The Calendar is part of a series of recent efforts in implementing a true whole-of-government approach in Portugal. Until now, the interaction between different government sectors and citizens was fractured, and keeping track of different events and obligations was taxing for the citizens, resulting often in missed appointments, for instance. The Citizen Calendar will prevent this and others hitches by being automatically updated with the Citizens’ major events regarding the public administration, regardless of their source, while also allowing for the creation of personal events, hence fully customized.

The Portuguese Government strongly believes that a user-centric Public Administration is key to ensure the relevance and efficiency of public services, hence safeguarding that the needs and preferences of citizens and businesses are truly addressed. As such, several initiatives for citizen’s engagement in the co-creation of public services have been launched, among which the SIMPLEX + program, which is a national collaborative program that aims to simplify and modernize existing public services, as well as to create new ones that respond to the needs of citizens and businesses and have significant impact in their daily life.

During one of the several tours the SIMPLEX + team made throughout the country, citizens complained that information regarding public services and obligations calendar was scattered across the Public Administration and not centred around their needs. A single point to access to all information was fundamental to ensure a clear and efficient communication of citizens’ rights and obligations towards the Public Administration. In a truly bottom-up approach, SIMPLEX + 2016 edition crowdsourced and the Citizen was born among several new public digital services.

The Citizen Portal, as the central channel to access and deliver electronic public services in Portugal, was the natural choice to host this new service. Considering the Portal was developed and is maintained by the Administrative Modernization Agency (AMA), the responsibility to design and implement the Citizen Calendar was attributed to the Agency. Based on all the inputs previously received by citizens, and after a thorough assessment of possible interactions with the Public Administration, a draft of the features intended was drawn and contacts were made across the several ministries in order to evaluate how the different systems would interconnect, allowing for the Citizen Calendar to receive cross-cutting information. Several iterations after and in the space of months a tender was sent out to potential suppliers, which resulted in the Calendar’s current implementation; it is expected to be fully functional by October 2017.

Citizens bring to the table what their actual problems are and often also come up with solutions to go along with it. They can offer a fresh point of view on often outdated services, because they are the most interested stakeholders. The Public Administration every so often has a different standing, either because of the intimate knowledge of back office constraints or simply out of habit. But when everyone tries to work together towards a common goal, which was the case, we get every actor working on different perspectives but towards the same goal, and ultimately enriching the discussion and the outputs.

The Citizen Calendar is a true representation of the co-creation of public services and as such has had a wide variety of actors involved. From citizens that expressed their needs and conveyed how the Public Administration could to better address them, to public servants from several government sectors that worked together for a better public service delivery and learned, along the way, how this process and its outcome improved efficiency, effectiveness and trust in the public sector. In such a closely collaborative project, all these actors played simultaneously the roles of user, stakeholder and partner. This allowed for every single point of view to be taken into account, and ultimately to think out of the box and reach a solution that is unique, effective, and most convenient solution.

The creation of the Citizen Calendar is yet another step to change the traditional in-the-box mindset of the Public Administration, but first and foremost is a truly user-centric initiative that will substantially improve citizens’ daily lives by increasing accessibility to all their major rights and duties towards the Public Administration.

So far, the whole experience with this project has been thoroughly positive. There are always drawbacks, and the reshuffling of strategies is recurrent, but that is always the case with any iterative process.

The first and foremost necessary condition is political commitment and support, both to ensure that citizens are heard and to help breaking silos, foment openness and promote the sharing of information. In terms of supporting infrastructures, it is also fundamental to have a relatively high level of digitalisation in public services delivery, namely on the most sought after services, such as health, civil registries, tax and social security. This is paramount to allow for the customization of the service without a corresponding increase in costs.

This solution can easily be replicated in other countries or even at local level, as long as the two above-mentioned conditions are met. Nevertheless, even when digitalisation is at an earlier stage, it is also possible to engage in similar, simpler solutions that can later evolve into more complex, customized digital services.

The bet on the co-creation of services brings forward creativity and allows for a better, smarter service delivery, while it promotes inclusiveness and transparency. On the other hand, cross-cutting projects such as the Citizen Calendar also foster the breaking of organizational silos and encourage a change in the mindset of the Public Administration. Involving and giving voice to all public entities since the beginning of the program, fostering a sourcing and bottom-up approach, proved to be an essential modus operandi for the Citizen Calendar implementation success.