The Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection (StMUGV) has funded the construction of small sewage treatment plants since 23 April 2003. The objective of the funding directive is to provide incentives for the necessary construction of new small sewage treatment plants and for retrofitting such plants with biological treatment stages. RZKKA-Online was developed by deborate GmbH as an Internet-based platform for handling the funding procedure. RZKKA-Online is the first e-Government application of the StMUGV in which all parties involved in the procedure are fully integrated without exception and also handle the complete procedure.

Policy Context

The Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection (StMUGV) is responsible for ensuring long-term protection of the public and their natural basis for living. In other words, the Ministry is responsible for protecting nature and the countryside, the soil, water, air and climate, for public health and the safety of foodstuffs, for consumer protection and occupational safety, for veterinary health and wildlife protection, for radiation protection and reactor safety. The tasks of the Bavarian water resources management, as part of the Ministry (StMUGV), are essentially to protect the water resources as a central element in the balance of nature and as a natural habitat for fauna and flora, to enable people to make responsible use of water and to protect them from the hazards associated with water. These tasks are fulfilled by experts in the Ministry, as well as in the 24 water resources authorities, the Land office for water resources management, seven local governments and in 96 towns and counties. The foundations underlying our quality of life are assured in the long term by the water resources management in combination with a smoothly operating (water) infrastructure. The statutory requirements imposed by the EU, such as through the EU Directive on Water, are met at the same time.

Description of target users and groups

The target group comprises all organizational units involved in the procedure: The citizens as recipients of the grants, private water management experts as external experts, the municipal authorities as link element, the District Commissioner's Offices as controlling instance and the water resources authorities as the approving authority. Since the application went online in 2003 at the same time that the Directive came into force, the program has been used by 414 private experts, 1506 local authorities, 97 members of staff in the District Commissioner's Offices and 162 members of staff in the water resources authorities.

Description of the way to implement the initiative

For creating software solutions, which are matching the requirements, a methodical and established project management with standardized procedure in all project phases is indispensable. At project start we define indicators. During the conception phase the indicators will be used to concretize the objectives and to describe the project context. In the phase of implementation the indicators are important for controlling and progress monitoring. In the evaluation they are the base for measuring and rating of the results. Multi-channel issues: RZKKA-Online is a portal with static offering of information and password-protected access for the user. Analyses in the form of reusable MS Office documents can be generated from the application.

Main results, benefits and impacts

At present, the system is actively used by around 2000 users throughout Bavaria. So far, roughly 80,000 eligible buildings have been registered, for which corresponding funding will be requested in the subsequent steps. The total volume of funds is estimated at roughly EUR 200 million, and is to be distributed in accordance with the specified requirements over a period of ten years with the aid of RZKKA-Online. Electronic handling of the funding procedure considerably reduces the work load for all parties involved in the procedure. As a result, the procedure is accelerated and requires less manpower, not only in the public administration (authorities for water resources), but also for the partners involved (local authorities, private experts, administrative authorities at the county level). Incomparably more work would be required by all the parties involved if the procedure were to be handled through paper-based applications (numbering roughly 100,000). For all parties, this yields a further advantage, in that the status of the applications for funding can be seen online at any time, thus making the entire procedure more transparent. This would be impossible with conventional paperwork. Innovation: The innovation lies in the holistic handling of the funding procedure for small sewage treatment plants. Its technical implementation is that of a Web-based application centrally operated in the computer centre of the Land office for water resources management. An extremely cost-efficient, powerful software with very low failure rates has been created by using open source software and standards which are not restricted to a particular manufacturer. Its rapid implementation is based on a component suite provided by the customer and containing prefabricated components for recurrent tasks in the administrative procedure, such as user management, document generation, etc. To prevent misuse of the data, a strict security and data protection concept was developed additionally. Geographical limitation of the roles (organizational units) concerned is one essential aspect and ensures, for example, that an approving authority can only process projects within its sphere of competence and cannot access data belonging to a neighbouring authority. The concept also ensures that the various roles are mutually discreet, i.e. data belonging to another role cannot be accessed and processed. These security requirements are met by a sophisticated concept of roles and rights with which geographical spheres of competence and authorizations can be defined. The system's user-friendly design was another focal aspect of its implementation, for it also addresses users who are not familiar with Web-based applications. Utmost care was also taken to ensure that the application is designed in such a way that users do not have to install any additional software other than a Web browser and an Acrobat Reader.

Return on investment

Return on investment: Not applicable / Not available

Track record of sharing

The technical concept can easily be transferred to other specialist procedures and has already been used in the Ministry's department for the projects ABuDIS 2.0 and VAwS-Dat 4.0. Besides which, the portal can also be used by other German Länder. The technical basis is also used in other areas, such as for the Bavarian State Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry within the framework of the current project "Development of a Bavarian online harvest licensing register".

Lessons learnt

The integrated e–Government solution demonstrates how funding procedures can be handled efficiently, thus cutting costs and accelerating the processes. The application is a practical demonstration of the reduction in bureaucracy which is being sought in Germany. Scope: Local (city or municipality), National, Regional (sub-national)