Citizens and businesses rank the quality of eGovernment with a high mark of four
As many as 95% of surveyed businesses using the eGovernment Portal use the highest level of access, that is, an electronic certificate or the Consent ID application, through which they can use all the services provided by this platform. On the other hand, only a little more than half of the citizens access the most basic services of eGovernment, most often due to the lack of information on how to obtain parameters for logging in through the ConsentID application and a qualified electronic certificate, according to the latest NALED research.
Research data show that the degree of citizens' satisfaction with eGovernment is 74% and the quality of services is given a rating of 3.89 out of a maximum of five, while this percentage for businesses is higher and amounts to 84% (rating 3.94).
Under the auspices of the Swedish Agency for International Development and Cooperation (Sida), NALED conducted a citizens' and businesses' opinion survey, with the aim of collecting information on the frequency of use of electronic services, satisfaction with current eServices and possibilities for their improvement.
- About two-thirds of citizens and businesses believe that a greater number of counters where they would receive support for registering on the portal would contribute to the popularization of the electronic way of completing administrative procedures. For now, interested parties who want to register on the eGovernment Portal and become users of some of the total of 138 available services can ask for help at the specialized counters of the post office, city and municipal administrations in 106 local governments or Mobi Bank. The plan is to open 40 new counters to help citizens and businesses by 2024, and to establish at least four new services on the eGovernment Portal, where NALED will provide its support - says Ilija Gavrilović, Policy Officer in NALED.
One of the most popular services that citizens request through the portal is the electronic ordering of documents and certificates, while businesses most often use services from the domain of business and finance. When it comes to new services, the citizens would most like to digitize procedures related to pension and disability insurance, cadastre, application for inspection work, delivery and receipt of documents, change of residence.
Citizens most often access the portal through the most basic level of protection, i.e. using the user's email address and password, and 58% of them want to log in to this platform and related services with a higher level of reliability than the one they currently practice.
After successful registration via mobile phone, tablet or computer, users are able to access a wide variety of services, from scheduling an appointment or submitting a request for the issuance of personal documents, registration of residence, enrollment of children in kindergarten or school, payment of taxes and fees, electronic tourist registration service, access to healthcare services and similar functions that can now be performed from the "armchair".
Since the beginning of the year, there has been an increase in the interest of citizens and businesses in applying to the eGovernment portal via the Consent ID mobile application. In five months, almost 170,000 parameters were issued at post office counters alone, which is four times more than in the previous two years. The migration of citizens to the eGovernment system is evidenced by the fact that by 2022, only slightly more than 12,000 parameters were issued, and now the figure is around 250,000.
By fully digitizing public administration and accustoming citizens and the economy to use electronic services, it would significantly speed up the process of going through bureaucratic procedures, which would reduce costs, waste of time and increase satisfaction with public administration services, and would also relieve officials and improve their efficiency.
