Overview of Own Cases and Benefits (DK0055)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address?: Today, authorities receive many inquiries from citizens and businesses who want to be updated on the status of the processing of a case they are involved in, get a status on payment of benefits or other dealings with the public sector. Moreover, the authorities want to provide a better service to citizens through personalized data, including insight into data about citizens. Via the joint-public case and benefits overview, citizens and businesses can get access to this information and feel more at ease in terms of their dealings with the public sector; What is the commitment?: A joint-public reference architecture will be developed for the case and benefits overview. Use of the joint public architecture will create coherence in data display across Danish authorities so that citizens can, for example, get an overall overview of cases and benefits managed by various authorities. This will allow the authorities to develop overview solutions individually and jointly. The national portals, borger.dk and VIRK are required to display the data that authorities wish to display via the overview. From 2017, a joint-public reference architecture will be developed for authorities to use. In 2018 and until 2020, authorities will use pilots to develop the overview and display relevant data to citizens and businesses.; How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem?: The overview will allow authorities, citizens and businesses (via a joint reference architecture) to engage in better dialogue and acquire shared knowledge. Accordingly, it is expected that authorities will receive fewer calls regarding case status and that citizens and business will experience a greater sense of security.; Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?: The commitment is relevant because it provides citizens and businesses better insight into the authorities’ data, makes it possible for authorities to tailor information to citizens in the relevant context, and enables citizens to become more involved in their own case and thus feel more at ease with the authorities’ dealing with a given case, for example the details of the payment of a social benefit; Additional information: Link: https://www.digst.dk/Strategier/Initiativer/Let-hurtigt-og-godkvalitet/Fokusomraade-1

Commitment 6: Overview of own cases and benefits

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

A joint-public reference architecture will be developed for the case and benefits overview. Use of the joint public architecture will create coherence in data display across Danish authorities so that citizens can, for example, get an overall overview of cases and benefits managed by various authorities. This will allow the authorities to develop overview solutions individually and jointly. The national portals, borger.dk and VIRK are required to display the data that authorities wish to display via the overview.

From 2017, a joint-public reference architecture will be developed for authorities to use. In 2018 and until 2020, authorities will use pilots to develop the overview and display relevant data to citizens and businesses.

Milestones:

6.1 Analysis of users' needs

6.2 Development of reference architecture

6.3 Implementation of pilots in collaboration with the authorities, in order to test architecture and concepts for user interfaces

6.4 Implementation of the initiative to be agreed with partners in further detail

Start Date: October 2016

End Date: December 2020

Editorial note: For the full text of this commitment, see "The Danish OGP National Action Plan 2017–2019," Danish Agency for Digitisation, https://en.digst.dk/policy-and-strategy/open-government/open-government-partnership-ogp-action-plan/, pp. 17–18.

Context and Objectives

This commitment relates to the government's overall openness agenda. It aims to address the problems citizens have with requests for status updates on their cases with the public sector (e.g., payment of benefits). With the initiative, the authorities also seek to provide improved service through personalised data. The initiative aims to provide a common public sector overview of cases and services, to allow for easier access to information and increased security in dealings with the public sector. The Agency for Digitisation (AFD) also expects the commitment to lead to fewer case status calls from citizens, thus allowing authorities more time for other tasks. Since the initiative was included in the 2017–2019 national action plan, the AFD considers the topic to be on the political agenda. The prioritisation of this topic reflects the government's broader goal of reducing inefficiency in the public sector and reform of the sector.^{[Note : Anna Louise Madsen (Danish Agency for Digitisation), interview by IRM researcher, 2 November 2018. ]}

Analysing the commitment in the context of OGP values, this initiative can potentially provide citizens with access to better and more information on their own cases related to the public sector. The commitment also uses technology and innovation to bolster transparency.

The verifiability of this commitment, as designed and described in the action plan, is not specific. For example, it would be useful to further describe what is meant by "an overview of cases and services" and "solutions." Furthermore, the milestones refer to "users' needs," which warrants further explanation. However, the milestones are generally verifiable.

The IRM researcher judges the potential impact of this initiative as minor, given the challenges around verifiability and the limited scope of direct citizen engagement in the initiative. The expectation that "authorities will experience fewer calls" as a result of this initiative indicates that the goal exists more to increase efficiency in the public sector than to open the sector for citizens.

Next steps

The IRM researcher recommends the following:

· The AFD could pursue a communication campaign for this commitment—and other digitisation commitments—to ensure that citizens are aware of their development.

· A future iteration of this commitment could go further than access to information by strengthening its focus on how citizens can hold government accountable for not responding to requests in a timely manner.

· Municipalities and regions could be increasingly involved in the upcoming OGP multi-stakeholder forums, given the importance of local authorities to the success of this commitment (and others) and their more direct contact with civil society.

6. Overview of own cases and services

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

“A joint-public reference architecture will be developed for the case and benefits overview. Use of the joint public architecture will create coherence in data display across Danish authorities so that citizens can, for example, get an overall overview of cases and benefits managed by various authorities. This will allow the authorities to develop overview solutions individually and jointly. The national portals, borger.dk and VIRK are required to display the data that authorities wish to display via the overview.

From 2017, a joint-public reference architecture will be developed for authorities to use. In 2018 and until 2020, authorities will use pilots to develop the overview and display relevant data to citizens and businesses.”

Milestones:

• Analysis of users’ needs
• Development of reference architecture
• Implementation of pilots in collaboration with the authorities, in order to test architecture and concepts for user interfaces
• Implementation of the initiative to be agreed with partners in further detail

Start Date: October 2016

End Date: December 2020

Editorial note: For the full text of this commitment, see “The Danish OGP National Action Plan 2017–2019,” Danish Agency for Digitisation, pp. 17–18, https://en.digst.dk/policy-and-strategy/open-government/open-government-partnership-ogp-action-plan/.

This commitment aimed to provide citizens with a common public-sector overview of cases and services, in order to allow easier access to information and increased security in dealing with the public sector. [22]

The commitment’s technical milestones have been implemented by the Agency for Digitisation (AfD), including all preparatory work to the final product in collaboration with stakeholder authorities. Pilots of the concept have been tested and evaluated by Local Government Denmark (KL) in five Danish municipalities by early 2019. [23] Dates for full implementation of the solution are set for mid-2020 (Milestone 6.4). Full implementation of the solution is not part of the commitment as originally laid out in the action plan. [24]

The pilot provided participating citizens with a centralized overview of economic and social cases based on municipals’ choosing. The evaluation of the pilot conducted by KL found a high degree of user satisfaction with the overall design of the solution while it contributed to a sense of trust in the administrative procedures of local authorities. Municipal staff generally acknowledged the contribution enhanced insight into public files, but experienced limited inquiries from citizens during the pilot. When asked what could be improved, users requested more detailed insight into personal files as well as log entries stored by municipal staff. [25]

This commitment has laid the foundations for better access to personal data in a centralized and more user-friendly manner than previously possible, and thus contributed to transparency of the public administration. Despite the positive feedback on the pilot’s design from the evaluation, citizens highlighted the need for better and more detailed insight into active cases. In addition, the commitment did not lead to a tangible mechanism with which to address potential mishandlings of cases. However, it should be noted that the “My Overview” initiative under Commitment 5 in Denmark’s fourth action plan (2019-2021) builds upon the work carried out under this commirment.

[22] “Denmark Design Report 2017–2019”, Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM), https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Denmark_Design-Report_2017-2019_EN.pdf.

[23] ”Borgernes Adgang til Egne Data – Pilotprojekt for borgerblikket”, Evaluation Report, Kommunernes Landsforening (KL), April 2019, available [in Danish] at https://www.kl.dk/media/19514/evalueringsrapport-borgernes-adgang-til-egne-data.pdf.

[24] “The Danish OGP National Action Plan 2017–2019”, Danish Agency for Digitisation, Open Government Partnership, https://en.digst.dk/policy- and-strategy/open-government/open-government-partnership-ogp-action-plan/.

[25] ”Borgernes Adgang til Egne Data – Pilotprojekt for borgerblikket”, Evaluation Report, Kommunernes Landsforening (KL), April 2019, available [in Danish] at https://www.kl.dk/media/19514/evalueringsrapport-borgernes-adgang-til-egne-data.pdf.