Developing digital public services
The Ministry for Digitalisation has set itself the goal of making digital government a success. According to the OECD, digital government is differentiated by its more efficient, user-friendly, and integrative, even inclusive, approach, giving priority to the following criteria:
- a digital approach to processes;
- an administration focused on the end user, i.e. the citizen (with or without specific needs) or businesses;
- Government as a platform supporting co-creation and active public participation between government, business and civil society;
- Open government - Open by default - in reference to the services offered at the level of open data. This principle reinforces and is intertwined with the principle of transparency and a data-driven public sector;
- proactive administrations.
The Ministry and the Government IT Center (CTIE) are working continuously to improve and develop new functionalities on MyGuichet.lu and to extend the catalogue of online administrative procedures and strengthen "mobile government".
Acting as a point of contact for all interactions between citizens, businesses, and the Luxembourg Administration, the Guichet.lu information portal and the secure and transactional MyGuichet.lu portal enable users to carry out administrative procedures online and provide them with access to personal data held about them by the State.
These two portals, operated by the CTIE, are based on the principles of digital by default, once only, inclusion and accessibility, openness and transparency, reliability and security, interoperability and standardisation.
The success of digital government has prompted the Ministry to set up an Interministerial Committee for the Digitalisation of Public Administration. This committee is made up of those responsible for strategic projects concerning the digital transformation of all the ministries. It meets on a regular basis to take stock of the State's digital projects and to set a coordinated agenda for initiatives to further develop eGovernment. This is a cross-cutting and inclusive approach to the steps to be taken to complete the government's commitment to the digital transition of state entities.
The Ministry for Digitalisation offers its expertise to state bodies wishing to advance their digital transformation. This "Digital Advisory Service" concerns both internal processes and the services offered by the ministries or administrations to other state entities, citizens, or businesses.
The aim of the Ministry for Digitalisation in creating this digital advisory service is to meet its commitment to support and assist public administrations in the digital transition of their administrative procedures and internal processes. The advisory service considers the individual situation of each state entity and ensures that their digital transition is part of the State's overall digital transformation approach. Such coherence is a prerequisite for any synergies between state entities.
The OECD's "Luxembourg Declaration" and related recommendations advocate user experience. In this way, the OECD endorses the objective of achieving the dual green and digital transition put forward by the European Commission in its work programme. This is put into practice at the Ministry for Digitalisation via the "Simplification Advisory Service" which, like the Digital Advisory Service, can also assist government bodies in their efforts to simplify administrative formalities and procedures. The digitalisation of government services and administrative simplification must go hand in hand to achieve the desired result.
In this context, the Ministry is relying on a participative approach, for example. Based on sharing and collaboration, the ministry is inviting citizens to make their contribution to the edifice and actively participate in the digital transformation process. This participatory approach takes the form of participatory workshops and the implementation of projects on the www.zesumme-vereinfachen.lu platform. By drawing on the personal experience of participants, the ministry aims to propose solutions tailored to the needs of citizens.
In this way, the Ministry for Digitalisation aims to involve citizens more closely in the design phase of services, and even products, as well as in the simplification of administrative procedures by offering them tools or functionalities that are better adapted to their needs. The aim is to simplify the lives of users by taking account of their needs and wishes in their daily lives and in their communications with government departments.
Encouraging innovation and data science
At national and international level, there is a growing need for digital public services to exchange data or documents and interact in this way. What's more, the complexity and interdependence of these digital services is constantly increasing. These developments are creating an increasingly urgent need to achieve and maintain a very high level of interoperability.
In view of these developments, the Government Council has adopted the National Interoperability Framework (NIF) drawn up by the Ministry for Digitalisation. This provides a general framework to enable and facilitate a higher level of interoperability between public sector organisations. To meet this major challenge, the Ministry has set up a National Committee for Interoperability (CNI), made up of representatives from the various sectors concerned, and seven sectoral interoperability committees (CSIs).
The Ministry for Digitalisation also aims to harness the full potential of public sector data for the benefit of citizens, businesses and public services by developing and adopting interoperable solutions in order to move towards a data-driven public sector, i.e. a public sector that uses data to better serve citizens and private or public sector organisations. The Ministry, in collaboration with the CTIE and the Government Data Protection Commissioner's Office (CGPD), intends to coordinate the actions to be taken in this direction, create a genuine data culture within the State and enable data to be exploited in an environment of trust.
In addition, the Ministry also intends to promote greater interoperability in data exchange networks at national and international level. This concerns existing electronic delivery networks (eDelivery network) such as BRIS, eCODEX or Peppol – the eDelivery network mainly used in Luxembourg for electronic invoicing – but also new eDelivery networks to be set up or exchange networks based on other technological approaches. By promoting the widest possible re-use of the most appropriate networks, the Ministry aims to simplify and make as efficient as possible the exchange of structured data between public sector bodies and between the latter and private sector bodies or even citizens.
Interoperable and efficient exchange networks are key to enabling digital government and the digital economy to focus their processes on data and maximising its re-use, so that they can really take off and prosper. The fullest possible digitalisation and maximum automation of business processes in the various information systems is only possible on the basis of high-quality, structured digital data that can be easily exchanged and reused via interoperable networks.
Finally, the Ministry for Digitalisation is devoting a large part of its efforts to accelerating innovation within the State, by making greater use of emerging technologies to develop cutting-edge digital public services. The aim is to encourage digitalisation and innovation in the public sector by promoting, among other things, more recent technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, but also by using the full range of technologies at our disposal to achieve results that best meet the expectations, needs and requirements of citizens and private and public sector bodies.
Through its activities in the field of emerging technologies, the Ministry wishes to draw the attention of ministries and administrations to these technologies, which can provide solutions to the challenges faced within the State. To do this, the Ministry launches calls for projects such as NIF4Gov or Data4Gov and participates in the AI4Gov initiative. There may also be calls for solutions launched by the GovTech Lab, which combine GovTech and open innovation to accelerate the development and improvement of digital public services.
The Ministry is also a member of consortia responding to European calls for projects, such as the POTENTIAL Consortium, and launches projects defined in collaboration with research centres in Luxembourg.
Promoting digital inclusion
One of the Ministry's key missions is digital inclusion, the process of making digital technology accessible to all individuals and equipping them with the skills that will enable their social and economic inclusion. This mission is part of the government's commitment to explore the many ways in which all citizens can be included in the digital transformation of society, thereby countering the digital divide that threatens to divide it.
The digital divide refers to the gap in opportunities for accessing ICTs and using the Internet for a wide variety of activities. People may face some form of digital divide. Digital inclusion refers to efforts to bridge any digital divide by giving all users the means to make good use of online services, while developing their digital skills. The aim is to ensure that certain populations (elderly people, people with disabilities, people without the requisite skills or people with limited financial resources) do not become victims of a digital divide in the context of the digitalisation of public administrative procedures (e.g. dematerialisation in the field of social security) and private procedures (e.g. banking transactions), as well as digitalisation in the world of work and in society in general.
The challenge is to make digital an opportunity for all, a key to individual and collective, social, and economic transformation, by providing access to tools, skills and employment for all Luxembourg citizens.