ACTIVITIES :: eGovernment :: Policy :: High impact services

High impact services - leading the way with eGovernment flagships

With eGovernment developments still relatively fragmented, turning the focus to large-scale ‘flagship services’, or pilot projects, can help ensure that what is available nationally reaches millions of people across the EU. This encourages citizens, businesses and governments alike to make greater use of such services.

The EU and its Member States are committed to eGovernment, with emphasis placed on introducing services with the greatest impact. Since transnational eGovernment services potentially benefit millions of European citizens and businesses, they receive top priority. Such flagships also serve to mobilise stakeholder commitment and to create substantial demand for key enablers, such as electronic identification and interoperability.

For instance, on-line income tax declarations already save 7 million hours a year. If generally available across the EU, the savings could rise to more than 100 million hours. Likewise, on-line value-added tax (VAT) declarations save about €10 per declaration. If all VAT declarations were done on-line, this alone could translate into €500 million in savings for businesses across the EU each year.

Up to 2010, the Commission will collaborate with Member States to explore which ‘high-impact services’ with a pan-European dimension could contribute most to the achievement of the Lisbon Strategy, to transform Europe into a competitive knowledge-based economy.

eGovernment at your service

Examples abound of high-impact cross-border eGovernment services. They include services which promote or facilitate greater citizen mobility, such as better pan-European job searching or access to employment, social security benefits, pensions and education.

Such services help Europeans to travel, work, study and receive medical treatment in other EU countries. For businesses, high-impact flagship services include electronic company registration and VAT rebates.

In order to enable providers of services to operate more easily outside their home Member State, the Services Directive calls on Member States to establish single contact points to help service-providers enter their markets. Government services will need to become much better connected if these contact points are to be effective, and the Commission’s role is to help facilitate and coordinate efforts to develop these new facilities for service-providers.

OneStopGov is an example of a high-impact pilot project which unifies disparate eGovernment services into one seamless process. It centres on life events, such as births, marriages, getting a driving licence and deaths. The Use-me.gov project takes this simplification even further, onto the mobile phone. It offers a sophisticated service which enables any local authority to deliver services, such as traffic reports, to mobile phones.

Public procurement is still a relatively untapped area of eGovernment. Given the promise it holds to generate new business and innovation opportunities – with all this implies in terms of economic growth and job creation – eProcurement is a priority under the eGovernment action plan. Such systems open up the possibilities for enterprises to sell their goods and services to public agencies and governments, thanks to better publicising opportunities and reducing the costs of bidding.