Ministry of Digital: Lots of budget, flat hierarchies

Berlin A good two thirds of those eligible to vote would like a strong, dedicated digital ministry. Above all, this is intended to reduce the enormous deficits in the digital infrastructure, ensure cybersecurity and digitize the healthcare system, according to a survey for the industry association Bitkom.

FDP leader Christian Lindner by far trust most people (25 percent) to advance digitization. Green leader Robert Habeck (16 percent) and SPD top candidate Olaf Scholz (14 percent) follow at a great distance.

CSU boss Markus Söder comes in fourth place with only eleven percent, while the green co-boss Annalena Baerbock and CDU boss Armin Laschet rank under “also ran”.

Of the parties currently exploring, only the FDP and CDU definitely want to set up a digital ministry. The Greens and the SPD do not think this is necessary. Critics warn that the setup could take too long and will not guarantee success anyway.

The Expert Commission for Research and Innovation (EFI) is also calling for a digital ministry, but warns against the illusion that Germany is penetrating the brave new digital world on its own.

A new ministry only makes sense if it is powerful and set up very differently from traditional ministries. In the latest “Policy Brief” from EFI, the team led by Chairman Uwe Cantner explains what a functioning digital ministry should look like: Not only enough money and a strong position in the cabinet are essential, the new house must also “react proactively and quickly to changes and involve relevant actors quickly ”.

In addition, it must not only take over the coordination of central digital issues, as the Chancellery has tried so far, but also govern the other departments and initiate joint projects.

So far, only the Ministry of Finance has had such a priority – and coordination between the various ministries often fails because the top management is made up of different parties who do not indulge each other. This is likely to get worse in a three-party coalition.

Not a sure-fire success, even with great agreement

Even with goodwill on all sides, a digital ministry would “not be a sure-fire success”, warns the EFI. In order for it to be successful, the entire government needs “new structures and processes”. In addition, they must install digitization as a real cross-sectional task.

For this, the digital ministry must have the right to specify the line and, as the lead house, to implement it together with the others, which only works with clearly defined interfaces.

The first concrete task would be the expansion of the infrastructure, which was previously the responsibility of the Ministry of Transport, as well as cybersecurity. Added to this is the digitization of the administration, previously responsible for the Ministry of the Interior: The aim is to network the state “horizontally and vertically as well as with society and the economy”.

The new ministry would also be responsible for the relevant national strategies, such as data and AI. In this way, the large amount of data collected by the state could finally be made available to research and industry. In addition, it would have to oversee the regulatory framework for digitization, including the implementation of EU directives.

These are all questions of power and division of responsibilities. However, the “agile work” required by the EFI could possibly be even more difficult: Because with the “established, hierarchically organized departmental structures,” the Chancellor’s innovation advisors warn that it is hardly possible to cope with the digital transformation.

“With the establishment of a digital ministry, the next government must therefore“ seize the opportunity to create modern governance structures and processes – including a role model for other departments ”.

Chief Information Officer for each department

This not only requires project-oriented work, flat hierarchies and inter-ministerial task forces through to competitive procedures for digitization budgets. Modern top-down and bottom-up processes are necessary at the same time – all so far unusual in the spacecraft government.

Of course, every ministry would then also need a Chief Information Officer and a Chief Data Officer, who would also digitally bring the downstream authorities into shape.

Which brings the top staff necessary for this into focus: In order to recruit them in view of the widespread lack of IT specialists, “suitable incentive and remuneration systems” are finally needed, the EFI clarifies.

Most recently, the head of the federal agency for jump innovation (Sprind), Rafael Laguna, insisted in an interview with Handelsblatt that the company should be exempted from public collective bargaining law in the future.

In order to “break up routines and bring in new perspectives” in the long term, a digital ministry should also offer attractive opportunities for lateral entrants and temporary jobs – and be able to easily exchange its employees with other ministries.

If all these conditions are met, such a ministry could even “generate a signal effect in business, science, administration and society”, hope the innovation experts at EFI.

More: Experts explain which departments the traditional ministries would have to hand over to a new digital ministry

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