Date 2023.06.15

Pursuant to the Act to Improve Online Access to Administrative Services (Online Access Act), the Federal Government and the federal states should have offered their administrative services online by the end of 2022. They clearly missed this target: So far, only 19 per cent of the digitisable administrative services have been available online. The Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community (Ministry) needs to be more active in its role as a coordinator for the spread of digital technology in public administration. The Ministry has to ensure that the federal and state governments provide central IT solutions for implementing the Online Access Act and develop a federal digital and IT strategy.

The coordinating Ministry set up two programmes to implement the Online Access Act: One for administrative services offered at the federal level (Digitalisierungsprogramm Bund) and one for administrative services provided as a shared responsibility of the federal, state and local governments (Digitalisierungsprogramm Föderal). To that end, the Federal Government provided a total amount of €3.5 billion. Half of this amount, however, was not used by the end of 2022.

Target of the Online Access Act clearly missed

By the end of 2022, the federal and state governments could only provide 4 per cent of their digitisable administrative services in accordance with the specifications of the Online Access Act. Another 15 per cent were available online. Furthermore, the federal and state governments have already considered an administrative service to be available online when just one local government provides the service online. Therefore, the real level of digital services is still much lower.

The Ministry needed almost half of the statutory period for implementation to identify the administrative services which were to become digital, as well as their extent and order. The technical specifications and requirements also came too late. In its role as a coordinator of the two programmes, the Ministry should have ensured smooth progress.

Furthermore, both the Federal Government’s and the inter-governmental IT landscape was faced with double and multiple developments because the Ministry was not in the position to provide central IT solutions in a timely manner.

Ministry needs to be more active and provide central IT solutions

The Ministry needs to better coordinate the implementation of the Online Access Act. It needs to ensure that the technical specifications and requirements are available in a timely manner. Parallel and multiple developments have to be avoided by providing central IT solutions. For the digital transformation of public administration, the Federal Government also needs to work towards a federal digital and IT strategy.