context required for operation.

The whole architecture is implemented using only the framework of classes used for the portal, utilizing the services of general use of the IMI and the programming elements of the J2EE specification following the standards: JSP's, Servlets, EJB's, web services, classes. DAO is used to access the data via JDBC standard, apart from these elements struts is used as a layer below, the facto global standard for implementing the Model View Controller pattern in the presentation layer.

The “Online public services Portal” consists of five modules themselves: Portal, MiddleOffice, Folder citizen and business, procedures catalog and content management for procedures information. The architecture used for each module is slightly different.

Portal, MiddleOffice, Folders and content management of procedures information are different web applications that use J2EE standard using the struts as a development tool, based on MVC pattern widely used and considered of great strength, its nature of "free software" and its compatibility with all platforms where Java Enterprise is available makes it a highly available tool.

The procedures catalog, each procedure is done as an independent EAR and use its own extended Struts framework to facilitate the development of procedures, with its own specific functionalities designed to preserve investments and to reduce development costs, facilitating technological changes, facilitating maintenance and allowing incremental deployment: procedure and application oriented. The communication of procedures with the business services is done through EJBs or web services and MQ services to communicate with existing Host services.

In addition, the portal uses common modules by integration layers that might be reusable for any other site, among others modules stand out: payment gateway, authentication modules, recording and electronic signature, file module, logging and PDF creation module, email and SMS reporter. All these modules are made in standard J2EE technology.

Finally, the portal uses a fully scalable technology J2EE Standard that uses fully reusable components not only all over the “Online public services Portal”, but by the Barcelona City Council.

Technology choice: Standards-based technology, Mainly (or only) open standards, Accessibility-compliant (minimum WAI AA)

Main results, benefits and impacts

Barcelona City Council does a strong bid introducing technological innovations in its productive structure, both in regard on to internal management and the provision of services to citizens and businesses, in order to improve the quality and accessibility of their services and increase the effectiveness and efficiency in their management. Ultimately, consolidating administration closer to citizens more efficient without bureaucratic and administrative barriers.

Encouraging intensive use of communication technologies and information among the population (businesses and homes) has brought benefits in areas such as attention and public participation, transparency in communication between council and citizens and the economic and tourist promotion of the city. 

To Barcelona administration, committed to modernizing and improving services, the challenge and opportunity of the introduction of new technologies has involved a new boost in the dynamics of internal renewal.

The main results of the “Online public services Portal” are the following ones:

§   Allows 86 on-line procedures, which represent 80% of the processing volume of Barcelona City Council.

§   In 2007: 39 million web accesses (107.161 per day), 362 million pages served (991.497 per day), 15 million visitors, 1.2 million on-line procedures.

§   It offers the possibility of doing more than 30 on-line procedures, tasks that typically represent 80 percent of transactions over Internet. With the launch of the new website, Barcelona City Council aims to make 80 percent of procedures are performed by municipal Internet. 

§   All the procedures are completed via Internet.

§   On-line support service.

§   All channels are integrated.

§   Procedures conmunication via SMS

§   Telematic notifications

§   Incorporation of digital certificate/electronic NID

• Integrated Access with :
  • Telematic Registry
  • Payment Gateway
  • eDocuments repository
  • Digital Signature
• About 444.936 procedures during 2008 (1216 daily average), which represents an increase of 25 % of the number of procedures performed since 2006.

Following, some of the main benefits of using the “Online public services Portal” are:

§   Specific procedures, information and subjects depending on the different users: citizens, businesses, brokers and employees.

In this regard, it is relevant to focus on the personalized services to citizens through the Citizen Folder: “Online public services Portal” offers static general information services, interactive services (maps, games, …), individual searches and transactions and includes an area that allows users to customize the city cultural agenda depending on their preferences, accessing to personal and family data, taxes, vehicles, real estate and fines as well as procedures and payments and printing certificates and receipts.

Access to the folder can be done through major digital certificates and a secure system with a username and password, which is delivered to citizens after verification of their identity.

• Provides access anytime, anywhere and on any device.
• Improves the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization through the renovation of systems and ways of working. The benefits on efficiency (increase in claims and technical staff that are released) outweigh the cost of the project.
• Service simpler and more flexible for citizens and businesses.
• Reduction in the time of completion of processing. For example, in the case of granting the planning permission has been reduced from 2.5 months to just minutes in the services of greatest demand. In the case of building licenses, the average time has been reduced to 52% (from 79 to 38 days).
• Improves Citizens Service through multi-channel management of procedures and searches: 47.000 in person, 13.000 by phone and 69.000 by Internet.
• Optimization of municipal resources, freeing staff that can manage and control more complex cases instead of performing bureaucratic tasks. That lets focus on what really adds value.
• On-line procedures are accessible to persons with disabilities according to the rule AA of the WAI and can be used with Internet Explorer as well as other open source browsers.

• The Online public services Portal also includes information and access to other civil services.

With reference to the impact associated with the “Online public services Portal” would have to differentiate two areas:

§  At the internal scope, has involved the transformation of the business processes of the Barcelona City Council.

• At the external scope, on-line procedures via Internet has been promoted, offering contents and services through the net and providing common tools that enable e-Government. In this way, the “Online public services Portal” project in 2008/2009 returned the following results:

ü Visits received:

§  Year 2008: 800.237

ü  Pages served:

§   Year 2008: 6.895.501

ü   Indicators related to processing

§   Year 2008 (“Online public services Portal”): 444.936 procedures

Track record of sharing

Barcelona City Council has a tradition in the transfer of the solutions and the sharing of best practices and participates actively in various initiatives and networking at national and European level. In compliance of the Regulatory Ordinance for e-Government (ORAE), the Council offers freely its e-Government systems to other governments and especially to other municipalities. 

The components of the application such as taxonomies and classification, standards, accessibility and usability are common in the world of local government and can be easily adopted. Furthermore, the information system of the online public services platform is based on J2EE standards and open source that can help to share and improve the community.

The most important portability, however, refers to the approximation conceptual and the project management of a complex project, furthermore a large scale in the number of actors and services offered.

In the many conferences and events in what the Portal and the bet of Barcelona for the use of Internet have been presented, the basic idea that has been passed is that the more specific part of the Barcelona Model of e-Government is to promote the participation of citizens in local government.

It is also worth underlining the effort of the Barcelona City Council for the integration and partnership with other Administrations. The City Council has established agreements and working extensively with State Tax Administration,  Land Registry, the “Diari Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya” (DOGC) and some departments of the “Generalitat de Catalunya”, bilaterally. The trend over the same period of the Open Management Consortium of Catalonia as a platform for multilateral interoperability between the Catalan Administration and the State has also facilitated the development and implementation of agreements on Register, which allows local governments to exchange information about residence and coexistence.

The City Council also acts politically, with a weight of opinion in supralocal areas, at regional, state and transnational associations of municipalities, and through joint projects with other Administrations and private sector. Among the mechanisms available to the Barcelona City Council  to share the project with other actors in the public sector, governments and European governments, it is mentioned the participation in congresses and events in which the Barcelona Model has been spread. These are some good examples:

•  
  • October 2008 à Large Cities Meetings (Barcelona)
  • June 2008 à World e-Government Majors Forum (Seul)
  • July 2008 à 5ª tribuna España & Korea
  • November 2007 à Cities of knowledge (Dublin)
  • August 2007 à iCity Cooperation EU (China)
  • June 2007 à Major Cities Annual Conferences (Beijing)
  • March 2007 à Eurocities Conference (Barcelona)
  • April 2007 à IQPC e-Government (Madrid)

Lessons learnt

Here are the lessons learned:

• The objective of the “Online public services Portal” is facilitate the relationships between citizens, businesses and the Barcelona City Council, so that the required formalities have to be simple and can be made when and how is appropriate to the user, saving time and flexibility. I.e. if desired, can be completed entirely online, wherever it is possible to follow the request.
• The “Online public services Portal” is designed to quickly navigate too (no queues, you can finish the process in minutes), simple (the Online public services Portal is usable, and includes many support) and convenient (available any time and from any device). In short, we have tried to make it is easy to use.
• The “Online public services Portal” has to challenge the idea of public service complex, dark and in the area of specialists and brokers.
• The best procedure is one that no longer exists. In this sense, the portal enables users (end-users or from front-office channels) to understand technical and complex administrative terms, select the case, prepare what you need easily, and quickly complete the consultations or procedures.
• It is possible to delete complex procedures and transfer the responsibility and control to the user, without negative consequences, freeing resources for more valuable tasks.
• The major changes occur with a multidimensional intervention, involving changes in the regulation, organization, staffing, process management and IT.
• Political will, risk taking and commitment with citizens are a must in these kinds of projects.
• It is very important the work of analysis of the demand in order to identify target groups, as well as their needs.
• The language of the “Online public services Portal” is adapted to be easily understandable by any user.
• Access to the procedures can be performed in different ways: on life facts, subjects, collectives, etc. All the information has been organized from a citizen view, rather than presenting it from the standpoint of the administration.
• It is very complicated the interoperability with other public administrations.
• It is needed to provide integrated databases. The “Online public services Portal” is a multi-channel system comprising three fully integrated service channels: in person (in the Citizen Attention Offices); telephone (the city council call center 010) and the Internet, through the “Online public services Portal” (www. bcn.cat/tramits). It is also an intermodal system, which allows users to choose any of the channels to start the procedure and switch to another at any time depending on their preferences or needs.
• The “Online public services Portal” Project represents a complex exercise of reengineering, including :
  • changes in legal structure, specifically the creation of ordinances (OROM y ORAE -Ordenanza Reguladora de la Administración Electrónica-)
  • changes in processes, simplifying procedures and making them easier for citizens and staff of municipal information
  • organizational changes
  • technological changes, as it is based on advanced technological intermodal and multichannel solutions

Scope: Local (city or municipality)