Gencat Again a Finalist in Stockholm Challenge Award
Evolution gencat visits (2005-2009)
The Government of Catalonia's strategy in eGovernment has been selected as one of the 25 best in the whole world
The Government of Catalonia's strategy in the application of the eGovernment 2005-2010 has been selected as one of the 25 best in the whole world in the public administration category of the Stockholm Challenge 2010 international award.
Targeted at 8 million members of the public and executed by the Directorate-General of Citizen Care either in offices, over the phone (012) or over the Internet (gencat) it has forged a 50% rise in the percentage of population that uses Gencat services.
The Government of Catalonia's strategy in Stockholm Challenge
The Government of Catalonia (Generalitat de Catalunya) has been deploying a multichannel customer service project for members of the public which has delivered a spectacular rise in the number of interactions between citizens and the administration (up by 450% to 160 million interactions in 2009), providing eGovernment services through the C3Cat methodology. The project was also a finalist and nominee at the European eGovernment Awards 2009.
The award jury, due to make its decision on 1 December in the Swedish city of Stockholm, considered the huge impact the Government's strategy has had, which can be summarised by saying it has delivered "four times five in 5 years":
- 50% growth in the percentage of population that uses Gencat
- 50% reduction of the unitary cost of building every new service
- 50% reduction of the unitary cost of operating each service
- 50% reduction of time-to-market for the creation of every new service
25 projects from around the world are in the running for the award in the public administration category. The project presented by Catalonia, together with the proposals from Turin and the Burgundy government, are the only European finalists. They are competing against 10 projects from Singapore; 7 from India, 2 from Mexico, one from Peru, one from South Korea and one from the United States. In total 134 finalists have been nominated in 5 categories.
Milestones of the Gencat Project (2005-2010)
- Standardisation of Institutional Presence Online.
346 webpages covering all the ministries and departments of the Government of Catalonia on a single search platform, with the same layout and usability criteria. - All institutional procedures in a single portal
Implementation of the Procedures Virtual Office with 1,400 available procedures and over 2.36 million visits since January 2010 - Growth in the Use of eGovernment Services
A 450% growth in interactions between citizens and the administration since 2005 in all the channels in total. Gencat receives an annual traffic volume of more than 150 million visitors (the 154 million in 2009 has already been exceeded in 2010). This represents a 275% growth over 2005, and the services have received a user score of 7.2 out of 10 (according to the 2009 survey on the use of citizen care public services). The 012 phone line attends some 2.8 million calls per year, and scored 7.6 out of 10 in the same survey. - Personal Health File
Preliminary deployment in pilot phase of the availability of e-medical records, as part of the e-health project. - Tools for the Crisis
A special website designed and published in 1 week with information on around 100 services and measures targeted at both individual citizens and enterprises. - Job Services
Active Employment portal. Specific portal for unemployed people run over the phone and by Internet, with tools and resources. It was implemented and made operational in 2 weeks. - Fully Fledged Newsletter Management Platform
205,000 subscribers receiving 785,000 newsletters every month. - Social Networking Presence
With over 120 channels in social networking sites, Gencat has produced a user's guide that covers the entire institution. - Capacity to Handle Major Surges in Demand
The Gencat website and the 012 phone line successfully handled record traffic numbers (2 million the former and 75,000 the latter) in 24 hours during a severe snowstorm earlier this year. - Innovating in Collaborative Environments in the Administration
The e-Catalonia platform for internal empowerment and collaborative management achieved a total of 22,000 participants in 2010, organised around 1,800 Communities of Practice (CoPs). - Mobile Services
The new gencat.mobi portal, for services regarding mobility, traffic, public transport, facilities, news and weather warnings. - Public Facilities Multichannel Portal
Basic data on 26,000 facilities available to the public on different devices, integrating information from diverse ministries and departments.
