Ready for Reuse by Other Authorities
The last two years, the EPA has worked towards creating an effective digital platform for administration. Their fundamental development resulted in a digital platform for administration that is available for reuse by other authorities – without having to start from scratch.
In this article we have described our collaboration with the EPA on a unique digitization project which unified and simplified the agency’s 244 mission critical processes into a single system, rolled out bit by bit using an agile implementation model. Today the EPA uses one cohesive platform to achieve their professional goals. One single system is used for managing a ruling concerning the import of a rare orchid, for application for a permit to dredge the seabed, and for paying out grants for plotowners. Based on a shared administrative foundation and using time-saving automation.
The EPA’s digital administrative platform – a persuasive demonstration of benefits
Throughout the project the EPA kept their focus on the potential benefits. They have kindly agreed to let us share their results as to inspire other authorities. The benefit realisation of the F2 programme is extensive and can be evaluated using two dimensions: financial and qualitative benefits with a common denominator of effective administration.
The drivers of the streamlined case management include:
Enhanced quality of received applications regarding permits, grants, etc., using standardized filing.
Automatic case creation, registration, and letters of receipts.
Streamlined communication with citizens/companies using e-Boks and auto-generated letters.
Improved control information across cases and case managers for a more effective resource administration.
Financial benefits
The financial benefits consist partly of reduced costs of case management, which has become more automatic and standardized and thus more effective, and partly of reduced operational costs due to the shutting down of old stand-alone systems as mission critical processes are collected on the F2 platform. Already a number of operational costs have been realized as several systems are phased out, e.g. Teamshare, Workzone, and the system for wildlife regulation applications (Vil-Reg).
Qualitative benefits – secure and effective administration
An agency with monitoring and administrative responsibilities, the EPA has a significant interest in the security of their many mission critical processes. The F2 programme contributes to this by supporting a number of qualitative benefits, such as:
Support and documentation of each case flow.
Support of reviews in accordance with the four-eyes principle and active use of administrative basis.
Increased transparency and better basis for control.
Reduced complexity and increased security.
The EPA project demonstrates that reusing software helps facilitate a simple and effective digital transformation. A unique discovery was that the mission critical processes at the EPA were so generic that all of them could be simplified into only three basic processes.
This is good news because it suggests that any authority facing digitisation can skip the developing phase and do a “copy-and-adapt” of the three base models developed at the EPA – and with this, potentially reap the same benefits in relatively short time.
That is groundbreaking. Groundbreakingly simple. And it suggests a brand new road to public digitization.
