2018•07•12     Tallinn

As part of the ongoing focus on IT- and technology-enabled public service delivery, administrative burden reduction, and smart digital transformation, UNU-EGOV recently ran a series of brainstorming seminars in May and June on how Baltic countries can potentially lead into a future of advanced user-centric public services.

The aim is to produce a number of scenarios for the next generation service delivery by 2025, in Estonia and Latvia, for about five service or life event areas. The key goal is to ensure a user-centricity and friendliness frontend and backend cost-efficiency for service production and delivery through the innovative use of technology, service, and process redesign. Similarly, the series focuses on how governance, intergovernmental cooperation, partnership, and financial models can facilitate such a process.

This activity is a direct follow-up on the Operating Unit’s previous work with the Latvian School of Public Administration (VAS) on behalf of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development (VARAM) on a public sector service delivery framework and ecosystem in 2017.

Involved in the brainstorming session are experts and practitioners from Estonia, Latvia, and UNU-EGOV. Lessons and insights gained through the series will be used in future work regarding the digital transformation of public service delivery and production, as well as in relation to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Most countries are today digitising public service production and delivery, and many have introduced, in the last 10-15 years, electronic identities and one-stop-shop service portals. Usability and user-centricity is still a challenge to be overcome. Online usability is improving with the introduction of minimum usability requirements in countries like Denmark and the UK, but we still see very limited evidence silos being broken down to provide real citizen-centric design and service delivery – says Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen