PDFs are often still printed out in the authorities.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin Only about half of the 143 managers surveyed in German administrations consider their own authority to be future-proof. This is the result of a study by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which is exclusively available to the Handelsblatt.
According to the study, an authority is considered to be “sustainable” if it addresses the areas of “digitization”, “new world of work” and “sustainability”. For example, offers digital processes and flexible working time models and takes ecological aspects into account.
Thilo Zelt, managing director and partner of BCG, therefore sees a need for action, “especially in terms of foresight, strategy implementation, innovation orientation, digitization of internal processes and sustainability”.
Only about half of those surveyed consider digitization to be well developed in their authority. This fits in with other studies: According to an EU survey from 2021, Germany only ranks 24th out of 37 European countries when it comes to digitization of the administration.
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According to the BCG survey, the contact between the authorities and the citizens is even more digitized than the internal processes. Only six percent of those surveyed could fully agree with the statement that internal processes have been digitized.
Discussions between the Handelsblatt and administrative employees also suggest that forms that citizens fill out online are often still printed out and filed in the authorities themselves. According to the BCG study, the processes that have been the least digitized so far include legal matters and human resources development.
Cybersecurity and privacy issues
The cases of the district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld (Saxony-Anhalt) and the city of Witten (NRW) show which problems can arise, especially in the area of cyber security. Both fell victim to cyber attacks last year that weakened public administration for months.
In Anhalt-Bitterfeld, not all data had been restored even a year after the actual attack. The total damage was around two million euros.
Municipalities also need a lot of expertise when it comes to data protection, because the requirements are very strict. Digitizing your own authority while observing all aspects of the EU General Data Protection Regulation is a major challenge.
Who should read all this?
900
pages
has the guidelines of the Federal Office for Information Security on cyber defense for critical infrastructure.
In Baden-Württemberg, the state data protection officer had their own survey conducted among the municipalities. The result: “The municipalities in Baden-Württemberg are heavily burdened by the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation,” said the state data protection officer Stefan Brink.
>> Read here: Courts create new hurdles in data protection
At the same time, municipalities are confronted with complex requirements. The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has published a so-called “IT basic protection compendium” that is intended to serve as a guide for cyber defense of critical infrastructure. The problem: the document has a total of 900 pages.
Too little expertise
In smaller communities in particular, there is often a lack of trained personnel to deal with such works in more detail. Taking care of digitization is often taken on by administrative staff in many municipalities on the side, reports Philipp Stolz, who himself heads the office for digitization in Salach, Baden-Württemberg.
This is also confirmed by the figures from BCG: only 59 percent of the municipalities surveyed say they have a chief information officer (IT manager), and fewer than half are supported by their own data expert (41 percent).
The conclusion of the study is therefore that public administration needs better access to more efficient IT support. For example, more data experts would have to be recruited, qualified and trained and retained on a long-term basis.
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