(BS) At the 10th Bavarian Future Congress, the Free State’s digitizers discussed how digitization could succeed. They could agree on the problem, but not on the solution.
“We were once better, we once had international standards and interfaces,” explained Dirk Arendt. He is thinking of the telecommunications standards that the EU enforced against the USA at the time. But now: “Digitalization has overwhelmed us,” says the Director of Public Sector at Trend Micro Germany. He observes that the public sector doesn’t even know where to buy digital products. The administration goes – metaphorically speaking – to the bakery to buy a side of beef.
“Shouldn’t one percent of the allocated personnel funds be strategically reallocated – let’s say – for digitalization projects,” pondered AKDB board member Gudrun Aschenbrenner. She argued that some positions could not be filled anyway because of the shortage of skilled workers. The digitalization and automation of processes could help the shortage of personnel. So the funds would still essentially be spent toward the same goal. “You can even save money with digitalization,” agreed the CDO of the Herten-based software and consulting company Prosoz, Christian Rupp. In addition, the electronic delivery of notifications to the post office saves CO2.
The idea of convincing the budget donor with the digital dividend is also present in his ministry, reports Christian Bähr, who is head of the department for innovative administration in the Bavarian State Ministry for Digital (StMD). “I think there is a lot of money in the state and local authorities working together even more closely and, above all, digitally,” said Bähr.
But the most important thing is to finally think in terms of several years. Subjecting digitalization to annually changing budgeting by the household is not effective. Reliability is needed.
The CEO of govdigital, Martin Schallbruch, added that digital administrative services often take years to establish themselves. “ELSTER and BundID are examples of digital services that are gaining ground,” says Schallbruch. This would require close cooperation and more bottom-up initiatives. “I would like fewer detailed specifications, but more pressure,” demanded Schallbruch.