- Open administration
The use of digital services increases by 11%: balance of the AOC 2023
The Parliament of Catalonia has hosted the commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the Open Administration of Catalonia, a celebration that has had the interventions of the President of the Parliament, Laura Borràs, the Vice President and Minister of Digital Policies, Jordi Puigneró, the president of Localret, Jaume Oliveras, the former director of the AOC Joan A. Olivares and the managing director of the AOC, Àstrid Desset.
The event, which was attended by some 200 people linked to the AOC from its beginnings to the present day, was attended by most of the organizations with which the AOC has collaborated over its twenty years. of life, from the Generalitat de Catalunya to the Provincial Councils, through the county councils, town councils, companies and other Catalan public bodies.
The event was attended by the expert in strategic innovation and President of Lead to Change, Xavier Marcet, who, in his speech, stressed that in the creation of the Open Administration of Catalonia "there was a dream: a more efficient administration, with less bureaucracy and more empowered citizens with new tools”. In these 20 years, Marcet says that the role that the AOC has played “he has been fantastic, he has helped in many processes, he has taken very important steps forward and he has left a legacy, although he must continue for many years".
For Marcet, “now we are in another stage: it's time to manage the data technologies and this will cost a lot because sorting and polishing the data is a heavy and often almost artisanal thing”. However, in the face of this challenge “there are exciting projects in the country and we have extraordinary tools, such as the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, to continue fighting for the dream”He emphasizes.
Finally, Marcet has given the formula to continue working: “Big projects need great ambition and also great humility".
The President of the Parliament, Laura Borràs, has expressed the need to become “digital and not just digitize, as it is not enough to put the resources, we must use technology at the service of the citizenry to make it useful”. Borràs ended his speech by stating that the history of the AOC “it is successful, with a vocation for service to the country and unanimity that allows us to draw the country we want".
The Vice President and Minister of Digital Policies, Jordi Puigneró, spoke about mirroring the case of Estonia, where the “Digitization has empowered citizens”. For the councilor, it is necessary to consider the future and know what the AOC of the s. XXI. According to Puigneró, “we are clear that it does not have to be the administration of the twentieth century in digital format, it is necessary to change the culture and improve the processes”, And is that“the future will be digital or not".
The president of Localret, Jaume Oliveras, remarked that “without the technologists we would not have been able to push the country and the municipalities forward. The challenge for the future is to save time to improve public policies”. He also stressed that “digital transformation is an unstoppable process in which all administrations must be involved because the society we serve is already digital. This is our inescapable commitment and the event we are celebrating today is the most tangible example ”.
Former AOC Director Joan A. Olivares has placed special emphasis on AOC DNA, characterized primarily by “the tenacity of not giving up and chopping stone”. For Olivares, this was essential especially in the early days, and it is that “the day that the consortium does not have to cut a stone will mean that it no longer performs its function of innovation and improvement and management of change in the system”. The former director of the AOC has stated that “the Consortium is not a structural institution of the system. He is an instrumental agent, but he is a country structure that works with and for the administrations and that he has to excel in his services. In many cases it is a general system switch".
The director of the AOC, Àstrid Desset, gave a review of where we were 20 years ago, where we are going and the impetus for digital administration that the COVID-19 crisis meant. According to Desset, “the COVID-19 made us smart and the AOC services fired”. Currently, "we have 3 very marked lines: to promote the digital identity, to promote interoperability and to facilitate the digital transformation of the public administrations".
As for the data, Astrid Desset explained that today “76% of the procedures are electronic and this generates a saving of 700 M euros per year”. For the managing director of the AOC, it is clear that “We still have a long way to go, but a comparative study shows that we are above the rest of the state councils, that we are 48% better in compliance with the law of transparency and 236% above in interoperability”. In addition, 99,9% of city councils already guarantee to be able to identify themselves digitally.
As for the challenges of the future, “we want to achieve excellence in services: improving platforms, strengthening the territory with interoperability and tidying up digital identification systems to work from mobile and make life easier for citizens"He explained.
An immersion was made at the event the virtual AOC space created within CatVers, the Catalan metavers developed by the Blockchain Center of Catalonia (CBCat), of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce.
The event was followed live on the Parliament channel and you can retrieve it full video of the event on the AOC's Youtube channel. Also available photos of the celebration on the AOC's Flickr channel.