Digital Government Review of Luxembourg

Towards More Digital, Innovative and Inclusive Public Services

Report

OECD Digital Government Studies

28 September 2022

5. Building user-driven public service design and delivery in the digital age in Luxembourg

Abstract

This chapter provides an analysis of how Luxembourg is digitally transforming public services based on the OECD Framework for Public Service Design and Delivery. The first section looks at the contextual factors that frame a service design and delivery agenda, including representative and organisational politics, the history of channels, technology and infrastructure, and societal and geographic factors. The second section reflects on the philosophical approximation to service design and delivery in the country, including the needed leadership, culture around users, co‑ordination, collaboration and agility needed for a meaningful service transformation. Finally, the chapter analyses the current state of key enablers and tools to equip service teams to materialise the ambition for a user-driven service design and delivery agenda at scale while fostering trust and quality.

Introduction

Citizens and businesses are demanding public services that are responsive to understand and meet their needs, in a timely and effective fashion and regardless of their preferred channel. As observed across OECD member countries, adopting a service design and delivery approach is pivotal to provide services that contribute to strengthen the relationship between the State and the constituency. This became evident in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, when digital government maturity was instrumental for governments to continue operating under challenging and changing conditions, and to provide new or existing public services through digital channels timely. Improving the experience and convenience of citizens when accessing public services can help governments foster citizens’ trust and the legitimacy of the public sector. This requires governments to adopt a user-driven culture across sectors to understand and meet these needs.

Digital government is instrumental to make public sectors work better for their citizens and businesses. The benefits that digital technologies and data can offer are multiple and far beyond simply translating analogue processes into digital means. Digital government can be a window opportunity to break down organisational siloes, rethink the interactions with the public sector, and to set the foundations for a longstanding and sustainable digital transformation that benefits all.

Adopting a digital-by-design culture and practice in the public sector can also foster a mindset shift to fully utilise digital tools and data to change the way public sector institutions understand and answer to the needs of citizens. A digital government redirects efforts from technology deployment to its use to be more responsive, trustworthy and protective with citizens and the community. As a result, digital transformation can drive a meaningful reorientation within the public sector towards understanding and meeting user needs from an end-to-end perspective, reorganising internally and establishing innovative channels to interact with citizens as well as to design and deliver the services they expect.

Unlocking the value of digital technologies and data to rethink service design and delivery in the public sector requires equipping service teams with the tools, culture and skills needed to transform services around user needs. It requires fostering a user research approach that foster agility and a better comprehension of users and their journeys when accessing public services and establishing meaningful feedback gathering and application mechanisms to reorient services in an agile and effective way.

The OECD has been supporting member and partner countries to advance towards a similar cultural and practice shift to transform service design and delivery in the digital age. In 2014, the OECD Council adopted the Recommendation on Digital Government Strategies, which early on identified the importance of digital government in order to understand, meet and anticipate the needs of users. Building on this work, the OECD Framework for Public Service Design and Delivery identifies three areas to help countries achieve their ambition to digitally transform services (see Figure 5.1):

First, it sets the broader context in which public services are designed and delivered, including societal, technological, infrastructure and channel legacy factors
Second, it reflects on the holistic organisational and cultural approach to transform services, including the leadership to advance this strategy as well as the rationale for understanding user needs, designing end-to-end service experience and promoting multi-level collaboration within the public sector for this purpose
Finally, it looks at the enablers that equip teams to transform the service experience of citizens, including resources and common, interoperable technology that support a whole-of-government rather than silo-based transformation.

Figure 5.1. OECD Framework for Public Service Design and Delivery

The Government of Luxembourg’s ambitions are no different, with a determined agenda to foster an inclusive and effective public sector by enhancing the experience of citizens with the public sector through digitally transformed public services. Significant advances have been made in the past years with the consolidation of the informational service delivery portal GUICHET.LU and the development of its transactional version MYGUICHET.LU. Efforts are now devoted to increase coverage of and satisfaction with transactional services, as well as to continue equipping ministries and administrations with the building blocks needed for increased ownership to implement their digital transformation journeys.

This chapter presents the service design and delivery landscape in the Government of Luxembourg including the existing context, culture, philosophy and enablers that determine how ministries and administrations are addressing the digital transformation of public services in the country.

Context for public service design and delivery

Creating the conditions for a transformed approach for public service design and delivery is influenced by the national political and organisational context in which decisions and initiatives are framed (see Figure 5.2). Understanding the context for service design and delivery can help identify organisational and political levers needed to foster a culture around understanding users and their needs. Similarly, existing channel, technology and infrastructure legacy shape the ability of the public sector to streamline and integrate processes and services around user needs to simplify their experience when interacting with the public sector. Finally, existing societal, cultural and geographical conditions can determine the way governments are able to deploy digital technologies as well as the extent to which citizens and businesses have the ability and resources to effectively experience a digital state.

Figure 5.2. The OECD Framework for Public Service Design and Delivery: Context

Representative and organisational politics

As described in Chapter 2, contextual factors for digital government set an institutional path in which a country can advance and become digitally mature. In the context of designing and delivering services, political, socio-economic, and technological factors influence policy choices and actions that determine the capacity of the public sector to implement a service agenda that meet the diverse and context-dependent needs of citizens and businesses.

Luxembourg presents a stable political context, in which digital government has gained governmental relevance and visibility thanks to the strengthened governance for the digital transformation of the public sector. Created in 2018, the Ministry for Digitalisation (MDIGI) is the high-level and dedicated body to co‑ordinate policy choices on digital government and translate them into concrete actions to be implemented either by the CTIE or ministries and administrations. Digital government policy in Luxembourg also benefits from the direct leadership of the Prime Minister as Minister for Digitalisation, and the Minister for the Civil Service as Deputy Minister for Digitalisation, enhancing co‑ordination and alignment for a digital cultural shift within the domestic public workforce (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2018[2]).

The remit of the MDIGI includes the management of the CTIE as well as relevant agendas for the digital transformation of Luxembourg, such as digital inclusion, digital infrastructure, new technologies (including artificial intelligence and Blockchain)., and streamlining of administrative procedures. All together, they establish a strong ecosystem and empowered mandate for the Ministry. By contrast, it is less clear the extent of the mandate under which the Ministry (and by extent the CTIE) should lead the data-driven public sector policy in Luxembourg – for example data governance, sharing and reuse within the public sector. Currently, the mandate for the Ministry established in the Grand-Ducal Decree of 2018 only indicates that the Ministry should promote co‑ordination and foster synergies for exchange of data and information (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2018[2]), while the CTIE is mandated to promote and organise the secure sharing of data across the public sector. As discussed later in the section “Enablers to support service design and delivery”, enhanced access to and sharing of data is pivotal for an integrated and transformative service delivery agenda, and the absence of such capability within Luxembourg’s public sector may be hampering efforts to consolidate a common approach for service design and delivery in the country.

The strengthening of digital government in Luxembourg also includes the development of horizontal co-ordination mechanisms for policy coherence and alignment, which can also support realising the ambition of a transformed service design and delivery agenda. As explained in Chapter 2, the set-up of an inter-ministerial committee for digitalisation in public administration aims to co-ordinate ministries and administrations in the definition and implementation of the Electronic Governance 2021-2025 strategy. Chaired by the First Counsellor of the MDIGI and by the CTIE Director, it brings all high-level representatives across ministries and administrations to set a common approach for digital government in the country. Similarly, the High Committee for Digital Transformation, chaired by the Prime Minister and Minister for Digitalisation as well as the Minister Delegate for Digitalisation represent another essential instance for high-level co‑ordination and alignment for digital transformation in the public sector. Luxembourg could consider leveraging this committee to establish a shared vision for service transformation in Luxembourg, and to use it as a policy lever for the Ministry for Digitalisation and the CTIE to create ownership across sectors regarding the philosophy, culture and enablers for service design and delivery in the public sector.

Legacy of channels, technology and infrastructure

The consolidation of the digital government ecosystem in Luxembourg builds on policies, initiatives and lessons across several decades. The recently created Ministry for Digitalisation works in tandem with the CTIE, main IT service provider for ministries and administrations in the country. Created in 1974, the CTIE’s remit covers most of the whole-of-government IT functions and shared services in the public sector (see Box 5.1) (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2015[3]). For almost 50 years, one single entity has been responsible for provision of IT infrastructure and support to Luxembourg’s government, and has set a path for wide adoption and use of digital technologies in ministries and administrations.

The CTIE enjoys high reputation and recognition among ministries and administrations. Its role is particularly valued in smaller public sector institutions with less capacity to deal in-house with the development of ICT/digital initiatives, often fully relying on the CTIE for digital technology aspects. By contrast, larger ministries and administrations have developed internal capacity to carry out projects while making use of shared IT infrastructure and standards provided by the CTIE. On top there are Ministries who have own IT centres such as the Ministry of Health (e-Health Agency); the Ministry of Education, Children and Youth (CGIE), Ministry of Social Security (CCSS).

The capacity of Luxembourg’s government to adopt and use new digital technologies and the development of new digital solutions is thus highly correlated with the role and functioning of the CTIE. Its operating model has helped apply economies of scale and harmonise the adoption of common digital technologies in the public sector. In contrast, it was observed during the peer review mission that such approach led to a technical and administrative dependency from ministries and administrations with the CTIE that sometimes restricts their capacity and cultural change to lead their institutional digital transformation initiatives. Similarly, the high centralisation and overload of this entity can create delays to deliver as expected by the beneficiaries. Consequently, in cases when the CTIE is not capable of meeting specific requests and needs from ministries and administrations, they would develop or outsource their own solutions while observing CTIE’s existing standards.

In this context, the Ministry for Digitalisation and the CTIE are responsible of leading the digital transformation of public services in the country. The CTIE is responsible for several technical functions related to service delivery in the country, including the set-up and operation of platforms for exchanges between administrations with citizens and businesses; collection and publication of information about administrative procedures through different channels; running the helpdesks for citizens, companies and state public servants, and operation of the digital identity and postal service. Moreover CTIE is responsible for building, running and maintaining the IT infrastructure of Government (e.g. secured network, data centres, servers, mainframe, government cloud), for information security, development and deployment of platforms and back offices, project management and the acquisition of IT material.

Box 5.1. CTIE’s mandate and main functions

The remit of the Government IT Centre (CTIE) is set out in the law of 24 November 2015 amending the amended law of 20 April 2009. Among several tasks, the CTIE's mission is to:

promote and organise in a rational, co‑ordinated way the automation of the State's administrations, particularly with regard to the collection, transmission and processing of data
assist the various State administrations in carrying out ordinary IT work, and to manage fixed and mobile communication systems
acquire and manage IT and office equipment for the State's administrations
manage a support centre for the internal and external users of the information systems managed by the centre
map the processes of the State's administrations and their interoperability, and keep the maps up to date
seek synergies among the State's various administrations and optimise their exchanges of information
co‑ordinate the Internet presence of the State's administrations
set up and operate platforms for exchanges with citizens and businesses
set up and co‑ordinate a network of regional physical front offices offering citizens a one-stop point of contact, whatever their administrative procedures;
make available a knowledge base bringing together all the attributions of the State, accessible through the various public-service channels
operate the Government’s postal service.

Source: Adapted from The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (2021[4]), Remit, https://ctie.gouvernement.lu/en/l-administration/Attributions.html (accessed on 15 June 2022).

Luxembourg’s approach towards service delivery builds on the existing and well-established informational public sector portal GUICHET.LU (https://guichet.public.lu/) and its transactional version MYGUICHET.LU (https://www.myguichet.lu) available in web and mobile formats. To 2021, GUICHET.LU comprised approx. 1 600 informational services (procedure descriptions) while MYGUICHET.LU offers 440 online services. The CTIE operates both platforms and provides analytical and technical assistance to ministries and administrations when new services need to be included. To date, the vast majority of services available are informational rather than transactional, with GUICHET.LU being the prominent and single point of information for Luxembourgish citizens and businesses to access information related to services in the country. Currently, 71% of ministries and administrations in the country declared providing informational or transactional services through the national service delivery platform1 while continue delivering services through their institutional platforms (see Figure 5.3 and Figure 5.4). Efforts towards continuing consolidating a service design and delivery agenda in Luxembourg, building upon the existing channels available in the country, may consider establishing a common experience for users when accessing a service, independently from the institution that hosts its version considering that still a significant number of services are offered in-person.

Figure 5.3. Ministries and administrations providing information and/or transactional services to citizens/businesses

Figure 5.4. Ministries and administrations providing transactional services (digitally or not) by type of end-user

The Electronic Governance 2021-2025 Strategy (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2021[6]) sets the quality, inclusion and accessibility of digitally enabled services as keystones of the digital transformation agenda in Luxembourg’s public sector. One of the ambitions of the Ministry for Digitalisation and the CTIE is to increase the coverage and availability of transactional services through MYGUICHET.LU to progress towards a paperless administration while still maintaining the possibility that a person can carry out their administrative procedure by physical means. However, this goal needs to permeate within a still a dominant paper-based mindset and culture driving government digitalisation efforts. Despite the acknowledgement of an inclusive and human-centric service delivery approach, the existing rationale for public services is perceived as inward looking and driven by the administrative complexity and dominant paper-based rationale. With the ambition set for a paperless administration by 2025 (The Luxembourg Government, 2021[7]; The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2021[6]), further efforts are needed to take advantage of this strategy to rethink services from and end-to-end perspective and shaped by user needs rather than the existing legal and administrative approach.

Looking at strengthening an inclusive and user-driven approach for service design and delivery in the digital age, OECD member countries are promoting omni-channel service delivery as a coherent and integrated framework that standardise the user experience through different channels (either digital, mobile, or in-person) (OECD, 2020[1]). Currently, in Luxembourg the digital channel is the most relevant mean to deliver transactional services for 48% of ministries and administrations, while 24% of them uses paper-oriented means such as emails and/or traditional written communication.2 Considering Luxembourg’s emphasis on placing inclusiveness at the centre of its digital government strategy, respecting people’s choice on their preferred service channel, further efforts are needed to align existing offline and online service delivery channels to provide a coherent and single experience to citizens and businesses when interacting with the public sector, as observed in the case of Portugal and Chile (see Box 5.2).

Box 5.2. An omni-channel service delivery approach in Portugal

Portugal’s Agency for Administrative Modernisation (AMA, Agência para a Modernização Administrativa) is responsible for the service design and delivery policy in the country. AMA has advanced the development of an omni-channel service delivery approach through the alignment of online and offline channels to secure a coherent service experience to citizens and businesses regardless of their preferred way.

For online service delivery, Portugal’s Citizen Shop is a central service delivery platform that comprises public and private services, and facilitates the interactions among citizens, businesses and the public sector. The platforms provide a coherent service experience to citizens and businesses while helping public sector organisations to share resources, infrastructures and platforms required for service delivery. Pursuing an omni-channel service delivery strategy, this service network is integrated with in-person offices that act as helpdesk for citizens and businesses to access public services – Citizen Spots’ network.

Source: Author’s elaboration based on (2022[8]), ama.gov.pt, https://www.ama.gov.pt/ (accessed on 15 June 2022).

Society and geography

Luxembourg benefits from several factors to advance and consolidate a service design and delivery agenda. This includes a mature digital ecosystem based on above-average performance in digital connectivity and infrastructure indicators compared to EU Member States and OECD member countries such as broadband coverage and speed – as presented in Chapter 2. Existing digital infrastructure serves also as the backbone of the Luxembourg’s economy, largely shaped by financial and digital services. The digital maturity of the Luxembourg’s economy has also fostered citizens’ expectations to benefit from the accessibility of service delivery through digital channels (STATEC, 2019[9]).

The particular geographic and demographic context of Luxembourg calls also for leveraging the digital transformation agenda to promote an inclusive and accessible public sector. This is particularly relevant to meet the expectations of a large community of foreign residents (47.5% of citizens from 170+ nationalities) and workers that commute to the country regularly (197 000 workers from Germany, France and Belgium travelling on a frequent basis as employed or self-employed workers). The role played by foreigners in Luxembourg’s society and economy has made the government to look at digital technologies and data to promote inclusiveness, cross-border inter-operability and convenience in service provision in order to attend the needs of a diverse and dynamic population, as well as to continue attracting EU workforce into the country (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2021[10]; The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2021[6]). In this line, MDIGI has set digital inclusion as one of the pillars for the implementation of the Electronic Governance Strategy 2021-2025 (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2021[6]).

In this context, local governments are at the frontline of Luxembourg’s service delivery agenda. For this, local governments have organised themselves to leverage capacities and work at scale in the introduction of digital technologies and data at municipal level through the Inter-Communal Informatics Management Association (SIGI). Currently, SIGI provides digital support to 101 local governments in Luxembourg, which includes the provision of shared digital tools and guidelines to standardise the digitalisation of public services and operations at the local level, e.g. shared systems to streamline interactions and mobility of citizens when they change their address and register into a different municipality (see Box 5.3).

In this regard, further exchanges and collaboration between MDIGI and CTIE with SIGI would be beneficial to strengthen the adoption of agile approaches for service design and delivery at the central government level. It could be interesting to reinforce the integration of local government procedures into MyGuichet.lu. On top a better co‑ordination would possible if there is an increased alignment about existing security and interoperability standards, as it is expected from the ongoing development of the National Interoperability Framework. Similarly, strengthened co-ordination between MDIGI and CTIE would contribute to align and streamline the service provision from ministries and administrations with local governments. Working towards a consolidated user experience for citizens and businesses when accessing central or local services would require strengthening the co-ordination and collaboration with entities supporting the digital transformation of local governments.

Box 5.3. Shared digitally-enabled administrative procedures in Luxembourg’s municipalities

The platform MaCommune.lu, provides single access to basic informational and transactional local government services provided by 70 municipalities in Luxembourg. Currently, citizens can access services through the existing digital identity suite provided by LuxTrust in a similar way to services provided by the central government through MyGuichet.lu.

In order to enable shared administrative procedures, municipalities affiliated to MaCommune.lu can share data for example to allow citizens to switch their residence address to another local government. In terms of functionality, MaCommune.lu gives access to basic services such as:

Submit a certificate request
Submit a request for parental authorisation
Order dustbins
Request a “childcare-service voucher” card
Consult municipal bills
Download forms

Philosophy for public service design and delivery

Advancing a whole-of-government approach for service design and delivery in the public sector builds upon organisational and cultural aspects to better understand and meet user needs. The second aspect to devise when looking at service design and delivery in Luxembourg relates to the philosophy that drives MDIGI, CTIE and ministries and administrations to offer services that reflect citizens and businesses’ needs, as seen in Figure 5.5. The six elements identified below support an approach that helps better identify and address user needs on an ongoing basis and in a coherent way across the public sector. A culture and philosophy around users contribute to deliver more timely, pertinent and effective services regardless of their preferred channel.

Figure 5.5. The OECD Framework for Public Service Design and Delivery: Philosophy

Setting the leadership and vision to transform services

The digital transformation of public services calls for a shared vision, leadership and institutional culture to be proactive and provide user-driven services. This transformation process requires maximising the potential of digital tools and data from the outset to better understand and meet the needs of citizens and businesses in a way that streamlines their interaction with the public sector while fostering public trust.

The creation of the Ministry for Digitalisation and the development of the Electronic Governance Strategy 2021-2025 are seen as two cornerstones for an integrated and whole-of-government approach for service design and delivery in the country. During a dedicated workshop on service design and delivery conducted as part of this review, participants highlighted that service design and delivery agenda has gained political locus and significance across ministries and administrations with the leadership and mandate of the MDIGI. This has been translated into the primary goal of achieving a fully digitalised and proactive administration in order to meet the needs of a diverse, multicultural and dynamic population.

Despite not having a dedicated service design and delivery strategy,3 the Electronic Governance Strategy 2021-2025 includes several provisions to advance towards a government that understands meets and anticipates people’s needs. Within the six pillars for digital government in Luxembourg, the ambition is to achieve a digital by default and digitally inclusive administration (see Figure 5.6). The Electronic Governance Strategy 2021-2025 acknowledges the importance of inclusive and convenient access to public services. To do so, the Ministry for Digitalisation and the CTIE are prioritising the effective implementation of the One Only Principle and the data governance and sharing arrangements needed for this purpose (see previous section). Similarly, the Strategy invites ministries and administrations to take its implementation as an opportunity to streamline internal processes to offer a simplified experience to users.

It is important to note the difference between a government that takes advantage of digital tools and data to improve offline and online services (digital by design) from one that set digital services as the only alternative for citizens and businesses to interact with the public sector (digital by default). It is clear from this strategy that MDIGI and CTIE works towards a by design approach (e.g. the prominence given to digital inclusion) from a transactional perspective – offering end-to-end digital services while maintaining offline channels available for citizens who prefer to access in-person services as set in the Coalition Agreement 2018-2023 that frames the programmatic priorities for the current government (Luxembourg Government Coalition, 2018[12]). However, further efforts are needed to clearly communicate this vision to the wider community, including ministries and administrations as they often do not have the same perspective about what this process entails – as observed during the peer mission and workshop.

Figure 5.6. Principles for digital government in Luxembourg

In Luxembourg, service delivery is grounded on the well-established and adopted GUICHET.LU and MYGUICHET.LU platforms. The brand is widely recognised by ministries and administrations as the central focal point for digital services in the country and is referenced in all central government websites. For this, the Ministry and the CTIE have run promotional campaigns to increase the awareness and adoption of the platforms (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2021[13]). The CTIE, as IT service provider and responsible for the development of the GUICHET platforms, ensures that digital experience is coherent across the public sector regarding informational services and also for the increasing number of transactional services available through MYGUICHET.LU.

From an implementation perspective, MDIGI works closely with CTIE to materialise the goals and vision set in the Electronic Governance Strategy. However, evidence from the fact-finding mission and workshop illustrates the need for further alignment between MDIGI and CTIE regarding an inclusive digitalisation of public services as often this process is approached (and largely perceived) from a technical perspective. Participant ministries and administrations in this study highlighted the existing gap between the technical implementation role of the CTIE and the user-driven approach set by MDIGI in the strategy. Luxembourg is working in this direction for example through the implementation of initiatives such as “Let’s simplify together” (see Box 5.4). This platform aims to create a space for ongoing dialogue between citizens with ministries and administrations regarding service pain points that can be streamlined (Ministère de la Digitalisation, 2022[14]). Similarly, the creation of an advisory service for digitalisation is being planned by the MDIGI to support public administrations and ministries in the implementation of the Electronic Governance Strategy. Closing the bridge between the vision and implementation is pivotal to secure that ministries and administrations can have the right enablers to translate high-level goals on services provision into digitally transformed services. In this line, countries such as Norway (Box 5.5) and the United States (Box 5.6) are advancing towards securing the right leadership, co‑ordination and enablers to equip service teams to close the gap between service delivery vision and practice.

Box 5.4. The platform Let’s simplify together in Luxembourg

The online platform Let’s simplify together (Zesumme Vereinfachen) provides a space to citizens, public sector institutions and businesses to collaboratively help rethink public processes and services. It aims to give users a space to inform themselves about specific projects for administrative simplification and to actively contribute to service reengineering by commenting, making proposals or occasionally voting on a selected group of initiatives.

Currently, users have the possibility to contribute to rethinking administrative processes available on GUICHET.LU portal, or more broadly about websites and platforms made available by the CTIE as well as from ministries and administrations.

Source: The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (2022[15]), Let's simplify together! For digital public services that make your daily life easier, https://www.zesumme-vereinfachen.lu/en-GB (accessed on 15 June 2022).

Box 5.5. Securing leadership for digitally enabled service design and delivery in Norway

The Agency for Public Management and e-Government (Difi), the Brønnøysund Register Centre and the Directorate for Financial Management (DFØ) issued in 2022 an updated version of the Norwegian Government’s Digitalisation Memorandum. This official document sets the political and organisational leadership for digital public service transformation in the country, comprising several orders and recommendations.

The Digitalisation Memorandum specifies how the government should communicate with users through digital public services that are safe, comprehensive, user friendly, and universally designed such that the user experience with the public sector is coherent and efficient. These services are to be regularly analysed along with a regular review of the regulatory framework and legislation. Digitalisation should aim to increase value creation, innovation and productivity. The principles covered in the Memorandum include:

Put the user at the centre of service development
Facilitate the re-use and sharing of information
Use national common components and common solutions
Follow requirements on architecture and standards
Ensure digital inclusion
Create a sourcing strategy
Co-ordinate with the municipal sector

Source: Government of Norway (2022[16]), Digitaliseringsrundskrivet, https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/digitaliseringsrundskrivet/id2895185/ (accessed on 22 August 2022)

Box 5.6. Transforming the user experience with government services in the United States

Giving the raising expectations of users to interact with the US Government through digital channels and the importance of reorienting service delivery efforts towards addressing people needs, the US President Biden issued in December 2021 the Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government.

In the executive order, the President designated 35 High-Impact Service Providers in Federal agencies given the volume and types of benefits, services, and programmes they deliver to the public. These service providers should co‑ordinate the rationalisation and digitalisation of 11 services that have high impact on US citizens and businesses, including:

Retiring
Filing and managing your taxes
Surviving a disaster
Traveling
Financing post-secondary education
Managing health care and benefits
Reducing barriers for those experiencing poverty
Financing your business
Supporting women, infants, and children
Managing your health
Updating your personal information once

In practice, the Executive Order requests these service providers to adopt a user-driven approach when designing and delivering services, including to reorganise internally to deliver services in an effective, efficient an timely fashion. This includes service rationalisation, digitalisation, and piloting of new tools and standards to provide simple, seamless and secure digitally-enabled services to citizens and businesses e.g. services should be available to users with only 1 to 3 clicks in their digital version.

The implementation of this Executive Order involves further co‑ordination and collaboration across the US federal government, including the role of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as convenor the several ministries and agencies responsible for these selected high-impact services. Similarly, OMB is mandated to inform to the Office of the President regarding implementation progress.

Source: The White House (2021[17]), Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/12/13/executive-order-on-transforming-federal-customer-experience-and-service-delivery-to-rebuild-trust-in-government/ (accessed on 15 June 2022).

Embracing a comprehensive understanding of user problems and needs

The convenience of users accessing a certain service is given by the extent their needs are well understood and addressed. Rethinking services and processes around users requires an organisational culture and practice that favours an agile and collaborative approach to identify problems and understand needs, define and test a policy or service with users, and to collect feedback during and after the implementation for continuous improvement (see Figure 5.7). Such an approach embraces inherent uncertainty, systematic learning and feedback and improvement principles in order to engage users to maximise the likelihood of solving the final problem.

As opposed from a top-down approach where service providers assume user needs and expectations, a user-driven culture for service design and delivery follows a bottom-up approach. Engaging users from the outset fosters a continuous dialogue and interaction to better understand and define their needs to model services (OECD, 2020[18]; OECD, 2020[1]). As a result, service design is a process to work with those who are affected by a problem and find a suitable solution to address these needs in the most simple, effective and convenient way. Shifting towards a user-driven and agile culture within the public sector requires also working with all those involved in policy and service provision, bringing together diverse, multi-disciplinary teams to align and co-ordinate the development of services to ensure a whole-of-government and coherent approach to find and address user problems together.

Figure 5.7. An agile and user-driven culture for designing policies and services in the public sector

Fostering the adoption and use of user research in the public sector can create a culture that leads to a meaningful service transformation. As opposed to a merely replication of existing procedures and formalities into digital means, a transformative digitalisation process involves rethinking services and simplifying the experience of users to resolve their final needs. Such an approach involves rationalising services i.e. merging, simplifying and/or interoperating services across boundaries in order to streamline the experience of citizens. Similarly, it also offers an opportunity to adopt whole-of-government principles and practices to secure that citizens trust in the public sector that the services they are accessing will lead to a satisfactory experience.

With MDIGI setting high-level goals to streamline service provision in Luxembourg, the review process unveiled a gap in terms of the culture, practice and capacities across ministries and administrations to effectively adopt a user research approach. The CTIE, as IT service provider and main partner to ministries and administrations in the country, has set a user experience (UX) and design team to support public sector institutions towards adopting a more user-centric approach when digitalising public services. In this regard, all transactional services offered through MYGUICHET.LU are by design developed observing the methodology Renow (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2022[19]). However, this on-demand service offered by the CTIE does not necessarily cover user research needs across the public sector as not all digital developments are delivered by the CTIE.

it would be important to continue progressing towards system-wide practices for an in-depth understanding of user behaviours, motivations and journeys in line with best practices observed across OECD member countries, for example in Australia, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Colombia (see Box 5.7). The initiative Let’s simplify together and the work of the GovTech Lab to iteratively identify problems and develop solutions are positive steps to start creating a user-driven culture when addressing needs in Luxembourg public sector. Further efforts to create a system-wide mindset and practice for user research are needed so most types of users are incorporated into the design process.

Box 5.7. Applying user research to transform public services in Australia

The Digital Transformation Agency of Australia (DTA) promotes the adoption and use of user research across public sector institutions to improve the pertinence, quality and success of digitally-enabled services. The goal is to equip service teams with capacities to better understand users in order to increase the success rate of digitally transformed services.

User research is widely promoted by the Government of Australia in order to help minimise the risks of costly and late failures by making fewer assumptions about service users, as well as to decrease delivery time and uncertainly by delivering small increments that benefit from the understanding gained about users.

Following an agile development approach, the DTA encourages the use of user research techniques in order to capture relevant and timely information across different development iterations that can quickly provide insights about areas of improvement or changes needed to better meet user needs. This includes:

Discovery stage: observe research sessions with users and help to analyse them. The user researcher plans and leads the sessions to help the team learn about the users and their needs.
Alpha stage: help the team experiment with different content formats. Schedule research sessions to see if the prototypes help meet the user needs.
Beta stage: work with the team to design content for the whole service. Observe people in usability sessions interact with the content that has been designed. After analysing the research as a team, improve the content.
Live stage: spend time each sprint reviewing user feedback and analytics. If there are areas that need more exploration, the researcher plans targeted research.

Source: Australian Government (n.d.[20]), User research, https://www.dta.gov.au/help-and-advice/build-and-improve-services/user-research (accessed on 22 August 2022).

Design end-to-end solutions

The transition towards a fully user-driven government involves rethinking the way public services are provided. The digital government imperative calls for a transformative approach that uses digital technologies and data to support the redesign of processes and services to increase the convenience of users when interacting with the public sector. From an e-government perspective, governments advanced in digitisation journeys, putting analogue processes into digital means but often working on a silo-based approach. Therefore, legacy issues to work across organisational boundaries end up providing a fragmented experience to users.

In this context, a transformative approach towards service delivery should provide users the means to solve their needs from the first attempt through its resolution (end-to-end), in an integrated way from user experience to back-office arrangements (external to internal) and across all available channels regardless of the user’s preference (omnichannel) (OECD, 2020[1]; Welby and Tan, 2022[21]). For users, the way public sector institutions organise internally to solve a need should be transparent. For the public sector, end-to-end services should encourage integration and rationalisation of multiple intermediate steps needed to meet a final need, streamlining such interactions as needed in order to offer an effective service.

Luxembourg has advanced in the adoption of an end-to-end approach for service delivery but still faces challenges for a system-wide implementation across the public sector. The development of MYGUICHET.LU represents a step forward in terms of transactional service provision and an end-to-end experience for citizens in Luxembourg. However, evidence from the peer review and dedicated workshop underlined the still dominant paper-based rationale that has driven the digitalisation of services in the country. This is reflected in the way MYGUICHET.LU is organised and the extent to which services are broken down into specific formalities - intermediate steps provided by other ministries and administrations that breaks the experience for the user – who then cannot complete it straight away. Interviewees underlined the absence of a comprehensive data-driven public sector approach (in particular data governance and sharing across relevant ministries and administrations) as one of the fundamental challenges to tackle to provide an end-to-end experience to users (further analysis on public sector data is discussed in Chapter 4). Ongoing efforts with the National Interoperability Framework will help address these challenges in the future and offer a seamless experience for users when trying to solve specific needs.

Similarly, organisational and cultural constraints to work collaboratively and across organisational boundaries restricts an end-to-end approach for service delivery. In this sense, Luxembourg would benefit from establishing system-wide initiatives to break down service siloes and create a culture of collaboration, integration and co‑ordination across relevant ministries and administration. Transformative actions in this direction are taken with the implementation of the National Interoperability Framework (NIF). Similarly, initiatives such as the GovTech Lab are creating spaces for experimentation and collaboration within and outside the public sector and can serve as reference for future spaces for horizontal collaboration such as communities of practice. Other OECD countries have embraced an end-to-end culture and practice to better meet user needs. From a process reengineering perspective, Colombia has been working for several years in addressing the procedural barriers to streamline service delivery and to bring together institutions that could better resolve people needs through increased co‑ordination and alignment (see Box 5.8). Similarly, Australia, the United Kingdom and Estonia have been working in embracing a life event approach to address specific and complex needs from and end-to-end perspective (see Box 5.9).

Box 5.8. Service rationalisation in Colombia

As part of a broader effort for the transformation of service delivery in Colombia, the government has embarked in an ambitious agenda to rationalise public services along with their digitalisation process. Service streamlining efforts date from 2012 under the leadership of the Administrative Department of Civil Service (Departamento Administrativo de Función Pública, DAFP) in co‑ordination with the Ministry for Information and Communication Technologies (MINTIC).

The Colombian government has established a service rationalisation policy in which public sector institutions are mandated to streamline public services around three areas, including services in which digital technologies and data can lead to more efficient and effective provision:

Normative rationalisation: modify or eliminate normative instruments that frame public services, administrative procedures and formalities, extending their temporal validity, reducing administrative processing times, costs or requirements;
Administrative rationalisation: streamline internal processes, opening hours, service delivery spots, internal and external costs, requirements, forms, formats and payment methods;
Digital rationalisation: tap on existing data sharing frameworks, proactive service delivery, and online support to minimise requirements, costs and time for users to access a certain service.

This plan currently feeds the National Service Registry that is co‑ordinated by the DAFP. Similarly, service rationalisation has been institutionalised in Colombia thanks to the Law 2052 for horizontal administrative co‑ordination for service rationalisation (Congreso de Colombia, 2020[22]). This legal framework mandates public sector organisations to establish an institutional plan for service rationalisation that needs to be revisited every six months. Additionally, the Law mandates that all new services created in the country have to be digital by design and offered in digital means according to the requests and provisions established by the MINTIC.

Source: Author’s elaboration based on Congreso de Colombia (2020[22]), Ley que establece disposiciones transversales a la rama ejecutiva del nivel nacional y territorial en relación a la racionalización de trámites.

Box 5.9. Life events in Australia

With the goal of improve the experience of citizens with digitally enabled public services, Australia’s Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) has established a life events programme to address user needs from an end-to-end perspective. DTA’s life event approach is based on the importance of addressing user needs beyond the boundaries of a single service, institution or jurisdiction and organise internally within the public sector to resolve a particular need. It underlines the relevance of understanding user journeys for a very specific need in order to offer transactional rather than informational services solely.

The DTA is promoting life events as a way to rationalise public services based and around user needs. By understanding user needs from a holistic perspective, service teams can work across organisational siloes and levels of governments to identify common or systemic problems, including understanding the relationship between services, potential gaps or duplications, and pain points due to attempts to resolve a need through different and unco‑ordinated services.

Fostering an end-to-end culture within the Australian public sector is fundamental to break down organisational boundaries and bring together different institutions to address a certain need from a holistic perspective. For this, the DTA established the GovX Life Event Communities, an instance to connect service teams from different public sector institutions in order to address and solve complex needs that require a cross-agency and multijurisdictional approach.

Source: Australian Government (n.d.[23]) Life events, https://www.dta.gov.au/our-projects/govx/life-events (accessed on 22 August 2022); Australian Government (n.d.[24]), Life event communities, https://www.dta.gov.au/our-projects/govx/life-event-communities (accessed on 22 August 2022).

Involving users

The OECD Recommendation of the Council on Digital Government Strategies identifies the meaningful involvement and participation of different stakeholders within and outside the public sector as a foundational element in the development of digital government strategies (OECD, 2014[25]). Building on the Recommendation, the OECD Digital Government Policy Framework stipulates the adoption and promotion of a user-driven culture and practice as a cornerstone in the efforts to digitally transform the public sector (OECD, 2020[18]).

From a conceptual perspective, a government that is user-driven and proactive establishes concrete mechanisms for users to shape the services they access, establishing development principles and dialogue platforms to capture user needs and reflect them in how services are designed and delivered. In turn, a government is user centric when establishes mechanisms that strengthen accessibility and usability of digital services (OECD, 2020[18]). In this line, Luxembourg’s results in the first and pilot edition of the OECD Digital Government Index presented mixed results regarding the role of users in informing and shaping the design and delivery of digitally enabled service (OECD, n.d.[26]). In this benchmark, Luxembourg performed well across the six dimensions under study but below the OECD average in the areas related to understanding and meeting user needs through digitally enabled services (user-driven) and anticipating their needs through seamless and proactive service provision (proactiveness).

When looking at user centricity, Luxembourg has a longstanding tradition and excellent performance in providing digital services that are findable, accessible, and available through different platforms. In the EU eGovernment Benchmark 2022, the country obtained a score of 94 out of 100 points in the indicator User Centricity (which measures “the extent to which a service is provided online, its mobile friendliness, and usability in terms of available online support and feedback mechanisms”) (European Commission, 2022[27]). The performance of Luxembourg in this indicator goes in line with most countries in the region as seen in Figure 5.8.

Figure 5.8. EU eGovernment Benchmark 2022 - results for indicator User Centricity

These results are supported by the work of the Information and Press Service (SIP) who defines the national digital accessibility platform and initiative (https://accessibilite.public.lu/) and informed by the experience of France’s DINUM (Service Information et Presse, 2021[29]). Within this initiative, the Service Information and Press (SIP) leads the General Framework for Improving Accessibility (RGAA), an operational framework for the monitoring of websites based on the European norm EN 301 549. RGAA serves as reference for public sector institutions to adopt a common approach to web accessibility. Given its overseeing role, SIP conducts regular monitoring exercises to assess the adherence to these principles across the public sector (SIP, 2021[30]). Similarly, SIP has implemented since 2021 a similar monitoring framework for mobile applications called RAAM (Since 2021, SIP has also used a similar approach to define an accessibility framework for the monitoring of mobile applications, RAAM (https://accessibilite.public.lu/fr/raam1). At the same time, the CTIE manages the methodology Renow (https://renow.public.lu/fr.html) which also promotes web accessibility and UX techniques when designing and delivering services. It comprises a set of good practices and suggested methods for user research (see Box 5.10), as well as a check-list for ministries and administrations to comply during the design and delivery of a service. At large, the work of SIP and CTIE focuses on improving services’ accessibility rather than user-driveness. Despite clear outlined responsibilities and legal frameworks, rrom the perspective of ministries and administrations they are observed as duplicated efforts to address similar issues, for which Luxembourg may consider promoting policy and actions coherence to clearly communicate the roles and competencies of each actor.

Box 5.10. Renow: Quality standards for Luxembourg’s public websites

Created in 2008 as a continuation to previous efforts started in 2003, the initiative Renow (Reférentiel de Normalisation des sites Web) aims to standardise the accessibility and experience of users when interacting with websites from Luxembourg’s government. It provides a number of good practices and standards to make sure that websites are accessible, findable and meet the expectations of users according to common principles of quality and usability.

Renow provides several standards and guidelines, including:

quality of all State websites
web accessibility
project management
user experience
assessment tools

Source: The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (2022[19]), Renow, https://renow.public.lu/fr.html (accessed on 15 June 2022).

The digital government imperative calls for radical cultural and practice shift for users to drive and shape how the public sector designs and delivers public services in the digital age. This implies engaging with end-users throughout the digitalisation process to identify and understand needs, collaborating horizontally with all ministries and administrations with a role in solving a certain problem. At the moment of this study, only a 15% of participant ministries and administrations indicated that users are actively and comprehensively involved throughout the design and delivery process (see Figure 5.9), nor their experience is comprehensively assessed in terms of service performance and satisfaction beyond the availability of feedback forms. Similarly, all ministries and administrations that indicated observation to national guidelines and standards to involve users in service design and delivery made reference to existing Renow.4

Despite a limited involvement of users when designing and delivering services, Luxembourg is taking concrete actions to foster a user-driven culture. This includes setting a dedicated UX and design unit within the CTIE, as well as the development of the platform “Let’s simplify together” in order to promote further participation of users to streamline public services (Zesumme Vereinfachen (zesumme-vereinfachen.lu)) or Meng Iddi zielt! Which has been launched as a pilot project to several civil servants at the ministries and administrations in Luxembourg. The idea is to share spontaneous ideas or to participate in call for challenges. Both intend to accelerate and the digitalisation of public services in a co-creative way.

Figure 5.9. Actors involved by ministries and administrations in service design and delivery

In this line, the central role played by the CTIE as IT-service provider and manager of all GUICHET platforms should be an opportunity to embrace a cultural change from the outset. For example, by creating momentum for a shared vision on service transformation and equipping service teams with the tools and resources to achieve this ambition. Further efforts are needed to embed an agile and user-driven culture within Luxembourg’s public sector, strengthening user research and service design capacities within the CTIE as well as in ministries and administrations. The experience from SIGI in fostering user research and a bottom-up approach for service design and delivery can be considered given the large number of services provided by local governments in the country.

The country could benefit from CTIE’s leading role in managing and rationalising resources for digital transformation in Luxembourg’s public sector to prioritise this cultural shift and support especially small ministries and administrations that do not have resources nor capacities to adopt this approach. In the same way, the CTIE could bring together all the existing expertise and interest in user research observed across the public sector through multi-disciplinary communities of practice to foster peer learning and horizontal collaboration. Fostering peer learning among service champions within the public sector e.g. by establishing communities of practice can promote horizontal dialogue and collaboration among ministries and administrations to share lessons and good practices on best ways to jointly solve user needs. During the peer review mission, it was observed an interest for promoting community experiences on service design and delivery, with several ministries and administrations acknowledging their importance given existing limited internal culture and expertise in this matter.

Adopting a multi-dimensional approach to work across organisational boundaries

A user-driven approach for service design and delivery shifts service teams efforts towards ensuring that users do not perceive and experience the complexity of the public sector to organise, collaborate and deliver end-to-end services. In line with the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Digital Government Strategies (OECD, 2014[25]), the public sector is called to establish capacities and mechanisms to collaborate and co‑ordinate within and outside the public sector for service teams to streamline the experience of citizens when accessing a service.

In Luxembourg, the approach towards cross-organisational co‑ordination and support for the development of digitally-enabled services underlines the central role of the CTIE given the limited capacities at institutional level to implement and operate digitally-enabled services. Most ministries and administrations do not have sufficient in-house capacities to develop services and largely rely on the CTIE or in external providers to outsource their developments. With the exception of a few ministries and administrations, including the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Security and Ministry of Education, Children and Youth, a significant number of central public sector bodies do not have dedicated teams to build and operate digitally-enabled services and tools as shown in Figure 5.10.

Figure 5.10. Institutional approaches to designing, building and maintaining digitally-enabled public services in Luxembourg

Most of the existing digital needs are provided by the CTIE, which oversees and approves the development of ICT/digital projects according to the Electronic Governance Strategy 2021-2025’ priorities and existing workload (for more details see Chapter 2). Projects and initiatives that are not absorbed by the CTIE are thus largely outsourced through the procurement of digital/ICT initiatives (46% of surveyed ministries and administrations5 as shown in Figure 5.10), with open tender procedures representing the largest share of public procurement processes in the country (European Commission, n.d.[31]). In the context of projects developed with the support of the CTIE, public procurement processes are managed by internal dedicated teams that cover the entire procurement cycle. However, evidence from the peer mission revealed that open tender procedures require significant efforts during the pre-tendering stage to establish certainty around business and technical requirements. Such an approach makes procurement exercises lengthy, delaying contract award stages and risking procuring outdated technology. As a consequence, service teams focus largely on the specificities of the procurement process rather than understanding users and their needs. In line with the experience of member countries (OECD, forthcoming[32]), Luxembourg faces challenges to embrace system-wide agility and a user-driven culture when procuring digital solutions for the public sector.

In order to accelerate digital innovation in the public sector in Luxembourg, the MDIGI and CTIE have launched the initiative GovTech Lab (see Box 5.11) (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2022[33]). The Lab offers a space to bring together ministries and administrations with local entrepreneurs that can contribute to the digital transition of Luxembourg’s public sector. Despite its novel role within the digital government agenda at national and regional international level, the GovTech Lab represents a step ahead in understanding the needs of public sector institutions and finding innovative digital solutions (Kuziemski, 2022[34]) that blend the use of EU public procurement frameworks (such as innovation partnerships and competitive dialogues) with a demand-driven approach based on the challenges that ministries and administrations face in their digitalisation journeys. Luxembourg may consider accelerating the role of the GovTech Lab, expanding the coverage and frequency of innovation exercises across ministries and administrations, for example establishing regular sectoral exercises to intensify the cultural shift towards more agile and iterative developments. Similarly, giving its leading role in advancing GovTech at European level, Luxembourg could look at the lessons emerging from the GovTech Lab to reform public sector capacities to plan, fund and procure agile-based ICT/digital projects.

Box 5.11. Luxembourg’s GovTech Lab initiative

In line with the global trend to foster an ecosystem of entrepreneurs, innovators and start-ups to support the digital needs of public sector institutions (GovTech), Luxembourg created the GovTech Lab in 2021 with the purpose of accelerating the development and improvement of digital public services.

Managed by the MDIGI and CTIE, the GovTech Lab helps foster an agile culture within countries’ ministries and administrations to develop innovative digital solutions in public service delivery. It builds upon an open innovation approach, bringing together ministries and administrations with external actors through calls for challenges selected by the Lab’s team upon the demand of public sector institutions.

The Lab is currently implementing innovation partnerships that provides start-ups and entrepreneurs an opportunity to present solutions that can be scaled up from a proof of concept (PoC) to a final solution purchased and deployed by the CTIE. The process may take 8 to 14 months from the call for solutions until the CTIE purchase the selected project. For faster exercises, the Lab has created SpeedUp, reducing the operation time to a maximum of 8 months.

Beyond regular call for innovations, the GovTech Lab also organises activities to foster an innovative culture within Luxembourg’s public sector. This includes thematic hackathons, seminars and show&tell activities.

Embracing agility in the design and delivery of services

Assuring that services respond to a culture of continuous testing, learning and improving is reflected in the extent to which agile methodologies are adopted and guide service design and delivery. Traditional waterfall projects entail having certainty about requirements and needs upfront, with limited involvement of users throughout the development process (OECD, 2020[18]). In contrast, agile methodologies contribute to avoid having fixed requirements early on and embrace a culture of continuous improvement that contributes to more suitable and trusted solutions. Agility in the public sector can be pivotal to develop services that better meet user needs and consequently more reliable and effective (OECD, 2020[1]).

As been noted in the survey and during the peer review mission, there is a limited culture and practice to embrace agility in digital transformation projects in Luxembourg’s ministries and administrations. As indicated previously, participant institutions widely noted the role of the CTIE in supporting project implementation and the provision of infrastructure and resources for most of their digital needs. However, it was also observed that the approach followed by the CTIE largely responds to a waterfall rationale that makes difficult to incorporate user needs and feedback throughout the development process beyond traditional user-centricity efforts (e.g. accessibility and user friendliness). The CTIE has implemented an IT project management methodology named Quapital IT (see Box 5.12) which is a variant of the QUAPITAL methodology based on international co‑operation within the European spectrum (Ministère de la Fonction Publique, 2021[35]). However, no participant ministry or administration identified agile management as one of the key enablers in place for service design and delivery in the country during the research process. Currently, the CTIE is reviewing Quapital IT methodology in order to make it available widely across ministries and administrations that want to carry out digital transformation projects as well as to enforce its adoption as a requirement to have access to government budget for ICT/digital projects.

Additionally, there is a long tail of projects that are not supported/implemented by the CTIE and thus need to be outsourced by ministries and administrations. In the absence of centralised principles and guidance for agility, and the aforementioned lack of capacities in ministries and administrations to carry out digital transformation projects, there is a need observed regarding further support to equip service teams to lead and implement ICT/digital projects observing agile principles. In this sense, several OECD countries are advancing towards empowering service teams with methodological support to decentralise the implementation of digital transformation projects in a coherent yet simple way. For example, the United States (see Box 5.13), Australia and the United Kingdom have developed agile management principles and guidelines for this purpose.

Box 5.12. QUAPITAL IT – project management methodology in Luxembourg

The CTIE manages QUAPITAL IT (Qualité des projets d’implémentation des TIC dans l’administration luxembourgeoise), a management standard for ICT/digital projects. It was developed based on the methodology HERMES 5 from the Swiss E-Government Switzerland Programme Office. It aims to equip development teams with guidance for the implementation of a project and a portfolio management framework.

The model has been undertaken by Luxembourg’s Ministry of Public Administration (Ministère de la Fonction Publique) to be further developed. The Ministry has been working in a new version of QUAPITAL which adds agility concepts and principles to support the implementation of iterative and complex projects – including within the digital transformation domain. However, currently its structure and guidance material are mostly focused on supporting waterfall-oriented projects, hence the need to materialise this ambition to further equip teams to develop agile-oriented initiatives.

Source: The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (2021[36]), Le référentiel de gestion de projects Quapital - Axe 2 – Quapital – Une initiative FP2025.

Box 5.13. Agile principles in the United States

As part of the mandate of the Technology Transformation Services (TTS) at the General Services Administration (GSA), the initiative 18F was developed to support US federal agencies in improving the user experience of government services by helping them build and buy technology.

To help federal agencies becoming more agile as they buy and develop technology and digital services, the 18F developed the 18F Agile Principles. Among other resources the principles include “agile fundamentals” and an “agile lexicon”.

Source: Federal Government of the United States (n.d.[37]), 18F Agile Principles, https://agile.18f.gov/ (accessed on 22 August 2022).

Key enablers to support public service design and delivery

Bringing a philosophy for service design and delivery into reality cannot be achieved without the tools and guidance needed for a digital transformation at scale. Single public sector institutions can work towards materialising this vision but the digital government imperative calls for a service transformation that is coherent, integrated and equally embraced across the public sector. The result is the need for common and scalable tools to support a whole-of-government service transformation that benefits all and leave no one behind.

The third pillar of the OECD Framework for Public Service Design and Delivery reflects the importance of enablers to operationalise this service transformation (OECD, 2020[1]). It builds upon the relevance of transiting towards governments that act as a platform in order to realise a digital transformation at scale and coherent within and across sectors (OECD, 2020[18]). In this regard, this pillar depicts key enablers and common approaches for service design and delivery to materialise in the public sector. Similarly, the relevance of a Government as a Platform approach is that service teams can focus on better understanding and meeting user needs rather than in the tools required to meet these needs in practice. It nurtures an ecosystem of actors, tools, guidelines and good practices that unlock the digital transformation to all those who want to contribute in a coherent and sustainable way e.g. service teams, private sector and entrepreneurs and innovators (Govtech).

The pillar focused on enablers can be depicted into seven components to turn a service design and delivery philosophy into reality (see Figure 5.11). Several of these elements have been previously addressed in different chapters of this report e.g. governance, spending and assurance as well as digital talent and skills in Chapter 3; and data in Chapter 4. Hence, this chapter will give larger attention to the elements that have not been addressed yet and will make reference to those covered previously in the context of service design and delivery.

The context for service design and delivery in Luxembourg helps explain the ongoing role of the CTIE as a cornerstone for a Government as a Platform approach in the country. By centralising most of the IT functions, services and infrastructure, the Government of Luxembourg transits a path of providing common components to ministries and administrations. The demographic context and capacity conditions of ministries and administrations makes the centralised approach taken by Luxembourg as a reasonable path for adoption and use of digital technologies in the public sector. However, further efforts are needed to strengthen this ecosystem in order to foster more coherence in projects that are not centralised through the CTIE and which requires third parties to use guidelines, standards and common components.

Figure 5.11. The OECD Framework for Public Service Design and Delivery: Enablers

Guidelines and standards for coherent transformation

Securing a coherent service transformation across the public sector demands common tools and supporting guidance to equip service teams with the mechanisms that lead to a coherent transformation. This includes standards and guidelines that show how things can be done well and a path for public sector institutions to carry out their digital transformation processes aligned with principles and standards set for the entire public sector (OECD, 2020[1]). The availability of a centralised source of tools and guidelines within and outside the public sector supports public sector institutions (and those from the private sector that provides digital goods and services to them) to be more independent and responsible for their digital transformation processes (OECD, 2020[18]).

In the case of Luxembourg, the centralised approach through the CTIE as IT service provider has eventually made guidelines and standards not as relevant as in other latitudes. However, it is important to note that the CTIE does not absorb and implement all digital transformation projects in Luxembourg’s public sector. As ministries and administrations prioritise digitalising their processes and services, it is reasonable to suggest that projects outside the scope of the CTIE should achieve the same level of quality and coherence than the initiatives under its remit. In this context, MDIGI and CTIE have the challenge of fostering ministries and administrations’ capacities, for example through a set of guidelines and standards for service design and delivery. Not following this or a similar path risks fostering misalignment and a lack of internal coherence, shadow IT costs, as well as a fragmented and confusing experience to users when accessing a service.

Evidence from this study highlights the importance of advancing in common shared guidelines and standards in Luxembourg. Along with the aforementioned Renow (standard for web accessibility and user centricity) (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2022[19]) and Quapital IT (guideline for project management) (Ministère de la Fonction Publique, 2021[35]), other relevant areas such as engagement of users in service design and delivery, performance and impact measurement could be further developed.6 This contrasts with the perception of ministries and administration of the existence of some of these documents, as seen in Figure 5.12. In this line, and regarding the existing available guidelines and standards, 42% of ministries and administrations that deliver transactional services were not aware of did not follow the standards and guidelines for service transformation issued from the CTIE.7

Figure 5.12. Guidelines recognised by ministries and administrations in Luxembourg

There is a strategic opportunity for the MDIGI and CTIE to better communicate the availability of existing tools and strengthen the standards ecosystem if expectations are for ministries and administrations to become more active and independent in carrying out their digital transformation initiatives. MDIGI and CTIE can see this as a process of adherence and awareness about their role as well as to secure that projects outside the scope of the CTIE comply with the same level of quality. In this sense, the advisory service on digitalisation planned by MDIGI and CTIE can be an opportunity to further communicate existing standards across ministries and administrations. Similarly, the availability of such common tools can help ministries and administrations to be empowered either to have a more active role in their interactions with the CTIE as well as to secure that their developments will comply with central norms. Several OECD countries are advancing in the development of common and widely available guidelines and standards repositories, and most notably in the United Kingdom (Box 5.14), the United States Box 5.15, France, Australia and Colombia.

Box 5.14. Service Toolkit and Service Standard in the United Kingdom

Service Toolkit

The United Kingdom Government Digital Services (GDS) curates the service toolkit, a repository of good practices, standards and guidelines to support coherent service transformation across the UK government. The Toolkit comprises supporting material covering several key dimensions for digital transformation projects from an end-to-end perspective, including:

Technology and digital standards for public sector institutions to create and run digitally enabled government services that are coherence and aligned across the public sector. This includes the service standards, service manual, guidance for API and data consumption, technology code of practice and open standards.
Guidance on specific technology and digital topics to provide give clarity and references to public sector institutions to address common challenges in areas such as accessibility and assisted digital services, adoption of agile methodologies, dealing with digital procurement and complex IT contracts, and digital and technology spend controls.
Design and style guidance to create an inclusive and clear experience for users when accessing digital services, including design principles, prototype kit, style guide and design systems.
Guidance on use of common components upon which public sector organisations can build and run government services, such as notification, payment, identity and cloud systems.

Service Standard

As part of the Service Toolkit, GDS maintains the Service Standard, a methodological guidance to equip service teams to design and deliver user-driven services that meet the needs of users. The Service Standard provides detailed support from the moment of understanding needs to the operation of services. It builds on 14 principles that include:

1. Understand users and their needs

2. Solve a whole problem for users

3. Provide a joined up experience across all channels

4. Make the service simple to use

5. Make sure everyone can use the service

6. Have a multidisciplinary team

7. Use agile ways of working

8. Iterate and improve frequently

9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy

10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data

11. Choose the right tools and technology

12. Make new source code open

13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns

14. Operate a reliable service

Source: Government of the United Kingdom (n.d.[38]), Design and build government services, https://www.gov.uk/service-toolkit (accessed on 22 August 2022); Government of the United Kingdom (n.d.[39]), Service Standard, https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/service-standard (accessed on 22 August 2022).

Box 5.15. The Digital Service Playbook in the United States

The Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council of the Federal Government of the United States has issued a Digital Service Playbook with 13 key “plays” to help government build effective digital services. These are:

1. Understand what people need

2. Address the whole experience, from start to finish

3. Make it simple and intuitive

4. Build the service using agile and iterative practices

5. Structure budgets and contracts to support delivery

6. Assign one leader and hold that person accountable

7. Bring in experienced teams

8. Choose a modern technology stack

9. Deploy in a flexible hosting environment

10. Automate testing and deployments

11. Manage security and privacy through reusable processes

12. Use data to drive decisions

13. Default to open

Source: Federal Government of the United States (n.d.[40]), Digital Services Playbook, https://playbook.cio.gov/ (accessed on 22 August 2022).

Common components and tools

Enabling service design and delivery in the digital age requires building solid digital foundations to sustain service transformation processes. This becomes especially relevant amid large digital transformation processes involving hundreds of individual services as well as when public sector organisations do not have sufficient capacities or resources to operationalise such reforms. Similarly, there is also a need to foster coherence and inter-operability across the public sector, ensuring that all institutions can leverage digital tools and data in a consistent and sustainable way.

OECD member countries are advancing in this direction by developing a Government as a Platform ecosystem of shared digital tools, infrastructure, standards and guidelines to equip ministries and administrations with the resources to drive change. Similarly, a Government as a Platform approach can help public servants and service transformation teams to focus on user needs rather than cumbersome technological developments as well as to enable the involvement of the private sector and Govtech actors to contribute to digital transformation efforts. This becomes particularly important in countries such as Luxembourg, where most ministries and administrations have limited staff and face challenges to attract digital talent to the public sector, thus being largely supported by the CTIE and the Ministry for Digitalisation.

The CTIE, as national IT service provider, plays a pivotal role in creating the conditions for ministries and administrations to realise their digital transformation ambitions. This includes the management of digital identity, shared data centres, common data infrastructure, interoperability, base registries and digital notification systems (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2021[6]; 2021[41]). The approach undertaken in Luxembourg is plausible and certainly positive given the limited capacities at institutional level to maintain similar digital and data infrastructure, but also poses challenges in terms of the capacity of CTIE to timely address the needs of ministries and administrations vis a vis the significant efforts and resources devoted to maintain shared infrastructure.

An effective service design and delivery approach requires availability and uptake of common platforms and infrastructure to unlock a whole-of-government transformation. This is fundamental for example for ministries and administrations to use strategically data to better understand and anticipate user needs, delivering services in a timely and proactive way. In line with the analysis presented in Chapter 4, further efforts are needed to secure the uptake and awareness of ministries and administrations to adhere to existing digital frameworks and infrastructure, including the NIF. This is particularly clear for some of the key enablers led by the CTIE: only 35.9% of ministries and administrations uses the common data infrastructure,8 25.64% declares using the interoperability framework,9 and 28.81% use the existing national digital notification system.10 The limited uptake of common tools may be hindering a whole-of-government and coherent digital transformation while creating shadow IT infrastructure and costs which may also lead to future legacy issues.

Digital Identity

In Luxembourg, available digital identity solutions for accessing public services include Luxembourg national identity card (eID card) provided by CTIE in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2021[42]), which is also notified under the eIDAS notification scheme, and LuxTrust which is a private trust service provider listed under the eIDAS list of qualified national trust services (LuxTrust, 2021[43]). In 2019, the company BE INVEST International SA also become registered as a qualified trust service provider for electronic signatures and electronic seals (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2019[44]). Both the eID card and LuxTrust are currently used to provide secure access to services on MYGUICHET.LU. The adherence of these two digital identity solutions at the ministry and administration level is high, with 93% of ministries and administrations using them to enable users with access to their services.11 However, Luxtrust solution is significantly more used than the eID card in the country.

At the same time, concerns were raised by some ministries and administrations during the peer review mission about the relatively “electronic” (ID card) rather than “digital” (multi-device solution) approach to identification and authentication in relation to public services in Luxembourg, which is also seen in other EU member states that have invested in the provision of physical-token-based digital identity (i.e. electronic ID card). The wide adoption of the Luxtrust solution, including its mobile version, offers a more convenient and user-oriented digital identity mechanism as it does not require carrying physical devices.

MDIGI and CTIE are working towards increasing the inclusiveness and impact of digital identity in the country. CTIE has made available the dedicated mobile authentication app GOUV.ID (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2022[45]). This app provides citizens access to transactional services provided on MYGUICHET.LU using their Luxembourg’s national ID card to identify themselves using different devices. The app provides an interface between existing ID cards and online services, eliminating the need for a card reader and giving broader accessibility to digital services hosted in the national transactional platform. Additionally, users can access services provided by the Centre for Financial Data (Collecte des Données Financières, eCDF) and different applications of the Luxembourg Business Registers. In line with findings of OECD/G20 work and the revised eIDAS regulation, further efforts could therefore be channelled towards improving the user experience of digital identity in Luxembourg, both within and outside the public sector, and ensuring further usability of available digital identity solutions in terms of mobile, cross-sector, and cross-border use.

MDIGI and CTIE have also invested issuing first credentials into a digital wallet both in the EBSILUX project for digital diplomas and the Trust My Data innovation partnership of the GovTech Lab for a digital residence certificate. In the context of the eIDAS revision that is in progress, efforts are undertaken to participate in large scaling piloting of a digital wallet that can be used both cross border and across different use cases helping to make converge the different projects towards a wallet providing the foundation for a digital identity.

Hosting services and digital solutions

As discussed in Chapter 4, Luxembourg benefits from the centralised role of the CTIE as IT service provider. It relies on a long-standing tradition of proving secure and reliable data infrastructure to ministries and administrations, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platforms as a Service (PaaS) and generic and customised software solutions - Software as a Service (SaaS). The overall reduced costs and easiness to access these common resources helps ministries and administrations overtake the technical and economic complexity of individual efforts. As a result, ministries and administrations can access a number of common platforms and solutions for storing, processing and analysing data, reducing overall costs and allowing organisations to direct their resources to primary tasks such as defining technical and business specifications.

Taking payments

Given the centralisation of online transactional service delivery through the CTIE and MYGUICHET.LU platform, Luxembourg has not prioritised the availability of a common and single payment tool. Users regularly use credit cards, digital payment with QR codes or interoperable payment platforms such as Payconiq.

Sending notifications

The development of MYGUICHET.LU includes the possibility for ministries and administrations to send messages and information to citizens, acting as a central notification system for the government for official mail and notifications through users’ personal space. In this regard, MYGUICHET.LU acts as a user digital mailbox for government notifications. The platform also provides users the possibility to book appointments with service desks from ministries and administrations.

Submitting information to government

The possibility to submit information to the government differs depending on the type of user. For citizens, users that require access to transactional services through MYGUICHET.LU, forms are available to capture this information. Conversely, the informational platform GUICHET.LU offers forms available to be printed out and handed in when requesting an in-person service. This certainly poses a challenge in terms of the opportunity and speed of delivery as well as the quality and timeliness of data dealt by ministries and administrations.

MDIGI and CTIE are working towards dematerialising PDF forms in order to process their data in an effective and efficient way. This includes the ongoing development of a low-code framework that will enable data processing in a more effective way (Ministère de la Digitalisation, 2021[46]). This framework will be complemented by the possibility to submit PDF forms through MYGUICHET.LU in a more secured way than regular email considering that a large fraction of citizens prefers to communicate with ministries and administrations via their personal email addresses.

This is certainly a step forward in the digitisation of services but it may present also challenges to overcome the strong paper-based rationale observed in ministries and administrations, so its use should be considered as a transition while most services are fully offered in digital and transactional ways.

For private sector entities, similar means are available. These are complemented by the availability of application programming interfaces (APIs), in particular regarding the registers under the remit of the Luxembourg Business Register (LBR). Available since 2021, the CTIE as IT service provider of LBR made available a series of APIs to exchange data, for which an agreement is needed between the business and the LBR and for which the institution charges a fee (Ministère de la Digitalisation, 2021[46]).

Digital inclusion

One of the pillars of the Electronic Governance Strategy 2021-2025 is to make the public sector more inclusive and diverse. The geographic and demographic conditions in which Luxembourg is placed made digital inclusion one of the pillars of the strategy and drives efforts towards securing that digital solutions and services are accessible to all.

MDIGI and CTIE are addressing digital inclusion from different angles. Notably, most of the efforts in this area are comprised in the Zesummen Digital project, the national action plan for digital inclusion developed by the MDIGI (Ministère de la Digitalisation, 2022[47]). This initiative aims to advance the capacity of the public sector to design and deliver services that work for all, as well as to prepare citizens and businesses to fully benefit from the digitalisation of the Luxembourg’s economy, society and government. The initiative outstands within the regional and international landscape given its comprehensive and multi-stakeholder approach (involving actors from the civil society, private sector and government) and action plan that covers digital skills, public communication about digital services, easy-readable and multi-language websites, increased internet coverage and multi-channel delivery, among others (see Box 5.16).

One remaining challenge is further communicating functions and mandate for accessibility. As highlighted previously in this chapter, efforts are scattered between CTIE and SIP. While the CTIE is responsible for the provision of accessible online services, SIP is the auditing institution that monitors compliance. Despite plausible reasons to have these functions under separate institutions (i.e. implementation and overseeing), most ministries and administrations find this approach confusing.

Box 5.16. Actions comprised in Luxembourg’s Digital Inclusion Initiative

Luxembourg’s Zesummen Digital comprises three pillars to organise the actions conducted by the MDIGI, CTIE and relevant ministries and administrations to advance digital inclusion during the period 2021-2024.

Facilitating digital access: securing access to ICT tools and the Internet as well as ensuring that the content provided by the public sector is accessible to a diverse audience. Within this pillar, the following actions are undertaken:
- Promoting of easy read language on Guichet.lu
- Development of MyGuichet.lu app
- Educational support to access digital government services
- Efficient connectivity for all
- Digital accessibility awareness
Developing digital skills: enabling citizens to navigate the digital world in a more autonomous and safer way, regardless of their age, level of education or gender. Actions within this pillar include:
- Digital skills training in different languages
- Training on digital inclusion for public sector institutions
- Training in the safe use of the Internet
- Training for young job seekers
- Development of a digital academy
Increasing digital motivation and building digital confidence: fostering awareness about the advantages and possibilities offered by digital technologies as well as protective measures to secure a trusted digital experience. Actions within this pillar comprise:
- Educational videos on new technologies
- Outreach activities across public sector institutions
- Awareness campaigns on responsible use of digital tools
- Cybersecurity information campaigns

The initiative includes activities to monitor and assess its implementation with the support of an inter-ministerial working group for digital inclusion.

Source: The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (2022[48]), Levers and initiatives, https://zesummendigital.public.lu/en/plan-national/leviers-et-initiatives/levier-acces.html (accessed on 22 August 2022).

Channels

Luxembourg’s public service delivery policies relies on a set of online and offline channels managed by the CTIE. The main delivery channels is GUICHET.LU, the central informational delivery platform for the national government. It comprises relevant information and steps for citizens and businesses to understand how to conduct formalities and administrative procedures, including beneficiaries, conditions, involved costs, step-by-step guidance and main points of contact (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2022[49]). When relevant, informational services also include downloadable forms for procedures to be conducted offline. However, such an approach still creates a fragmented approach for users when accessing certain services. The CTIE and MDIGI are currently working towards addressing these services and underlying user needs from an end-to-end perspective. Similarly, the work towards dematerialise PDF forms and process underlying data can contribute to a reliable, timely and effective management of data but they could consider intensifying efforts to rationalise and reengineering these procedures so they can be offered in a fully transactional way and streamlined driven by the needs of final beneficiaries in line with the need to adopt an agile, user-oriented and data-driven culture for service design and delivery in the country.

Complementing informational services, the CTIE manages MYGUICHET.LU, a sister platform that provides access to a set of fully transactional services (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2022[50]). Intended to both citizen and business users, MYGUICHET.LU also gives the possibility to users to manage some of their personal/corporate data held by ministries and administrations, including personal data held by the National Register of Natural Persons, certificates and attestations, and data related to driving licenses, land registries and illness and maternity, among others (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2022[50]). In order to ease access to users, the CTIE has developed in 2022 a mobile version of the platform that offers similar functionalities (The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 2022[51]). Efforts towards advancing a fully transactional experience for user when accessing digital services in Luxembourg is further framed by ongoing efforts at European level to provide trusted cross-border services (see Box 5.17).

The efforts done in advancing the digital experience of citizens and businesses with the public sector has not been fully reflected in an omni-channel approach for service delivery. GUICHET.LU has one in-person office in the City of Luxembourg that offer transactional services (and currently analysing its expansion to northern and southern regions), while most ministries and administrations continue offering their in-person services through via institutional offices. The consolidation of a unique digital experience with the public sector through both GUICHET.LU and MYGUICHET.LU represents a step forward in terms of quality and accessibility of services but further efforts are needed to secure a coherent experience through in-person offices in order to materialise an inclusive service delivery approach in the country. Similarly, other complementary actions are being taken by MDIGI and CTIE in the context of the GovTech Lab work. This includes the development of a digital proxy to explore under which criteria a third person can carry out services on behalf of an individual who has not have access and/or skills to interact digitally with the public sector (GovTech Lab, 2022[52]). Another good practice is the ongoing experimentation to develop a videoconferencing solution for citizens to access services remotely (GovTech Lab, 2022[53]). It is expected that these ongoing efforts as well as the initiative carried out through Zesummen Digital can contribute to develop this omni-channel approach.

Similarly, further efforts are needed to expand the coverage of transactional services available through MYGUICHET.LU. Luxembourg may consider adopting a decentralised approach for the management and operation of transactional services, in line with efforts to empower ministries and administrations with capacities to become more independent in their digital transformation processes, including the digitalisation and streamlining of services. This goes in line with the need to consolidating enablers for service design and delivery, such as service standards, continued development of micro-services (APIs), discrete and reusable digital public goods (notifications and payment), among others. Ministries and administrations expressed their interest in having such tools available in order to adhere to cross-governmental principles that secure a coherent experience of users with the public sector, streamline costs and generate horizontal sharing of practices among public sector institutions.

Box 5.17. European Union priorities to provide access to cross-border services

Single Digital Gateway

The Single Digital Gateway aims to provide a single point of access to information, procedures and assistance services online that citizens and businesses need to live and work in another EU country. Citizens and companies moving across EU borders will easily be able to find out what rules and assistance services apply in their new residency. By the end of 2023 at the latest, they will be able to perform a number of procedures, like registering a car or claiming pension benefits, in all EU member states without any physical paperwork.

Digital identity

In order to enable cross-border living as envisaged by the Single Digital Gateway it is necessary to establish trust services and digital identity. Within the EU, the Regulation on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market (eIDAS Regulation) attempts two things. Firstly, it is designed so that people and businesses can use their own national digital identity solutions to access public services available online in other EU countries. Secondly, it creates an internal market for trust services within Europe by ensuring that they will work across borders and have the same legal status as their traditional paper-based equivalents.

Source: EUR-Lex (2018[54]), Regulation (EU) 2018/1724 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 2 October 2018 establishing a single digital gateway to provide access to information, to procedures and to assistance and problem-solving services; European Commission (2022[55]), eIDAS Regulation, https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eidas-regulation (accessed on 22 August 2022).

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Notes

← 1. 71.4% of surveyed ministries and administrations that declared providing services answered “Yes” to the question “Are the digital services provided by your ministry/administration showcased and/or available in the main national citizens and/or business website for government service delivery?” (OECD, 2021[5]).

← 2. 47.8% of surveyed ministries and administrations that declared providing services answered “National website for government services” as the most relevant channel when delivering transactional services (OECD, 2021[5]).

← 3. MDIGI answered “No” to the question “Does the central government have a formal strategy relating to the design, delivery and evaluation of government services?” (OECD, 2021[5]).

← 4. Ministries and administrations that answered “Yes” to the question “Does your ministry/administration have guidelines/standards relating to the design, delivery and evaluation of government services?” (OECD, 2021[5]).

← 5. 46% of surveyed ministries and administrations answered “”Yes” to the alternative “Through project specific contracts with a variety of external suppliers” when asked “How does your institution design, build and maintain online services?” (OECD, 2021[5]).

← 6. CTIE replied “Specific to your institutions” to the question “Do you have written guidelines regarding accessibility of digital government services”; “No such guidelines exist” to the question “Do you have written guidelines regarding engagement of users in the service and policy design process”; “Specific to your institutions” to the question “Do you have written guidelines regarding the procurement and commissioning digital, data and technology projects”; “Specific to your institutions” to the question “Do you have written guidelines regarding how to assure the quality and consistency of digital, data and technology projects during design and prior to launch”; “No such guidelines exist” to the question “Do you have written guidelines regarding how to evaluate and measure the performance and impact of policies and services” (OECD, 2021[5]).

← 7. 42% of surveyed ministries and administrations that declared providing services answered “Yes, we have individual institutional guidelines/standards” or “No, neither” to the question “Does your ministry/administration have guidelines/standards regarding the design, delivery and evaluation of government services?”. In contrast, 58% of surveyed institutions answered “Yes, we follow central/national guidelines/standards” (OECD, 2021[5]).

← 8. 48.72% of surveyed ministries/administrations answered “Yes” to the question on the availability of common data infrastructure in the country, and 35.9% of them answered “Yes” when asked about its use at institutional level (OECD, 2021[5]).

← 9. 41.03% of surveyed ministries administrations answered “Yes” to the question on the availability of a common interoperability framework in the country, and 25.64% answered “Yes” when asked about its use at institutional level (OECD, 2021[5]).

← 10. 51.3% of surveyed ministries/administrations answered “Yes” to the question on the availability of a common electronic notification system in the country and 28.81% answered “Yes” when asked about its use at institutional level (OECD, 2021[5]).

← 11. 93% of surveyed institutions that declared providing services answered “Yes” to the question “Does your ministry/administration use this digital identity solution?” (OECD, 2021[5]).

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