Policy Context and Legal Framework

The municipality of Trikala offers a fertile environment for such experiments, since it provides its citizens free Internet access for all (Municipal Wireless), and an advanced strategy and wide array of ICT related projects and services for its constituents.

The Municipality of Trikala has the biggest list of EU-funded projects than any other municipality in the region and eventually Greece (if taken as a per capita income). This effort leads to Trikala being recognized as the first digital city of Greece.

In Greece there is no specific legal framework for the full deployment of eGovernment, and the National Strategic Reference Framework for 2007-2013 is one of the mechanisms through which th Greek Government is prioritising the eGovernment Strategy.

Implementation and Management Approach

The ICT strategy and projects are championed by the Mayor himself who has built a strong team around him dealing efficiently with ICT challenges and opportunities, utilizing to the maximum opportunities offered through Greek and EU funding programmes.

A key question would be whether this individualistic approach based on the vision of this particular Mayor is more effective that a legislative agenda imposed centrally

Impact

Citizens must register on the e-Dialogos site in order for them to participate, where they also create their own demographic profile. The demographics will also be used to weigh the results accordingly, balancing the views of over or under represented segments of the population.

Innovation:
Access2democracy (www.access2democracy.org) developed the strategy, methodology, the user requirements and specifications while IMC (a Greek IT company that leads the project) developed the web based platform that will host and support the processes. It mainly comprises three tools: a top-down eSurvey system, where municipality can ask citizens to respond to specific issues of interest to the municipality; a bottom-up ePetition system; and, what is termed a deliberative process. The latter is a ‘serial process’ with several steps embedded in a tight methodology.

Lessons learnt

Lesson 1 - eTrikala sits as a beacon project with high-level political support. Indeed, the mayor is using his own power to ember ICT-related organisational change. There is a paradox whereby strong local autonomy can produce projects that deliver significant citizen value, but they run the risk of being islands of excellence in a sea of organisational resistance. At the same time, centrally-imposed strategies can lead to projects not being tuned to local needs.

Lesson 2 - Another interesting feature of the Trikala example is the employment model the Mayor is using. Few of the leaders in his team are civil servants linked to their position for life, whereas the opposite generally is the case with municipal employees elsewhere. The upshot of this is that employees are keen to acquire new skills as well as to look for additional funding and projects as they create their own raison-d’etre in the municipal structures.