Digitisation and public innovation go hand in hand

Due to the formation of a new coalition government and the ensuing cabinet reshuffle, the Agency for Digitisation will now fall under the auspices of the new Minister for Public Innovation in the Ministry of Finance, who is responsible for modernising the public sector.

It is evident that digitisation is a top priority on the new government’s political agenda. This is for example reflected in the fact that a quick word search on the word ‘digital’ in the new government agreement results in 36 hits. I see a minister who cares deeply about the role digitisation and increased automation of public services play in our society, and who is ambitious regarding the digital agenda. This raises the expectation that the Agency for Digitisation will continue to be in a position to contribute to how digitisation can create further innovation and improve public services for citizens and businesses, and at the same time support efficiency improvements and modernisation of the public sector. We look forward to meeting this expectation.

Significant milestones in 2016

In the year that has gone by, the Agency for Digitisation has delivered significant results across our entire portfolio. As many of you may know, in May we launched a new common public digital strategy that in many ways sets the standard for public sector digitisation and defines the Agency’s work in the coming years until 2020.

We have used the past months to kick-start the implementation of the strategy, to get the initiatives going and, not least, to ensure good management of the strategy. Among other things, we have focused on creating cohesion between the many steering committees, working groups and other decision-making forums of the strategy. This newsletter allows you to take a peek “behind the scenes” of the strategy and read more about our work with the new strategy in 2016.

Other significant results to be mentioned here include entering into a partnership with the Danish banks about the development of the next generation of NemID (Single sign-on solution). The Agency for Digitisation has also conducted a market dialogue and several rounds of consultation about the digital letter box solution Digital Post of the future, drawn up a code of conduct for good customer-supplier collaboration together with Dansk IT (an association for IT professionals), the Danish IT Industry Association (ITB) and the Confederation of Danish Industry, and has conducted a large-scale campaign aimed at citizens about IT security in collaboration with the Danish Bankers' Association. In early 2017, we will present our proposal for the required data reference architecture that will make it easier to integrate and further develop public sector IT systems.

International attention

Other countries have also noticed that Denmark is a front-runner in digitising the public sector. For example, delegates from Finland and Latvia have recently visited Denmark to seek inspiration for how to get started on implementing a digital letter box solution as the mandatory Digital Post we have implemented a few years ago. Denmark’s successful digital transition of the public sector has led to a long-lasting (and seen in an international context unique) collaboration across central, regional and local government of which we can be proud.

I would therefore like to wish the Agency’s many international collaboration partners a happy and successful 2017. I look forward to a new year, in which we continue to inspire each other to create even better digital service solutions in the public sector nationally, within the European Union and globally.

Yours sincerely,
Lars Frelle-Petersen