We all long to live in places where our local and regional authority works for their citizens; where we have hassle-free interactions with our administration, that we can deal with electronically from our home if we want to, where we know our data is handled appropriately, but where we can also engage and make our voices heard about decisions that will impact our lives.
Member States have committed to making their public administrations just like that; user-centric in the design and delivery of digital public services, for example, the Tallinn Ministerial Declaration on eGovernment.
But how are local and regional administrations progressing in this endeavour? Many are experimenting with participatory budgeting, participatory urban planning, co-creation and e-Participation (H2020 ICT-enabled open government pilots) as well as other societal engagement tools (see CitizenCity), while others are focusing on personal data management such as the Digital Transition Partnership's Action on MyData and preparing to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation, coming into force later this year. Others again are focusing on reducing the administrative burden and implementing citizen-centric eGovernment services (see the Digital Transition Partnership's Action on 'Helping cities develop a user-centric eGovernment model'), while ensuring that nobody is left behind in the digital transformation of government (Digital Transition Partnership's Action on 'Digital Neighbourhood Instrument').
In order to recognise cities and regions already committing to making their administrations consider citizens first in their endeavours, the European Commission is calling upon interested stakeholders (public administrations at all levels, citizens businesses, civil society and others) to jointly develop a quality label for those administrations that have achieved compliance with the user-centricity principles (Annex of Tallinn Declaration). Such self-declared compliance could be demonstrated by the commitment to implementing a set of concrete actions, such as for example those mentioned above. In order to champion the most inspiring cases and to recognise their potential for replication, the Commission will hand out an EU award on an annual basis to a limited number of local and regional public administrations – in possession of the quality label - that create a high quality and efficient citizen friendly environment while modernising their own organisation. The first of such an award ceremony will be held in 2018.
Be part of this exciting first step to co-create the quality label – what criteria to adhere to, what concrete measures to commit to, and what should it be called? Join the co-creation workshop on 12 April 2018 in Brussels.