Education:EGovernment - Emilia Romagna Region case study (I)
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Fronts of actions: modernization of the public administration
The intense and intelligent use of new ITC appears to be fundamental today to renew the administrative and government operations, in line with the reform process in progress in the country, with the aim to improve the Public Administration by cutting costs, improving its functionality and providing quality services. On public sector efficiency and its impact on fiscal matters it is no longer merely a question of public consent but also territorial economic attractiveness, so as to keep enterprises and professional workers already operating in them and acquire new ones.
To achieve this objective the Region launched a program of innovation and strategic management for the transformation of its organization called “Modernization Agenda”, starting in of the year 2000. Use of new ITC will be a transversal topic and, in perspective, more and more significant in organizational, procedure, cultural and technological transformation operations, included in the Agenda, to be achieved with absolute priority and extraordinary support.
Fronts of actions: modernization and innovation of regional social and financial systems
Widespread diffusion in society of the “fourth knowledge”, meaning the capability and awareness of the use of computers and new telematic instruments, inevitably combined with a greater knowledge of the English language;
Transformations of enterprises and traditional productive systems, led by the development of e-commerce, both for relationships among enterprises (business-to-business) and with consumers (business-to-consumer);
Growth of new sectors connected to ICT and multimedia, with high added value services, which will have to create more employment and greater income, but also to facilitate the evolution of other financial sectors; Development on the regional territory of network and telecommunications supply at competitive costs, without which the other transformations risk being even slower and more difficult.
The basic need of political co-ordination
Without a coordinated action inside the regional public sector it will be impossible to achieve those efficiency results sought by the innovation process of public services urgently needed by the citizens. The ICTs can significantly contribute to achieving such results, but only if used consistently with the changes.
The ICTs encourage communication among people and integration of processes; this is where they are most productive, rather than in the increase of individual productivity. But if this potentiality is to be exploited fully it is necessary to act openly and collaboratively, promoting discussions, debates and research in the transformation processes, firmly overcoming intra-organizational and institutional individuality.
However capable these instruments may be to support integration, if clarity and determination are lacking on this objective, the ICTs, at their worst, can reproduce and strengthen the existing fragmentation of the sources of information, the procedures and potential partners in the public sector, further complicating citizens’ and enterprises’ lives, instead of simplifying them.
The challenge of modernization - I
The challenge of modernization and to use as profitably as possible the new ICTs in answer to it. Financial resources and competences, often new, required to manage this challenge represent a common difficulty, to be faced together, with coordinated and consistent actions in time. In this way it is possible to achieve important savings in investments and learning.
It seemed necessary to proceed in a more coordinated way: thanks to the initiatives of the Municipalities, Provinces and of the Region, in Emilia-Romagna many innovative projects have been launched during the past years with the use of the new ICT, providing excellent results even on a European level. So far, however, these have nearly always been isolated cases regarding one administration or area; it is high time we achieve these excellent results regularly and consistently.
The challenge of modernization - II
The increasing efforts to develop e-gov initiatives are fundamental to avoid, at least on a regional level, the formation of a situation of “first class administration and citizens towards second class administration and citizens”, however related to availability and access to services offered telematically.
The spontaneous dynamics of the market notoriously tended to favour telematic progress in the main town centres, where the greater part of the population and advanced tertiary sector concentrate, offering more advanced structures and services at lower costs.
The Region’s proposal of an Agreement on e-gov development, first of all to Local Organizations, but also to the entire regional society, originated from these motivations.
The regional telematic network
- Municipalities
- Provinces
- Mountain Districts
- Health Authorities
- InfoCamere (Chamber of Commerce information system)
- AIMA (State Company for Intervention in the Agricultural Market)
- Finance Ministry (fiscal data)
- Parliament - Court of Cassation
- Health Ministry
- ...
The “Unitary Network of the Public Administration” (RUPA) and the Regions
- to set up an infrastructure
- to provide transport services, interoperability and application co-operation between the information systems of the various boards and with the boards of the Central Public Administration
- to improve the efficiency
- to improve the quality of the service
- to guarantee to any network user, if authorised, the possibility to access the data and procedures
Unitary Network Areas
Unitary Network Scheme
Available services on the regional network: Connection to Data Bases
- access to administrative information and norms of the Region
- access to Chambers of Commerce information system.
- access to the Treasury Ministery
- access to AIMA
- ...
Available services on the regional network: Connection to the Internet
Provider functions Region can provide users physically connected to the network with an access to Internet, thus becoming a provider for local boards. This is provided free of charge: users only pay for the installation of software necessary to use the Internet on their PCs
The ERMES system ERMES (Emilia-Romagna MESsages) is the Emilia-Romagna Region’s communication system on the World Wide Web, launched in 1995. It provides information and communicates for more than 200 organisational companies (town councillorship, Regional companies, Health Organisations)
The regional network and its relationship with CNIPA
- A Government action to encourage the development of regional networks in all regions is necessary
- Participation in this model of network development does not alter the institutions’ profiles and their tasks, nor does it introduce in any way superintendence functions of one Board on another
- We believe it necessary that central authorities encourage Provinces, Municipalities and Mountain Districts to make use in the first place of the services offered by the regional unitary networks for transport, basic interoperability and applicative co-operation
- Regional network is the access point for RUPA within the regional territory
