Underlying principles of European public services 

The general principles of good administration that are relevant to the process of establishing European public services describe the context in which European public services are decided and implemented. Read more about ISA and ISA² - EUROPEAN INTEROPERABILITY FRAMEWORK FOR EUROPEAN PUBLIC SERVICES - IT solutions for less bureaucracy (video).

Interoperability frameworks for working together

Many public administrations already have, or are in the process of developing, frameworks addressing interoperability issues at national, regional or local level. The scope of these frameworks is restricted to the jurisdictions within which they have been developed. However, European public administrations must be ready to work together to deliver European public services to meet the needs of businessesand citizens.It is important that interoperability frameworks used by public administrations, both national (NIFs) and European (EIF), are aligned as regards how to achieve interoperability so that Member States can agree on the concrete implementation of the EIF recommendations when establishing European public services.  By their nature, NIFs are, in general, more detailed and often prescriptive than the EIF, which operatesat a higher level of abstraction, as a ‘meta framework’ and, in line with the subsidiarity principle, does not impose specific choices or obligations on the Member States.
 

As the EIF and the NIFs are complementary, the European Commission supports a National Interoperability Framework Observatory (NIFO), whose main objective is to provide information about national interoperability frameworks to allow public administrations to share experiences and knowledge. The principle of subsidiarity applies not just to the EU vis-à-vis Member States, but in some cases within Member States themselves, at federal/national level or at other levels (e.g. regional, provincial, county and municipality).

 

Underlying principle 1: Subsidiarity and proportionality

The first underlying principle calls for subsidiarity and proportionality as enshrined in the EU Treaty. The subsidiarity principle requires EU decisions to be taken as closely as possible to the citizen. In other words, the EU does not take action unless this is more effective than action taken at national, regional or local level. The proportionality principle limits EU action to what is necessary to achieve agreed policy  objectives. This means that the EU will opt for solutions that leave the greatest possible freedom to Member States. Subsidiarity and proportionality also apply to the delivery of European public services and therefore to the exchange of information needed to deliver such services. Exchanging information and the joint delivery of European public services will either be the result of EU legislation or when public authorities willingly and proactively participate in coordinated initiatives.

 One of the four key objectives of the "Strategy on IT and electronic services development and connection of official records - SREP", is oriented towards providing support for the establishment of a single market and cross-border services in the EU and internationally. It is supported by different strategic goals and mesurments.

Recommendation 1. Public administrations should align their interoperability frameworks with the European Interoperability Framework to take into account the European dimension of public service delivery.
 

Underlying principle 2: User-centricity

Public services are intended to serve the needs of citizens and businesses. More precisely, those needs should determine what public services are provided and how public services are delivered.

Generally speaking, citizens and businesses will expect:
• to access user-friendly services in a secure and flexible manner allowing personalisation;
• multichannel delivery, allowing access to services anyhow, anywhere, anytime;
• to access a single contact point, even when multiple administrations have to work together to provide the service;
• to provide only the information necessary to obtain the public service and to provide any given piece of information only once to administrations;
• administrations to respect privacy.

 

Underlying principle 3: Inclusion and accessibility

The use of ICT should create equal opportunities for all citizens and businesses through inclusive services that are publicly accessible without discrimination.

Inclusion means allowing everyone to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by new technologies to overcome social and economic disadvantages and exclusion. Accessibility ensures that people with disabilities and the elderly can use public services with the same service levels as all other
citizens.
Inclusion and accessibility must be part of the whole development lifecycle of a European public service in terms of design, information content and delivery, according to e-accessibility specifications widely recognised at European or international level. (See also EC standardisation mandate No376 on the development of European standards for public procurement of accessible ICT products and services.)

Inclusion and accessibility usually involve multichannel delivery. Traditional paper-based or face-toface service delivery may need to co-exist with electronic delivery, giving citizens a choice of access.
Inclusion and accessibility can also be improved by the ability of a system to allow third parties to act on behalf of citizens who are unable, either permanently or temporarily, to make direct use of public services.

Recommendation 2. Public administrations should ensure that public services are accessible to all citizens, including persons with disabilities and the elderly, according to e-accessibility specifications widely recognised at European or international level.
 

Underlying principle 4: Security and privacy

Citizens and businesses must be assured that they interact with public administrations in an environment of trust and in full compliance with the relevant regulations, e.g. on privacy and data protection. This means that public administrations must guarantee the privacy of citizens and the
confidentiality of information provided by businesses.

Subject to security constraints, citizens and businesses should have the right to verify the information that administrations have collected about them and to be consulted whether this information may be used for purposes other than those for which it was originally supplied.

Recommendation 3. Public administrations should consider the specific needs of each European public service, within the context of a common security and privacy policy.
 

Underlying principle 5: Multilingualism

Multilingualism needs to be carefully considered when designing European public services. A balance needs to be found between the expectations of citizens and businesses to be served in their own language(s) and Member State public administrations’ ability to offer services in all official EU
languages. Ideally, European public services provided EU-wide should be available in all official EU languages to ensure that rights and expectations of European citizens are met.

Multilingualism comes into play not just at the level of the user interface, but at all levels in the design of European public services. For example, choices on data representation may limit the ability to support different languages.

The multilingual aspect to interoperability again becomes apparent when European public services require exchanges between ICT systems across linguistic boundaries, as the meaning of the
information exchanged must be preserved. Whenever possible, information should be transferred in a language-independent format, agreed among all parties involved.

Recommendation 4. Public administrations should use information systems and technical architectures that cater for multilingualism when establishing a European public service.

See also EC standardisation mandate No376 on the development of European standards for public procurement of accessible ICT products and services
 

Underlying principle 6: Administrative simplification

Businesses compile large amounts of information, often solely due to legal obligations, which is of no direct benefit to them and not necessary for achieving the objectives of the legislation imposing the obligations. This creates a considerable administrative burden, which can be expressed as a cost incurred by businesses .
 

For this reason, the European Commission proposed in January 2007 to reduce the administrative burden on businesses by 25% by 2012. To achieve this target, public authorities across Europe will have to act together when establishing European public services. Slovenian STOP the bureaucracy web portal provides information on the programme implementation, publish best practices (both at national and EU levels) and reports on administrative burdens in an individual regulation as measured in the programme.

This principle is closely linked to underlying principle 2, user-centricity.
 

Underlying principle 7: Transparency

Citizens and businesses should be able to understand administrative processes. They should have the right to track administrative procedures that involve them, and have insight into the rationale behind decisions that could affect them.

Transparency also allows citizens and businesses to give feedback about the quality of the public services provided, to contribute to their improvement and to the implementation of new services.

 

Underlying principle 8: Preservation of information

Records and information in electronic form held by administrations for the purpose of documenting procedures and decisions must be preserved. The goal is to ensure that records and other forms of information retain their legibility, reliability and integrity and can be accessed as long as needed, taking into account security and privacy.

In order to guarantee the long-term preservation of electronic records and other kinds of information, formats should be selected to ensure long-term accessibility, including preservation of associated electronic signatures and other electronic certifications, such as mandates.

For information sources owned and managed by national administrations, preservation is a purely national matter. For European public services and for information that is not purely national, preservation becomes a European issue, requiring an appropriate ‘preservation policy’.

Recommendation 5. Public administrations should formulate together a long-term preservation policy for electronic records relating to European public services.

 
Records - defined by the model requirements for the management of electronic records (MOREQ): a record is (a) document(s) produced or received by a person or organisation in the course of business, and retained by that person or organisation.
 

Underlying principle 9: Openness

In the context of the EIF, openness is the willingness of persons, organisations or other members of a community of interest to share knowledge and stimulate debate within that community, the ultimate goal being to advance knowledge and the use of this knowledge to solve problems.

While respecting data protection and privacy, interoperability involves sharing information among interacting organisations, and hence implies openness.
Applying the principle of openness when jointly developing custom-made software systems, European public administrations generate results that can be interconnected, reused and shared, which also improves efficiency.

Therefore, European public administrations should aim for openness, taking into account needs, priorities, legacy, budget, market situation and a number of other factors.

Recommendation 6. Public administrations should aim for openness when working together to establish European public services, while taking into account their priorities and constraints.
 

Underlying principle 10: Reusability

Reuse means that public administrations confronted with a specific problem seek to benefit from the work of others by looking at what is available, assessing its usefulness or relevance to the problem at hand, and deciding to use solutions that have proven their value elsewhere.
This implies that public administrations must be willing to share with others their solutions, concepts, frameworks, specifications, tools and components. This can be facilitated by applying the principle of openness, as described above.

Reuse and sharing naturally lead to cooperation using collaborative platforms15, towards mutually beneficial and agreed common goals.

Reuse is consequently key to the efficient development of European public services.

Recommendation 7. Public administrations are encouraged to reuse and share solutions and to cooperate on the development of joint solutions when implementing European public services.
 
The Information Commissioner of the Republic of Slovenia holds that data retention provisions of the Act on Electronic Communications (ZEKom-1), which came into force on 15 January 2013 do not respect the principle of proportionality and that they have been transposed into national law in contrast with the provisions of the Data Retention Directive 2006/24.
 

Underlying principle 11: Technological neutrality and adaptability

When establishing European public services, public administrations should focus on functional needs and defer decisions on technology as long as possible in order to avoid imposing specific technologies or products on their partners and to be able to adapt to the rapidly evolving technological environment.

Public administrations should render access to public services independent of any specific technology or product.

Recommendation 8. Public administrations should not impose any specific technological solution on citizens, businesses and other administrations when establishing European public services.
 

Underlying principle 12: Effectiveness and efficiency

Public administrations should ensure that solutions serve businesses and citizens in the most effective and efficient way and provide the best value for taxpayer money.
There are many ways to take stock of the value brought by public service solutions, including considerations such as return on investment, total cost of ownership, increased flexibility and adaptability, reduced administrative burden, increased efficiency, reduced risk, transparency, simplification, improved working methods, and recognition of public administration achievements and competencies.
 
At EU level, various platforms have been set up to share open source software components, semantic assets and best practices .
The European Commission has also created EUPL in order to facilitate the sharing of software components.
 

European Union Public Licence (EUPL)

 

EU Standards and  Recommendations

As defined in European legislation (Article 1, paragraph 6, of Directive 98/34/EC), a standard is a technical specification approved by a recognised standardisation body for repeated or continuous application, with which compliance is not compulsory and which is one of the following:

• international standard: a standard adopted by an international standardisation organisation and made available to the public,
• European standard: a standard adopted by a European standardisation body and made available to the public,
• national standard: a standard adopted by a national standardisation body and made available to the public.

What are the barriers to semantic interoperability?

•         - Information black holes
•         - Information silos
•         - Lack of collaboration, common agreements and consensus

 
When we are talking about an information black holes?

There are many semantic interoperability assets spread out in several project websites, national repositories, standardisation bodies, etc. Overall it is hard to discover the appropriate schema, code-list or data model at the right moment.

 What is information silo and how to avoid it?

Despite the progress made in recent years, there are still significant differences to describe common entities such as an address, a person, a location, etc. This hinders data exchange across borders and sectors.

Complexity to any e-Government project that involves data exchange between public administrations or businesses we could overcome with collaboration, common agreements and consensus.