The new dog is in the house. The kids are excited and it’s all about what’s the best food for the little guy and when he’ll finally get clean. In this hustle and bustle, it is sometimes lost to properly register the pet. This is not a problem in the municipality of Ismaning – with just a few clicks it can also be done online at the weekend. Simply look for the right form on the homepage, fill it out on the computer and send it off – done. The childcare place for the children can also be quickly applied for via the daycare portal. Lunch for the little ones can be booked and billed via the app. And if you are still looking for an apprenticeship or an internship, you might find what you are looking for via the “Matchingportal”.
Applying for a bike subsidy, registering your business, requesting a water connection or documents for postal voting – citizens can now deal with many official inquiries outside of the opening hours of the town halls. Because the municipal administrations in the district of Munich are increasingly turning into digital town halls that also offer their services online. And by the end of this year, there is still a lot to do: The Online Access Act “obliges the federal, state and local governments to also offer their administrative services digitally via administrative portals by the end of 2022,” according to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The ministry has identified a total of 600 administrative processes that should be converted by the end of December. Digitally, everything should be faster, more flexible and more effective, paper can be avoided, you don’t have to keep opening hours and it’s easier to access data and transfer it between different authorities, for example when moving.
In the district of Munich, the municipalities are moving along with the digital conversion at different speeds. To a certain extent, three communities are advancing – and it’s not just the big administrations. In 2019, the Bavarian Digital Minister Judith Gerlach (CSU) launched the “Digital Office” initiative; Municipalities in which citizens can already take care of 50 or more services digitally and who have linked their services via the central Bavaria portal receive the award. In the district of Munich, Ismaning, Sauerlach and Grasbrunn have qualified so far. The district office in Munich is also allowed to attach the title. The remaining 26 district municipalities are missing from the list.
“The authorities of the future will have to work mostly digitally,” explained district administrator Christoph Göbel (CSU) after the award for the district office. Not least the corona pandemic with its contact restrictions has made this clear to many. For example, the district’s job center now uses electronic files, and you can also apply for vehicle registration from home and no longer have to drive to the registration office yourself.
models in Scandinavia
Not everyone is happy with the pace, of course. “The fact that the boost from Corona was necessary is actually a sign of poverty,” criticizes Ismaning’s mayor Alexander Greulich (SPD). “There are so many opportunities associated with digitization that we will miss if we don’t push it – above all, working hours that can be saved.” If you look at other European countries, such as the Baltic States or Scandinavia, Germany is not exactly early on when it comes to digital authorities. The speed, state officials confirm, depends to a large extent on the commitment and possibilities of the individual municipality. Ismaning, for example, has been expanding its digital offerings for years. Citizens can find forms on the homepage and their own app. Broadband cabling is being expanded and free hotspots are being offered; In addition, the digital shop window “Wir in Ismaning”, where companies and institutions present themselves and network During the Corona period, the 18,000-inhabitant community in the north of the district expanded the platform with an online shop, there are now around 900 represent local companies.
A separate three-man digitization team is employed in the main office, in constant exchange with colleagues from EDP and IT. “We talk to the various departments every month and consider: Where can something still be digitized? Where could there be shorter routes, where would less paper be needed?” says Renate Daniel, who has undergone further training to become a digitization pilot. Communication via digital channels is very important – the town hall operates its own channels on Instagram, Youtube and Facebook, and regularly produces small films in order to reach as many citizens as possible.
Norbert Hohenleitner, manager in the municipality of Sauerlach with almost 9,000 inhabitants, is also driving digitization in the town hall. The municipality has been working with the Bavarian Agency for Municipal Data Processing (AKDB) for years, partly making itself available as a pilot municipality for new software. With the help of the public IT service provider, the municipality has set up its citizen service portal. Hohenleitner’s recipe for success? “You have to take people with you and think about their perspectives.” The citizens as well as the employees in the town hall. Because digitization naturally also means a major change for the administration: a large number of new programs, more work on the computer, less personal contact. There is also a fear of contact. “We carefully try to take employees who are a bit hesitant with us and show them the advantages,” says Hohenleitner. Once everything works, neither the citizen at home nor the employee in the town hall have to print out paper to submit an application. Colleagues from other municipalities often marvel at how far Sauerlach is already working digitally, reports Hohenleitner. “Of course you have to push that on site,” says the manager. “And of course, it also costs a bit of money.”
Ismaning’s mayor Alexander Greulich is going much too slowly.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
In addition to software and hardware and training, municipalities need server capacity and secure networks, after all it is about the personal data of the citizens. There are subsidies for cities and communities, for example, the Free State of Bavaria launched the “Digital Town Hall” program in October 2019. A total of almost 43 million euros are available that municipalities can apply for “for the initial provision of online services”. According to the ministry, however, only 9.2 million euros were approved by October 31, 2021 for 882 Bavarian municipalities. Added to this is the infrastructure: fiber optics and the like are making inroads into the district, but not equally quickly everywhere – where there are too few customers, it is often not worth expanding for private providers. The municipalities try to mediate here, as in the case of Sauerlachs, where a provider is currently looking for 33 percent of interested subscribers. Or the municipalities can lend a hand themselves and, for example, when expanding geothermal energy, they can also lay broadband cables to households, as Ismaning is doing, for example.
Isn’t it all years too late?
Overall, there is not enough support from the federal and state governments, criticizes Mayor Greulich of Ismaning, referring to the area of digitization in schools: “It cannot be that educational justice depends on the community’s purse. My impression is that digitization also depends on the political lack of will.” The federal and state governments would also have to move faster with their own services. Greulich believes that initiatives such as the “Bavarian Digital Agency”, which the CSU-led state government launched in December 2021, are too late. “I would have wished for a lot of this years ago,” he says. The mayor also criticizes that there is little agreement among the municipalities. “A certain degree of standardization would also be citizen-friendly.”
Going to the Sauerlach town hall is becoming increasingly unnecessary.
(Photo: Schunk Claus)
Citizens reacted positively to the new digital possibilities, report employees from the town halls. Not least because of Corona, digital services have become part of everyday life for many people. “Before Corona, my father hardly used his smartphone – today he uses it to pay at the checkout in the supermarket,” says Franz-Ferdinand Miedl from the Ismaningen administration. It’s not far to register for bulky waste collection in the digital town hall if it’s open and user-friendly.
Of course, the municipalities do not want to shift completely to the virtual world. Direct contact is always valuable. “The citizens are of course always welcome in the town hall,” says the Sauerlach manager Hohenleitner. “We’re just giving them an extra way to get things done online.”