The service enables the online filing of updating proposals pertaining to buildings, which concern declarations about newly constructed buildings and changes to existing ones. These documents must be presented to the offices of the Land Agency (Agenzia del Territorio) by real estate owners, each time that the status or the features of a dwelling, office, shop, factory, storeroom etc. are modified. This service can be used by professionals operating in the real estate sector which present updated cadastral documents such as surveyors, engineers, architects, etc. Real estate owners delegate these professional intermediaries to present documents on their behalf to the relevant provincial offices of the Land Agency. The provincial office which deals with such documents is determined by the province in which the real estate unit is located. The service also envisages the online payment of taxes due pertaining to each document. The Land Agency's main aim is to simplify access and availability to services. To support this objective the Land Agency has set aside an increasing amount of investments to extend the online services which it offers. The start up of the online filing of the updating proposals pertaining buildings brings to completion a series of online services which are already on offer to end users. In addition to forwarding documents online end users can currently consult the cadastral databases directly from their offices or homes. The online filing service of updating proposals pertaining to buildings enables end users to avoid wasting time travelling to relevant provincial offices and queuing at their front office counters. The drop in number of people going to the provincial offices has enabled the Agency to optimise the use it makes of its human resources in order to enhance the quality of its service delivery.

Main results, benefits and impacts

The service has been designed for approximately 80,000 professionals (surveyors, engineers, architects etc.) who operate in the real estate sector throughout Italy. The costs incurred to implement the new procedures and to upgrade the ICT infrastructure amount to approximately Euro.200.000. Since this service has only been running for a few days there are no meaningful statistics related to its performance yet. It is important to point out however that professionals showed a keen interest during the service's various demonstrations, which took place before its actual official start up. The initial results collected are encouraging on various fronts: - The ICT infrastructure enables the forwarding of even large documents without any pressure on the new online filing procedures; - The time required to handle online documents meets end users expectations: each case is dealt with no later than one working day from its presentation; - The exchange of information through the online system successfully makes up for the lack of direct contact between the professional end user and the Agency's front office; - The organisation of the provincial offices is aligned adequately with the new service's requirements.

Return on investment

Return on investment: Not applicable / Not available

Lessons learnt

The features of the service which may be of greatest interest to other administrations concern the use of a digital document, as the single original one, also for fulfilments envisaged by law which have juridical, tax and economic implications. In particular, the experience gained in identifying functional ICT solutions to replace paper forms, confirms that it is possible to switch from highly complex documents with heterogeneous information to a digitalised format. It appears superfluous to point out once again that the project adheres to the guidelines of e-Government regarding services' streamlining, transparency, accessibility and social costs reduction. The project could be adopted by other local and central administrations, either in Italy or abroad. The Land Agency is willing to collaborate with foreign administrations in order to transfer the know how it has acquired. Moreover, the Land Agency is willing to offer its full support to such initiatives by: - making presentations of this project if requested; - making demos in workshops; - replying to email; - organising open doors days with visits and illustrations of the experience; - participating in bilateral and multilateral discussion tables. The success of this initiative primarily hinges on some organisational features that were in place from its outset: - solid backing from top management; - clear strategy and goals; - good planning and design; - the use of project management techniques adequate to deal with the complexity of the project; - assignment of clear responsibilities to implement the project; - useful and ongoing liaison with the professional associations using the service. Secondly, some ICT features which were already in place at the outset of this initiative ensured the right environment for the innovation: - availability of end user ICT procedures; - availability of a solid network infrastructure; - availability of cadastral applications on a web platform; - availability of an online system which was already widely used by end users. Thirdly, the focus and priority that the legislation attached to citizen oriented initiatives and the impact of ICT played important roles in the successful implementation of this project. The technological solution never constituted a critical issue for the Land Agency, also because of the highly professional contribution of its ICT partner Sogei.