The Austrian online family allowance application and the Swiss federal geoportal geo.admin.ch are the winners of this year’s eGovernment-Wettbewerb (eGovernment Competition), which took place in Berlin on 24 June.
In Austria, the Antraglose Familienbeihilfe (ALF) portal lets citizens file requests for family allowance online. The service was launched on 1 May. Citizens no longer need to visit the tax office, and in many cases it is no longer necessary to present documentation. The tax authorities automatically check if all criteria are met, and family allowance payments are handled automatically. According to the Austrian Finance ministry, this will save Austrian citizens some 39,000 hours annually, and reduces the time and cost for the Austrian public administration. Since 1 May, over 9,400 applications have already been processed using the new service.
The Swiss federal geodata portal won second prize in the competition. The portal provides online access to Swiss geographical information and related services from various suppliers. According to an announcement by the Swiss government, the award recognises the portal’s ground breaking combination of open source software, open standards and cloud computing, allowing the optimisation of the portal’s efficiency, usability and operating costs.
The geoportal is one of the priorities of the Swiss eGovernment program, the government said in a statement. The project aims to increase the number of online government services to businesses and citizens, and promote the electronic exchange of information between public administrations.
Third prize in this year’s eGovernment-Wettbewerb went to a Federal Information Management project by Germany’s Federal Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Finance of Saxony-Anhalt. The project aims to make it easier for local public administrations, federal states and the central government to exchange information.
More information:
eGovernment Competition 2015 (in German)
Announcement by the Austrian Finance ministry (in German)
Announcement by Swiss government
Germany’s Federal Information Management (in German)