The European Commission’s fifth report on the digitization of public services found that 90 percent of public bodies providing basic services to citizens already have a presence online. Overall, the level of sophistication of European public services online around 65 percent, with only 40 percent fully available online, including in the transactional components. This is significant that «most services online start to allow some interactivity but there is still a way to go «, says the document.
According to the same analysis, the sophistication of services is greater in services aimed at companies and less in those that are especially aimed at the citizen, with a gap of 20 percent between the two indicators.
Among European countries, Sweden is again ranked as the most advanced in terms of public services online, soon followed by Austria, both with a global level of sophistication close to 90 percent.
Portugal is in the European average with a rating of 68 percent in this sophistication index. Analyzing the percentage of services fully online the Portuguese classification is less positive, but remains at the European average with 40 percent. The number represents a minor evolution since October 2001, when 32 percent of services were already completely online.
The document also says that last year the greatest progress in terms of digitization and improvements in sophistication took place in Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Belgium.
Among the new member countries, the analysis carried out points to a level of digitization identical to that registered in the Europe of the 15 two years ago, a fact that reveals a rapid evolution. Estonia is considered the most advanced country among the 10 new EU members.
The document ends with a set of conclusions emphasizing the need to promote the use of digital public services, maximizing the efficiency gains that these can allow for individuals and companies.
The results further suggest that in the future public services online main challenges will be the integration of their backoffice and frontoffice, promote greater collaboration among themselves and change processes and culture.
The study was commissioned by the EC from consultancy Capgemini and carried out in October last year. It had as sample 14 thousand websites 28 countries. The 25 countries that make up the EU together with Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
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