The One-Stop Shop (FUE), promoted by the Generalitat de Catalunya in collaboration with the Open Administration of Catalonia (AOC), is one of the finalist projects of the European Public Sector Award (EPSA) 2017, which rewards innovative initiatives to address the complex challenges currently facing public administrations, at all levels, across Europe.
With these distinctions, the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) wants to recognize the best initiatives that it considers "contain useful lessons that can be implemented in any other administration, adjusting them to different contexts." The awards, which will be presented in Maastricht on 22 November, will distinguish three categories of administration: European / national, regional and supralocal / local. There are a total of 12 finalists and the FUE will compete in the regional category with 3 other projects. The FUE has been chosen as a finalist after a jury delegation visited Catalonia this September to talk to the different actors involved (business organizations, chambers, municipal entities, municipalities…) and thus, assess on the ground the magnitude of the project, its impact and its degree of implementation.
EPSA is a European learning space for knowledge transfer on how European public administrations can innovate and at the same time increase their effectiveness and efficiency, being inspiring examples for building innovation capacities in the public sector.
In this context, last July, this body already distinguished and certified the FUE and 33 other projects among the 145 presented, as "good public practice", which have found new solutions to a number of complex challenges such as example economic uncertainty, low economic growth, high unemployment, unprecedented migration levels, lack of confidence in government, security or climate change, among others.
The Single Business Window aims to facilitate and offer in an integrated way the procedures and administrative procedures that must be done by companies, professionals and the self-employed who want to carry out any economic activity in Catalonia, with the different public administrations, both state , the regional as the local.
The FUE is currently implemented in virtually all Catalan councils
The OGE is working on consolidating and increasing the catalog of procedures, which has gone from the initial 145 in 2011 to the current 524. Now it is necessary to get them all on the electronic channel and promote the electronic portal of the FUE: the Business Channel.
The FUE is a project that involves many actors and has the participation and involvement of the different Departments of the Generalitat, the Provincial Councils, municipal entities, each of the municipalities that have collaborated and, especially, the Open Administration Consortium of Catalonia (AOC ), which has facilitated technological solutions in the local world.
Currently, the FUE is implemented in 96% of the country's municipalities (915) and soon 11 more municipalities will have the service, already covering 76% of the country's population. Among the 27 councils pending accession is Barcelona, which with 1,6 million inhabitants is the largest council in Catalonia both in terms of population and economic activity. Without Barcelona, the population of the country that still cannot enjoy the FUE is only about 150.000 people.
The single window represents a new model of relationship between companies and the administration, based on trust and a customer service orientation. On the other hand, the FUE allows the management of 524 procedures related to economic activity: 40% of which can also be completed entirely via the electronic channel. In addition, it is also worth noting that the implementation of the FUE has contributed to reversing the preferences of companies regarding the electronic management of procedures. While in 2014 37% of files were managed electronically and 63% in person, in 2016 the trend has been reversed and the electronic management of files representa 72% of the total.
