Implementation of Common Services for eServices

Overall objective of the project is to ensure establishment of the necessary infrastructure (legal, process and technical) for unhindered provision of complete transaction services that the administration to businesses and citizens through use of innovative information and communication technology in restructuring civil administration.

Purpose of the Project

The specific purpose of this project is building and establishment of infrastructure (legal, process and technical) necessary for efficient and rational implementation of administration services, through a single point of contact and electronically, by construction of multi-use common services of e-services, within central units for e-administration for each level of authority, which will be made available to the institutions wishing to implement electronic services, including:

•             repository of electronic forms for access or submission of requests for a service;

•             authentication and identification of subjects;

•             electronic payment of services;

•             integration with the base registers;

•             electronic processing;

•             electronic submission to the parties.

For each administration level, BiH, the Federation of BiH, the Republic of Srpska and the Brčko District of BiH, one pilot project of design of transaction on-line service should be implemented by the level of on-line sophistication that is consistent with the existing infrastructure (PKI, payment, etc.) in order to show usability of the established infrastructure.

Brief Description

The project “Implementation of Common services for e-Services” is a high priority project. Timely design of multi-use joint services of e-services achieves big savings, because it is meaningless for these services to be developed by each institution separately, that is to be developed for each type of electronic service separately. On the other hand, by implementation of infrastructure of multi-use common services of e-services, the central units for e-government will each for its level, ensure availability of all new services through single points of contact, and with the use of unified authentication and identification systems, electronic forms, payment of services, etc.

From the very beginning of e-government development, 3 indicators were used to measure maturity of electronic services:

1.            Sophistication indicator gives a portrait of a country’s progress in ensuring that all basic services are available on-line.

2.            The indicator of full on-line availability assesses the number of base public services that can be fully processed on-line (i.e. in addition to being able to find the information on the service, the citizens or companies can send the completed forms or make payment on-line).

3.            Indicator of the national portal evaluates the degree to which the main government website provides a “one-stop-shop” (all in one place) for the users accessing public services.

The three aforementioned indicators are evaluated by a model that assesses how businesses and citizens can interact with the public administration with defined five levels of maturity of e-Administration services:

1.            There are information: on the Internet, there is only information on the services (description of procedure, legislation, etc.).

2.            One-way interaction (there are forms for storage available): It is possible to store the blank forms and application forms from the Internet on a personal computer. Blank forms can also be printed.

3.            Two-way interaction (electronic forms are available to be filled): it is possible to fill the blank forms for application via the Internet, which also includes authentication. By filling out blank forms or application forms, certain services through the Internet are being activated.

4.            Transaction (fully electronic processing of case): it is possible to implement the whole service through the Internet, including filling out blank forms or application forms, authentication, payment and issuance of certificates, written orders or other forms of results of implemented service through the Internet.

5.            Personalisation: Personalised and proactive fully automated service.

The current situation in BiH is such that most electronic services stopped at the level 2 of sophistication framework, i.e. there are available blank forms for launch of services for storage on your own computer or for printing. Therefore, the indicator of full on-line availability that calculates the percentage of e-services, which reached the fourth phase of maturity, is very low, and the same goes for the availability of the services provided through the portal, where the provision of information and services concentrated on users is reviewed – citizens and companies should be able to access the services as quickly and efficiently as possible in a way that makes it easy to access them from the point of view of users, by subject or life event, for instance. The reasons for this situation are in an incomplete legal framework, inadequate budgets for ICT projects, lack of IT experts who could carry out such an implementation, and in the complexity of development of electronic services with full on-line availability, because for every service, every institution that provides a service, should develop all the elements that are needed for this, such as: filling in blank forms or application forms, authentication, payment and issuance of certificates, written orders or other types of results of performed services through the Internet.

Therefore, the idea of this project is to build a multi use common blocks of e-services, within the central units for e-administration for each level of authority and make them available to the institutions wishing to implement electronic services. This way, the central units for e-administration will, each for its level, ensure availability of all new services through the single points of contact, i.e., the unique system of communication and interaction with all users of services, who use the unified common blocks of e-services such as authentication and identification, electronic forms, payment of services, etc.

As a part of this project, it was is planned also to implement one particular pilot electronic service for each administration level: BiH, the Federation of BiH, the Republic of Srpska and the Brčko District of BiH, which would use the established infrastructure and prove its usability.