Main strategic objectives and principles

Last updated: October 2011

Memorandum for the National eGovernment Strategy (2011)

At its 5th Meeting of the 30th June 2011, the IT Planning Council took the first concrete steps towards the implementation of the National eGovernment Strategy 2010-2015, by publishing a memorandum, which outlines the agreed strategic goals. Their main focus is placed on building a federal infrastructure and aligning individual measurements. According to the memorandum, IT Planning envisages the following priorities to be addressed between 2011 and 2015:

• Transparent government and regulatory actions should be promoted by appropriate measures of information technology and eGovernment.
• Federal and state governments need to adapt to the IT processes and current threats from the Internet constantly. Therefore, minimum uniform standards for communication between government departments should be developed.
• Develop a common eID strategy to enable citizens and businesses to securely transact with the administration over the Internet.
• A federal information management will bring together faster and more efficiently knowledge management to improve public services.
• Sharing initiatives to federal, state and local governments for cost saving in IT infrastructures are in the making.
• The definition of IT security and IT interoperability standards is one of the main tasks of the IT Planning Board.
• The framework for the levels of cross eGovernment should be further developed. The IT Planning supports the coordinated activities of the federal and state laws to further adjust the regulatory framework.

National eGovernment Strategy (2010-2015)

The National eGovernment Strategy was decided by the IT Planning Council on 24 September 2010 to guide country's eGovernment progress in the upcoming years. The strategy has been developed in cooperation with a broad spectrum of stakeholders from the fields of administration, politics, science and business. Particular care has also been taken to involve citizens in this process, by means of an online consultation which took place during September 2009. Key aspects of the strategy have already been identified and further discussed within the framework of the Fourth National IT-Conference of the Federal Chancellor held on 8 December 2009 in Stuttgart.

The National eGovernment Strategy aims at ensuring a common orientation for eGovernment activities and efforts at federal, state and local levels in order to bring the country into a leading position in Europe by 2015. Thereby, according to the strategy's vision, eGovernment should be characterised by six objectives:

• Orientation on usefulness for citizens, businesses and public administration: Potential eGovernment users citizens and businesses should be fully aware of the services offered to them and be able to access them. In particular, broadband access in rural areas should be improved as well as citizens' digital/media literacy.
• Cost-effectiveness and efficiency: In order for thepublic administration to be able to provide rapid, cost-efficient and high-quality services, it should design process chains within the public administration, which should be supported by electronic means, following a customer-centric approach. The various processes will be digitised to the most possible extent, while the Federal Government and the States will put the appropriate legal, organisational and technical instruments in place for ensuring the mandatory use of digital technologies.
• Data protection and transparency: Data protection, security and transparency constitute important preconditions for the citizens to accept, trust and intensively use eGovernment. Therefore, the National eGovernment Strategy aims at ensuring data transparency and security by paying particular attention to only collect and process the data that is absolutely necessary for providing a particular administrative service.
• Social participation: Active participation of citizens and businesses in policy as well as in planning and decision-making processes will be fostered, as far as it is reasonable and allowed by law. Impact and results of participation will be made transparent to citizens and businesses.
• Innovation and sustainability: Federal, State and Local Public Administrations will support the capacity for innovation and openness to change through their own high-performance and client-oriented eGovernment offerings.
• Ensuring strong eGovernment support through IT: Development of IT systems should follow a simple and modular approach. Solutions should be kept as simple as possible, while at the same time they should facilitate scalability. eGovernment relevant data/content, basic services, applications as well as infrastructure will be bundled together in an effort to be re-used by other user groups.

The National eGovernment strategy does not see itself as "an abstract construct" for the federal eGovernment, but as a flexible and practical agenda that can pick up on the new developments at an early stage.

Federal IT-Steering Strategy (2007-2011)

On 5 December 2007, the German Cabinet agreed on a Federal IT-Steering strategy aiming at improving IT management within the government. The ultimate target is to optimise Public Administration services and promote IT innovation. The strategy takes in internal and inter-departmental IT management. It also tackles current issues involving Germany’s eGovernment strategy and IT security.

In March 2009, a Framework (or Implementation Plan) was adopted complementing the Federal IT-Steering Strategy, and aiming at transforming the general strategic objectives into concrete targets. The plan covers the period up to 31 December 2011, defining a roadmap for the implementation of the new Federal IT Steering structure.

Deutschland Online Action Plan (Updated yearly)

Chancellor Angela Merkel and the First Ministers of the 16 German Federal States signed in June 2006 the 'Deutschland-Online Action Plan', aimed at giving new impetus to their existing co-operation on eGovernment, and to the adoption of electronic procedures in Public Administration. Since then, this action plan has been updated on an annual basis. The latest version of the Deutschland Online Action Plan, as of 24 September 2010, includes the following projects:

• Infrastructure (project led by the Federal Government and Hessen)

Within the Deutschland-Online Infrastructure (DOI) project, the DOI Net has been setup, featuring accessibility, security and quality aligned to the specific requirements of a capable Public Administration. Gross planning was finalised in 2006. Two important milestones to this direction were the establishment of the incorporate society 'Deutschland-Online Infrastruktur e.V.' and the migration to the new network. According to the provisions of the new Law on Linking up Federal and Land IT Networks (IT-NetzG), responsibility for the new network was transferred to Federal authorities on 1 January 2011.

• Vehicle Registration (project led by Hamburg)   

The aim of this project is to overhaul and optimise the vehicle registration processes, systematically using eGovernment and the potential of the central online vehicle register kept by the Federal Motor Transport Authority. Thereby, the target is to enable private customers and businesses to conduct the registration processes (registration, deregistration and re-registration) online, wherever possible.

• Civil Status Registration (project led by Bavaria)

The project's primary goal is to create the basis for the decision on the future structure of the registry office, by piloting the introduction of a nationwide civil register. The second objective is to develop exchange of data in the XPersonenstand format. The third objective is to provide online registry information of birth certificates for citizens.

• Registration system (project led by the Federal Government)  

The exclusive legislative power in this field has been transferred to the federal level. Against this backdrop a new federal law shall pass parliament soon. The project's objective is to harmonise and to advance the law on registration of residents to streamline registration procedures, to offer online access to residents for various administrational procedures, to strengthen the level of data protection and to grant 24/7 online-access to registration data for selected public authorities within Germany.

• National Weapons Registration (project jointly led by the Ministry of Interior of Baden-Württemberg and the Federal Ministry of Interior)

This project aims at developing a National Weapons Registry to gather related information on a central location. Thereby, of particular importance is information concerning firearms (including ownership certificates, owner details, etc) that shall be electronically collected and kept up-to-date.

Previous eGovernment Strategies

eGovernment 2.0 (2006-2010)

On 13 September 2006, the federal cabinet adopted the strategy 'Focused on the Future: Innovations for Administration' (‘Zukunftsorientierte Verwaltung durch Innovationen’) aiming at the modernisation of the Federal State Administration, the downsizing of bureaucracy and the improvement of the quality and efficiency of public sector services. An integral part of the strategy consisted of the eGovernment 2.0 programme, which was developed in compliance with the European action plan i2010. It focused on four fields of action: enhancement of the federal eGovernment services in terms of quantity and quality; establishment of electronic collaboration between the Public Administration and the business community; introduction of an electronic Identity Card (eID Card); and development of secure communication infrastructure for citizens, businesses and public administrations. The 'eGovernment 2.0 Final Report', on 20 May 2010, marked the programme's successful completion.

Deutschland-Online (2003-2006)

To foster proper coordination and cooperation between the Federal Government, Federal States and local authorities, the ‘Deutschland-Online’ joint strategy for integrated eGovernment was devised in 2003. First proposed by the Federal Minister of the Interior Otto Schily in March 2003, the partnership was agreed by Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and the heads of state government on 26 June 2003. Local authorities took part in the agreement through their representative associations. The Deutschland-Online strategy, drawing on the strengths of federalism, provided the framework for cooperation between all administration layers, based on the following five priorities: development of integrated eServices for citizens and businesses; interconnection of Internet portals; development of common infrastructures; development of common standards; experience and knowledge transfer.