Digital Vaults for Citizens, Businesses and Public Administration

The Greek Ministry of Digital Governance introduced digital vaults to gradually abandon a paper-based public administration (PA) and facilitate user-friendly e-services regardless of how the PA back office operates (fully online or paper-based). This free-of-charge digital inbox allows the exchange of verified e-documents in a secure, traceable way, valid in digital and paper format. As customizable and reusable building blocks, the vaults help reduce administrative burdens.

Innovation Summary

Innovation Overview

The newly founded Greek Single Digital Gateway "gov.gr" is already extending its operation by enabling citizens and businesses to:

submit e-applications for public services that are not offered end-to-end online, but are processed by a paper-based back office
receive the output of the service in a personal "inbox"

The main benefit is an instant, seamless and user-friendly transformation of any public service to e-service, regardless of the way the procedure is processed by the competent authority. To achieve this, digital vaults were developed for citizens and PA through which citizens' and businesses' applications are sent and responses are received. It is also possible for the public servants, where appropriate, to issue documents on behalf of citizens, through direct access to the services of gov.gr from the vaults.

The vaults are an incremental, frugal innovation not only seen as a quick-win but also undergoing continuous improvement with new functionalities. They are a well-documented implementation of agile methodology, able to be a springboard for more innovations. The implementation reflects, for the first time in the organization, a design logic that captures the applications generated as process-agnostic, so they can be interoperable both between vaults and between vaults and third-party Information Systems (IS). The Agile Methodology was used to manage the project lifecycle and open-source software was used for the implementation. The principles of the Greek Digital Transformation Strategy 2020-2025 were also taken into account, regarding the design of digital services (particularly interoperability by definition, reuse of building blocks, data security, the once-only principle, and user experience principles).

The main questions asked in the beginning were:

Can applications be automatically generated to help citizens file requests with PA?
How can citizens track the progress or be automatically notified about the progress of their applications?
Can we help our citizens save time and money and avoid having to queue with several authorities to submit applications and evidence?

The citizen's vault collects:

documents issued online via gov.gr, or at a later time by the competent authority, following an online application via gov.gr
applications filed or saved as drafts.

The different types of documents hosted in the vault are constantly being enriched, aiming to bring together in one place all the transactions of the citizens with the PA. In addition, citizens can notify documents to a third party's vault. The PA vaults are a digital environment for receiving and managing digital documents and citizens' requests sent via gov.gr. They are uniquely identified by code and name, provide authorized public servants with role-based authenticated access, interoperate with other IS through an application programming interface, and offer a comprehensive menu of management options.

The public authorities can quickly and easily launch their vaults after finalizing customization, if necessary, to accommodate their responsibilities and operational needs. Once the standard technical infrastructure has been implemented and documented, the innovation is available for reuse for the benefit of all similar interested entities. It has a higher added value as a standalone solution when there is no front user interface (i.e. a portal) for receiving citizens’ applications and delivering the expected outcome. Now, this functionality is offered just by joining gov.gr vault. This does not diminish, though, the overall value.

This new system of transactions through vaults offers immediacy, accuracy, and transparency of the whole process. Citizens and businesses can access seamless e-services and follow their request's progress. At the same time, the benefits for the PA are particularly significant: bureaucracy is combated horizontally and drastically and the transfer of hard-copied, manually-signed documents is significantly reduced. These are elements of process innovation that enable the provision of Level 4 services, which would otherwise be of a lower level, according to the National Framework for the provision of electronic governance services.

Currently, approximately 8 million citizens and many public authorities have activated and continue to operate their digital vaults, such as municipalities, citizens' service centers, the Hellenic Police, schools, and universities.

Innovation Description

What Makes Your Project Innovative?

The pandemic and the lockdown restrictions forced the digitization of the citizens' daily interaction with PA. It was then, that the digital vaults were first introduced, as a building block of the gov.gr portal. The digital vaults:

Are a frugal way of reducing the number of the paper-based, time-consuming and costly administrative procedures to a great degree.
Reflect a new era in the public services design and provision inside the Ministry. This tool was more than a custom-made ICT project. It was a concept intended to facilitate online access to administrative procedures and cater to the operational needs of any public authority, embracing the Agile Methodology, modular architecture, and digital governance principles (such as interoperability by design).
Are an innovation developed in-house, supported by a committed, centralized cross-departmental team.
The innovative core of the project is a turn to sustainable, transversal, and yet customizable tools.

What is the current status of your innovation?

This innovation is institutionalized by means of a stipulation under the Digital Governance Act (law 4727/2020). The main project is currently fully implemented and has been embraced by a large number of stakeholders. However, new features are being designed to enrich the functionality and support more user scenarios, such as delivering the outcome to the citizen's vault even when shared competencies are involved by interconnecting PA vaults. The decision-making about the further development of the vaults is an ongoing interactive process engaging all the stakeholders; end users from PA, the vaults development team, policy officers in the Ministry’s political hierarchy. This way, we hope the innovation will be a comprehensive tool in the long run.

Innovation Development

Collaborations & Partnerships

The vaults, as a technical solution, were developed, piloted, and implemented by the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology (EDYTE), a regulated entity supervised by the Ministry. The gov.gr Coordination Service, as the business owner, is responsible for the supervision and the operation of the vaults, under a relevant programmatic agreement. Assistance was also provided by the National Interoperability Center (KED) for the implementation and testing of the interoperabilities.

Users, Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

The main users, stakeholders, and beneficiaries of the innovation are citizens, public servants and the PA as a whole. However, for some procedures, citizens use the vaults as legal representatives of their businesses and issue or exchange e-documents regarding the latter. At this point, though, only a few of such procedures are offered via the vaults.

Innovation Reflections

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

Till now, have activated and operate their digital vaults:

8.104.167 citizens,
150 municipalities,
1.000 citizens' service centers,
1.000 Departments of the Hellenic Police,
15.000 Schools and Universities.

As of September 2022, more than 62 million e-documents have been exchanged via the vaults (mainly about Covid-19). The anticipated outcomes are three-fold:

Improved efficiency, thanks to the easier way of working for public authorities and the ability to interoperate with back-office IS via APIs.
Improved user satisfaction: Citizens receive seamless end-to-end e-services. They can also gather e-documents issued by PA in one repository.
Improved quality of service/security: Authentication of citizens and public servants is required to access the vaults. Also, validation of 100% of the e-documents issued by gov.gr and exchanged via the vaults is available thanks to the Validation Service. Last but not least, the vaults allow the monitoring of the cases handled.

Challenges and Failures

The technical implementation of the vaults did not face significant challenges. Occasional problems may arise by the use of the vaults, especially from the side of the PA, where more functionalities are available, but also from the side of citizens in terms of secure guarding of their authentication codes. The former is addressed through seminars, presentations and a user manual implemented by the Ministry, as well as through the provision of support-as-a-service to users. The latter is expected to be addressed through awareness raising and the cultivation of digital skills.

Conditions for Success

One of the most important success factors proved to be a committed, centralized cross-departmental supporting team offering support-as-a-service to all users. The diversity of the project's team also helped establish a network of interested parties that are collaborating and share a common goal.

Moreover, elements that ensure the sustainability of the innovation are:

the easy onboarding of the public authorities that choose to integrate it into their everyday work routine,
the scalability of the innovation,
the potential for customization,
the transversal character, regardless of specific service, as well as
the low maintenance resources.

In this specific case, another important factor was the legal framework (especially the Digital Governance Act) that paved the way for the simplification of some procedures.

Replication

The innovation is being replicated every time a new public authority is onboarding to the vaults' community. The innovation has the potential to involve all 332 municipalities in Greece as well as any other public entity so that we can have an interconnected and interoperable ecosystem within the PA. Moreover, at a next stage, we can scale up and replicate the concept by creating vaults specifically for businesses.

Lessons Learned

The vaults helped evidence the importance of the principle of interoperability by design. They also showcased the need for active engagement by the competent authorities to implement the digitalization of the Greek PA. The onboarded authorities were provided with an occasion to assess vital administrative procedures and simplify them where needed, building capacity and expertise in public service simplification and design.