‘Digitalchecking’ Laws and what follows: Getting Administration ready for Digitisation

The digitalisation of government and administration will continue at a rapid pace – and high demands are being placed on digital solutions to fulfil public tasks. Digital government is not an end in itself, but should make processes more efficient, clearer and more accessible. In addition to a multitude of specific, demand-driven software solutions based on the analogue status quo, strategies are needed to establish digitality as the new default in the long term. This also means developing methods to ensure that regulations, laws and processes are compatible with the needs of the digital society and the requirements of the digital state from the outset. One organisation that will help to tackle this major task is the German government’s DigitalService GmbH, which was established in 2020.

IT manager Stephanie Kaiser is chief product officer at DigitalService, the German government’s central digitisation office. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the expert in software development and IT projects describes the tasks of this unusual department, how it works and what innovations are created in the process. She explains what it means to make rules or processes ready for the digital age, who is involved and how citizens and civil servants benefit. Together with hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Kaiser discusses how working methods from the private sector can be applied in the public sector, which mediation work is helpful in this process – and how it is possible to provide high-quality digital solutions for the interfaces between the state and citizens on a long-term and large-scale basis.

Further informationen:

The blog post mentioned in the interview with a practical example of a “Digitalcheck” on electricity tax law: https://digitalservice.bund.de/en/blog/current-example-of-digital-ready-legislation-the-german-electricity-duty-act