Digital by Default: How Innovation Can Transform Public Sector

Frank Cecconi promotes public sector innovation via digital solutions: “the public sector has a crucial economic role to play as regulator, service provider and employer in modernising public services”.

“Digital solutions play a key role in building new models of government that are more transparent, more efficient, more inclusive for users and citizens (e-services, e-health,… ). Such an approach would also mean contacts between the general public, businesses and public administration could be simplified

He urges the public sector to commit to innovation focused on users’ needs and incorporating the principles of indiscriminate access to digital services for everyone and every business; strong protection for sensitive data; “digital by default”; “once only”; “co-production”; and interoperability;

To innovative digitally also implies the necessary structural changes in the organizational culture of the public sector, which emphasize ongoing training in new digital solutions for public servants so that they can truly act as “catalysts” of innovation.

Cecconi also welcomes the European Committee of the Regions involvement in existing platforms such as the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation as well as the 2016/2020 eGovernment Action Plan Steering Board, but feels that full membership of this board, and establishing a partnership with the Open Government Partnership (OGP), would allow the European Committee of the Regions to make a stronger contribution to promoting innovation in the public sector.

Read the full opinion here.

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