The Centre for Economic and Fiscal Research integrated solution (CeRDEF & SSEF)

The proposed e-government solution: "The Institute of Economics and Finance and the Centre for Economic and Fiscal Research and Documentation: an integrated solution for information, research and education", consists of an environment, under the control of and run by the Institute of Economics and Finance, which processes and stores information, researches into and educates in all aspects of economic and fiscal matters. This need arose from the transfer, to the institute, of the Centre for Economic and Tax Research and Documentation (CeRDEF), together with all the services that the latter provides and, most importantly, the database of economics and tax regulations and legislation. The distinctive and innovative feature of this solution has been the creation of a fully integrated environment which allows public administration personnel, tax professionals and private citizens alike to access, dialogue with and cross link to all the economic and fiscal information databases and services. A single portal allows service-users to access all the services provided by the school, and, once users have entered a particular service area, they can directly and easily interact with any of the others. The links are managed and presented directly by the system. For example, users wishing to look up a particular legal provision or regulation in the CERDEF database are automatically offered the following selections: - the associated procedure and case-law; - articles from the Journal of the Institute of Economics and Finance; - relevant publications held in the library and an online booking system to enable users to take out books on loan; - relevant education and training courses offered by the Institute including courses available on-line; - a permanent learning environment, automatically presenting news, updates and examples of excellence; - a help and research support system for a particular regulation and its interpretation.

Main results, benefits and impacts

The main feature of the solution presented is integration. It enables a complete and efficient system-environment to be created that regulates all existing and developing economic and fiscal matters and is set up as the officially certified environment for the Italian national tax system management with all the related legal, economic and fiscal education and training, research and information management aspects. The end product is a system which can manage a vast variety of personalised operating scenarios and respond to the very diverse needs of the different system users. Public Administration personnel, by logging onto the Institute site, can get information about the courses offered by the Institute and evaluate their own professional development in these terms. Personnel can interact with the school, suggesting new courses and requesting further information, they can follow e-learning courses from enrolment to final certification of the new skills acquired and subsequently, are able to update their knowledge in the continuing professional development environment fostered by the Institute. The integration of the Institute and Documentation Centre databases means that users can update their knowledge of new regulations and associated procedures and the scholarship on that subject, including examples of excellence, articles from the Institute journal and other general information relating to the researched topic. Tax professionals, academics and private citizens can access the portal and use the free personalised service to carry out searches on one of the most complete and up-to-date national databases for the documentation on tax regulations and legislation. Users can tailor their navigation of the site to their own specific needs and access all the documents, procedures, scholarship and associated articles on the subject, open previously saved searches and, via the assistance service, can request particular articles and/or judgements, see the results of surveys published by the Institute and the list of courses offered that may be of interest. Users can enrol on e-learning courses, receive newsletters giving general information about regulation changes or covering specialised topics. Moreover, users can read online copies of the SSEF journal, request free paper copies, consult the library index and make an online loan booking. Finally, they can use the assistance service with which they can: - navigate an online knowledge base of cases, structured by topic, pre-selected and analysed by the CERDEF editorial team in response to questions asked by other users; - if the answer is not already there, ask the question directly; - request that all the existing documentation on a particular topic be sent to them by e-mail; - ask for general assistance, including help with site navigation; - comment on the service in a variety of ways, such as questionnaires and direct feedback links, offering opinions and suggestions for improvement.

Return on investment

Return on investment: Not applicable / Not available

Lessons learnt

The most useful aspects of this experience for other administrations are those concerned with integration. Previously, the services provided were a fragmented constellation, not subject to any overall control strategy and, as such, were of only marginal value. The integration of objectives, organisation and technology has enabled the Institute of Economics and Finance to develop a fully comprehensive and controlled project that, while initially triggered by economies of financial and organisational scale, has produced further concrete results in terms of visibility, increased user satisfaction and a quantifiable improvement in relations between citizens and public administration. This is integration as innovation, with the necessary aim of providing a completely reliable public service that is furthermore, fully comprehensive and of use to public sector personnel, tax professionals and private citizens throughout the whole of Italy and covering every aspect of the economic and tax system. The model for this project, in terms of organisation and technological know-how, clearly demonstrates its transferability, in that it can be replicated and adapted to the specific character and needs of any branch of public administration in which the services provided which are currently delivered on a fragmentary basis, tend to lead to inefficient and ineffective operations and management. Many areas of the public administration suffer from these problems which stem from their inherent localised and branching organisation and management structure. This structure does not permit the economies of scale that arise naturally from an integrated and controlled organisation and management structure. Clearly, the areas of public administration to which this model is most directly transferable are those subject to a great deal of constantly evolving regulation and legislation and which thus require ongoing training programmes. "Integration as innovation", with the necessary aim of providing a completely reliable public service that is furthermore, fully comprehensive and of use to public sector personnel, tax professionals and private citizens throughout the whole of Italy and covering every aspect of the fiscal system. "Integration as innovation" has been and continues to be the guiding principle for both the Institute of Economics and Finance and CERDEF, as they develop their combined organisation and technology in a process of evolution leading to excellence and towards the ultimate goal of creating an ever more solid and effective relationship between citizens and the public administration.