Platform Central Government Online (in Dutch: Platform Rijksoverheid Online, PRO) is a platform offering shared communication web services, applications and tools available to all central government administrations and programs in The Netherlands.
The founding principles of the platform are quality, standardization, cooperation and efficient reuse of internet communication tools by the central government. These include:
- out-of-the box websites
- online magazines
- web statistics
- digital asset management
- e-mail notifications and newsletter-service
- press-release services
- domain name management and DNS-services
In addition consultation services are offered regarding online communication and the available tools and applications on the platform.
The ‘Public Information and Communications Service (DPC)’ provides services to all ministries and central government implementing bodies for communication with members of the public and professionals. DPC works on behalf of the Information Council, in which central government's communications directors are represented. These directors set central government communication policy and supervise its implementation by DPC.
DPC is an agency of the Ministry of General Affairs and, as such, is treated as a separate entity in the Ministry's budget and financial statements.
Quality and standardization
The platform is built from the ground up with the mandatory ‘comply or explain’ quality standards by Dutch government as basic requirements (see https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/dutch-standardisation-forum-comply-or-explain-standards). These standards are combined with a set of our own standards. This means that it uses available open standards like modern web standards, accessibility standards and security standards. It also uses one content management system, one central government corporate identity and style guide and where possible standard texts for procurement. Where possible the Platform uses Open Source software, like Hippo CMS, Java, Linux, Apache, NGINX, MongoDB, MySQL and ElasticSearch. The architecture of the platform is a flexible architecture with different modules. Primarily based on open source and open standards software.
User interface and interaction design are based on ‘users first’ and ‘data driven’ standards of user experience design in Dutch government (see http://www.gebruikercentraal.nl/ - Dutch only).
The platform unburdens public administrations to implement these quality standards and guidelines themselves. It allows public administrations to focus on their communication goals and web content instead of making their websites compliant to standards.
The platform uses a number of existing open source components with their own license models, like Apache.
Cooperation
The services of the platform are broadly used by all 11 ministries and other central government organisations in the Netherlands. Ideas and best practices are shared and used. Knowledge is shared, solutions are built centrally and cooperation is stimulated using central online forums for all participants of the platform. We also organize knowledge meetings about subject matters throughout the year.
Most of the tools and services offered are free for use by public administrations. Budget is centrally organized which allows for efficient use of government funds instead of over-spending on similar products and services. The funding off the platform is done with central budget coming from all 11 departments within central Dutch government.
A central editorial team manages the content for a number of central government websites, in close cooperation with the 11 ministries. This central editorial team also assists the editorial teams of the other 200 websites on the platform with guidelines, content audits and sharing knowledge and best practices.
Reusability
Because of the standardisation the platform enables and strives for re-use of components, knowledge and functionality. Across website and web applications, but also across the whole technical infrastructure of the platform and where possible across other government organisations. If the code we develop is interesting for third parties, we share this code with the open source community. For example the Hippo CMS community.
All mentioned services (see the document uploaded under ‘Additional information’) on the platform are used by all 11 ministries in the Netherlands plus between 20 – 70 central government organisations. Before building the platform every one of these organisations developed and maintained their own solutions, separate from each other. The coming years we expect the platform to grow in the number of government organisations using the services. We also expect the number of central government websites and applications on the platform to grow.